Demolish inner cities.

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

25mpg is a rather high claim for low income car owners. For the most part the rest of the argument holds true, with some reservations considering single parents and $700 rent, but for all the other factors to be true, you're not going to be driving a car that gets 25mpg.

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Funny, my car is 35 mpg and that's at the low end here. Plus in general small (ie cheap) cars here have a higher fuel efficiency than bigger cars, all other things equal. I got the 25mpg figure from a headline of that being the average for new cars in the USA. My fuel efficiency dropped when I got this car as despite being newer so more efficient, its a bigger car than my budget model I'd had before.

I understand that those on a budget won't be driving new cars, but I'd have expected those on a budget in the USA would (like here) choose the (relatively) smaller and more fuel efficient cars. I don't imagine anyone choosing to buy a big beast of a gas guzzler if they're spending an implausible 90% of their income on transport and housing. If housing and transport were so expensive people would get the most economical and cheapest model they could - Especially since food isn't counted in that 90%.

They'd buy a 10-year-old used car. Though that would save them money on the car depreciation (from my equation).

The 90% number came from multiple sources sussing out relative Costs of Living. People living in ex-urban or suburban areas pay a premium for transportation that urban (inner city) residents don't. On many job applications, having a car weighs heavily --- if you rely on public transportation it's not as "good" as having your own car. But having your own car can be very expensive when it includes price of gas and insurance.

I.E. You made it up.

Please provide those multiple sources that show 90%

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Originally Posted by Loki

They'd buy a 10-year-old used car. Though that would save them money on the car depreciation (from my equation).

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That 10 yr old car guzzles gas. And it means more maintenance costs when manufacturers stop making replacement parts for older vehicles, and "older" means anything beyond ten years. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by GGT

The 90% number came from multiple sources sussing out relative Costs of Living. People living in ex-urban or suburban areas pay a premium for transportation that urban (inner city) residents don't. On many job applications, having a car weighs heavily --- if you rely on public transportation it's not as "good" as having your own car. But having your own car can be very expensive when it includes price of gas and insurance.

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Care to share any of those multiple source?

Especially since the places with the highest poverty rates are also places where a one-bedroom apartment goes for $400 a month and buying a beat-up vehicle for $2k isn't a problem.

Wow, excuse me for suggesting that COL is relative. Pardon me for reminding everyone that transportation and property 'ownership' are related to employment and income.

$400 a month spent sub-letting an apartment in Manhattan with rent control and public transit isn't the same as spending $400 a month anywhere else. :donkey:

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Originally Posted by GGT

Wow, excuse me for suggesting that COL is relative. Pardon me for reminding everyone that transportation and property 'ownership' are related to employment and income.

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Well excuse us for asking a source which you claim to have multiple of. How dare we wanting to see facts! I can only apologise.

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Originally Posted by Flixy

Well excuse us for asking a source which you claim to have multiple of. How dare we wanting to see facts! I can only apologise.

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See the US Census, the OMB, or any other agency collecting employment/labor statistics. :bored:

edit: I'm not aware of any one way to figure the true costs of living ;)

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Funny, my car is 35 mpg and that's at the low end here. Plus in general small (ie cheap) cars here have a higher fuel efficiency than bigger cars, all other things equal. I got the 25mpg figure from a headline of that being the average for new cars in the USA. My fuel efficiency dropped when I got this car as despite being newer so more efficient, its a bigger car than my budget model I'd had before.

I understand that those on a budget won't be driving new cars, but I'd have expected those on a budget in the USA would (like here) choose the (relatively) smaller and more fuel efficient cars. I don't imagine anyone choosing to buy a big beast of a gas guzzler if they're spending an implausible 90% of their income on transport and housing. If housing and transport were so expensive people would get the most economical and cheapest model they could - Especially since food isn't counted in that 90%.

