Hacker News Reader

Comment by wilkommen | Hacker News Reader

I think a true shift towards Urbanism in our cities may be only possible if there's a whole lot of money in it for somebody with political leverage. But who? I'm not sure. Real estate developers? They're already making money hand over fist building our cities in the shitty car-centric way. When the US made its shift to car-centricity with the interstate highway system, there was a ton of money in it for oil companies, and car companies. Who "wins" when we shift our building patterns towards Urbanism? Aside from everyone who gets to live there, of course. I feel like big political changes like this don't happen unless someone who stands to gain is busy lobbying to make it happen. And I don't know what, if any, entity stands to gain a lot from building pedestrian-friendly, dense, beautiful cities.

View on HN

One of strong road’s arguments is that denser neighborhoods bring in much more tax revenue compared to strip malls and stroads. Take a classic, large mall. You could instead house hundreds, maybe thousands of people in the same space, as well as scores of small businesses. The tax revenue there would be much higher than if most of the space is a parking lot that, on average, is rarely fully utilized.

The main point of their argument is that strip malls and stroads and suburbia is unsustainable because it can’t generate enough tax revenue to support its infrastructure.

I think this means that entities do stand to gain from better planning, but it’s over the long term. You can’t build it in a year and expect it to be immediately full, but you can expect it to survive the long term (unlike the mall).

This is a good argument but I wonder how unaffordable sprawl is. Is it true across the board? Are there some that have done it better than others? I find it a bit of a stretch to say they are all unsustainable but maybe they're right I don't know.

It depends on the affluence of residents whether they can afford the much higher taxes required to maintain the infrastructure for urban sprawl (as well as its externalities), but it's always more expensive.

>Who "wins" when we shift our building patterns towards Urbanism? Aside from everyone who gets to live there, of course. I feel like big political changes like this don't happen unless someone who stands to gain is busy lobbying to make it happen. And I don't know what, if any, entity stands to gain a lot from building pedestrian-friendly, dense, beautiful cities.

You may be interested in a policy the UK government is considering:

https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Strong-Subu...

The idea is to let small groups of residents (a single street) vote to loosen planning restrictions in specific ways, allowing for incremental intensification of suburbs.

From that proposal:

"The housing crisis is often presented as a zero-sum conflict. More houses must be built to avoid rising homelessness, falling home ownership, and wider economic stagnation. But they can only be built by forcing them through against the will of local people, either by imposing high-rise on our historic centres, or by concreting over our countryside with more suburban housing estates. On this analysis, the interests of those who already own homes are fundamentally opposed to the interests of those who do not, and policy is simply a matter of choosing which interest group will triumph over the other. This analysis is profoundly mistaken. The appearance of opposed interests is the result of a defective system, which excludes existing communities from the benefits of development while imposing on them its adverse effects. If existing communities are allowed to control the form of development and to share in the benefits that it brings, they can become enthusiastic supporters."

I like it. I do hope it is possible for communities to become enthusiastic supporters.

The more I read of this proposal the more I like it. It feels realistic. I feel like it properly addresses the reasons people oppose development and offers a practical way out of the bind.

I know right? Reading it is like a pleasant balm. Sensible and humane, especially compared to a lot of the other stuff the UK government gets up to nowadays. I really hope it gets through Second Reading in 2022.

It's more likely to happen haphazardly, within small council areas over a long time as cities naturally evolve to suit their changing residents.

Not everyone wants to live in a human anthill though

They can go live in the country. That’s part of what’s good about Urbanism - it lets the city become a real city, and it reduces or reverses sprawl, which leaves more of the rural areas undeveloped. The city should be city, and the country country. It’s the in-between stuff that’s problematic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com