Urban Planning, Urbanization, and Societal Impact
A tale as old as time. Cities, suburbs, and farms. Naturally, as social tensions rise and society faces its fair share of issues, everyone is looking for someone to blame. Anyone but themselves, right? But in the midst of all this "us vs. them" infighting, one of the most interesting debates is about land use and social structure. We all know the tropes - those "damn liberals" in cities think they're better than everyone, and the "boomer conservatives" in suburbs holding us back from a better society. It's a huge back and forth, and if you don't think so literally just look at Twitter or other debating platforms. Its kinda nuts actually. So, today, I was going through Twitter (ugh) and found a post about "Don't City My Suburb" and went through the comments. They're littered with SO many unchecked talking points (and lies, actually) that I felt really empowered and emboldened finally, so I present to you...
Teig's Big List of Talking Points About Cities And Suburbs!!!!
The way we're gonna do this is with nifty little drop downs, actually. In fact, one drop down per talking point. I'll summarize a talking point from someone (and I'll link to their tweet/source) and do my best to vocalize my thoughts and current opinions, and I'll also do my best to provide sources on claims and long format arguments. While some points will be more opinion (with rationale and explanation and a thought process presented), I'll do my best to be factual when it comes to certain claims. I've been meaning to do something like this for a while, so I hope it helps me put my thoughts in order lol. For now, this page will solely be these drop downs, but if I think of other things to talk about and such, I'll move them all to their own separate pages. Cool? Cool.
"The building of 'affordable housing' destroys suburbs."
I would be remiss to not mention that the post goes on to say that "YOU PEOPLE are [...] being absolute r***** who think everyone should be able to afford living anywhere they want at all times." This is important for my response here. I think I have a few ideas and things to pull apart here.
1. Why shouldn't someone be able to afford living where they want?
Hear me out. I'm not saying everyone gets a penthouse here, I'm talking city-by-city. Someone who wants to live in Los Angeles, should be able to reasonably live in Los Angeles. The point comes down to that. I honestly feel that if you're advocating for anything else than that, then you're saying people should be separated by class. That in of itself is an entirely different thing than this, and needs a much longer discussion about social equality.
2. Suburbs themselves require growth to stay financially solvent.
I think, first things first, you should watch this video from Not Just Bikes which is widely used in this discussion. The main point here is that suburbs are, by the nature of their design, financially insolvent. Much infrastructure is most efficient the closer the service users are to each other. Literally, if houses are 1/8 of a mile apart, that's THAT MUCH piping, wiring, utility poles, electric lines, roadway, pavement, sidewalks, grass, and more that has to be provided. For that ONE house. When you start to scale this, its expensive to implement. But these aren't just one-time purchases; they're investments. And that's important, because these pieces of infrastructure requirement maintenance and repair. IIRC, its every 10 years when roads need to be repaired and redone, and that is an expensive and LONG task, which can often take years, if not another ten full years before they're all replaced, and at that point its time to do it all over again. Where this becomes an issue is when you try to pay for it. Where does the money come from? It's not taxes at all, because suburbs purposefully market themselves as low tax to make people move there. They do this because the town makes money only when people move there. For those who understand what I'm getting at, yes, this is called a Ponzi Scheme. When growth stops, so does the money, and the suburb begins to die. This is why many small towns begin losing social services, like fire departments, libraries, parks, etc. You simply can't keep pulling in money to pay for them.
3. Assuming affordable housing makes it easier to move to your suburb (see: jobs, etc), then the development of new housing would keep suburbs alive, and it'd be in their best interest to do so.
This shouldn't need much explanation. If suburbs require growth, then they should lower the barrier of entry so more people move there, right? If not, then why would you not want people to move there? Is it the people themselves? We'll explore this in other tweets below.
"Cities create filth and decay."
So, I think there's a few points to consider with this. First, I will acknowledge that people, in general, generate trash, and by having people live closer together, there will be a higher density of trash. Pollution, as well, is a subject of density, but is also COMPLETELY related to our car centric culture. (Quick aside: many cities build in such a way where public transit, walkable cities, and bikes are preferred and more convenient than driving, thus driving down pollution; this argument may strictly apply to most American cities) This is ONLY related to trash and pollution though, so we need to consider what "filth" is that the poster is referring to. I won't make any assumptions, but if its not literal garbage and pollution, then it must only be realted to personal, societal, or cultural reasons. This is a slippery slope.
As far as decay...well, I actually find the opposite. While Republicans may pearl clutch over increased taxes, these taxes directly go back into public services, which provides our fire departments, police departments, social services, public ammenties, etc. It's what makes cities so strong and desireable to live in. I think there's social reasons to this, such as a sense of community and being invested into the common good. I also think that concentrations of people drives a demand for businesses, such as tailors, laundromats, restaurants, bars, social spaces, and more. This creates an economy, and with that economy, you get more growth. More people move to the city for jobs created by growing businesses, and the cycle repeats. This is only made possible by density, where the city is built for people and people's lives. Starting to get into car discussion here, but the main idea is that cities, by their nature, are living and breathing things, which grow when designed and built well. In my own personal experience (and opinion), cities foster a more "human" life.
