Housing construction in Dallas has plummeted only because the city is geographically locked. Fort Worth, only 30 miles away, is gaining an average of 68 new residents a day. It’s gained over 90,000 people since the last census and has become the 10th largest city in the country. They are building housing as fast as possible and yet the prices are still way up.
Article completely misses the underlying issue of running out of land near urban centers to create new suburbs. Cars made suburbs viable, but only so far from cities.
One solution which ignores all the issue presented is relatively high speed rail networks which avoid congestion to quickly reach city centers. Rail averaging ~100 MPH turns an unbearable commute into a viable one, assuming the tickets aren’t overpriced.
Level 4/5 Self driving cars are another possibility, the time is still lost but watching TV or even napping on the way home is a very different proposition. Better road networks similarly extend things somewhat.
xvedejas · 1d ago
Roads don't scale well regardless of whether the cars are self-driving. Once you get enough cars on the same highway, there's an inflection point where speeds drop quickly. This only gets worse as you increase the radius of viable commuting distance, since that increases the total number of commuters.
Retric · 1d ago
They scale when designed with scale in mind.
Most cities need more limited access highways not just more lanes. Suburbs extend much further along highways for obvious reasons, yet they get built on the way to somewhere else not just for regional transportation.
A perfect example being the south east of DC getting extremely underdeveloped relative to the west. But you can see the same pattern around many US cities.
xvedejas · 1d ago
That would be a lot more land devoted to freeways, and the associated maintenance cost. But beside that, the bottle necks are mostly not the number of highways, but rather the number of exits near the urban center. I'm skeptical that the roads in the urban center can scale much beyond what we already see in the most car oriented commuter cities in any roughly 2d configuration.
Retric · 1d ago
> That would be a lot more land devoted to freeways, and the associated maintenance cost.
The benefits more than make up for those costs, ensuring those who benefit also contribute to upkeep is a delicate balance but things like congestion pricing can go a long way.
Part of the solution is to have more freeways and thus spread exits more evenly across the city. Another part is to adjust city streets around those exits so they can accommodate a large influx of traffic. Similarly you optimize traffic flow inside the city by eliminating things that limit flow like street parking etc.
Going at least a little 3D is definitely required, but not necessarily big dig levels of 3D.
xvedejas · 16h ago
I don't think people living in cities want this, and so it's probably not going to happen. At least not in my city, which only has about two freeways, and people keep talking about tearing more of them down. I live half a mile away from one, and the noise pollution and tire dust pollution are both noticeable.
Maybe it's great from a suburban point of view still.
Retric · 16h ago
You don’t need to extend the freeway into the city for it to cut down commute times, removing street parking is one of the ways to then speed up flows within a city. Often you have a ring road around the city with people migrating for there, but such rings can have more spokes going out and often more bridges going in.
Alternatively, going underground removes the noise and dust assuming the city wants to pay for it.
trollbridge · 1d ago
DC had a rather powerful lobby that tried to prevent building highways, particularly inside the District's limits, so very little got built in the DC-controlled areas (like the southeast).
The west was in Virginia and didn't face nearly as much opposition. 50 years later, the economic growth has been concentrated in Virginia where adequate transportation facilities were built.
Retric · 1d ago
Exactly, massive economic growth follows such investments but people have largely stopped looking forward.
WarOnPrivacy · 9h ago
> A perfect example being the south east of DC getting extremely underdeveloped
Are you talking Belvior/Mason Neck or King George/Westmoreland/Northumberland counties? If it's the latter, a lack of development would be tied to the extra distance of working back up the peninsula. (I was born in the former)
culopatin · 1d ago
Lol talking about rails in the US is pointless at this point.
Retric · 1d ago
US uses quite a bit of rail, just not for long distance travel. DC metro for example has stations over 30 miles out, with other options extending that to over 60.
A big part of this is having unsubsidized parking, if you or your company is paying 20+$/day on top of driving the incentives change.
drewcoo · 13h ago
Freight trains are still a thing. About 20 years ago Buffet bought BNSF.
Retric · 12h ago
Thus the long distance travel caveat.
US Fright is doing ok, but it got heavily dependent on coal which is going away fast.
WarOnPrivacy · 9h ago
In US, number of miles of rails only ever goes down.
It isn't 1950; people are mostly going places other than city centres. Old style rail doesn't work particularly well for that.
kanbara · 1d ago
so you have high speed long distance and commuter rail, and then local transit options. and you can stop at places other than coty centres. my route from berlin to hamburg has a bunch of smaller stops.
asia and europe get by fine with rail. if china can build 20 subway systems and 50 HSR routes in 10 years so can america
WarOnPrivacy · 9h ago
> It isn't 1950; people are mostly going places other than city centres.
We suburbanites avoid doing city stuff because the 11th-14th commutes (that week) would suck.
Retric · 1d ago
Rail doesn’t need to be a 90% solution, even 10% makes a major difference on the margins.
Infrastructure like subway stations drive up local prices which means people who don’t use them tend to migrate somewhere else.
dotcoma · 1d ago
“The suburban development model is built on the premise of stasis”.
