Cities Growing Faster than the Burbs

I'm not suprised, the NYC suburbs are filled with a housing stock that goes back 50 to 100 years, who wants to have to maintain an old house. People today want the easy life, no car, doorman, 24 hour delivery, health club, walk to work and entertainment, etc.

burbs are overated. if the commute doesn't kill you, boredom will. backyard? whatever, go to the park and you have plenty of space.

Anyone with brains knows the exact opposite is happening.
NYC is the safest place on the PLANET!
The LAST place you want to be is some meth-addled rural hick town!

This story is overall, not necessarily for New York City, which has its own dynamics (and reasons why people choose city vs. suburbs).

In "normal" cities outside of New York, it's actually much more affordable to live in a nice-sized apartment inside the city than it is to live in the suburbs. And of course, the usual other reasons apply, including single people who value shorter commutes and public transportation to avoid buying a car.

Down with suburbs! People who live in cities should be in revolt against suburbanites, whose many amenities are subsidized by the city dwellers.

It starts with automobile-oriented roads, for which suburban car owners pay not a penny extra over non-drivers.

You don't generally pay any more per kilowatt-hour for electricity if you live far from the center of town, even though it costs a lot more to string those power lines across vast swaths of unfilled land. Same for water pipes and telephone lines. Suburbanites are getting their automobile-dependent lives subsidized.

Freestanding houses are a lot more wasteful of energy compared to city apartments, who share walls with one another, keeping heat inside and being much more energy-efficient. When Americans are excoriated for their wasteful energy habits, that's all suburbia. New Yorkers (read "Green Metropolis"; it's excellent) consume one-third the energy of exurbanites, on par with Europeans.

High-density cities surrounded by farmland represented the default living arrangement for humans for centuries until the automobile companies bought out the streetcars and foisted suburbia on America. I can't wait until those horrible suburbs are in history's dustbin and energy-efficient city living again becomes the default.

" I can't wait until those horrible suburbs are in history's dustbin and energy-efficient city living again becomes the default."

Oh city living is such a utopia.

Until the power goes out. For good.

Good luck with that then.

Triple,
A few of your point are a little not well-thought out, and I love the city and don't plan to leave it. Cities also need roads that cut through swaths of empty land. Where do you think NYC dumped its garbage? Also, to get out of the city on vacations, etc... we also need roads. And if you want your shipment of your favorite locally organic sourced food or cage free whatever, no one is going to walk it down to you. Essentially, the roads are necessary. The pollution derived from cities would probably make farming a bit difficult in the surrounding area.
Next, if all of those people demanded to live in the city, let's not start to talk about the supply-demand effects.

Down with child-bearers! People without children should be in revolt against child-bearers, whose many costs are subsidized by the child-less. Dollar for dollar, the child-bearers use more tax dollars per dollar earned while contributing less. They use more electricity, more gas, more space, more farmland, more of everything. The single worst action a person may take against the environment is to procreate, unleashing their progeny upon the environment for generations to come.

A human-free planet represented the living arrangement for the Earth for billions of years until those meddling homo-sapiens started taking up every corner of the planet. Go to Google Maps with satellite view and zoom in anywhere on France, the Earth has become a frightening checkerboard of farmland. I can't wait until humans are in history's dustbin and environmental living again becomes the default on this planet.

Hear, hear, Ino. Your last statement is a dead certainty.

Does anyone really expect a two sided debate on this website, which is all about new york CITY real estate?

Circle jerk much?

Hear, hear, Agent Smith.

inonada....great post!

the city/state rent subsidies provide a great market mover when it comes to the city vs. suburb. instead of not being able to afford the city and moving to the burbs, the government will allow me to stay in the city regardless of the expense to taxpayers! hip hip hooray for subsidies!

Thanks for the support, all.

I'm going to become the Grover Norquist of the environmental movement. I'll be proselytizing my message in Park Slope and will have people sign the Environmental Protection Pledge, commonly known as the no-stroller pledge. The pledge is not answerable to me, but rather to the community. Those who violate the pledge by letting one slip past the goalie will face judgement from their peers through excommunication from the Park Slope Food Coop.

