Comment by xyzelement | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xyzelement | Hacker News Reader

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I am not an economist (actually I guess I kinda am) so I won't split hairs about the exact definition of induced demand, but what I do find is that in common experience, the folks that use the term "induced demand" generally use it to shit on things they don't like rather than actually thinking about the total utility generated.

Eg the "cars are evil" crowd sill say something like "oh they built another lane from the burbs into the city, but traffic is still slow because more people now moved from the city into the burbs and are driving in that lane."

You never hear them say, though "I guess that means there was demand for people to move out to the burbs for greater space/safety/quality of life." So even if dad now gets a longer commute, he's clearly choosing to do that because his family overall is better off. To the extent that building the extra lane enabled this, the world is better off even if eventually that lane itself is as saturated as the existing ones.

I'm exactly the dad in this scenario and I 100% do not feel like I had an option here.

I am pretty frustrated with the house, the space and I don't feel any more safe or higher quality of life. I did this only because I could not afford the number of bedrooms I need for surprise triplets in the city I was basically born and raised in. From my anecdata of peers, pretty much everyone who lived in an urban environment for most of their lives would like to stay there but cannot afford it.

I suppose I could see the "family is better off" statement being valid but it is not because of the list you mentioned, it is purely affordability for me. My parents were able to afford a 3 bedroom apartment and I cannot.

I hear you and congrats on the triplets. In the pure economic sense you are obviously making a choice "I don't love the burbs but this is my best path vs what I can have in the city" which is obviously only possible because those burbs have roads etc. So you're in line with my point here.

:D Thank you! They're no longer babies gratefully so it's a ton of fun.

I'm not so sure that it's only possible to build affordable 3 bedroom homes _because those burbs have roads_. I agree that it's definitely the best path compared to my options in my locale, but there are other cities/countries where I _could_ afford a 3br in an urban environment and the roads are just as rare there.

If affordability were inherently positively tied to land-use-for-roads, I'd understand the argument. For me though, I think affordability is tied to location-demand and way way more people want to live in the urban environment that I'm priced out of.

Awesome! I have a 3.5 and 1.5 year old myself and it's immensely fun. I obviously don't know the details of your city to burb transition but in my case (moving from NYC to near-suburb) has been positive. One simple example is my 3.5 year old is now riding a bike. It is a trivial thing to throw his and my bike onto the car and head out to one of the many near-by parks and preserves to ride with him.

In the city, I guess we'd have to walk our bikes to Central Park but also we would struggle to have bike-space in the apartment regardless of size (in the house, they just hang out in the garage) So I wonder if your appreciation of your new lifestyle will change as the kids grow.

Good luck!!!

"The world is better off" for people who live in suburbs. Those who live in cities now subsidize the suburbanites quality of life by sacrificing land area (roads, parking) and pollution (particulate, noise) to support drivers

Everything is subsidized one way or another. Your examples (roads, parking) is valid. But likewise, a suburban/rural taxpayer subsidizes the sidewalks and public transit in the city he may never set foot in (certainly that's the case here in New York where NYC transit is funded by a large part from state-level taxation.)

If you want to attempt to net out these calculations and see who's subsidizing whom, we can try to do that. Complaining about the one form of subsidy that happens to align with your point is unrigorous.

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