Suburban sprawl (with additions from the Maglev thread)

[Web Rider]

Egypt was the first empire in history and it lasted for thousands of years.

There were empires before Egypt, though they are poorly recorded, and small in scale. yet empires in their time, none-the-less.

 

How about the Mongolian Empire? In the course of Ghengis Khan's life, it stretched from the Pacific to the Caspian Sea. That was the greatest single Empire expansion EVER in history at around 1100 AD. And within three hundred years, it diminished and died out. The largest empire ever in history fell within 300 years and the US has become even greater.

The mongolian empire was an empire of a warlord, there was no internal structure, there was no rhyme nor reason to it. Once the empire stopped expanding, it grew stagnant, the Russian people, the Chinese, the Arabs grew restless without the fear of control and conquest, and rebelled. The Russians pushed through the collapsing remains of the Mongolian empire and claimed the empty wastes that had always been empty wastes that were previous held by Mongolians.

 

It's easy to conquer lots of land when nobody lives there.

 

As the US Empire spread its tentacles across the globe, it siphons resources from other states very much like the British Empire had from the 1750's. How long did that empire last? Shorter lifespan at about 150-200 years.

The British has been a world power since the 1500's. The Britons have been a European power since before that time. You want European history? You mean you want British, Burbon, and Hapsburg history. Along with Sweden, Prussia, and Russia, these are the big names of European history stretching back some 700+ years.

 

The US really became an empire at about the 1950's and has been becoming more dependent on the resources it draws from all over the globe. We are far from self-sufficient. Read the book "The World is Flat" and you'll get a better understanding on this. This empire is really 59 years old or so, not 240.

Well you're free to keep redefining what an empire is to fit your ideology. It doesn't change what defines an empire. Yes, in some ways the US is am empire, in a manifold of other ways it is not. You are welcome to favor the bad over the good if you choose. most nations are not self-suffecient, there are too many things in this day and age that a single nation cannot produce. At some point, this may lead to even larger nations, or a breakdown of the entire system. Do not spout doom and gloom over what is only a temporary setback.

 

Happened to forget some of the more modern empires while giving me a history lesson? Maybe you would have seen that the closer to the present you get, the shorter the life of the Empire on average.

From all you have "emlightened" us upon modern "empires" you know very little about the ways to them, only that they were long or short. Which is fine, at least you know something about history. But knowing the overview of history, does not mean you KNOW history. The lifespan of empires in the modern age gets shorter for a very specific reason. There are more people, and there are more challenges to their power on a more and more regular basis. This is true for any nation, even small ones have their troubles, more people in the same amount of space leads to more conflict, and the more times you roll the dice the more likely you are to lose.

 

Just as those empires have risen and fallen, so have their challengers risen and fallen. If you think the US is so terrible, imagine the imperialist spirit of America combined with the logical oppression of China, with a mix of violent elimination of the Holocaust. You think the US is bad? The US is by far one of the nicest empires to ever exist. The kind of horrors that a TRUE empire could exert upon the world given American power and presence are unimaginably worse than anything America has done.

 

Just remember that when you're wishing for the end of America, that what will rise in it's place, and something WILL rise in it's place, is by no measure guaranteed to be any sort of improvement.

[Tommycat]

I'm quite familiar with empires. The US is not one. We have territories around the globe at the will of the other countries. They tell us to get our army(meaning armed forces) out. We get our army out. We do not govern the other countries. They govern themselves.

 

And the point of my "educational" post was simply that there is no real timestamp on empires. There is no expiration date. Some last a long time, others fizzle out pretty quickly. You made the fallacious claim that empires don't last long. The fact that China was an empire for around 4000 years would suggest otherwise. And with your rather broad definition, still qualifies.

 

At any rate that is rather sideways to the argument and has nothing to do with Maglev in any way shape or form.

 

Again, I just see MagLev as an inefficient method of transportation. Energy costs are high and the efficiency isn't enough to justify the high startup cost. Commuter trains, AmTrack and freight trains make a great deal more sense, and until the construction costs can be brought down it will stay a pretty pretty dream.

[Darth_Yuthura]

When exactly did Jae Onasi leave Chicago?

[Jae Onasi]

When exactly did Jae Onasi leave Chicago?

I haven't really--my sister lives there so I'm in the city or its suburbs (where 4 other family members live) on a regular basis. I work in Milwaukee a day a week and live in the Milwaukee-Chicago megalopolis.

[Darth_Yuthura]

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[Tommycat]

You forget that she also says that she still goes to the city. I'd say you're still wrong about Chicago. I'd take the opinion of someone who lives there over a book description any day. High population density increases contact with other people. Robberies are far more common. What Utopia do you live in? I ask this because you seem to pretend that the books are right but the people who live(d) there are wrong.

 

It's funny, according to the "experts" Colorado Springs is one of the best places to live. I've lived there. I left there(Focus on the Family being one reason I wouldn't move back). According to the experts, Mesa is a great place to live. I live in Phoenix, and lets face it some areas of Mesa are nice, but much of it you don't drive through with your windows down.