The main determinent for this is jobs. There needs to be businesses open that hire people, who then earn money, who then spend that money. This is necessary, and when jobs aren't available, that's when cities can die. Now, this is important here: Should a city be reliant on only one or two major employers for survival? I think about many small towns where the population essentially works at one of two companies, or staffs the multiple restaurants/entertainment venues in the town. In cities like Detroit, once globalization took off and car manufacturing moved overseas, you suddenly found a city, and entire city, practically out of work. This is why I ask the question: was it wise to structure a city to be so reliant on a company? Food for thought.
"When suburbs implement urban design, 'urban people' move in and bring crime into the suburbs."
First of all, yeah, this is racist dogwhistling. What is "urban design"? Who are "urban people"? And why are you assuming that these "urban people" are specifically bringing in crime? I shouldn't have to spell this out lol. So, I feel like this is detracting us from the city/suburb conversation. This is a complex topic, and I personally feel I'm not super qualified to go into a ton of depth, but please seek out people who can step up where I can't. The main point here from me is this: this is racist ideology and has been proven false again and again. Only cherry-picking data and anecdotal evidence (perhaps a sprinkling of misused/misinterpreted statistics) will prove this point.
"Building up cities, or incorporating urban design into suburbs, is more wasteful than expanding suburbs."
Yeah, so this just isn't true. The main tweet emphasized things like sidewalks and infrastructure, and I think we covered that topic above (at least in terms of how money kinda works in suburbs). How is constant road construction or highway expansion any better than paving a sidewalk and building things close to each other? Not to mention, car-centric suburbs generally require special features and infrastructure JUST for high volume car travel. This means parking lots, tolls, highways, road expansions, gas, traffic lights, and all the maintenance that comes with each of this. This kind of comment doesn't really make sense to me haha. It demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of how the world works. There's a little bit of an opinion piece on the Strong Towns website that kind of goes into a more conversational tone, but if you're looking more for numbers, this incredible study goes into detail of analysis, demonstrating that there's an approximate 50% increase of infrastructure costs in sprawled locations when compared to more urban locations. The study also details:
Think about that. Really. About $1 billion in additional infrastructure costs of suburbs are directly paid for by the people who live there. You pay the burden for that. It's important to note that in the US, it's codified into law that zoning policy directly impacts the ability to build mixed-used neighborhoods that you find in successful cities around the world. Not only are many Americans forced into this situation due to cost and living expense (and subsequently jobs, but they'll tell you the opposite lol), but they are forced to pay more for it! Why are people okay with this? I mean, that's kinda easy: gaslighting and propaganda. But that's a whole 'nother topic haha.
In total on this point, the claim of the tweet is simply wrong. Whether its honest ignorance or blind loyalty, it's just wrong.
"Suburbs are better for the environment than cities."
Also, generally not true, sorry. This may confuse some people, but the majority of the grass in suburbs isn't naturally occuring. It isn't free. It requires a TON of water and energy and resources to keep around. It's "fake nature", really. Consider the amount of chemicals used to treat lawns to keep them artificially green; naturally, the bigger the lawn, the worse the pollution from these chemicals entering our waterways. Additionally, traditional lawns remove important ecological architecture, hindering local wildlife from thriving and essentially removing functional land on which wildlife can live. Additionally, some planted items in traditional lawns can actively harm the environment. Kudzu, for example, comes to mind.
Lawns aside, there's of course the obvious car dependency that comes into play here. Suburbs, of course, are more car-dependent, which means on average, there's more pollution being generated per capita. Sprawl contributes to this as well; the desire for most suburban people I talk to tends to be to amass a larger house with a larger yard, which usually means even more spacing and sprawl between units. These large homes also have another downside: more energy consumption to heat and cool the house, not to mention more energy generated to even get the utilities to the houses due to sprawl. All of this goes right back into the first point mentioned, too.
One of the real questions I ask myself is why? Why are we so performative on the maintenance of our lawn? It's just typical "keeping up with the Jonses" in my opinion; we compare our wealth to each other by how we show it, and a nice and tidy lawn is like wearing a neat little suit. It's typical of the common American: to project wealth when you have none. In the land of opportunity, no one wants to be seen as poor, as thus, the lawn serves as a medium to reflect our well-to-do-ness. In this sense, I can totally understand why people would be defensive about holding onto their lawn as a status symbol. A sign that they made it.
"Apartments are depressing little boxes."
I feel like this is just opinion, but we can try to explore this a bit. First main point here, is that people in general have different needs and wants in apartments. One person's "tiny depressing shoebox" is another person's hyper efficient retreat from daily stress. My main point about this kind of stuff involves adjusting our world view and lens to focus on why we think the apartments are too small. Personally, I think people generally don't "need" as much stuff as they have. When people tell me they "could never live in an apartment", I always ask "why" first. Literally why not?
