.

[Averroës Nix]

-

[progressive85]

Oh yeah.  The cities are packed lousy - boiling hot and humid in the summer, crowded masses yearn to be free - and we need to spread out.  There's sooooo much land in this country - so many small towns that could be really prosperous with some fresh industries and new peeps.  It's time to empty out the cities - they are too packed.

[AGA]

The only major American city that is actually densely populated is New York. And I'm not sure how much of an effect population density has on virus spread since a lot of rural areas were hit as hard as cities. Cities just tended to have outbreaks earlier due to travel.

[CEO Mindset]

no

there's lots of other things it should make us reconsider and by reconsider i mean "drop entirely" though like high modernist society/technocracy, the educational-employment pipeline, prussian model of schools(we should have let the war go on long enough to use fat boy and little man on berlin and vienna just for that, idgaf about alleged ww2 atrocities) among many others

[Former President tack50]

Oh yeah.  The cities are packed lousy - boiling hot and humid in the summer, crowded masses yearn to be free - and we need to spread out.  There's sooooo much land in this country - so many small towns that could be really prosperous with some fresh industries and new peeps.  It's time to empty out the cities - they are too packed.

There is a very big difference between trying to revitalize rural areas and small towns and suburbanization. In fact, they have absolutely nothing in common.

The fact that the US has empty land for building suburbs very far out does not mean that it should.

[Former President tack50]

While I agree with your post, I think the answer to this should be no. The pandemic will at some point be completely over; whether that is in 2022, 2024 or 2031. But it will end at some point with a full return to normal.

Perhaps a normal that is different from 2019's normal, but a normal close enough that I do not think any changes that end up as permanent significantly debunk the arguments in favour of urban densification.

I will admit I am not knowledgeable enough about the exact specifics of housing in the US but substandard housing quality in cities does not seem to me like something that has been particularly affected by the pandemic one way or another?

Regarding public transit, since it is relatively safe with masks and social distancing while there might be a reduction in mobility, it's probably not significant enough to matter much (and like I say it will be temporary. Eventually, at some point, the pandemic will be over)

As for schooling, that is an issue with public officials elected; that have been too cautious with schools opening or closing. If they keep being reelected by city dwellers, that's their choice. I can say that here schools in urban areas were open just the same as those in suburban and in rural areas; and I am pretty sure I've been saying since September/October that schools are perfectly safe to reopen as long as some social distancing rules are kept (as well as other measures like "group bubbles").

I can however agree that people raised during covid might develop a dislike for city living and eventually want to move for the suburbs (moving to proper rural areas is not a possibility I will account for due to a lack of jobs). But if anything the biggest argument for that would be that many of the advantages of living in the city are reduced due to the pandemic and stuff being closed; so people growing up with it limited or absent might mean they need it less.

[Ferguson97]

Not sure if the data backs you up here. Aren't urban counties increasing in population and rural counties decreasing? It seems people want to move to the city, not from it.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

People choose to live in cities because the most prestigious and high paying jobs are there. I'm not sure what "rethinking urban densification" would mean other than incentivising companies to move to less dense areas, which would destroy knowledge clusters so there would be fewer of those good jobs to go around in the first place. Sounds bad.  

I don't think your OP really grapples with why cities exist in the first place. It's not because of dastardly urbanists forcing everyone because they have failed to "rethink" as you want them to.

[Antonio the Sixth]

American discourse around urban planning is so weird. Hearing people talk about it, it sounds like the alternative is between endless sprawling unwalkable suburbs with one giant strip mall every 10 miles and Manhattan-style hyper-packed city living where everyone lives in 10 square feet apartments. There's plenty of other forms of urban planning around, and in particular, the idea that a place has to be very dense in order to be walkable seems perverse to me.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

This is a ridiculous assertion. People live in cities for many reasons, not all of which qualify as choices. I don't know how anyone who has spent so much as five minutes thinking about cities could believe something so reductive.

In aggregate employment is the driver of population. Why did San Jose's population double from 1980 to today? Because of Silicon Valley providing a cluster of well-paying jobs. Why did Buffalo lose population over the same period? Because manufacturing declined. Why did the United States go from 40% urban in 1900 to 80% urban in 2010? Because agriculture shed jobs to services, that cluster in cities. Why is Manhattan so dense and expensive? Because Wall Street is located there.

If a city stops producing value, its density will fall:



I suppose we should congratulate Detroit for "rethinking" urban densification.

