Traffic
- Posted by ryan on September 18th, 2007 filed in Cities
This is why its so important to connect transportation with development planning. If you build your city in such a way that everyone lives 30 miles from their place of business, then you’re going to have these problems. And if you insist upon building lots of big roads out into the rural wilds, then you’re going to have a city where people live 30 miles (or much more) from their place of business. Once you have that population distribution, it’s almost impossible to do anything about it.
If you want to know why dense, center cities are enjoying a resurgence, you have to look here for a big part of the explanation. The settlement resulting from the rise of the automobile and the interstate highway is choking itself off.
Also: lots of intellectuals on the right will tell you that the problem goes away if you levy congestion charges on the roads (or carbon taxes on the emissions). I support those policies, but not because they make sprawl work. Those costs don’t cause congestion and pollution to vanish, they just monetize the externalities–they work because people continue to feel the pain of congestion directly on their wallets. People will run from those monetized externalities, just as they’re beginning to run from congestion. In either case, the cost advantages of the center relative to outer suburbs are growing.
September 18th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
There’s no real evidence that center cities are enjoying a resurgence - even the ones that have gotten safer (like San Francisco) have lost population. The current trends seem to point to ongoing, continued suburbanization - here in Maryland, there’s no move into Baltimore or DC - but there are tons of housing developments going up further and further west from the major cities.
Your analysis also leaves out what people actually want; plenty of us like living in the suburbs, and wouldn’t have any interest in living in a dense urban center. Amongst other things, I would not want to raise a child there.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
WRT congestion pricing, what happens to poor and working class people? FTA is pushing these policies wherever possible, but can never answer relevant questions about how this affects people without much income.
As a congestion pricing supporter, what’s your take on this problem?
September 18th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
James, I think you might want to revisit the Census numbers on that. Washington is gaining population, as are a number of other large cities. For those that aren’t, San Francisco in particular, tight housing construction regulations are the primary cause. San Francisco County is one of the richest in the country, but only 700 or so new residential units are authorized there per year. As a result, housing prices are incredibly high, which deters the entrance of new residents. People continue to move to exurban counties, because that’s where most of the new housing is being built. The rapid construction in those places keeps housing costs low, attracting new residents.
But those residents depend upon underpriced roads. Driving entails lots of negative externalities–costs drivers impose on others–like congestion and pollution. I understand that many people want to live in suburbs, but if commuters don’t pay for those externalities, then the government is effectively subsidizing sprawl, which doesn’t make a ton of sense.
Better policies wouldn’t eliminate suburbs, they would just shift the population distribution slightly in favor of center cities, and they would make suburbs slightly denser. Not Manhattan dense, just denser.
b, without congestion pricing, poor and working class people still pay, they just do it in time instead of money. But, I think any plan to begin pricing roads should include new investment in public transit, to give commuters more options, and incentives to build more and denser housing in cities, so that more people can afford to live closer to their place of business.
September 18th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
hmmm, I’m having trouble finding the census numbers to prove my point.
but James is largely correct.
yes, a few large cities are gaining in population (chicago, new york, washington d.c. los angeles). but the other top 100 cities continue to experience declining numbers.
People want to live in the suburbs (especially people with families!!!). its hilarious to read 20 something year olds lecture people with families on the prudence of living in an urban center.
September 19th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Washington is a special case, with the Federal government and it’s constant growth. Other than DC, very few large American cities are growing. Here in Maryland, for instance, Baltimore is in what could be described as a death spiral.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:21 am
“Poor and working class people still pay, they just do it in time instead of money.”
It is accurate that everyone’s commutes are worse because of congestion. However, for the poor and working class the money spent on congestion tolls would most often be redirected away from another need. By definition these are not people with much if any disposable income. Therefore most of their income goes for food, housing, payment on debt (ie, credit cards), and other needs.
It’s not enough for proponents of congestion pricing to say, “they already pay in time.” Time is not a liquid asset, but money is. You can’t buy food with time but you CAN buy food with money. When you argue for congestion pricing you argue in favor of a program that would force the poor to give up food, housing, and other goods. Or, most likely, they would redirect even more spending into credit, which is the most common solution for American consumers in this bind.
I agree wholeheartedly with you that there are serious problems with congestion and pollution. However, when planners and commentators argue for congestion pricing they often do so with a callous disregard for the impact this policy would have on folks who dont have much money.
We’ve seen planners go down this road before. Think about the Great Society, when people with good intentions tore down urban neighborhoods and replaced them with modernist concrete highrises. These policies provided little help to the residents of those neighborhoods. With congestion pricing, policy makers once again may make the mistake of confusing and interesting idea with a good one.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
The comparison between Washington increasing population and Baltimore losing population is an interesting one. In the case of the former, it’s a perfect storm of high-paying careers (the government never goes out of business), low crime, and a (formerly) booming real estate market. Baltimore’s case is almost the polar opposite: the local economy never recovered from the loss of shipping business in the 1950s (a situation made worse by Norfolk and Philadelphia leeching most of the remaining work away), a public school system that rivals DC’s for nepotism and incompetence, and some of the highest violent crime (and venereal diseas, and illiteracy) in the region.
In neither case are the cities making themselves attractive to middle class families. DINK investment in DC might be able to sustain the local economy for the near future, but they’re one crime wave and recession away from the bad old days of the 1980s.
September 19th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
I’m the first to admit that B’more is an insanely violent city. case in point: my bf was muged last night walking through our neighblrhood to meet me for dinner, but there has been some population growth in the last few years.
Those middle/upper middle class Washingtonians who’ve been priced out of the housing market in DC are buying homes in the waterfront and mid-town neighborhoods in Baltimore. It’s starting to slow down a bit, a house on our block has been on the market for 3 months instead of 1 month, but people are still buying in certain parts of the city.
The impoverished parts of Baltimore are mind-numbingly poor and will probably stay that way, but the city isn’t dead by any means. Just really, really violent and deadly.
September 19th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
One reason urban populations aren’t increasing in areas like San Francisco is because they CAN’T. It’s not primarily the zoning. There just isn’t anywhere to put new housing; the cities have been built. I live in Minneapolis, which is getting tons of new housing developments — condos mostly — in infill areas, but there’s only so much it will do for the census numbers because it’s a big city without all that much available land. You tend to get better growth numbers if you can just fill up a cornfield with a new neighborhood.
Furthermore, a lot of the population declines in big cities have to do with smaller families and greater expectations of personal space. I live in a small bedroom house which they might have expected to hold 4 or 5 people when it was built. Most of the households on my street now consist of 1 or 2 people. If we had another child we’d probably have to move to a new neighborhood (hardly any 3 bedrooms around here).
My point is that there’s no evidence everyone “wants” to live in the suburbs rather than the city. If that were the case, we’d have a lot of board-ups and plummeting housing prices. You get some of that in the poorer neighborhoods here, but not too much. The fact is demand for “inner-city” housing here is greater than supply, which can’t really be increased much. Same for San Francisco. A lot of my friends who’ve bought houses in the suburbs really wanted to live in the city but couldn’t find anyting in their price range.
September 19th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Living in the suburbs is fine. Just don’t make the rest of us pay for it.