 

I don't doubt that walking is one of the primary modes of transport... Though they don't include "Elevator" in transportation. With vertical worlds, the elevator becomes a primary mode of transport. It also happens to be where people get pick pocketed.

 

It still doesn't eliminate the "elephants living above you" or the "Heavy Metal Drummer living next to you" problems like living in the suburbs. There are also a bunch of huge problems associated with living in a large building. Maybe you have never experienced them. Maybe you're too young to have had them happen to you. But Your upstairs neighbor's kid decides to flush a stuffed animal down the toilet. Maybe it gets stuck and clogs the whole building's plumbing... Nasty enough. Maybe the kid thinks flushing it 20 times will fix it.... Now your roof is dripping with their toilet water. Fun. Pipes break, heat fails, AC fails, power fails. Any one of which are out of your control. Then you have your downstairs neighbor that gets ticked at his girlfriend and decides to light her things on fire... IN HIS LIVINGROOM! Whoops! Now (at best) all your stuff burns up because one of those people that happens to live below you was a moron.

 

Then of course there's the smell. 40 floors worth of people's garbage all collected in one handy dandy place. YUMMAY! At street level the smell can be overpowering. Sure you get used to it. When I lived in New York I didn't really notice it much. Then I went out to Rhode Island with a few friends. When I was coming back I could smell the city even before I left the 95.

[Darth_Yuthura]

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[Tommycat]

Excuse me, but your direct observations are WRONG. Your conclusions are about as accurate as dart throws from a blindfolded man. Quite frankly you must not have much experience with land development. Regardless of building size, development of any area of land requires a set percentage be devoted to public use. A sprawling neighborhood suburb or your multiple 5 story buildings will have the same size land dedicated to public use.

 

Community sense is more due to a change in social structure. back in the "yusta be" times people got to know all their neighbors. Now more people are introverted. It is not related to the land used. Heck my grandparents knew all of their neighbors and they couldn't even SEE their neighbors' houses.

[Darth_Yuthura]

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[Q]

The problem with your theories is that the human condition is not taken into consideration because it is incorrectly viewed as either nonexistent or unimportant. Robert McNamara made the same mistake when trying to wage the Vietnam War with statistics.

[Jae Onasi]

Interesting... I happened to wonder how anyone who lived in Chicago could POSSIBLY come to such conclusions that contradicted what I've been saying and suddenly, it all fell into place.

You're looking for excuses.

 

Everything about the high crime, rotting inner city infrastructure, and endless parking lots in the Loop was true... ten years ago. Through a process called gentrification, the social structure common among most American cities has begun to follow New York and Europe's example with the richest individuals wanting to live in the central city again.

Chicago is a much, much bigger city than just the Loop. You still haven't looked at google maps, have you?

Virtually every building in the Loop has its own parking facilities underground, so I wouldn't exactly call those lots.

This is incorrect information. We have subways along with the L-trains, so large underground structures are out of the question for a number of buildings. Some of the buildings do have underground parking but a lot don't. Loyola University has surface lots. Moody Bible Institute has surface lots and a garage. Northwestern hospital has a garage and surface parking. The restaurants (of which there are many) and hotels have surface lots and garages respectively. Watertower place has a parking garage and surface parking. People parallel park on the streets where it's allowed. The grocery stores have surface lots. My sister lives in an apartment complex that has no parking at all--no garages, above or underground. It's all on-street parking. Cars are packed in like sardines. Those are just a few examples.

I have confirmed various RAMPS, but they serve a purpose other than to provide parking for the expected crowds of Dec. 23. The land is so expensive in the Loop that no one could squander it on parking lots, so they stacked six levels of it on one piece of land and generate some profit off it. Any lot you don't pay to park on is land that has to be taxed and that doesn't provide much return.

Right, and the surface lots in the Loop don't charge money for parking? Theaters and restaurants have free parking for their patrons, but they charge money in some cases for people to park there on a daily basis. They charge a lot, too. There are a lot of surface lots in the Loop and in the rest of the city of Chicago. I've seen them, I've parked in them. They're still there when I go to visit my sister or go into the city for various reasons.

 

Those that lived in the cities often lived there all their lives.

Define, preferably with some statistics, "often". I'm not sure what the relevance is to the rest of your discussion this is, so if you'd explain that, that would be cool.

 

With mixed use buildings and loosened zoning restrictions, the predominant means of transportation is not the car, the L-train, but walking. That's another reason that high-density works so much better... when something's close enough, you can just walk to your destination.

From what I experienced in NYC, it was the taxi that was the predominant means of transportation in the very densest parts of the city. Not everyone is able to walk--elderly, handicapped, etc. In Chicago, a lot of residents have cars, and they use them even for short drives. My sister uses her car more than mass transit because she's been mugged twice on the L-train--within the last couple years. There has been a sharp increase in homicides in the last 5 years because of gang activity. Check out the police stats for yourself, or look up The Chicago Tribune or listen to WGN or WBBM radio (they stream their radio programs) and you'll hear all about the crime stats, drug busts, and other issues associated with urban living.

 

Also, we regularly have snow and below-zero (Fahrenheit) temps in the winter. It is plain just not safe to walk outside or wait for the buses for any length of time when there are wind chills of -40.