It sounds like you lack imagination. The point of reconsidering urban density in the United States is exactly that, to think about the subject, especially the assumption that living in a place with greater population density is bound to be a positive change for those involved.

I don't know what this means. Quite frankly it reminds me of a contentless slogan like "reimagine the police". Like ok you have a poor opinion of the police, now what? If you have an argument, make it.

Whether or not one thinks population density is great in and of itself, it's the product of millions of individual choices. Cities are dense because millions of people want to live in them, and people build houses to accommodate the wish of many people to live in them. Insofar as urbanists promote density, it's so that people can afford to live where they want. And the wealth of the modern economy is driven by the value-added of these dense clusters of people.

It might be the case that density will reverse itself due to WFH becoming more widespread so people don't have to live near the office anymore. That would be great. But I'm not sure it would be the result of a grand "rethinking" of density as a concept.

[Ferguson97]

Density has overwhelming economic and environmental benefits, I don't really see why we should rethink it.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

This is not a policy argument. It's not even a piece of advocacy. It's just a challenge to an increasingly common assumption about how the country will change in the coming decades, i.e. that more children will grow up not caring about owning a house or a car, or, at least, content to live without them.

Your challenge is "density is unhealthy", which everyone knows. The point is that density is unhealthy and everyone knows it, and people still move to dense areas in droves. Why? Because that's where jobs are. Simply pointing out that cities have smaller housing than the suburbs is just banal, unless you grapple with why people accept that inferior housing. 

That's why I mentioned WFH, because if that becomes widespread and people can get good jobs in the city without having to live there, many people many take advantage of it and density would reduce. Of course we don't know the extent of the impact that would have. It could turn out to be minor. But that's a more interesting and plausible mechanism than QoL disparities that have been around forever.

[Former President tack50]

People choose to live in cities because the most prestigious and high paying jobs are there.

This is a ridiculous assertion. People live in cities for many reasons, not all of which qualify as choices. I don't know how anyone who has spent so much as five minutes thinking about cities could believe something so reductive.

I mean, the fact is that cities (or to be precise, metropolitan areas) grow because that is where the good jobs are for the most part. You aren't going to find much employment in rural areas these days. This might be a bad thing but it's definitely true.

I would agree with you that it is not a choice in most cases to move to the big city, people are forced to simply because they can't find a job in a rural area they'd prefer to be in. But jobs and employment are the main thing that shapes population increases and declines.

Of course this does not mean anything to the debate of suburban densification or not; plenty of people do move to metropolitan areas, but not to the city centre; but rather to some far away suburb or exurb and commute.

[Del Tachi]

The most important effect of the pandemic on America's urban areas will be how it accelerated a transition to remote work.  Say what you want about future pandemics or the "amenity value" of locked-down cities, the high land rents that drive further urban densification and redevelopment cannot be maintained if even a sizeable minority of managers/workers maintain a preference for remote work.  The entire justification for the existence of cities (i.e, agglomeration) diminishes the more and more digital networks replace physical ones.

[Хahar 🤔]

The most important effect of the pandemic on America's urban areas will be how it accelerated a transition to remote work.  Say what you want about future pandemics or the "amenity value" of locked-down cities, the high land rents that drive further urban densification and redevelopment cannot be maintained if even a sizeable minority of managers/workers maintain a preference for remote work.  The entire justification for the existence of cities (i.e, agglomeration) diminishes the more and more digital networks replace physical ones.

In my view, there are two ways that remote work could transform settlement patterns. (Even though I'm framing this as an either/or, in reality we'll get some mixture of the two.) In one scenario, people stop going to the office altogether. This would lead them to move to places that are seen as desirable but don't currently have much in the way of employment opportunities; in particular, we'd see (and we have already begun to see) migration toward mountains and toward the coast. In the other scenario, employers move to a model where employees spend two days in the office and the other three at home. In that case, we'd expect to see heavy growth in the exurbs. A commute of an hour and a half each way is intolerable if you have to do it every single day, but you can probably suck it up twice a week if it means you get to buy a house with a yard.

Crucially, in neither case do mid-sized cities at the confluence of two rivers or the like benefit. The idea that remote work would lead to a revitalization of places like Peoria, which lack both geographic desirability and cultural amenities, seems to me to be a pipe dream. Settlement in the future will be driven far more by aesthetic suitability and far less by geographic function.

[John Dule]

I have thought about this for the past year, but my ultimate view is no. If anything, we need to be living in denser communities, not spreading out.