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They buy what they can get their hands on. Predatory car loans are a big problem in the US, especially for low income families. My 2007 Saturn Ion 3 is rated at 24/32 and after 8 years I'm squeaking by with 20mpg in the city, and thats with full dealership maintenance. According to kbb my car is still worth over $6k, and its from a defunct brand. Minivans are very popular modes of transportation for lower incomes because they've been abused to hell and back and have a steep depreciation curve as the years wear on, and my 2013 Town and Country is only rated at 17/25 mpg.

And don't forget to factor in as the age of the car increases, so does the cost of maintenance. You get to a point where it would be a better bet to junk your car and wear down another instead of getting something like a transmission replaced. Not to mention the risk that unreliable or problematic transportation can have on employment for this class of people.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Yeah, because the problem for people without skills is their lack of access to jobs that require skilled workers.

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It's pretty simple. It makes sense to meet supply with demand. If a significant urban area (like my city) can't get to the demand (Boston), it will wilt. And it has been.

GGT: in failed inner cities, there's little opportunity because of a compounding of poverty and crime rate. Therefore, what does it matter if the job is close? The only job available is going to be joining a gang, or worse.

GGT, I think you are taking my inner city mention a bit too literally. It's obviously not a problem if there is already low crime and a wealth of opportunities. But we are talking about the other end of the scale. Urban areas can be either.

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Originally Posted by agamemnus

GGT, I think you are taking my inner city mention a bit too literally. It's obviously not a problem if there is already low crime and a wealth of opportunities. But we are talking about the other end of the scale. Urban areas can be either.

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Then why not explore the reasons behind inner-city successes, and try to replicate them?

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Originally Posted by GGT

Then why not explore the reasons behind inner-city successes, and try to replicate them?

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Success breeds success. Failure breeds failure. Politics has a lot to do with it. The poorest cities in a particular state, by and large, keep voting in populist politicians, who keep proposing *and implementing* failed policies. If you look at the latest poll data, my city was voting for huge Democratic majorities -- much bigger than even Boston. And yet it's one of the poorest cities in the state on a per capita basis.

Sometimes you have to drain the swamp and demolish the inner cities. But, since we're not China, it won't happen.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Seriously? Suburban sprawl is what is working.

All over it is the inner cities or extremely rural that struggle, the suburban sprawl works. It has the best of both worlds, space of your own to breathe and connections to work and live.

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Suburban sprawl is NOT working. It's pretty easy to romanticize life in the US, since we've bought into the same propaganda ourselves. But "space to breathe and connections to work and live" only applies to people with means/assets, which includes/indights most politicians. :(

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Originally Posted by agamemnus

Success breeds success. Failure breeds failure. Politics has a lot to do with it. The poorest cities in a particular state, by and large, keep voting in populist politicians, who keep proposing *and implementing* failed policies. If you look at the latest poll data, my city was voting for huge Democratic majorities -- much bigger than even Boston. And yet it's one of the poorest cities in the state on a per capita basis.

Sometimes you have to drain the swamp and demolish the inner cities. But, since we're not China, it won't happen.

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What do you say about urban living that's attractive to millions of people....because they can walk or bike or take a train to the nearest farmer's market, or restaurant?

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Originally Posted by GGT

Suburban sprawl is NOT working. It's pretty easy to romanticize life in the US, since we've bought into the same propaganda ourselves. But "space to breathe and connections to work and live" only applies to people with means/assets, which includes/indights most politicians. :(

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Provide a valid source for that claim please.

This is going to be difficult without some sources. If you have objections to the methodology used in the following sources then obv you are free to give a qualified guess as to what the true numbers are likely to be. ps. obv single mothers should hook up with dudes for financial reasons

Housing Affordability in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area
http://cra.gmu.edu/pdfs/CRA_census_r...ordability.pdf

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“In the period following the economic downturn (2009-2011), nearly half of renters and a third of homeowners in the Washington DC metropolitan area spent 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs.”