 

Sure, urban living improves our capacity to provide more efficient mass transit. However, it comes at a price--increased crime, less privacy, more expensive and much smaller housing, poor schools, higher taxes, and higher cost of living. Compare the costs of a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread or utilities in Chicago or NYC with any smaller town, and it'll be about 30-50% higher. Gas in Chicago, where I was just at today, cost 25 cents a gallon more in the suburbs than at home, and was almost 50 cents more downtown. The home we bought in WI would have literally cost us twice as much in Chicago (we looked around in the suburbs and even Chicago since both of us worked there then). We could not afford housing in Chicago or most of the suburbs.

 

but when a new house is built 40 miles away from the CBD of a city; it cost more to maintain than it returns on taxes.

Please show me data or link to a site that shows the breakdown of costs to support this point. I'm not sure it matters as much is you might make it out to be. People have to have utilities wired/piped to them whether they live in high rises or suburbs.

 

The consequences of privacy is cheaper (if any) public spaces.

I've never been to a city, small or large, that didn't have a park _somewhere_. There are numerous parks in my town, most of them much nicer than the ones in Chicago, and not taken over by gangbangers and drug dealers.

In Chicago, there were officers on almost every other block in the Loop.

Your tour group must have neglected to take you to the projects and Cabrini Green. The police presence is far lower there than on Michigan Avenue, except when there's a shooting. Mayor Daley takes care to have lots of Men and Women in Blue in the tourist areas. It makes the city look good.

 

The loss of a community sense.

My sister lives in an apartment complex in Chicago with several hundred other people. She doesn't know any of her neighbors other than in passing. When we lived in Chicago, we didn't know our neighbors at all except to say hi to them when we both walked our trash cans to the curb on trash pickup day, and I am a social butterfly. People go to work, go home, turn on the TV, and tune out. So many people live in dual-income households and are so busy with work, commutes, and family activities that they don't have time to go sit on the porch or have a coffee klatch with Maude next door. The loss of community sense is due to our busy schedules (and big city commutes take up a lot more time than smaller cities), no one being at home during the day, and far greater mobility. Forty years ago people moved into a house and stayed there for years. Now they live somewhere two years and move on to another apartment or home, or move across country for a better job, so we don't get to know people like we used to.

 

Education is often sacrificed, due to the cost of keeping the more basic necessities operating.

Explain, please, why Chicago has one of the worst school systems in the country, while smaller towns have some of the best. We got out of Chicago to a much smaller town that has a much, much better school system. My kids can walk to school safely. Our high schools don't require metal detectors screening for guns. Explain why NYC, LA, and some other large cities all have lower graduation rates for high schoolers than most smaller cities and little towns. Your theory that bigger cities have better education does not hold up to the data at all. Our smaller town school system has a significantly higher graduation rate and higher SAT/ACT scores than Chicago and the other 'big cities' have.

 

Ever see any elderly communities before WWII?

What elderly communities before WWII? There weren't any then--the average lifespan was quite a bit lower then, and the elderly tended to live with their children when they did manage to make it to their 60's or beyond. "Elderly communities" are a relatively new phenomenon.

 

but when these people can't drive anymore; they often can still walk or wheelchair to their destinations.

If their health is so impaired they can't drive, they often don't have the physical capacity to walk somewhere, either. Ever try to use a wheelchair in the snow, or walk on crutches or a walker on ice? People who can't drive often have friends or relatives drive them to their destinations, or they simply don't go out much.

What I would suggest: five story mixed-use buildings.

That may be great for some people, and if they like living that way, more power to them. Hubby and I lived in apartments for 13 years. We were lucky to have good neighbors, but when they partied, it got loud. Our water heater went out when I was at school and Point Man was at work, and it flooded our neighbor below us. We had a set of very nice tools and other items stolen by the maintenance man for one of the complexes we lived in--he stole from a number of people in the complex before they finally caught him and fired him. His idea of repairing the hole in our cupboard that was letting cold air pour in from the uninsulated outer wall was to duct tape a paper plate over it--I'm not kidding. When a 40 foot tall tree fell on one of our other apartments, the apt. manager got mad at us because we woke him up at 6am on Saturday to let him know. We weren't ever allowed to have dogs at any of the places we rented--something we wanted to have in addition to our cats. In our home we have the autonomy to decorate the way we want, fix things the way we want (or hire someone we trust rather than some idiot the apt. manager hired), design the yard how we want, not worry about annoying neighbors with noise, get a dog this summer, not worry about the apartment manager coming in with 1 month notice and saying 'hey, you gotta move out, we're tearing the place down', or the myriad of negatives that Tommycat brought up. I have no desire to live in a multi-unit building of any size, from duplex to skyscraper. I'm sure not going to do it to 'support the state'. The government in the US is by the people and for the people--it exists to serve the needs of its citizens, not the other way around. I understand that this idea is an odd concept for those people who have grown up in a socialist or communist system all their lives and were indoctrinated that people must serve the state, but that's not the way it is in the US, thankfully. We're an independent lot. I'm happy when companies create ways to lower my energy consumption because it lowers my costs as well as having the side benefit of being better for the environment. I'm not giving up my home, however. You can build all the mixed use dwellings you want, but if people want to live in single family detached housing, that's what they're going to buy. If you want your new urbanism to fly in the US, you'll have to find ways to appeal to American's pocketbooks. You might convince a few to live that way because of environmentalism or socialism/communism beliefs, but for most Americans, you'll have to show them why it's a better value to them personally, either benefits or monetary value or more likely a combination of both.

