Unhealthy development - Sprawl development

"Sprawl" is what individuals do left to their own devices. Put 100 random people on a football field and they will spread out, into small clusters. They won't voluntarily crowd themselves into the end zone for no reason.

Not exactly. Most people will hover around the amenities that drew a crowd in the first place: the food tent or beer wagon, the entertainment, the athletes giving autographs, the cheerleaders flirting with the guys, etc. Same thing with a city. Most people will want to live in reasonable proximity to jobs, school, shopping, church, etc.

What changes the equation from the traditional model of compact city design is centralized planning and massive allocations of state and federal money for roads, water, sewers and schools. If suburbanites had to pay the full incremental costs of development, cities would still be much more compact. But we've largely socialized the infrastructure costs and, here as elsewhere, centralized socialist planning leads to waste.

"Waste," of course, is regarded as a lifestyle enhancement for those on the receiving end. The suburbanite regards the new arterial road as his by right, and never mind that building it involved the forcible taking of other peoples' property, and that it slashes through and degrades other people's neighborhoods. He takes it for granted that the state is supposed to scatter new schools across the landscape every time a developer throws another 10,000 houses out amongst the farms, with the cost being spread district, county, or statewide. Public money, private benefits. Socialist planning in action.

If the libertarians ever managed to establish their utopia, suburbia would be one of the first things to virtually disappear, as very few of the necessary roads could be built without eminent domain.

Well, of course, you'll hand over your keys and junk the Suburban. After all, who "needs" a four thousand square foot house or a SUV? Life is so much simpler if you'll just let the liberals make all those terrible complex decisions that are far too confusing for the likes of the simple minded.

BTW, one of my favorite liberal statements was made by Her Royal Highness, the Queen of Arkansas, when she explained that the reason her health care plan only included one set of benefits was that she felt that most people couldn't be expected to make informed decisions about the content of the health care coverage.

No it's not. For example the Traditional Neighborhood Development movement simply advocates different design techniquest than the typical 1960's spaghetti street subdivisions with shops, schools, etc located where you have to drive.

Anti-sprawl development is NOT anti-single family home development. It is for better designed housing developments using tried and true traditional elements like connecting streets, shops and schools and churches, and playgrounds IN the neighborhoods ... just like traditional so-called close-in suburbs were planned 1900-1950 before the sprawl-type subdivisions came into vogue in the 1960's (with the advent of the interstate highway system).

Actually, it is the people with single family homes on 5 acres .... with acres of roads and other tax paid infrastructure that is killing the single family home dreams of other people. People who can't find a single family home on 5,000 square feet of land that reasonably close enough to work so that they don't have to commute for 4 hours a day. Because there the options in home ownership are becoming increasingly narrowed down between higher density apartments and "townhomes" and 2-10 acre spreads, people who have enough money for a single family home but not one on 5-10 acres are not only priced out of the market, they are marketed out of the market becasue increasingly, there are fewer middle range single family options available, affordable or not.

In cities with older, what are called close-in suburbs, (those built between 1920-1950), those older single family in traditionally planned "suburbs" are in such demand that most mid-income people cannot afford them. For example, in Portland OR where I used to live, the older close-in traditional neighborhoods the homes start at $300,000 (and thats for a pretty small home). The prices in my neighborhood with 5,000 square foot lots were average $500,000. These are people who could easily have afforded 10+ acres in the hinterlands with a Mcmansion built on it. But instead, they chose to live in single-family homes in traditional neighborhoods, with straight grid streets, shops and schhools in the neighborhood etc. The homes were in high demand even though many were 75 years old and had single car garages or no garage. Why is that?

Why didn't these people want to "spread out" when they could easily afford to do so? Why don't they move out to the expensive new larger lots with new homes and leave the older suburbs with smaller lots and old houses to people with less money who want single family homes but can't afford the new large-lot subdivisions? Those people in the middle, who have more money thant to live in an apartment, but not enough to live in new large-lot subdivisions, have no middle choice because even the smaller lots in older areas have been priced out of their reach by wealthier people who CHOOSE to live in them (aka gentrification). They can't even afford many true urban housing which is also priced out of their reach by people who could afford to live in large lot subdivisions but choose to live in the city instead.

It is the middle income people, and young people who are just starting out and would like to buy a single family home, who are left with fewer single-family home choices that they can afford. Yet we keep on annexing new areas to build large lot subdivisions.

And, what do you propose? Regulating home and lot size or prices? Surely, you're not arguing that large homes and lots should be outlawed so that less affluent home buyers can buy homes?

Lot sizes and neighborhod design are regulated NOW. Zoning laws currently prohibit the developement of traditionally planned neighborhoods and even affect housing design. They restric free market choice among people who want to buy single family homes on smaller lots in traditionally designed neighborhoods.

I propose removing existing laws which outlaw traditionally planned neighborhoods ... the exact kind of neighborhoods many people want to live in and that only the wealthy can afford. They pay top dollar to live in older well planned neighborhoods that would be illegal to build today in most cities.

When it comes to government control, it is not the people who want big lots in sprawling subdivisions who are being "regulated". It is people who would prefer other choices who are regulated.

The anti-sprawl people are for free choice and changing the zoning laws so that we can build more traditionally planned neighborhoods as we did in 1920 to 1950 before sprawl type design mandated BY LAW through zoning codes. Anti-sprawl architects and urban designers want laws such laws removed which restrict the ability to build different types of neighborhoods, specifically the tried and true traditional single family neighborhoods.

"The anti-sprawl people are for free choice and changing the zoning laws so that we can build more traditionally planned neighborhoods as we did in 1920 to 1950 before sprawl type design mandated BY LAW through zoning codes."

So you say. I have no problem with "traditionally designed" neighborhoods. I do have a problem when the anti-sprawl types want to outlaw any thing but that solution. I do have a problem when the anti-sprawl types want to force people to live in high density developments. I don't have a 10 acre tract, but one day I plan on living far out in the woods on a 400 acre piece of land. Some anti-sprawl types would pass legislation preventing me from living there.

Well, I don't think anti-sprawl people are opposed to others buying a 400 acre tract of land. But even IF they were (which they're not) that would restrict a very few people.

Meanwhile for approx 40 years we've had actual laws (not hypthetical ones) which restrict traditional neighborhood development and design. I'd ask exactly WHO has been restricted from constructing neighborhoods they want and owning the type of home they want in the type of neighborhood they want?

If I'm a developer and I buy a 400 acre tract of land on which I want to develop a traditional neighborhood using tried and true design concepts, I CAN'T. I'm prevented from doing so in virtually every place in the country BY LAW.

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