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Well I don't think all Americans love the suburbs for sure. Home prices in the city where I live for example seem to be skyrocketing compared to the suburbs and that's despite bad schools.

I think you are right in that many Americans won't "vote" for a lot of these benefits. Again the "300 new manufacturing jobs" headline sounds better than "16 small businesses and a 2% drop in obesity-related premature deaths over a 5 year period" [1] and that's what we optimize for.

To your point though, as many Americans won't "vote to get rid of the suburbs" they'll eventually just go bankrupt trying to maintain all of the highways and cars [2], or we'll have to go to war to secure oil flows. There's certainly a social choice to be made and I think we'll choose suburbs, cars, war, heat, and all of those things.

[1] There's nothing wrong with 300 new (or any amount) manufacturing jobs, and the numbers I'm using are made up, though my point is largely that better urban planning and design, zoning, etc. will produce greater economic benefits it's just that they aren't concentrated into a single headline that some dumb idiot can point to and say "Mission Accomplished".

[2] Please note that there's nothing wrong with cars existing, the main problem is cars being a hard requirement (government mandate really) for every single thing you do in your life.

>[2] Please note that there's nothing wrong with cars existing, the main problem is cars being a hard requirement (government mandate really) for every single thing you do in your life.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "government mandate" in this context.

I've lived for more than half a century and have never owned a car or attempted to purchase one. In all that time, no one (affiliated with a government or not) has ever even hinted that I must have a car.

I'm not playing "gotcha" here, I just don't understand what you're getting at.

Sure, there are many places (especially in the US) where having access to a personal, motorized vehicle provides access to many of the necessities of modern life, but that's not a result of government fiat/mandate.

Rather it was population increases, cheap oil, poor land use decisions, bigotry and a host of other factors -- including government support for such decisions -- that are at the heart of those results.

Perhaps my take is too US-centric and/or I'm missing something important.

tl;dr: Governments supporting the status quo/big economic actors creating/maintaining unsustainable environments is bad public policy, but doesn't add up to a "mandate," IMNSHO.

Sure I can take a stab at it.

For the vast majority of America in order to participate in life you have to drive a car somewhere to do something. So this could be driving to get a prescription filled, it could be going to school, to work, etc. The way the government "mandates" it is by only building additional car-only infrastructure (highways, etc.) and using zoning policies that dictate that SFH and big-box retailers are the only thing that can be built. Of course places like, say, New York City have public transit but for most of America the government effectively mandates that you use a car.

While the government may not explicitly state that "you must use cars" if you take a look at state transportation department budgets, for example, you'll see that the funding is all for cars. We could split hairs and say it's not a "mandate" but I think it is effectively a mandate and if you asked, most politicians would say something like "Americans love their cars and freedom" which means "we support car-only infrastructure".

>While the government may not explicitly state that "you must use cars" if you take a look at state transportation department budgets, for example, you'll see that the funding is all for cars. We could split hairs and say it's not a "mandate" but I think it is effectively a mandate and if you asked, most politicians would say something like "Americans love their cars and freedom" which means "we support car-only infrastructure".

Thanks for putting a finer point on that. As an American who lives in NYC, but has traveled/lived all over the US, your assessment is spot on.

Except for the "mandate" part (at least IMHO). Which, I argue, isn't splitting hairs at all.

I say that because the activities of state and local governments are, in fact, what the people they represent want. If it were not, those folks wouldn't have been elected in the first place.

And that's especially true for local governments, where a couple dozen folks dedicated to making something happen can usually do so. That's also true (generally with a few more folks involved) for state governments.

As such, those governments are, in fact, executing the will of their constituencies. So, in my mind, that's not a "mandate" (An authoritative command or instruction)[0] by the government, but a mandate (A command or authorization given by a political electorate to the winner of an election)[0] from the folks those governments represent.

So the car culture is, as wasteful as it may be, what the citizens of such towns/cities/counties/states have demanded (or at least voted for) and not some "edict from on high," which is the sense I got from both your comments around this. If my understanding is mistaken, my apologies.

[0] https://www.wordnik.com/words/mandate

Thanks for the post and I don't disagree with your assessment on how the term "mandate" is used. It's just the closest word I could find at the time to describe how I view the current state. I know the governor for example doesn't come on the TV and say thou shalt drive but the budget and actions do show otherwise. I'm not even sure voters are effectively engaged here either. It's like the saying it's easier to destroy things than to create them. It's easier to just do cars because explaining why we shouldn't just do cars requires more discussion.

Sorry for the late response.

Point taken. As I said, aside from that particular word choice, you're spot on.

While there are convincing arguments for many problems with suburbs and sprawl, the one that really resonated with my own experience is their inability to maintain their infrastructure. Various schemes get them built in the first place, but there doesn't seem to be a way to get enough tax base to support all the necessary infrastructure long-term.

I live in the burbs, and everything I need is a bicycle ride away. I currently work remotely, although that's about to change because we, like most companies, seem hellbent on making people drive in traffic and be generally less happy. During the pandemic I put maybe 4-5k miles on my vehicle. I would fill up gas once a month.

Long story short stop making this about 'burbs vs cities vs rural. It's not going to work, you aren't going to guilt enough people into doing the right thing. We need to make living sustainable for a variety of different type of living arrangements because nothing in America is ever this clear cut and dry or uniform. You can exercise positive patterns of behavior and living/lifestyle choices where ever you are. Besides, 99.9% of human existence was the village model: clusters of independent and self-sufficient communities. There's nothing wrong with this, and it's what we've evolved with.

> Long story short stop making this about 'burbs vs cities vs rural. It's not going to work, you aren't going to guilt enough people into doing the right thing

Right, the exact point I was making.

That said, your suburbia apologia is a bit silly - naturalism fallacy aside, the suburban experience isn't even close to that of primordial human tribes.

And it matters little if you bike to your stores, the goods you're buying at your store are not brought there on bikes, just the emissions from the concrete needed to pave over that amount of land is ridiculous, etc. etc.

Unlocking suburban "sustainability" would require next generation sequestration tech or full electrification + renewables.

My suburbia apology wasn't an apology, suburbia isn't without its faults either, but recognizing that suburbia is closer to the roots than dense urbanism.

It's going to be about suburbs vs rural for as long as the suggested solutions only work in urban environments. If you don't like it being that way, then suggest a solution that works for people who don't live and work in a dense environment.

My entire point is the suggested solutions aren't solutions. The onus is on those suggesting to suggest something practical and that will actually work, not utopian fantasies.