Cities have been cesspools of disease and contagion ever since they first developed. Covid is not unique in its ability to spread better in cities than in rural areas; those are the risks of playing the game. The answer to this, however, is to build cities in ways that more efficiently segregate habitable areas from waste-- not to continue the endlessly wasteful downward spiral of suburbanization that has transformed Americans into sedentary, lard-filled heaps of impotent pale flesh.

If you are comparing suburban living standards with those of a run-down government housing project in the urban core, then yeah, there's no comparison-- nobody wants to live in those places. But density does not automatically mean destitution. In my area, there are dozens of new condominiums and apartment complexes that are safe, healthy, and relatively cheap to live in. I can walk to my school in ten minutes, to the store in five, and pretty much anywhere else I need to be in under 20. There is decent public transport, I'm getting exercise, and I don't need to own a car. Do I run a slightly higher risk of getting the virus? Maybe-- especially given the fact that I've got roommates I'm renting my apartment with. But that is a small price to pay for living in a place that is not fundamentally designed to be hostile to human life.

Still, the "densification" people only get half of the equation right. It's not so much about density as it is about zoning. My childhood home was miles away from the nearest grocery store, which made daily car errands an absolute necessity. Why are Americans so terrified of commercial zoning in residential areas? When one of those hideous cookie-cutter housing developments are built, why don't the developers even try to include commercial zoning? All you really need is a small grocery store, a drugstore, a hardware store, a clothing store, a UPS or FedEx, a couple restaurants, a cleaners, and some adequate pathways connecting them, and boom-- you've halved the necessary weekly car trips for that community. If America's suburbs looked like this, I would be far less negative about them. But whenever a new "development" is built these days, you can be damn sure that it'll be an inefficient blight on the landscape, a dystopian hellish nightmare of dead-end streets with no sidewalks and hideous identical lawns that waste unbelievable amounts of water. There is literally nothing redeeming about these types of neighborhoods.

[_.]

Very interesting thread

[Ferguson97]

I have thought about this for the past year, but my ultimate view is no. If anything, we need to be living in denser communities, not spreading out.

Cities have been cesspools of disease and contagion ever since they first developed. Covid is not unique in its ability to spread better in cities than in rural areas; those are the risks of playing the game. The answer to this, however, is to build cities in ways that more efficiently segregate habitable areas from waste-- not to continue the endlessly wasteful downward spiral of suburbanization that has transformed Americans into sedentary, lard-filled heaps of impotent pale flesh.

If you are comparing suburban living standards with those of a run-down government housing project in the urban core, then yeah, there's no comparison-- nobody wants to live in those places. But density does not automatically mean destitution. In my area, there are dozens of new condominiums and apartment complexes that are safe, healthy, and relatively cheap to live in. I can walk to my school in ten minutes, to the store in five, and pretty much anywhere else I need to be in under 20. There is decent public transport, I'm getting exercise, and I don't need to own a car. Do I run a slightly higher risk of getting the virus? Maybe-- especially given the fact that I've got roommates I'm renting my apartment with. But that is a small price to pay for living in a place that is not fundamentally designed to be hostile to human life.

Still, the "densification" people only get half of the equation right. It's not so much about density as it is about zoning. My childhood home was miles away from the nearest grocery store, which made daily car errands an absolute necessity. Why are Americans so terrified of commercial zoning in residential areas? When one of those hideous cookie-cutter housing developments are built, why don't the developers even try to include commercial zoning? All you really need is a small grocery store, a drugstore, a hardware store, a clothing store, a UPS or FedEx, a couple restaurants, a cleaners, and some adequate pathways connecting them, and boom-- you've halved the necessary weekly car trips for that community. If America's suburbs looked like this, I would be far less negative about them. But whenever a new "development" is built these days, you can be damn sure that it'll be an inefficient blight on the landscape, a dystopian hellish nightmare of dead-end streets with no sidewalks and hideous identical lawns that waste unbelievable amounts of water. There is literally nothing redeeming about these types of neighborhoods.

Wonderfully put, I could not agree more.

[Agonized-Statism]

Top priority is making decent housing as affordable and accessible as possible for everyone, no matter what configuration that would require (I'm open to everyone's takes on that; I personally like suburbs best but the transportation and housing price issues need to be solved). Everything else follows. People who throw things like culture and aesthetics into urban planning discussions have clearly satisfied more of Maslow's hierarchy than many other Americans.