[BubberMiley]

JerrySeinfeld, on Oct 27 2006, 03:24 PM, said:

The combustion engine already has many substitutes.

But people are still willing to pay the current price for gasoline. If or when gasoline gets to expensive, we'll start maknig the shift to substitutes like battery operated vehicles or fuel cells.

Until then life is good. And when we switch, life will go on.

Damn! We all know how much lefties, social engineers and environmentalists hate the sound of good news

I love the sound of your good news and I honestly hope you're right. Unfortunately I think you're very naive to think that we will painlessly transition from the fundamental (combustion) engine of our economy. I like living in a suburb and have invested a lot of money in a big old house that burns a lot of fossil fuels. But ultimately I think I'm just enjoying it while it lasts and recognize the complete unsustainability of my lifestyle.

[jdobbin]

margrace, on Oct 27 2006, 07:47 AM, said:

Suburbia is the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. The misallocation began in the 1920's when cars for the middle class became a reality. With cars came all the trappings of personal movement and the Victorian villa in a park-like setting became a reality not just for the wealthy.

Originally street cars and light rail were paid for by the developers of suburbs. But General motors, Firestone and Standard oil got togethere to kill light rail, which was at first replaced by roads and buses - Made by Gm, with Firestone tires and fueled by standard oil.

http://www.vitalitym...ne.com/node/316

Lot of interesting material, very scarry.

I lived in the an urban neighborhood most of my life as well as just outside Tokyo for many years.

I tried to buy a house in my old urban neighborhood but it was too expensive. I now live in an a suburb. Not as far out as I could be but not as close as I used to be.

I like my neighborhood and there has been a lot of infill houses going up on patches of land here and there. The cost of fuel is a concern. At some point, if it is cost effective, I'd like to go to thermal heating and cooling.

I do believe density can be increased in downtowns by effectively combining office and apartment living. We are seeing this happening in Toronto and Vancouver now. It is just a matter of time before other cities start doing it too.

It is a tricky question because we don't want people to be defensive about where they live. We want people to try and improve their neighborhoods.

[Wilber]

Why does everyone have to live in existing cities? I live about 80K from Vancouver and the population here is up over 70% since I moved here 17 years ago and it is not all residential. Businesses are coming here for the same reason. Vancouver has become so expensive it is hard for them to remain competitive and stay there.

[BubberMiley]

Wilber, on Oct 27 2006, 08:22 PM, said:

Why does everyone have to live in existing cities?

I don't think anyone is saying that. Some argue that suburb living is selfish, unsustainable and lacking a quality of life that can be found in vibrant, densely populated urban areas. The problem with suburban living is it often destroys the urban environment because it requires acres of dead (but expensive) parking space to populate it. So you wind up with few people and a lot of surface parking lot, which makes the area less of an attraction and ultimately a barren wasteland that absorbs fantastic amounts of tax money paying for its under-used infrastructure.
But people have to be free to live where they want so you have to make the urban environment more attractive than the suburbs in order to draw them back. This has been successfully accomplished only in places where a proper subway system exists as well as lots of densely packed mixed-use low-level storefronts with apartments or condos upstairs. Then you can populate the area with shops and services and entertainment venues and working people rather than parking lots and vagrants.
This is why the urban areas of Toronto and Montreal and Vancouver work now and would unquestionably be even better with fewer suburban cars driving in every morning.

[Wilber]

My point is, todays suburb is tomorrows city.

Quote

This is why the urban areas of Toronto and Montreal and Vancouver work now and would unquestionably be even better with fewer suburban cars driving in every morning.

Actually they probably wouldn't work without those people driving in every morning. They have to be given a practical alternative to not driving. Great cities need people coming in on a daily basis to remain great cities. Vancouver is the country's biggest port yet there are people who believe that road access to the city shouldn't be improved beyond freeways that were built in the late fifties. Movement of goods has become a real problem, never mind commutors. You can't build a wall around the place and expect it to remain great. Business will look for other places and pass it by. Seattle will fill that role quite willingly.

[August1991]

margrace, on Oct 27 2006, 08:47 AM, said:

Suburbia is the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. The misallocation began in the 1920's when cars for the middle class became a reality. With cars came all the trappings of personal movement and the Victorian villa in a park-like setting became a reality not just for the wealthy.

It is impossible to talk about North American suburbia without mentioning local government zoning and the effects this has had on the nature of North American cities.

There are many examples of how governments can utterly screw things up and this is one of them. (BTW, if you think North American suburbia is a bad misallocation of resources, you have never seen a Soviet suburb.)

I frankly don't know what the solution would be. I don't think the free market would allocate urban or suburban land use efficiently either despite what the link below implies. But a free market could hardly be worse.

Quote

Houston, Texas is the only large American city with no formal zoning code -- yet Houston has all the sprawl and associated ills of other Sunbelt cities. Houston is less dense than most big cities, and Houstonians drive more than in most big cities. Does it then follow that sprawl is the result of consumer choice rather than of government meddling?

Not necessarily -- because what other cities achieve through zoning, Houston achieves through several land use regulations.

Like other cities' zoning codes, Houston's municipal code creates auto dependency by artificially spreading out the population. Until 1999, the city required all single-family houses to gobble up 5,000 square feet of land. Although this limit is less rigid than minimum lot sizes in most suburbs, the city's statute nevertheless insures that many residents will be unable to live within walking distance of a bus stop, which in turn means that those residents will be completely dependent on their cars.

Link

[BubberMiley]

Wilber, on Oct 27 2006, 10:10 PM, said:

You can't build a wall around the place and expect it to remain great. Business will look for other places and pass it by. Seattle will fill that role quite willingly.