You're flat out wrong, inonada.

There's no need to roll human behavior back 10,000 years to when the world was created. We can just go back to shortly after the discovery of the sidecar, when earth was truly the best of all possible worlds. 9,900 years of instant savings! Act now!

Sign the petition!

Ino, while your parody is hilarious, I'm not sure what you're trying to argue -- without children and without the perpetuation of humanity, arguments about how *human* society should be run become moot. Defending city living means defending sustainable human society -- childlessness, on the other hand, is necessarily something that decreases the future potential of the human race.

Not my fault he can't get laid

we should pay people to have kids. without immigration we are declining in numbers. look at Japan, in about 20 years there'll be more retired people than others. how are they going to pay for social security type of payments. in fact, loners like Ino should be taxes the highest.

TZ, I thought your goal was to minimize government redistribution of income/wealth and impact on the environment. I was just trying to help you best get there.

If we must all adhere to your value judgements of what society should look like and what impact we may have on the environment collectively, please state your goals clearly so we may all conform to your almighty goals.

Are we trying to just keep the collective impact on the environment stable to what it is now while maintaining humanity? In that case, may we all live in suburbia while only having one child so as to eventually halve the population?

Or is it that we must maximize the human population while keeping the impact on the environment flat? I.e., we all live in test tubes ala The Matrix while feeding on a minimal-agricultural-impact food.

Please tell us what the goal is in your view so that your proclamations of value judgements on how we all should live don't seem so arbitrary.

And no alanhart, a sidecar is NOT minimal-agricultural-impact food.

"Soylant Green is People"!!!

Today's NY Times announces the RE bottom.

> The LAST place you want to be is some meth-addled rural hick town!
+1 for dealboy! didn't see this happening.

> who wants to have to maintain an old house
some do, but it has to be within your top favorites hobbies. otherwise... why get into it?

> In "normal" cities outside of New York, it's actually much more affordable to live in a nice-sized apartment inside the city than it is to live in the suburbs. And of course, the usual other reasons apply, including single people who value shorter commutes and public transportation to avoid buying a car.

also many GenX and GenY will stay single. why isolate themselves if they don't have the need to provide more space for a big family?

> Down with suburbs! People who live in cities should be in revolt against suburbanites, whose many amenities are subsidized by the city dwellers.

+1. chicago is doing just that. can you believe that the city was paying for the pensions of teachers from schools in the suburbs? meanwhile suburbs were not contributing a penny to city pensions. a crazy transfer going the opposite direction for decades!

> People without children should be in revolt against child-bearers, whose many costs are subsidized by the child-less. Dollar for dollar, the child-bearers use more tax dollars per dollar earned while contributing less.

many in southern EU were doing just that, and japan, and korea, avoiding kids altogether! and with fertility rates close to 1, pension systems will collapse very soon.

not bad for everybody, of course, but it's going to be a big change. mind-blowing so much of the current econ system relies on a growing population! it'll imply asset deflation and the end of aging costs being dumped on workers, the last part is not a bad thing imho.

my bet is that without pensions & entitlements being paid by "other people's kids" many will consider making a kid or two.

> how are they going to pay for social security type of payments.
they will go the way of the do-do. people will finally have to start saving, like it used to be before this 80 year old experiment started.

> in fact, loners like Ino should be taxes the highest.
why? he has the right to opt for the lifestyle that suits him best. as long as he saves enough to take care of himself when old, why bother him?

problem is most Inos will not save enough and will have to be bailed out by less working people.

and pensions and Soc sec will end at some point but not before taxes are boosted skyhigh and/or until our economy collapses.

"Many predicted that New Yorkers would flee the city in favor of the lower priced suburbs, and that this flight would put increasing pressure on real estate prices in the city. Well that doesn't seem to be happening."

What the stats you point to actually show are... neither are growing. Both under 1% growth, where 1-2-3% growth seems commonplace in the other cities.

so much for your initial point...