 

Schools and libraries could become what a neighborhood could take pride in.

Is there some reason that we're not supposed to have pride in our schools regardless of size or population density? My husband and his farming family have a great deal of pride in the schools in the town of 2000 that he grew up in. We're proud of the schools and libraries in the town we now live in. As a former Chicagoan, the library system was quite good, but I was appalled by what I then considered 'my school system' and took zero pride in it.

[Darth_Yuthura]

Yes, that’s just what we need; a third thread!

 

All suburban sprawl posts should be confined to this thread--starting 3 threads to address the same subject is spamming the forum. --Jae

 

Given that the Maglev vs. HSR thread deviated into a topic that I didn’t intend to address, I could not properly establish high population density as being a key to mass transit without having to address other limiting factors that had nothing to do with mass transit in the first place. I decided the best thing was to establish a dedicated thread for the discussion of urban development. To have a two-way debate, I cannot afford to have complaints that my argument is too limited. This is a VERY elaborate topic and to have everything addressed, it will require various posts.

 

In order to avoid some of the mistakes of previous threads, I am listing the various topics that will be evaluated in order to introduce and debate them in an orderly manner. If anyone wants something added to this list, they should request it. If a topic in this thread isn’t addressed, but it is on the list; it simply hasn’t been addressed YET. I want to be civil, but it is difficult to do so when people place their beliefs over that of others and who add posts that detract from the debate. I will do the same, otherwise, no one will listen.

 

In addition, I am going to address counter arguments properly and concisely. If a counter argument is valid, I will accept it; but DO NOT attempt to attack an argument unless a suitable counter argument is provided. I’m not creating this thread with the expectation that people will suddenly have a revelation or to tell Americans how they should live. I am simply providing details on how Americans in suburbs do live.

 

 

Defining urban sprawl

 

1.The criteria for ‘suburb’

-Edge cities

-dependence on the automobile

-inefficient land-use planning

-loss of local culture

-increased driving distance from inner city

-unsustainable development

 

2.Benefits of sprawl:

-Privacy

-Ownership of individual home and pursuit of the American dream

-Reduced noise pollution, enclosed environment

-Lower crime rate

-Lower land value

 

3.History of suburban sprawl

 

The American city before the year 1945

The structure of American cities from 1950

The results of early suburban development

The shift of the wealthy to suburbs

Real estate markets target the middle class

Nuclear families dominate the average American household

Auto-dependant communities are created

The rise of poverty within the central cities

The loss of industrial centers

The oil crisis of 1971 and continuing rise of fuel prices

Gentrification and the relocation of the wealthy back to central cities

The housing collapse of 2009

 

4.Facts and statistics:

 

The 5 major differences between American and European cities

-Steep population density gradient

-Inversed social class structure (Rich on the edge of cities and poor in the CBD)

-Larger urban footprint

-Zoning segregation more extreme

-Dependance on automobile

 

5.Consequences of low density: Greater distances represent more expensive infrastructure per capita

 

-Longer commute times

-Greater traffic congestion

-Mass transit becomes less effective/economic

-More extensive network of power lines

-More complex system of water mains

-Sewer and septic systems are over extended

-More roads laid and parking lots demanded

-Police services restricted, due to coverage area of squad cars

-School bus services more expensive with greater distances and stops made

-Fewer public spaces created (Reduced funding because of infrastructure costs)

-Loss of agricultural land

-Higher infrastructure cost to tax ratio (The greater the distance from a source, the more expensive it is to maintain a suburb)

 

6. Results of migration to suburbs from inner cities

 

-High crime caused greatly by poverty

-High Poverty and the racial segregation due to migration away from inner cities.

-Long commutes and high traffic congestion JUST OUTSIDE CBD

-Deindustrialization and rise of 'mega urbs'

-Ineffectiveness of public transportation due to migration

-More taxes going into the infrastructure of suburbs than education and public services.

 

7. Victims of sprawl:

 

-Working poor:

-Stranded elderly:

-cul de sac kids: children who haven’t been given a healthy environment to socialize or develop mentally. The sacrifice of schools and public spaces is very restrictive to children’s mental health.

-soccer moms: who’s children depend upon them for mobility until the age of 16.

-Bored teens: without proper gathering places, teen suicide is the second leading cause of death and suburbia encourages teens to spend more time trying to escape reality (TV, video games, internet)

-bankrupt municipalities: the organizations that suffer economically for the inefficiencies of the auto-dependant and sparsely populated urban development. Residential zones who’s taxes don’t provide for their upkeep detract from the resources of their municipality.

