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Comment by jnordwick | Hacker News Reader

> Streetscape enhancements add value to an area and are associated with higher rents and the attraction of new businesses. In addition there is good evidence to show that improving walking and cycling environments raises private property values by significant amounts.

Nobody doubts this. Actually everybody sees this as the problem.

I love NYC, but i also hate it. There is a price for density: crime, trash, prices, overcrowding, urban decay, poverty and homelessness, etc.

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Density doesn't necessarily lead to those things. For example, Tokyo is very dense, but has a low level of crime, and is quite clean. Poverty is found in urban, suburban and rural areas.

This same site has a good series of articles on suburban poverty: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/12/6/best-of-2016-s...

Yes, there's the one example everyone loves to trot out. Japan is different from the US in a lot of ways and we can't just wave a wand and turn New York into Tokyo (or Cleveland into Sapporo, for that matter).

You can, but that magic wand is enforcing a culture of collectivism. If, from early age on, children learn to take on responsibility for society, this is possible.

The US culture of individualism at any price, not giving a single fuck about any other human being, is a significant factor in this.

I don't think that is all there is to it. What about a generally more homogeneous population (not just ethnically but also in terms of income) and essentially single-party rule? A greater acceptance of deficit spending? A much smaller land mass in the first place? The age of the infrastructure? Plenty of other questions.

In NYC you certainly could. It takes banning cars for personal transport and expand the subway. The city would improve tremendously. Not quite like waving a wand, but doesn't require tearing down and rebuilding either.

Japan doesn't ban cars in its cities. Why would doing so reproduce their results?

Tokyo's grid is much finer in the residential areas,and has a calm atmosphere. Manhattan's roads are highways everywhere. A great reduction in noise and increase in safety would make it more pedestrian friendly.

How do you transport 4 kids and groceries on an NYC subway? If elevators exist at all they are pissed-filled containers for mentally deranged homeless. Trains are overcrowded. People making statements like banning cars are likely single people that never had to push a stroller across NYC during rush hour.. or any hour for that matter.

Public transport is ridiculously inefficient when you have to buy more than you can carry or have babies or toddlers or young kids. I suppose we should just eliminate kids as well in order to make the perfect urban utopia?

And what about when it’s 10 degrees in NYC? Walking on freezing streets to stations blocks away isn’t too fun.

Tokyo has an average of 0.5 cars per household, which is on par with NYC. So, how will banning cars suddenly in NYC turn NYC into Tokyo, where cars aren't banned?

It takes the right policies and a lot of time. We have seen American cities become less walkable and more auto-centric in the last ~60 years thanks to policies designed to hollow out urban cores and increase suburban sprawl [1]. We have also seen Amsterdam embrace "human-centric" urban planning, leading to significant transformation toward the vibrant, walkable, bikeable city that Amsterdam is famous for being today [2]. If American cities want to be more like Japanese cities, they can start by looking at the policies that make them possible, such as the relatively-sensible Japanese zoning laws [3].

[1] http://iqc.ou.edu/2015/01/21/60yrsnortheast/

[2] http://sustainableamsterdam.com/2015/12/livable-cities-campa...

[3] http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

Re #3: It basically makes two points.

That zoning should be more liberal and less specific (stop trying to plan in such fine grain), which makes a lot of sense.

And zoning should be done at the national level. Absolutely laughable in a country as large and diverse as the US.

Do they centralize this function in China? I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

Japan as a country is a bit of an outlier when it comes to crime compared to much of the rest of the world, and not just in cities but in towns and rural areas. I think using Tokyo as an example but ignoring the increased levels of crime in urban areas just about everywhere else in the world doesn't make much sense.

> There is a price for density: crime, trash, prices, overcrowding, urban decay, poverty and homelessness, etc.

One does not necessarily lead to the other. Urban life is far more complex than that. There are lots of places, even in New York with high density, but low crime, poverty, etc...

And they are probably very expensive.

I didn't say they all occur everywhere.

These things aren't from density. Suburban auto dependent homogeneity comes with another bag of crappy things - isolation, socioeconomic echo chamber, inneficient infrastructure (eg think about how many linear feet of pipe for peripheral homes vs more centrally located).

Walkable doesn't have to be dense. Most of our cities that existed before the 50s have(or had) low density walkable cores.

> I love NYC, but i also hate it. There is a price for density: crime, trash, prices, overcrowding, urban decay, poverty and homelessness, etc.

These read as mostly outdated stereotypes of NYC from 80s and 90s. NYC now ranks as the safest major city in the United States, by most measures.

But he is positing these as things that happen in every city. New York is better than it was but out definitely has not made these issues go away altogether.

NYC has the largest homeless population in the US. You are still more likely to have your bike stolen in NYC than you are in Houston. “Safe” doesn’t mean “less crime” it means less violent crime. Overcrowding — definitely still true in NYC. Urban decay? Still there. Have a visit to the Bronx or Queens sometime.

> “Safe” doesn’t mean “less crime” it means less violent crime.

Let's take a look at Houston vs NYC. In 2017 NYC had 286 homicides [1], while Houston had 269 [2]. If we divide out by population (8.5 million in NYC, 2.3 million in Houston), we get:

0.000033647058824 murders per capita in NYC

0.000116956521739 murders per capita in Houston

So you are roughly 3.5 time as likely to get killed in Houston vs. in NYC.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/nyregion/new-york-city-cr...

[2] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/...

> Have a visit to the Bronx or Queens sometime.

I'm from Long Island City -- I know a thing or two about Queens. :)

I live there for the most part (currently in CA until March).

