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Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

Of course suburban life is very appealing. That's why it's so popular. People don't do it just to waste resources or screw the environment. I like to look for the externalities and where they come from. For urban sprawl, my best theory is that government subsidy of roads and related infrastructure is the primary driving force (pun intended) of urban sprawl.

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The interstate highway system certainly contributed to suburban sprawl, but for many suburbs, the racism was the driving force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage_discrimination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictive_covenants#Exclusio...

Look further and you'll find that US housing policy in the 20th century intentionally encouraged suburb construction and disinvestment in the cities.

There was also a concerted effort to increase the use of gas powered vehicles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

So how do you explain suburban sprawl in Canada and Australia?

I assume automobiles, racism, and consumer preference for large lots are still factors in Canada in Australia. But I haven't researched any specific housing policies that encouraged sprawl in those countries. I'm having trouble finding materials on the subject. You know any good resources?

Or maybe some people just wanted a larger house and larger backyard sometimes at a cheaper rate?

It's worth noting that there's also a strong counter-incentive to avoiding urban sprawl. Given that cities are expanding, something new will need to be built. That's pretty much inevitable.

What's striking is how hard it is to take what's already present and build up, to modernize or expand existing infrastructure. Construction in a city is expensive, and a great many existing buildings break various codes (ADA, asbestos, etc) in ways that are more expensive to fix than from-scratch development is.

When building new is cheaper than retrofitting, people will tend to do it. Putting up a new building in Boston's financial district would likely mean knocking half a dozen valuable apartment buildings, and won't ever happen. Putting that office building up five miles away is cheaper, and Boston is already seeing a number of industrial parks on its outskirts for that reason.

The exceptions are places where land costs a fortune (NYC), zoning is impossible to deal with (San Francisco), or the sprawl is already so atrocious that "outskirts" is a death sentence for a new venture (LA).

Subsidies for expansion certainly matter, but even without them there are substantial incentives to choose sprawl over infill and development.

Boston is actually a great example of construction happening in the city. Most of Cambridge around Kendall is a giant construction site, especially just north of Broadway and around 3rd street, and the space between Kendall and Central. The Seaport district has many active construction sites around the "Innovation district", and a lot of that whole area is brand new, centering around the desire for large companies to move closer to cities.

Agreed- it's also driving a lot of new construction housing in the South End- cranes all over downtown it seems

Yeah, it's everywhere. Hasn't helped with housing prices any, though. I currently live in Somerville and I do love it (it's weird enough for me), but I wouldn't mind living closer to everything.

Well, we've got the new green line extension going in, right? So that'll help out quite a bit.

I'm also a Somervillian. And I will add that Somerville actually has a significantly higher population density than Boston. We are undeniably a part of the urban core, deeply integrated into the city. In a discussion about suburbs vs cities, we fall squarely into the city side, which is one reason I like it here.

Totally. Still about half an hour into Bston, though, which is kind of a drag. (I work at Localytics, and we're at 101 Arch--directly above Downtown Crossing. Not a terrible commute by any means, but closer's still better.)

Correct. There is some hope though because there's a money to be saved by reduce the operational energy usage through retrofit strategies. This can be as simple as reskinning a building - switching to more high-performance glazing or adding insulation - to reduce the lighting and thermal loads. The Rockefeller Foundation valued the U.S. commercial building retrofit market at $280 billion based on implementing improvements to achieve 30% energy savings in buildings built before 1980- but this would require financial mechanisms and structures to assure ROI for investors.

Cite: Franconi, Ellen, Kristin Field and Michael Deru, 2013. Building Performance Modeling for Gaining Investor Confidence. http://www.ibpsa.org/proceedings/BS2013/p_1401.pdf

Your theory is absolutely correct. The federal highway system did two things: 1.) subsidized once inaccessible land for cheap trac home development 2.) kill off efficient private transportation (trains, etc).

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