 

 

8. Conclusion:

 

This will simply depend on which side you want to believe. I can’t do any more than present you with facts. I can’t and won’t tell people what to believe.

 

For more information, I will present sources as I present arguments and would encourage people to do the same if they wish to present a plausible counter argument.

 

http://risprawl.terranovum.com/HTML/part2.html

 

Suburban Nation: the ruse of sprawl and the decline of the American dream.

by: Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck

North Point press: 2000

[Darth_Yuthura]

You're looking for excuses.

 

I came to a logical conclusion based on statistics of how the city was twenty, ten, five years ago and how it is now. It's the only theory that fits how our conflicting arguments are both true without declaring the other a liar.

 

Chicago is a much, much bigger city than just the Loop. You still haven't looked at google maps, have you?

 

This thread has shifted to debate the areas OUTSIDE of the loop. Have you even been reading the thread? It didn't slip my mind of the 40 miles and two hours of driving through suburban traffic needed to get out of the city last weekend.

 

This is incorrect information. We have subways along with the L-trains, so large underground structures are out of the question for a number of buildings. Some of the buildings do have underground parking but a lot don't. Loyola University has surface lots. Moody Bible Institute has surface lots and a garage. Northwestern hospital has a garage and surface parking. The restaurants (of which there are many) and hotels have surface lots and garages respectively. Watertower place has a parking garage and surface parking. People parallel park on the streets where it's allowed. The grocery stores have surface lots. My sister lives in an apartment complex that has no parking at all--no garages, above or underground. It's all on-street parking. Cars are packed in like sardines. Those are just a few examples.

Right, and the surface lots in the Loop don't charge money for parking?

 

Yeah, yeah. How does seven ABOVE ground levels of parking matter? Besides, there were certain skyscrapers that preceded that red line. Those buildings did have underground facilities, but the more recent Trump tower did not. It was still on the same land that the building occupied. I did notice and bring up the various parking ramps that I explicitly described as being made of seven levels that generated profit instead of the great expanses you come to see in suburbia, only there because of the 23rd of December.

 

 

 

Define, preferably with some statistics, "often". I'm not sure what the relevance is to the rest of your discussion this is, so if you'd explain that, that would be cool.

 

Elderly have often remained in the same communities until death, as they could and would walk after they could no longer drive. My own grandfather lost so much when he could not drive and didn't live in the town that was a few miles away. He was the most active and healthy elderly person you could imagine, but when he couldn't drive to where he wanted; the last two years were brutal for him. He could have and would have walked, but simply didn't have the means to do so.

 

From what I experienced in NYC, it was the taxi that was the predominant means of transportation in the very densest parts of the city. Not everyone is able to walk--elderly, handicapped, etc. In Chicago, a lot of residents have cars, and they use them even for short drives. My sister uses her car more than mass transit because she's been mugged twice on the L-train--within the last couple years. There has been a sharp increase in homicides in the last 5 years because of gang activity. Check out the police stats for yourself, or look up The Chicago Tribune or listen to WGN or WBBM radio (they stream their radio programs) and you'll hear all about the crime stats, drug busts, and other issues associated with urban living.

 

Saw them: was hoping for statistics by district, but your source seemed reliable enough. Crime had been on the decline over the last 10 years or so before a noticeable increase in the last two years... rising to the rate from 2003. What's happened in the last two years and why had crime been on the decline before that?

 

Please show me data or link to a site that shows the breakdown of costs to support this point. I'm not sure it matters as much is you might make it out to be. People have to have utilities wired/piped to them whether they live in high rises or suburbs.

 

I've never been to a city, small or large, that didn't have a park _somewhere_. There are numerous parks in my town, most of them much nicer than the ones in Chicago, and not taken over by gangbangers and drug dealers.

Your tour group must have neglected to take you to the projects and Cabrini Green. The police presence is far lower there than on Michigan Avenue, except when there's a shooting. Mayor Daley takes care to have lots of Men and Women in Blue in the tourist areas. It makes the city look good.

 

Okay, think of this: Remove all the buildings other than your home and all the places that supply you with power, water, mail, sanitation, ect. Would it cost more to deliver mail to you if you had your district's post office right next to your home? Wouldn't it cost less to only have one hundred meters of power lines than forty kilometers? How about sewage, school bus coverage, and sanitation costs? The closer you are, the less it costs to have such connections.

 

This is one of the most basic and fundamental aspect of globalization: making the world smaller. The idea of sprawl complicates the matter because you have millions around you all competing with one another and when you have to step over everyone between you and your destination... that gets VERY expensive. You are not only providing for those one mile out at the outskirts of the Loop... you are providing for those forty miles away as well. Then you get an elaborate web of connections that are much more difficult to maintain than if there were fewer with greater capacity. This is one of the core reasons sprawl is flawed.

 

And what of the police that I saw in the areas OUTSIDE the Loop? I was actually surprised how many squad cars and officers on foot there were. With more people in a denser location, police could be placed more strategically than any location where an officer has to cover five square miles because there are so few living than on some city blocks. What about private security? Police so scarce that they hire security for that purpose where needed in suburbs.