Who's looking to build a wall? I'm certainly not.
I said you have to make the urban environment attractive so that people want to be there. Suburbs are just the lesser of two evils, and really aren't very nice places to live. Given a choice, people would prefer to live and work in a vibrant urban community where all the provisions and services they need are within a two or three block radius. By comparison, commuting two hours a day to a barren stucco house on a treeless plain, far from any attractions or points of interest, is a pretty dismal existence.
Vibrant urban areas are diminished when they become cluttered and conjested with suburbanites' cars. They only get life when people choose to live in them.

[Wilber]

BubberMiley, on Oct 27 2006, 08:47 PM, said:

Wilber, on Oct 27 2006, 10:10 PM, said:

You can't build a wall around the place and expect it to remain great. Business will look for other places and pass it by. Seattle will fill that role quite willingly.

Who's looking to build a wall? I'm certainly not.
I said you have to make the urban environment attractive so that people want to be there. Suburbs are just the lesser of two evils, and really aren't very nice places to live. Given a choice, people would prefer to live and work in a vibrant urban community where all the provisions and services they need are within a two or three block radius. By comparison, commuting two hours a day to a barren stucco house on a treeless plain, far from any attractions or points of interest, is a pretty dismal existence.
Vibrant urban areas are diminished when they become cluttered and conjested with suburbanites' cars. They only get life when people choose to live in them.

Speak for yourself. I moved farther away from the city because although I like some of the things it has to offer, I don't want to live in one. Mind you, I didn't have to commute every day, live in a village with a creek running through the property, often have deer in my yard and walk my dog along the river every day on part of the Canada Trail. My village is part of a city of 140,000. I grew up in Vancouver and while I like to visit it a few times a year, have absolutely no desire to live there. Each to their own.

I think you are correct in that we should be trying to make cities more livable but even the greatest cities in the world such as London, Tokyo, New York etc depend on large numbers of people coming in to work every day. The difference between them and Canadian cities is most of them have rail and other transit systems that make cars unnecessary for the majority of people. However they still have extensive road systems.

[geoffrey]

I live in a grey area between Suburbia and rural. I drive rural highways to get to school or work, it's not any further to take highway 22... but I have a Co-op (oh, that's a Calgary thing right? best not be confusing)... I have a Sobey's and Superstore a reasonable walk away. Very confusing some days. I pay taxes to Calgary.

I guess you could say I am the absolute worst possible suburbian... a 120km a day commute between school-work-home. Whew, all those greenhouse gases. I do prefer the warmth.

There is plenty of land for everyone though. Come out here, tons of land, tons and tons of land.

[scriblett]

Quote

Speak for yourself. I moved farther away from the city because although I like some of the things it has to offer, I don't want to live in one. Mind you, I didn't have to commute every day, live in a village with a creek running through the property, often have deer in my yard and walk my dog along the river every day on part of the Canada Trail. My village is part of a city of 140,000. I grew up in Vancouver and while I like to visit it a few times a year, have absolutely no desire to live there. Each to their own.

Exactly. We have the same, although our town is a lot smaller, a lovely lakefront, walking and ski trails close by. We retired here a few years ago, lived in the GTA all my life prior to that, you would never get me back there if you paid me. And, why should I have to, we have the freedom to choose where we live and how we live it. We we live within our means and do what we can for recycling etc. etc.

High-density cities, packing people like sardines into apt. buildings might be good for something, but its not good for the human psyche or soul; people should be free to pursue their dream. Zero population growth is the answer but I don't see that happening.

[margrace]

This is a good article to read about the peaking of the oil supply.

peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/2006-1/issue12/fe-peakoil.html

[BubberMiley]

scriblett, on Oct 28 2006, 10:20 AM, said:

High-density cities, packing people like sardines into apt. buildings might be good for something, but its not good for the human psyche or soul; people should be free to pursue their dream.

There's no question that people must be free to decide for themselves what suits them. I'm not talking about packing people like sardines either. In two- or three-storey buildings with retail operations on the main floor, they're quite comfortably spaced. This is a model that existed for centuries until around the 1950s. What's bad for the psyche and soul, not to mention the pocketbook, personal safety, and the environment, is spending two hours a day commuting.

[B. Max]

margrace, on Oct 28 2006, 12:39 PM, said:

This is a good article to read about the peaking of the oil supply.

peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/2006-1/issue12/fe-peakoil.html

The same people who go on about peak oil are the same who are trying to bring about peak oil.

[scriblett]

BubberMiley, on Oct 28 2006, 09:24 AM, said:

scriblett, on Oct 28 2006, 10:20 AM, said:

High-density cities, packing people like sardines into apt. buildings might be good for something, but its not good for the human psyche or soul; people should be free to pursue their dream.

There's no question that people must be free to decide for themselves what suits them. I'm not talking about packing people like sardines either. In two- or three-storey buildings with retail operations on the main floor, they're quite comfortably spaced. This is a model that existed for centuries until around the 1950s. What's bad for the psyche and soul, not to mention the pocketbook, personal safety, and the environment, is spending two hours a day commuting.

True, I wouldn't do that either. However, I took the TTC daily to downtown Toronto, it took me 1 hour and 20 mins. to get to the office, 10 mins. less if I timed iit to get an express bus. If I drove (which I did if I had to stay for overtime) I could do it in 35 mins.
There were times then, when I would have appreciated living downtown, but not with kids. I can't imagine raising kids in downtown Toronto.

[Wilber]

Quote

but I have a Co-op (oh, that's a Calgary thing right? best not be confusing)...

Nope, they've got some here to. The Otter Co-op in Langley is a great place.