How much they would have to pay???? I’m confused!!!!

Places like Lincoln Park (Chicago), Back Bay (Boston), the East Village (NYC) and North Beach (San Fran) are exactly what people do NOT want. The supply of such places is LARGER than the demand-or developers would build more of them.

Since these places are so massively unpopular, people would have to pay very little to live in them!!!!

Wow, these must be the cheapest neighborhoods in America.

Wait a minute…Why am I paying an enormous, enormous, enormous premium to live in a cheap neighborhood?

I don’t.

America will continue to do the wrong thing until it’s either too late, or almost too late. I’m betting on ~2025 for the wake-up, and I’d love to be pleasantly surprised.

Meanwhile, you’re still wrong.

cap,

Because you, unfortunately, are buying into them.

Oh, Garyg, you’re doing all this for me? I had no idea you still cared. That night seems so long ago!

Because you, unfortunately, are buying into them.

JDF,

I think Leinberger’s claim about what people want is just wishful thinking on his part. What matters is how people act in the real world, not what they tell a pollster they would like in the abstract during a 5-minute phone call. “Walkable urban arrangements” may sound attractive to many people until they see how much more they would have to pay for housing under such arrangements and how much more difficult it would be to get around.

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/02/10/how-to-save-the-suburbs-an-interview-with-christopher-leinberger/

The problem is that there has been little flexibility in planning. It’s almost all low density, car-depended single use: tract housing and big box stores.

Ryan Avent claims that curbing sprawl is an “imperative.” Yet the report he cites in this post to support that claim concludes that even a dramatic curbing of sprawl would produce only very minor benefits from energy and emissions savings.

If you seriously believe that transportation and land use policy, including policy governing the funding of highways, cannot be substantially altered through the political process, because it is controlled by entrenched “factions” that are immune to the forces of democracy, and that the “highway-motor complex” has the “tacit consent of the population” anyway, I’m not sure why you think the alternative policies you apparrently favor (mass transit, compact development, walkable neighborhoods, “smart growth,” etc.) have a chance of prevailing except in rare and isolated cases such as Arlington.

Also strictly-speaking this isn’t true either. The Highway Trust Fund is specifically removed from the political process so that politicians can’t be accused of favoritism in road-placement.

Design decisions are the sole domain of traffic engineers, it’s funded automatically via various taxes, and it directly benefits, via contracts, dozens of industries in hundreds of congressional districts. (See also: Defense Department contractors.)

The initial draft of the Interstate Highway System proposal failed because it was subject to political process, and Congressmen thus saw it as a liability. The 1956 revision established an independent ‘scientific’ body for which Congress could take only credit, never blame.

It has been running on autopilot since 1956, with our tacit consent alone.

Secondly, yes, by and large Americans do love automobiles, and are quite willing to burn nonrenewable fossil fuels to keep driving them. We’re a future-directed people who care not a whit for the futures after our own deaths.

Though the ‘highway-motor complex’ is by no means a product of democracy, it _does_ have the tacit consent of the population.

Centuries hence, I’d wager that middle to late twentieth century Americans are the most reviled people in all of the history of the world. We’ll deserve the hate.

You’re not answering the question. How was the government able to spend so much on highways, for so long, all over the country, if most people wanted the money to be spent in some other way (mass transit, compact development, etc.)? We live in democracy, not a dictatorship. Taxing and spending is controlled by the political process.

That’s not going to change overnight. It’s going to take at least another 30 years to clean up the mess.

Why do you think it’s going to change substantially at all? The advantages of cars and low density development that made them attractive to people 50 years ago are still advantages today.

And unlike the auto-oriented sprawlburbs, the real estate market in transit-oriented, walkable, bike-friendly Arlington isn’t collapsing into oblivion. These high prices suggest that the demand for good urbanism is substantial and largely unmet.

The market for auto-oriented sprawl is not “collapsing into oblivion.” The most recent data suggests that real estate prices in general are starting to rise again. You’re confusing a short-term bubble with a long-term trend. And prices in Arlington were also subject to the bubble.

And yes, there is obviously a significant grassroots movement for a shift towards transit, compact development, “smart growth,” etc. The streetsblog network is one illustration of that movement. But there’s no evidence that this movement is representative of the preferences of Americans in general. It’s not enough to have a small, passionate group of people. You need numbers. You need Americans in general to buy in to your arguments, and I just don’t see any serious evidence that they are.

I ask again, if most people prefer Arlington-type development, why is it so rare? What is preventing most people from using the political process to produce the kind of land use and transportation policies they prefer?

Oh, I don’t know, Gary but I suppose the cumulative government capital spent on highways since 1956 has a little something to do with it:

http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/07/22/highway-funding-the-last-bastion-of-socialism-in-america/

We’ve spent the last 70 years in this country sinking our nation’s wealth into the creation of auto-sprawlburbia. That’s not going to change overnight. It’s going to take at least another 30 years to clean up the mess.

One thing you’ll notice about Arlington — and pretty much every other example of good urbanism in the U.S. — is that real estate prices are extremely high. And unlike the auto-oriented sprawlburbs, the real estate market in transit-oriented, walkable, bike-friendly Arlington isn’t collapsing into oblivion. These high prices suggest that the demand for good urbanism is substantial and largely unmet.

Plenty of real estate developers have noticed. Over the last decade, private markets and public policies have started to come around to meet the demand for good urbanism. But new urbanist communities aren’t going to be erected overnight, especially when we’re building upon a legacy of 70 years-worth of planning, policy and development oriented toward the creation and growth of auto-sprawl.

You can go to pretty much any local planning meeting in any state in the U.S. today and you’ll find great grassroots passion and energy around these issues and lots of evidence of communities trying to reclaim their communities from autosprawl. You can find examples of Americans using their local political processes to fight for better development every single day at http://www.Streetsblog.net.

One objection to more development that I didn’t read mentioned is the property/school tax impact of increased density.

My village (a near-suburb of New York City) is revising its zoning code. A big objection to rezoning for more density is that it would bring about more residents of the town, and that means more kids in the schools. More kids means a tax increase — and a school bond issuance — to build more classrooms to fit these kids.

To keep taxes as-is, village residents can zone for the existing density, thus preventing denser building, and shunt population growth to the exurbs.

I don’t like this solution, but it is tough to argue against when the bottom line for most of my village’s residents is property/school taxes. I’d love to hear counter arguments that I can use. thanks.

You didn’t answer any of the questions, cap.

Oh, but I did.