 

My sister lives in an apartment complex in Chicago with several hundred other people. She doesn't know any of her neighbors other than in passing. When we lived in Chicago, we didn't know our neighbors at all except to say hi to them when we both walked our trash cans to the curb on trash pickup day, and I am a social butterfly. People go to work, go home, turn on the TV, and tune out. So many people live in dual-income households and are so busy with work, commutes, and family activities that they don't have time to go sit on the porch or have a coffee klatch with Maude next door. The loss of community sense is due to our busy schedules (and big city commutes take up a lot more time than smaller cities), no one being at home during the day, and far greater mobility. Forty years ago people moved into a house and stayed there for years. Now they live somewhere two years and move on to another apartment or home, or move across country for a better job, so we don't get to know people like we used to.

 

Explain, please, why Chicago has one of the worst school systems in the country, while smaller towns have some of the best. We got out of Chicago to a much smaller town that has a much, much better school system. My kids can walk to school safely. Our high schools don't require metal detectors screening for guns. Explain why NYC, LA, and some other large cities all have lower graduation rates for high schoolers than most smaller cities and little towns. Your theory that bigger cities have better education does not hold up to the data at all. Our smaller town school system has a significantly higher graduation rate and higher SAT/ACT scores than Chicago and the other 'big cities' have.

 

Is there some reason that we're not supposed to have pride in our schools regardless of size or population density? My husband and his farming family have a great deal of pride in the schools in the town of 2000 that he grew up in. We're proud of the schools and libraries in the town we now live in. As a former Chicagoan, the library system was quite good, but I was appalled by what I then considered 'my school system' and took zero pride in it.

 

Suburbs included in the Chicago statistics? Thought so. Thanks for proving that argument, as a great majority live in the suburbs.

 

Does your quaint little town predate WWII? It may follow the 'traditional neighborhood' design, which was not followed by suburban sprawl. I happen to be part of a town that is having budget problems in the schools because it was a 'bedroom community' of Madison. It is suffering because it doesn't bring in much income and expensive to maintain. When $1.7 million were donated for a new public library, $100,000 was skimmed for a sewer repair project. That's just sad.

 

Well I hope that I addressed those issues. I'm sorry I couldn't do more, but you really haven't given me much to work with. Hope that people are just keeping an open mind... I'm not really expecting anyone to actually follow a better solution if it's too uncomfortable to confront.

[Tommycat]

You must not be aware of Sun City. It's an area just outside of Phoenix. Mostly 55+ communities. It isn't full of large buildings. Not even your perfect 5 story buildings. It is a whole mess of neighborhoods. They like their own houses for the same reason they don't want to be in a nursing home. They like their independence. Can't say as I blame them. What you are essentially advocating for everyone is that we should all live in the equivalent of a nursing home for the good of the state.

 

Heck For the good of the state, everyone should be a member of the armed forces. For the good of the state is a VERY dangerous proposition. Imagine what Bush could force us to have done "For the good of the state." Or if you liked Bush, imagine what Obama could do with the justification of "for the good of the state." If you think the USAPATRIOT Act was bad... foof... there's a lot that could be done "for the good of the state."

[Tommycat]

Lots of misinformation: I'm only going to tackle one segment as you slapped a wall of text for us to pick apart. Kind of a shotgun method. Splatter us with a whole bunch of stuff and hope that one or two items stick.

 

Stranded elderly? You mean like the number of old folks that are found dead in the city? I guess you have a point. When they get stinky enough that the neighbors call the cops... As a counter I submit to you Sun City AZ. You can look at the google map of that. It is primarily comprised of the elderly. They CHOOSE to live there.

 

Working poor: Doesn't that go against your earlier statement that the poor are in the inner city?

 

Cul de sac kids: as opposed to the kids confined to an apartment because their parents are afraid of their child being killed by some psycho.

 

Suicides? REALLY?!?! You're going to blame suicides on suburbia? Think you might want to check your facts. Inner city kids have a higher suicide rate than rural. And if you are going to claim that suicides are linked to suburban sprawl, the only conclusion you could come to is that since suicide rates have fallen as urban sprawl has reached farther, that urban sprawl has decreased suicide rates. This is a fallacious argument as suicide has very little to do with sprawl.

 

Bankrupt municipalities: I'd say that has more to do with reckless spending and poor budgeting.

[Darth_Yuthura]

Lots of misinformation: I'm only going to tackle one segment as you slapped a wall of text for us to pick apart. Kind of a shotgun method. Splatter us with a whole bunch of stuff and hope that one or two items stick.

 

It seems you already made up your mind. If that's so, then don't post on this thread again.

 

No, I'm going to present each and every one of these subjects with the expectation that they will all 'stick,' as you say. The purpose of the first post is to indicate the complexities of the subject and what I haven't yet addressed.

 

Stranded elderly? You mean like the number of old folks that are found dead in the city? I guess you have a point. When they get stinky enough that the neighbors call the cops... As a counter I submit to you Sun City AZ. You can look at the google map of that. It is primarily comprised of the elderly. They CHOOSE to live there.

