"The reason to mandate things is when you have reason to fear that people won’t want to go do them on their own."
I think this inadvertently strikes at the heart of why suburbs ended up getting mandated like this in the first place: Because single-family-detached-only suburbs are a financial lie. They simply aren't dense enough to raise the revenue necessary to pay for their own roads every 20 years, let alone the sewers and electric and other infrastructure they need. (https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money)
The only way to keep the lie going is to create the illusion that any other development pattern is simply intolerable - too noisy, too crowded, too much traffic, etc. - and create the illusion of luxurious, comfortable growth with endless strip malls.
And you have to create this illusion universally. You have to make other development patterns look so alien, so threatening, so rare, that people won't start asking questions when the numbers stop adding up - they'll just keep looking to you for more illusory growth.
Otherwise, people start noticing that the other development patterns aren't so bad. That maybe it IS okay to not have a yard, or to be able to walk to your grocery store.
The minute people realize that there are alternatives, and start to build those alternatives, then the growth disappears. Without it, all the people who *still want their single family homes* would have to either actually start paying their fair share, or settle for less-idyllic amenities: a private street instead of a public one, perhaps eventually replaced with far-more-affordable gravel. Or even - *shudder* - have to live in mixed-development neighborhoods *with THOSE people*.
It's not that all these people, or even the leaders, understand all this intellectually, and are doing it intentionally. It's just the same sort of competition for resources that we all feel on an inchoate level. Everyone understands that if growth isn't happening here, then it's happening somewhere else. But what makes single-family-detached-only suburbs different, is that they're so unproductive, the only thing sustaining them is the growth. A village or downtown full of dense, mixed-use structures is resilient enough to handily refuse to raze 8 square blocks for a new Wal-Mart. But that same Wal-Mart is LIFE to everyone in the single-family-detached-only neighborhoods who are relying on it to keep their property tax bills down.
From The Comments: The Single-Family Lie
From The Comments: The Single-Family Lie
From The Comments: The Single-Family Lie
RE Matt Yglesias today.
(Image borrowed from him)
"The reason to mandate things is when you have reason to fear that people won’t want to go do them on their own."
I think this inadvertently strikes at the heart of why suburbs ended up getting mandated like this in the first place: Because single-family-detached-only suburbs are a financial lie. They simply aren't dense enough to raise the revenue necessary to pay for their own roads every 20 years, let alone the sewers and electric and other infrastructure they need. (https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money)
The only way to keep the lie going is to create the illusion that any other development pattern is simply intolerable - too noisy, too crowded, too much traffic, etc. - and create the illusion of luxurious, comfortable growth with endless strip malls.
And you have to create this illusion universally. You have to make other development patterns look so alien, so threatening, so rare, that people won't start asking questions when the numbers stop adding up - they'll just keep looking to you for more illusory growth.
Otherwise, people start noticing that the other development patterns aren't so bad. That maybe it IS okay to not have a yard, or to be able to walk to your grocery store.
The minute people realize that there are alternatives, and start to build those alternatives, then the growth disappears. Without it, all the people who *still want their single family homes* would have to either actually start paying their fair share, or settle for less-idyllic amenities: a private street instead of a public one, perhaps eventually replaced with far-more-affordable gravel. Or even - *shudder* - have to live in mixed-development neighborhoods *with THOSE people*.
It's not that all these people, or even the leaders, understand all this intellectually, and are doing it intentionally. It's just the same sort of competition for resources that we all feel on an inchoate level. Everyone understands that if growth isn't happening here, then it's happening somewhere else. But what makes single-family-detached-only suburbs different, is that they're so unproductive, the only thing sustaining them is the growth. A village or downtown full of dense, mixed-use structures is resilient enough to handily refuse to raze 8 square blocks for a new Wal-Mart. But that same Wal-Mart is LIFE to everyone in the single-family-detached-only neighborhoods who are relying on it to keep their property tax bills down.