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(does not include transportation costs, the second greatest expense. Does not seem to include food, insurance etc either. Consider differences between low- and median-income households)


2012 report on housing and transportation costs in the 25 largest metropolitan areas (Center for Housing Policy and Center for Neighborhood Technology)
http://www.nhc.org/media/files/LosingGround_10_2012.pdf
http://www.nhc.org/media/Losing-Grou...2-Release.html

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“Housing and transportation costs rose faster than income during the 2000s, increasing the burden that these costs placed on already stretched budgets. This held true for each of the 25 largest metropolitan areas, though the disparity was greater in some areas than others. For all households, including homeowners who have paid off their mortgage, housing and transportation together consumed an average of 48 percent of the median household’s income by decade’s end.

Moderate-income households pay a disproportionate share. For households earning 50 to 100 percent of the median income of their metropolitan area, nearly three-fifths (59 percent) of income goes to housing and transportation costs. For these households, the growing costs of place are particularly burdensome, leaving relatively little left over for expenses such as food, education, and health care, not to mention savings.

The combined burden of housing and transportation costs is greatest where costs are out of sync with local incomes; these are not always the places with the highest absolute costs. In some metro areas, such as Washington, DC, Boston, and San Francisco, high costs are matched by relatively high incomes, helping moderate-income households better afford their housing and transportation costs. But other regions, such as Riverside-San Bernardino, CA, Miami, and Los
Angeles, have moderate or even high housing and transportation costs in spite of relatively low median incomes. In these metro areas, combined cost burdens for moderate-income households are very high, with average burdens ranging from 65 to 72 percent of household income.
¨

Transportation costs still shape differences in the overall affordability of metro areas. Six years later, it remains as important as ever to consider transportation costs along with housing prices in measuring overall affordability. The inclusion of transportation costs affects the relative affordability of many metro areas. For example, housing costs in the Houston region are comparatively affordable as a share of income, ranking eighth out of the 25 regions examined. When transportation costs are included, however, Houston drops into 17th place, as one of the less affordable regions for the combined costs of housing and transportation.

In contrast, metro areas such as San Francisco, Boston, and New York are some of the least affordable regions for local moderate-income households when just housing is considered, but are among the most affordable when housing and transportation costs are considered together.

Moderate-income homeowners carry heavier cost burdens than renters.
For the typical moderate-income renter, housing and transportation costs consume an average of 55 percent of income. Moderate-income homeowners carrying a mortgage face average costs of nearly 72 percent of income.

Cost burdens for moderate-income households vary substantially within metro areas. Even in metro areas where average cost burdens are relatively affordable, there are many neighborhoods that are out of reach for moderate-income households. In the Philadelphia region, for example, moderate-income households are faced with average housing and transportation costs exceeding 90 percent of their income in some neighborhoods.


[…]

The Philadelphia metro area is a good example of the degree
to which combined cost burdens can vary within a region.
The average cost burden for moderate-income households in
the metro area is 52 percent — the second lowest of the 25
metro areas studied. But in some of the region’s neighbor
-
hoods, moderate-income households are faced with average
housing and transportation costs exceeding 90 percent of
their income, while in other neighborhoods, combined cost
burdens are less than 25 percent of income”

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ps. I haven't gone through the reports in detail but I imagine they haven't really looked at whether or not someone works "full time" even though they've looked at annual income etc.

I.E. If a middle class person lives in central Manhattan. :bored: They don't actually say if there are people like that. Just that if a middle class person happened to live in a handful of super expensive neighborhoods, they wouldn't be in good shape. To say that this is extremely misleading is a massive understatement.

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Originally Posted by agamemnus

My city has had societal problems for decades. I won't get too deep into what they are at the moment as I think I covered that over the years. Edit: I've seen a documentary on Detroit and some other cities. Oh boy... well, it's nothing like that, but it will get there if nothing is done.