 

There are exceptions to the rules, but not many. When elderly retire, they often go to suburban regions of the Sun Belt. They likely didn't consider that they might not be able to drive at some point in the near future. Those that become nonviable members of society would either have to be wealthy enough to hire a chauffeur, or have relatives and friends that can still provide for their social needs. Those that don't are often forced to spend their final years in a nursing home. This isn't always true, but a majority of elderly that can't drive still can get around by walking or in a wheelchair.

 

Working poor: Doesn't that go against your earlier statement that the poor are in the inner city?

 

No, there was a trend that began with the wealthy moving to the edges of the original cities and over the last six decades, that edge expanded with middle class citizens following in their wake. Events such as the last two years show that middle class Americans can and do make bad choices that bring them into financial crises. Some cities have undergone gentrification, so you would have to take that into account as well. I'll address that in greater detail when I get to it.

 

Cul de sac kids: as opposed to the kids confined to an apartment because their parents are afraid of their child being killed by some psycho.

 

Suicides? REALLY?!?! You're going to blame suicides on suburbia? Think you might want to check your facts. Inner city kids have a higher suicide rate than rural. And if you are going to claim that suicides are linked to suburban sprawl, the only conclusion you could come to is that since suicide rates have fallen as urban sprawl has reached farther, that urban sprawl has decreased suicide rates. This is a fallacious argument as suicide has very little to do with sprawl.

 

Right, there were no suicides before suburbs. I blame that all on rural areas. Everything is to blame on suburbia.

 

You might want to check your own facts and determine that 'rural' is not 'suburban.' Instead of looking up American suicide rates in general, look up suicide rates for children and young teens. Maybe this is why you came to a different conclusion. I will address this topic later on.

 

Bankrupt municipalities: I'd say that has more to do with reckless spending and poor budgeting.

 

I'll get to this later on. This has to do significantly with the land developer and long-term infrastructure costs not anticipated when utilities were layed. Don't forget that when you had only one mile of sprawl, they didn't lay out the power and water mains to handle ten miles of suburban development that followed. When the original lines were overtaxed, they had to be replaced without disrupting the land already developed. This is expensive and difficult to deal with.

 

 

I hope that you don't just dismiss this subject out of hand and please don't be confrontational. I'm not going to do any more than present facts. I'm not going to tell Americans how they should live.

[Tommycat]

Sheesh lets see, I've made up my mind, so I shouldn't post in this thread. You made up your mind, so you shouldn't have posted the thread. That make sense? This is a discussion board. If you don't want to discuss, but want to propagandize, then you should make it very clear.

 

I'm gonna try to narrow it down since if I keep tackling all of the points and you tackle all the points we could be looking at a doctoral thesis by the time I'm done.

 

Suicide: There are a number of reasons for suicide. I looked at suicide rates of inner city, suburban and rural. the most dramatic difference was from inner city to rural, and there was a drop in suicide rates from inner city to suburbia. Feeling like you are a social outcast is not limited to suburbia. Feeling hopeless is not limited to suburbia.

 

Elderly: sorry, but you are wrong. An elderly person can just as easily be ignored in the city as in the suburbs. And chances are in the suburbs their family will WANT to visit them to make sure they are OK(and bring the grandkids too because there's a yard to play in). It also makes it easier to have handicap access.

 

Municipalities: I don't think you are aware of this, but municipalities don't pay for things like water and power. They don't pay for power line upgrades. They don't pay for phone power water or sewer. Those are paid for by the company providing the service, and that cost is passed on to the consumers. If you don't believe me, build a house past the existing utilities line. It'll cost YOU roughly $100 a yard to get them to install it. Sewer is required to be provided by the developer. I know, the 150 acres I was involved in the development of I was required to pay for roads, water, sewer and even power since it was all underground power. I even had to pay for the building of the public use area.

 

Overtaxing the original trunk lines: As if the buildings themselves don't also tax the trunk lines. When the central cities were originally laid out, they didn't have TV's in every room of every house/apartment. They didn't have a computer in most homes. They didn't have electric ranges refrigerators 2 coffee makers(ok one coffee pot and one espresso machine), AC, and the ton of other devices operated on electricity. And again, those costs are passed on to the consumers.

[Q]

Sheesh lets see, I've made up my mind, so I shouldn't post in this thread. You made up your mind, so you shouldn't have posted the thread. That make sense? This is a discussion board. If you don't want to discuss, but want to propagandize, then you should make it very clear.

Yeah, it kind of reminds you of someone else's posting behavior, doesn't it? Someone on the opposite side of the political spectrum?

 

I know that I'm on D_Y's ignore list, so would someone kindly remind her that Kavar's is not her own personal blog?

[Tommycat]

Yeah, it kind of reminds you of someone else's posting behavior, doesn't it? Someone on the opposite side of the political spectrum?

 

I know that I'm on D_Y's ignore list, so would someone kindly remind her that Kavar's is not her own personal blog?

 

Hehe yeah. and what happened to that person.

 

second part: I'll leave that for a mod to decide. Technically the originating thread should have just been split into a different discussion as it had stopped talking about Maglev.