And it’s a stasis many people like, apparently.
TheCoelacanth · 20h ago
As long as it's subsidized by someone else and they don't have to pay the true cost.
WarOnPrivacy · 9h ago
> And it’s a stasis many people like, apparently.
We live where we can afford.
Suburbs tend to be prisons for kids. When we live 50miles from most culture and entertainment, it isn't because we like doing that to ourselves.
dotcoma · 5h ago
Consume, drive, flush your hard-earned cash back into the system and eventually die, usually at a younger age than in countries where people can or have to walk.
I don't have a problem with people who are forced into this 'choice' -- I have a problem with a system that seems to force them to 'choose' this rather irrational lifestyle.
andsoitis · 1d ago
> demand to live in the Sunbelt remains undimmed, he said, “you would expect them to start to look more and more like Los Angeles.”
SBP Homes bought Richard's family home for $10.75 million, and once it is torn down, they plan to develop the 32-acre lot into nine individual homes.
Seems a shame to not develop (say) 30 half acre homes intermixed with 30 denser multi unit dwellings and common park space .. but zoning, Nimby, expectations, etc.
Also housing shartages tend to be variable by region and perhaps New Canaan, Connecticut doesn't have that demand.
woodpanel · 21h ago
I find it laughable that the one thing that is not mentioned here also doesn't get the spotlight it deserves, in the article: Good Schools.
Suburbia wins because Cities suck at providing safe environments for children. Particularly schools are one symptom of this and thus the best way to make sense of land-value in and around cities across the west is the proximity to proper schools.
paleotrope · 16h ago
I suppose the reason that city schools are dangerous for children is mostly because of the children in those schools. That's not a vox appropriate conversation.
drewcoo · 13h ago
"Good schools" probably wasn't mentioned because it's a dog whistle.
woodpanel · 22m ago
The nice thing about the concept of "dog whistles" is that believing in it is a clear marker of toxic persons.
One solution which ignores all the issue presented is relatively high speed rail networks which avoid congestion to quickly reach city centers. Rail averaging ~100 MPH turns an unbearable commute into a viable one, assuming the tickets aren’t overpriced.
Level 4/5 Self driving cars are another possibility, the time is still lost but watching TV or even napping on the way home is a very different proposition. Better road networks similarly extend things somewhat.
Most cities need more limited access highways not just more lanes. Suburbs extend much further along highways for obvious reasons, yet they get built on the way to somewhere else not just for regional transportation.
A perfect example being the south east of DC getting extremely underdeveloped relative to the west. But you can see the same pattern around many US cities.
The benefits more than make up for those costs, ensuring those who benefit also contribute to upkeep is a delicate balance but things like congestion pricing can go a long way.
Part of the solution is to have more freeways and thus spread exits more evenly across the city. Another part is to adjust city streets around those exits so they can accommodate a large influx of traffic. Similarly you optimize traffic flow inside the city by eliminating things that limit flow like street parking etc.
Going at least a little 3D is definitely required, but not necessarily big dig levels of 3D.
Maybe it's great from a suburban point of view still.
Alternatively, going underground removes the noise and dust assuming the city wants to pay for it.
The west was in Virginia and didn't face nearly as much opposition. 50 years later, the economic growth has been concentrated in Virginia where adequate transportation facilities were built.
Are you talking Belvior/Mason Neck or King George/Westmoreland/Northumberland counties? If it's the latter, a lack of development would be tied to the extra distance of working back up the peninsula. (I was born in the former)
A big part of this is having unsubsidized parking, if you or your company is paying 20+$/day on top of driving the incentives change.
US Fright is doing ok, but it got heavily dependent on coal which is going away fast.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/183410/united-states-cla...
https://www.bts.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/Figure1_5_0.gif
asia and europe get by fine with rail. if china can build 20 subway systems and 50 HSR routes in 10 years so can america
We suburbanites avoid doing city stuff because the 11th-14th commutes (that week) would suck.
Infrastructure like subway stations drive up local prices which means people who don’t use them tend to migrate somewhere else.
And it’s a stasis many people like, apparently.
We live where we can afford.
Suburbs tend to be prisons for kids. When we live 50miles from most culture and entertainment, it isn't because we like doing that to ourselves.
I don't have a problem with people who are forced into this 'choice' -- I have a problem with a system that seems to force them to 'choose' this rather irrational lifestyle.
Only in very specific, limited ways.
Paul Simon's Daughter Blasts Richard Gere for Selling Her Childhood Home to Real Estate Developer. - https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/paul-simon-dau...
Seems a shame to not develop (say) 30 half acre homes intermixed with 30 denser multi unit dwellings and common park space .. but zoning, Nimby, expectations, etc.Also housing shartages tend to be variable by region and perhaps New Canaan, Connecticut doesn't have that demand.
Suburbia wins because Cities suck at providing safe environments for children. Particularly schools are one symptom of this and thus the best way to make sense of land-value in and around cities across the west is the proximity to proper schools.