I don't think the buildings should just be demolished and rebuilt. I think that the roads should be completely redesigned in large sections of the city center. For the past 10 years we've had an increasing problem of overpopulation in the schools due to lax zoning laws. Too many poor and uneducated families with too many children concentrated in one place. A high density of, for lack of a better word, high density, creates problems.

Regarding the zoning laws, we do of course have them. One family with 1-2 kids in a small apartment is not the same as one family with 3-5 kids in a small apartment. There's a vast difference, but to the zoning laws it is the same.

It's all just a compounding effect. It's not just one thing. Poor access to Boston (where wages are higher), plus a heavy population density leads to crime and noise nuisance. This leads to a poor study environment for kids and exacerbates the problem. Etcetera.

Let me be clear that I am not advocating for putting people in giant apartment buildings. We have that and it is just as bad. Plus, as I'm sure many of you know, that approach has been tried many times and failed.

There is only one approach that truly works: demolish inner cities.

Edit: note that I am not advocating for demolishing cities, just inner cities. High density is good when there is financial opportunity, and high levels of education and civility. Poor and culturally uneducated people in the US tend to get dumped into inner cities by sheer populist politics and economics. Baltimore.

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Ag, I don't have time to address this in detail, but a counterfactual to suggest that your city's problems aren't likely to be solved by your plan.

I, also, live in the Boston area, but I live in a ridiculously expensive neighborhood just west of the city. Stupid zoning laws have restricted the supply of housing and kept most housing relatively low density given its desirability and location, meaning that prices have been driven up to absurd levels, houses are routinely subdivided into small apartments and rented for ludicrous amounts, and many more people cram into homes than they were originally designed for. Indeed, just like your own town, the schools are overflowing, even as property tax revenue (the city's main revenue generator) has not kept pace. Though it is almost certainly more accessible to Boston, our transport links are quite congested, and the absolutely awful train system (Green Line) is the oldest in America, and shows it - my commute is 45 minutes by train for ~3 miles, or about 15 minutes by bike (albeit at significant risk to my life).

On the face of it, you'd think that my neighborhood should face the same challenges that yours does - overcrowding, inadequate space in schools, poor transportation infrastructure. Yet my neighborhood is home to some of the most desirable real estate in New England, fantastic schools (albeit currently a bit overcrowded, which is being addressed with a property tax rise that was just approved in a referendum), and a populace full of young, upwardly mobile, highly educated professionals (along with a number of rich oldsters who can afford to own homes).

The differences are many, I have no doubt, but I don't think that overcrowding itself leads to poverty and crime. I personally think that my town's problems could be mitigated by higher population density driven by a dramatically expanded housing supply and improved transit infrastructure. I suspect that your town has other problems, which have a lot more do to with the demographics and possibly geography of your town rather than overpopulation per se. Density need not be a problem - it can be a symptom of desirability. What matters is who your town attracts, and that speaks to a much broader and complex array of issues.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Funny, my car is 35 mpg and that's at the low end here. Plus in general small (ie cheap) cars here have a higher fuel efficiency than bigger cars, all other things equal. I got the 25mpg figure from a headline of that being the average for new cars in the USA. My fuel efficiency dropped when I got this car as despite being newer so more efficient, its a bigger car than my budget model I'd had before.

I understand that those on a budget won't be driving new cars, but I'd have expected those on a budget in the USA would (like here) choose the (relatively) smaller and more fuel efficient cars. I don't imagine anyone choosing to buy a big beast of a gas guzzler if they're spending an implausible 90% of their income on transport and housing. If housing and transport were so expensive people would get the most economical and cheapest model they could - Especially since food isn't counted in that 90%.

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RB, be careful comparing these numbers. UK gallons are 20% bigger than US gallons.

Really? Not using the metric system wasn't confusing enough, so you don't even use the same imperial system? :p

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or about 15 minutes by bike (albeit at significant risk to my life).

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Significant risk? Really that bad?