Most often, their answer comes down to one of two things: the feeling of having space and the space to fit your things. For the first point, I kinda guess this. No one wants to feel cramped, but I do wonder what else would be in that space? Most Americans spend their time either in front of a computer, in front of a TV, or generally in one spot in their house/apartment. Think about the other side of excess here: people who have mansions for no reason. People who purchase larger houses than they need find themselves having to spend more money on useless stuff to fill it up. Sure, they may have some functional needs for these rooms, but I find in the vast majority of cases, its either investment for investment's sake, or its a simple waste of space and time. How much of your living space is functionally wasted? If you were the optimize where things would be placed, where would you place them? Remember that the size of a space is psychological, and that large units can feel small (and vice versa) depending on how they're designed and used. How much of Americans' living spaces are too big simply because they are designed and used poorly?
This may get more into sociology, but it's important information for this and provides some additional nuance into this discussion. First of all, some numbers: 1 in 4 Americans Outgrow Their Living Space within 2 years, and 1 in 3 Americans Currently Use Self Storage. This tells me something very important, which is that Americans have a lot of stuff. And we get stuff fast. And we're always buying more, even if we don't have space or room. Is this to say that Americans don't have the ability to disseminate the necessary from the needed? I don't know about you, but I don't NEED tons of stuff. In fact, for a lot of my 20s, I only had a bed, a TV, a stereo, my records, a PC, a loveseat, and...some instruments for my studio? That's it. And I didn't need more, because I was happy with what I had. If I had the bug of "buying new stuff" all the time always, I wouldn't have been able to live in my 450sqft studio for 50% less than the average apartment in one of Chicago's most popular neighborhoods. Maybe it's just me, and I'm so divorced from the need for material possessions (for the sake of possession) that this just doesn't apply to me, but I encourage more Americans to really investigate what they need and don't need; at best, you realize you don't need that 1.5 million dollar mansion, and that a 1200sqft 1BR may actually be just enough.
This isn't even going into some perks of renting a "depressing little box", which is less time cleaning and maintaining the unit, no yard to mow or plant or take care of (or spend money on), no responsibility for utility upkeep, replacement, and maintenance, and much more. I don't have to pay a HOA or a mortgage, or buy a lawn mower, or gas for my car, or...so much more. I mean, the pros for me really go wild here. Usually when I start getting to this point in the discussion, people switch their talking point, haha.
Some final numbers here: Americans are wasting more space than before, based on the number of spare bedrooms in houses, and still, over 50% of Americans think 1800sqft is too little space to live in. Look, it's just my opinion, I get it, but...I don't think that's reasonable or fair lol. Especially when you look worldwide. There's an old saying about the difference between new and old money: new money is McMansions in the Dallas suburbs, and old money is a condo on Billionaire's Row in NYC with priceless art and investments. Where do you sit? Does your home theatre system NEED 1100 sqft of theatre style seating? Or even that large of a screen? Is it NECESSARY? Or is it indulgence disguised as necessity? I don't know. My own two cents here.
"Affordable housing is ugly and attracts crime and a lower class of people."
Crazy how the headline is literally the tweet haha. I shouldn't even HAVE to get into some of this ("a lower class of people"...? Really?), but for the stuff we can talk about, lets.
Let's begin by defining what affordable housing is. Affordable housing is housing where rent and utilities together make up 30% of your gross income. This can generally be accomplished in several ways, including building new premium housing (to incentivize the rich to move out), fixing older buildings (but not too new or renovated), and building new units from scratch. The approach to each of these changes depending on which city you're in and what their priorities are. So, by principle alone, affordable housing could be considered "ugly" if you think old is ugly. But historic and older properties aren't excluded from being considered for affordable housing, so this is opinion is probably formed by someone who saw a depiction of "the projects" in a movie and thinks that what all affordable housing is. Or they watch too much Fox News.
Maybe we start talking about crime then, and how apparently affordable housing pulls that in or something. Let's go ahead and get this out of the way, this is a comment tying poor people together with crime. Now, there IS a racist dogwhistle in there too because often times these narratives revolve around implying poor people are black, and that black people commit all the crime. I'm not going to go into this (literally just learn about statistics and how this actually works when intersected with modern policing practices), but we're rejecting the premise of that argument, and will be moving forward differently. To be clear, poor people in general commit more crime regardless of race. This is due to desperation, and is a widely studied phenomenon. This study talks about what factors influence
"Affordable housing is a scam, and is intentionally designed to bring 'dysfunctional people' into 'stable communities.'"
EXPLAIN
"Affordable housing is "for importing infinite minorities that kill the culture of your home town."
EXPLAIN
"The housing crisis was intentionally caused by our government allowing 'endless migration' and a weak border."
This is just racism when you read the tweet. This narrative is conspiratorial, delusional, and honestly insane.