You can have dense towns that feel spacious and verdant as well. Downtown Savannah, Charleston, many streetcar suburbs in older cities, many small college towns, ... USA has phenomenally good examples of dense but pleasant urban environments.

NYC is an extreme. It's actually pretty awful in the ways you describe. Now image you keep the city but subtract all the cars for personal transportation. It'd feel so much more open, quiet, airy, accomodating.

> There is a price for density: crime, trash, prices, overcrowding, urban decay, poverty and homelessness, etc.

Density without strict oversight, perhaps. Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore seem to be counterexamples.

Wow, so all we have to do is accept totalitarian rule? Where do I sign?

Can you help me understand how Singapore is totalitarian?

Lee Kuan Yew is known to have strict authoritarian and disciplinarian policies. He basically forged Singapore from a couple square miles of swampy marshland with no natural water or resources into what is is today.

It's no longer that way, but it's been molded that way that it's a Brave New World sort of life. It's quite strange over there. Very clean and safe, but there are tons of extremely strict laws.

Do you have another description for a society where you can't buy chewing gum, caning is a punishment meted out by courts, and making a video criticizing Lee Kwan Yew can land you in jail? Where there is no freedom of association and the press freedom ratings are consistently poor? I don't think the idea that Singapore is an authoritarian state is even controversial.

Would you rather live in Singapore or El Salvador? Especially if you have a family that depends on you.

As if those were the only choices. I'd rather stay where I am than live in either place.

Well where you are is presumably better than El Salvador when it come to terms of crime and wealth, and better than Singapore in terms of freedom.

If you were currently living in El Salvador with a family, would you move to Singapore for freedom? Conversely, if you were currently living in Singapore with a family, would you move to Singapore for safety and money?

The two places are so different I don't know what the point of the comparison is. It's not like you turn up the authoritarianism meter and it becomes a safe place to live. Many countries combine authoritarianism with high rates of violent crime and poverty.

> Many countries combine authoritarianism with high rates of violent crime and poverty.

Well, in your original point you said "all I have to do is sign up for totalitarian rule?" mockingly, equating the two.

They're not the same, but many people would choose totalitarian prosperity over democratic poverty.

Because the post I'm replying to made the same equation, referring to "strict control" and naming places under such rule. In a discussion about what to do about US suburbs I don't think El Salvador, a poor country whose civil war ended in 1992, is even the least bit relevant.

No, the post you responded to says that density without strict oversight leads to all the bad things you were talking about. I cannot think of a counterexample.

Density with strict oversight seems like it could lead to a flourishing society, which is what has happened in those other examples.

It's very easy to have density with strict oversight lead to bad results, but some form of strict oversight seems like a prerequisite to prosperous density. Anything else it seems like you're reading what you want to read out of the statement.

Ok, so I suppose the conclusion I would draw, if we accept all these premises, is that increased density is not worth the cost.

Well, increased density is off the table without massive forced birth control/a massive die off. The population of the world has massively spiked in the last fifty years, the trend is continuing especially in poor countries, and all these people have to go somewhere.

A dense city is the only place for them to go and try to support themselves, since there isn't enough good land around for subsistence farming. Density is a given, in the future. Whether or not it makes people happy is an entirely other thing.

This article entirely concerns the United States and changing policy to encourage more density in its cities, so I'm not seeing the relevance of third-world birth rates. Prosperity does tend to significantly reduce birth rates.

> Prosperity does tend to significantly reduce birth rates.

Ah, so you support closed borders? "Shithole" countries tend to make lots of babies that want to come to non-shithole countries. So you think the United States should shut down more immigration and move towards a more rural and dispersed society?

NYC is a low crime city.

> crime, trash, prices, overcrowding, urban decay, poverty and homelessness, etc.

I fail to see how that description actually fits today's New York, or most other large US cities. It may have been true in the 80s. But just the change over time proves that these aren't necessary consequences of high density.

You may also wish to take a walk around Paris, Venice, or Barcelona to see how attractive urban environments can be[0].

Yes, some people may always prefer rural life. But those currently living in Suburbia, USA have probably chosen the worst of all worlds.

[0]: Random street view link: https://goo.gl/maps/t96mDMV48rx

For Paris, you can also find ugly parts of urban environments, with the worst in the urban sprawl around the city.

I work in downtown Boston, one of the fancier parts of one of the country's most expensive cities. There are tons of panhandlers, you encounter the smell of urine quite often, litter is everywhere, the city is served by filthy trains, etc. The stuff about high prices is definitely true (hell, this article touts it as a benefit!) and there are plenty of other parts of the city that are considerably more run-down. I don't see what the guy is saying that's wrong.

> But those currently living in Suburbia, USA have probably chosen the worst of all worlds.

Not even close. There are parts of the inner city that make the suburbs look like heaven. There are rural areas where the lack of opportunity makes the suburbs look like the promised land.

Urban environments can be fine. But they can also be (at least in places) horrible. And even when their fine, they're not for everybody. Some people just don't do well with crowds.

And in fact it does offer "the best of both worlds" in a sense: you can work in a dense city with plenty of jobs without having to live there. That's the reason suburbs began to exist essentially as soon as trains made them possible.

Paris? You have lost your mind. Dog shit everywhere. People peeing anywhere they want on the street. Loud scooters at all hours of the day and night. Crowded sidewalks, polluted air much of the year, extortionate housing prices, everything closed on Sundays or after 7pm. And there are the ubiquitous Gypsy pickpockets everywhere.

And Venice? It’s about the single most crowded and overpriced city in Europe. Beautiful to visit, but a nightmare to live there. Even in November it’s elbow to elbow people; the infrastructure is at the breaking point.

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