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Originally Posted by Flixy

Really? Not using the metric system wasn't confusing enough, so you don't even use the same imperial system? :p

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Indeed, it's one of the most egregious problems with the imperial system. The US at least doesn't have unambiguous claim to being the worst offender here - the UK officially adopted a modified 'ale gallon' at roughly the same time the US adopted the 'wine gallon'. I think.

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Significant risk? Really that bad?

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Streets here are badly designed for bikes and cars to coexist peacefully, and drivers are awful in general and specifically in terms of being careful of bikes. Injuries are common and deaths are not uncommon - just a year or two ago a postdoc in my institution was killed going through an intersection I frequent. Lots of blind corners, poorly situated or nonexistent bike lanes, and double parked cars abound. I'd say my biggest danger daily is crossing the Charles - there's a too-small bridge that has major roads on either side of it and is always ridiculously congested. Bikes are often an afterthought.

To make it more confusing we buy our fuel in litres at the pump, but cars are marketed by their MPG figure. My dashboard display shows my real MPG usage as an average and current figure too. Considering that we pump fuel in litres it'd make more sense to have an MPL figure but we don't.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

Ag, I don't have time to address this in detail, but a counterfactual to suggest that your city's problems aren't likely to be solved by your plan.

I, also, live in the Boston area, but I live in a ridiculously expensive neighborhood just west of the city. Stupid zoning laws have restricted the supply of housing and kept most housing relatively low density given its desirability and location, meaning that prices have been driven up to absurd levels, houses are routinely subdivided into small apartments and rented for ludicrous amounts, and many more people cram into homes than they were originally designed for. Indeed, just like your own town, the schools are overflowing, even as property tax revenue (the city's main revenue generator) has not kept pace. Though it is almost certainly more accessible to Boston, our transport links are quite congested, and the absolutely awful train system (Green Line) is the oldest in America, and shows it - my commute is 45 minutes by train for ~3 miles, or about 15 minutes by bike (albeit at significant risk to my life).

On the face of it, you'd think that my neighborhood should face the same challenges that yours does - overcrowding, inadequate space in schools, poor transportation infrastructure. Yet my neighborhood is home to some of the most desirable real estate in New England, fantastic schools (albeit currently a bit overcrowded, which is being addressed with a property tax rise that was just approved in a referendum), and a populace full of young, upwardly mobile, highly educated professionals (along with a number of rich oldsters who can afford to own homes).

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Your post covered things pretty well, even without the "proper citations" expected of my posts. :bored: One important thing you didn't (directly) address is that a generation (or two) of Bostonians have been priced-out of their neighborhood due to (a) vanishing blue collar jobs, and (b) real estate/property gentrification.

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The differences are many, I have no doubt, but I don't think that overcrowding itself leads to poverty and crime. I personally think that my town's problems could be mitigated by higher population density driven by a dramatically expanded housing supply and improved transit infrastructure. I suspect that your town has other problems, which have a lot more do to with the demographics and possibly geography of your town rather than overpopulation per se. Density need not be a problem - it can be a symptom of desirability.

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Agreed, but too often politicians use "density" as a negative (because it will drive up taxes to pay for public transportation), or they'll frame it as a negative for public schools (because the CEO's kids will attend the same schools as shop-owners or domestic workers kids do).

Rand, that's why suburban sprawl isn't working in the US. We don't have the same type of "universal" public education, healthcare, or transportation that you do in the UK. Apples to oranges.

I'm back to this thread after last week's interview of Bill de Blasio by Jon Stewart.

wiggin: density isn't a problem by itself, sure, I agree. If you leave such problems as you described to fester long enough, people who are wealthy are going to tire of such conditions and move out. Those who aren't will stay. It will eventually turn bad.

Back to the interview.... so many liberal policies. At least it is not as bad as that Bernie Sanders (who wants to socialize universities so that every professor earns a wage set by a bureaucratic committee), but still, Jon gave the guy a totally free pass owing to Jon's own bias.