[Darth_Yuthura]

Yeah, it kind of reminds you of someone else's posting behavior, doesn't it? Someone on the opposite side of the political spectrum?

 

I know that I'm on D_Y's ignore list, so would someone kindly remind her that Kavar's is not her own personal blog?

 

Speak to anyone who's studied urban planning who doesn't have a stake in this and you'll find the vast majority of them will say the same thing as I am. Is this just too hard a pill to swallow?

 

If a president could set up false evidence to start a war for his own benefit, is such a thing as this too difficult to conceive? If you don't believe me, then look at Europe's example. This isn't something that Americans should dismiss. They don't have to act on it, but shouldn't dismiss.

[Q]

Speak to anyone who's studied urban planning who doesn't have a stake in this and you'll find the vast majority of them will say the same thing as I am. Is this just too hard a pill to swallow?

No-one agrees with you because people don't want to live like ants. Is that such a hard pill to swallow?

 

Well, apparently it is, because, just like the other member I mentioned whose posting style yours emulates, you keep spamming the same inane ideas over and over and over again in a vain attempt at the "burn-through" method, while completely dismissing anyone's reasonable objections to your point of view.

 

It is spam, pure and simple, and it has gone far enough, thank you.

 

If a president could set up false evidence to start a war for his own benefit, is such a thing as this too difficult to conceive?

Not at all.

 

If certain people could set up false evidence to advance their political agenda for their own benefit, is such a thing as this too difficult to conceive?

If you don't believe me, then look at Europe's example. This isn't something that Americans should dismiss. They don't have to act on it, but shouldn't dismiss.

Europe is not the United States.

[Tommycat]

Suicide rates are declining in the US. Suicide rates increased in the UK. Guess it has something to do with EUROPE IS NOT THE US.

 

And if you want to talk about the pretenses for the war, look for one of the other threads. I won't be participating in that thread.

 

I'm still not convinced you have your facts straight. First off as you increase the number of units in the development area you have a greater up front cost due to the requirements for power water sewage and of course roads. In my example I could have 15, 10 acre lots. But would have to drop that to 14 10 acre lots because of the required percentage that had to be allotted to public use. That percentage stayed the same regardless of how many lots I had(actually it increased as we looked at 135 1 acre lots). Costs prevented us from being profitable at 1/4 acre lots(though we could have made it up in lot sales, the start up was too high to be justifiable). The government paid for nothing in the development. WE had to do all the road planning. WE had to work out sewage. They just approved or disapproved our plans. And we had to PAY THEM for the privilege of them saying that our plan would not work. It still seems like you're too focused on books and not too much on REAL WORLD examples.

[Darth_Yuthura]

No-one agrees with you because people don't want to live like ants. Is that such a hard pill to swallow?

 

Of course not, but that doesn't seem to relate to this thread. It is for the purpose of defining exactly what it takes to maintain such low population density from sprawl. It is to show how inefficient the American suburbs really are. That has nothing to do with whether or not Americans will ever follow the European example. They never will and I won't expect it of them.

 

If certain people could set up false evidence to advance their political agenda for their own benefit, is such a thing as this too difficult to conceive?

 

Europe is not the United States.

 

False evidence? What have I presented that could possibly be proven as false? Nothing has even been presented on this thread and already it's being declared false. Disregard what had been presented in the last thread and I'll present SOURCES with whatever evidence I post here.

 

No, Europe is not the US, but if it struggles with infrastructure problems that Europe is already dealing with, maybe it would smart to understand what they're doing right.

[Q]

Then what's the point of continuing this?

 

EDIT: If I looked hard enough, I could probably find sources that would argue that the earth is flat and that the moon is made of cheese. What of it? I'm sure that your sources are mathematically correct, but they utterly fail to take what people really want into account and therefore cannot be applied to the real world, which makes them false.

 

 

And please stop the ghost-editing. It's highly annoying.

[mimartin]

Homicide rate have decreased, in large cities, since there high 1991, but homicide rates in large cities still were higher than small cities, suburban and rural areas combined in 2005.

 

(according to the U.S. Department of Justice website)

 

Urban, suburban and rural

Urban residents had the highest violent victimization rates, followed by suburban resident rates. Rural residents had the lowest rates.

 

In 2005--

Six urban residents, four suburban residents and four rural residents per 1,000 were victims of an aggravated assault.

 

 

Suburban and rural residents were victims of violence other than rape/sexual assault at similar rates during 2005. [/Quote]

Urban, suburban and rural

 

Urban households have historically been and continue to be the most vulnerable to property crime, burglary, motor vehicle theft and theft in the United States.

 

 

In 2005--

 

Urban households experienced overall property crime at rates higher than those for suburban or rural households. [/Quote]

 

Crime rates are down in Urban areas, but still significantly higher than small towns, suburban or rural areas.

 

My counter argument is only my belief that people should have the right to choice where they want to live and should not have government interferences in that decision. If someone believes that it is best for their family to live in the suburbs and they are willing to make scarifies for what they believe is best, then that is their right. I would hardly call that selfish, but I wouldn’t do it. I live less than a mile from my office, I’m not doing it for environmental or any reason, but I am selfish and don’t like commuting.