De Blasio was suggesting thousands of new subsidized housing units, for example, to make New York City affordable. But, again as discussed, Section 8 housing tends to group together and depress neighborhood values. The guy's ideas all revolve around "whacking the mole" from one place to the other... good in theory, almost certainly bad in practice. For example, why is New York City not affordable? Is it because of a conspiracy of private enterprise? That question needs to be asked before we decide that "regular people" like teachers and nurses, who cannot afford NYC living and therefore must face a long commute, need "affordable" (code for cheap) housing.

If the commute is long and these teachers and nurses are taking it, why are they taking the commute instead of teaching somewhere else? Is the argument to be made that without housing price controls, the people cede an entire city to the wealthy and only those who can afford private teachers? Ok, then make the argument that major city centers should not be monopolized and gated by the wealthy. Let's just be forthcoming about what exactly we don't like about this and what are all the hypothetical options. Let's not be building affordable housing that would very possibly turn into dilapidated rat holes without exquisite oversight.

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Originally Posted by agamemnus

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For example, why is New York City not affordable? Is it because of a conspiracy of private enterprise? That question needs to be asked before we decide that "regular people" like teachers and nurses, who cannot afford NYC living and therefore must face a long commute, need "affordable" (code for cheap) housing.

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NYC is unaffordable because it's valuable real estate with space limitations. Rent is high because the property owner (landlord) has to meet his loan obligations -- multi-million dollar loans only super wealthy or corporate partnerships can get in the first place -- and the costs trickle down to tenants.

*High income folks can get a mortgage to "buy" an apartment. But they're basically paying rent to the building owner (plus an HOA board), so it's more like having a condo or townhouse instead of owning a detached house outside the city.

*Low income folks can get HUD vouchers toward rent, but property owners aren't required to accept them (asfaik, but legislation depends on location).

*It's the middle income (or "regular people") who have the most trouble affording NYC housing. Unless they lucked into a rent-controlled place years ago, or illegally sub-let, they're priced out of the market.

No, there's no conspiracy....just poor planning and/or lack of coordination between the entities that make policies. But that's true practically everywhere in the US, not just NYC or major cities. :(

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If the commute is long and these teachers and nurses are taking it, why are they taking the commute instead of teaching somewhere else? Is the argument to be made that without housing price controls, the people cede an entire city to the wealthy and only those who can afford private teachers? Ok, then make the argument that major city centers should not be monopolized and gated by the wealthy. Let's just be forthcoming about what exactly we don't like about this and what are all the hypothetical options. Let's not be building affordable housing that would very possibly turn into dilapidated rat holes without exquisite oversight.

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People will make long commutes to work when it's easier to find less expensive housing and modes of transportation, than a higher paying job. :bored: Highway congestion and high gas prices impacts every commuter driving a car to work, but it's doubly hard for people living paycheck-to-paycheck when there's no bus or train option from their 'affordable' rural or exurban home.

Let's be honest here --- since there will always be an elite, wealthy class....there will always be exclusive and/or gated communities to meet their demands. Likewise, since there will always be a segment of society that's poor or struggling to get out of poverty....there will always be public subsidies or programs to assist their needs. The trick is figuring out how to grow the middle (the people in-between, that make up the majority) or at least keep them from falling backward.

IMO, the recent global financial meltdown and Great Recession exposed so many institutional and systemic flaws, those complexities only made it too easy to turn everything into simplistic parts (Right/Left, Liberal/Conservative, Democrat/Republican, Employer/Employee, Landlord/Tenant, etc.) that doesn't solve anything. :(

My basic problem with so many liberal policies is that they don't fix the problem, they just push it somewhere else. Cities that are rich can afford liberal policies -- for a time, anyway. Did I mention the crazy old guy in the hospital bed next to me a few years back...?

Which 'conservative' policies fixes the problems, and doesn't push them somewhere else, too? :confused: