8 ms·

LA has an order of magnitude more population than is required for functioning public transit. But you're right they don't have the density. The key is to reali

by sirsar 6y ago

LA has an order of magnitude more population than is required for functioning public transit. But you're right they don't have the density. The key is to realize the cars themselves killed density. Parking lots, parking spaces, and extra lanes all conspire to push humans and human spaces further apart. This then makes walking less feasible, cars more required, and more space required to accommodate those cars in a feedback loop. Taller buildings are not required for density, far from it. Look at Somerville, MA, where just about nothing is higher than 3 stories, yet they fit almost 20,000 people into a square mile -- and they like it. What they don't fit is 20,000 parking spaces, and that makes all the difference.

Domenic_S 6y ago
> almost 20,000 people into a square mile That's less than 1/3 the density of Manhattan and about on par with SF.
- theplague42 6y ago
  Right... >where just about nothing is higher than 3 stories The point is that cars destroy density regardless of what your building height limits are.
paul_f 6y ago
The car did not directly kill density, it enabled people to choose less density.
- Analemma_ 6y ago
  That's a distinction without a difference.
- vkou 6y ago
  It doesn't enable people to choose, it made a choice and forced it upon everyone.
- agentdrtran 6y ago
  I love making the free choice between a car that costs hundreds each month vs unlimited public transit for $90
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    My time is money, and public transit costs a lot of time and frustration. And with a car, I have freedom to go anywhere.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  A small number of people like Robert Moses wielded enormous power over how our civil infrastructure was built in the post war period. Moses was famously opposed to public transit, going so far as to deliberately build bridges with overhead clearance too low for buses on routes to one of his beach developments. During this period the federal dept of transportation was offering to pay 90% of urban freeway projects. There are a few famous examples of people negotiating a different outcome, like the light rail vs mt hood highway in Portland, Oregon. But the bulk of local politicians simply took the free money and built massive freeway infrastructure without much consideration of the future. So no, this was not some broadly democratic choice or invisible hand of the market. It was a small number of politically powerful people making unilateral decisions using vast government funds.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    People wanted to live in the suburbs. It was definitely promoted by government and business leaders, but it was also desired organically by people. It may not seem obvious now, but prior to the suburbs, a lot of people lived in ragged tenement buildings that were in bad shape. The suburbs were a boon to the economy, to standard of living, to incomes, etc. I found a great video from a filmmaker on this subject: How The US Government Sold Us On The Suburbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmL6xIg-EJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmL6xIg-EJ0
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > It may not seem obvious now, but prior to the suburbs, a lot of people lived in ragged tenement buildings that were in bad shape. A lot of people still do. The people that could afford to move to the suburbs were also people that could afford to move out of tenements in the city, too, generally. OTOH, it allowed them to be farther from (and outside shared facilities like schools, etc., with) the tenements and the people stuck living in them. (Which, due to economics and outright, overt discrimination in both lending and things like restrictive real estate covenant, especially meant non-Whites.)
    - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
- dionidium 6y ago
  There is absolutely nothing like a free market in housing. Many low-density suburbs would already have naturally densified if they were allowed to. The reason they have not is that it's illegal. People aren't choosing less density. They're banning density.
- drewrv 6y ago
  If that's what people actually wanted, they wouldn't need to regulate it with zoning laws.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Somerville, MA is in the middle of the Boston metro area. It's saturated with three and four story buildings and the downtown is 10+ story buildings. It's tall buildings. LA County is full of detached single family homes and undeveloped land.
- Texasian 6y ago
  Downtown? What downtown? We don’t have one. If your talking about Assembly Row, that’s a “town center” development. Used to be a movie theater and a sea of parking lots. It doesn’t factor into Somerville’s style of urbanism.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    You could argue Davis Square or Union Square I suppose. Bit, no, there's really no urban core the way Boston has one. I'd note that, in spite of that, Somerville is the 16th densest city in the US (with the caveat that comparing city densities involves somewhat arbitrary political boundaries). Cambridge is pretty much in the same boat and is at #26.
- sirsar 6y ago
  OP called out "skyscrapers". What counts as the precise cutoff for "tall buildings" is always going to be a matter of opinion. But I live in Cambridge, MA and I can assure you Somerville would remain one of the densest cities in the union if every last building therein was lopped down to 3 stories by a giant lawnmower.
d_burfoot 6y ago
> The key is to realize the cars themselves killed density. People have very naive explanations of why the US is so bad at density and urbanism. Canada and Australia, which are very similar to the US, have very dense cities like Montreal, Toronto, and Melbourne. Do they not have cars in Canada and Australia? If you want to find the real reason why all other developed countries have dense cities with good public transport, but the US doesn't, you need to look at what's different between the US and all other developed countries.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Canada might have certain urban areas with public transport, but huge swaths of the country depend on cars. That is the same situation as the U.S. except we've got 10x the population as Canada...so we've got more people in more places. As for Australia, a huge chunk of the country is desert, and most people are situated along the coasts. The U.S. doesn't want urbanism. People by and large do not want to live in dense urban areas. Some people like it, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. With the remote work revolution, it's going to become even less appealing to live in a dense urban area.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    There's a trope here that the US is some incredible outlier when it comes to per capita auto ownership. It's not. It's in the same ballpark as other wealthy developed countries. It's poorer countries (in Europe and elsewhere) that have lower rates of car ownership. According to a recent Pew survey [1], the US has slightly lower per capita car ownership than Italy and is in the ballpark of countries like France, Germany, South Korea, and Japan. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-17/a-pew-survey-charts-global-car-motorcycle-and-bike-ownership#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20developed%20countries%20showed,percent%20and%2081%20percent%20respectively https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-17/a-pew-sur...).
  - dionidium 6y ago
    People who don't want density should be free to avoid it. What they should not be allowed to do is pass laws that prevent the rest of us from enjoying the benefits of density. The primary reason we don't have increased density in the United States is that it's illegal in most cities to build enough new housing to meaningfully densify neighborhoods.
jayd16 6y ago
LA also happens to have a vast bus system that is heavily used. We do not have subways partly because it would be very hard to build them in LA's geology. Seismic activity as well things like natural tar pits. Historically I don't think its right to say cars killed the density. LA was several cities that grew into each other. Part of the reason LA is so wide is because of white flight to the outskirts. Do you build transit for something like that?

by sirsar 6y ago

Domenic_S 6y ago

> almost 20,000 people into a square mile That's less than 1/3 the density of Manhattan and about on par with SF.

theplague42 6y ago
Right... >where just about nothing is higher than 3 stories The point is that cars destroy density regardless of what your building height limits are.

paul_f 6y ago

The car did not directly kill density, it enabled people to choose less density.

Analemma_ 6y ago
That's a distinction without a difference.
vkou 6y ago
It doesn't enable people to choose, it made a choice and forced it upon everyone.
agentdrtran 6y ago
I love making the free choice between a car that costs hundreds each month vs unlimited public transit for $90
- chrisco255 6y ago
  My time is money, and public transit costs a lot of time and frustration. And with a car, I have freedom to go anywhere.
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
A small number of people like Robert Moses wielded enormous power over how our civil infrastructure was built in the post war period. Moses was famously opposed to public transit, going so far as to deliberately build bridges with overhead clearance too low for buses on routes to one of his beach developments. During this period the federal dept of transportation was offering to pay 90% of urban freeway projects. There are a few famous examples of people negotiating a different outcome, like the light rail vs mt hood highway in Portland, Oregon. But the bulk of local politicians simply took the free money and built massive freeway infrastructure without much consideration of the future. So no, this was not some broadly democratic choice or invisible hand of the market. It was a small number of politically powerful people making unilateral decisions using vast government funds.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  People wanted to live in the suburbs. It was definitely promoted by government and business leaders, but it was also desired organically by people. It may not seem obvious now, but prior to the suburbs, a lot of people lived in ragged tenement buildings that were in bad shape. The suburbs were a boon to the economy, to standard of living, to incomes, etc. I found a great video from a filmmaker on this subject: How The US Government Sold Us On The Suburbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmL6xIg-EJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmL6xIg-EJ0
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > It may not seem obvious now, but prior to the suburbs, a lot of people lived in ragged tenement buildings that were in bad shape. A lot of people still do. The people that could afford to move to the suburbs were also people that could afford to move out of tenements in the city, too, generally. OTOH, it allowed them to be farther from (and outside shared facilities like schools, etc., with) the tenements and the people stuck living in them. (Which, due to economics and outright, overt discrimination in both lending and things like restrictive real estate covenant, especially meant non-Whites.)
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
dionidium 6y ago
There is absolutely nothing like a free market in housing. Many low-density suburbs would already have naturally densified if they were allowed to. The reason they have not is that it's illegal. People aren't choosing less density. They're banning density.
drewrv 6y ago
If that's what people actually wanted, they wouldn't need to regulate it with zoning laws.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

Somerville, MA is in the middle of the Boston metro area. It's saturated with three and four story buildings and the downtown is 10+ story buildings. It's tall buildings. LA County is full of detached single family homes and undeveloped land.

Texasian 6y ago
Downtown? What downtown? We don’t have one. If your talking about Assembly Row, that’s a “town center” development. Used to be a movie theater and a sea of parking lots. It doesn’t factor into Somerville’s style of urbanism.
- ghaff 6y ago
  You could argue Davis Square or Union Square I suppose. Bit, no, there's really no urban core the way Boston has one. I'd note that, in spite of that, Somerville is the 16th densest city in the US (with the caveat that comparing city densities involves somewhat arbitrary political boundaries). Cambridge is pretty much in the same boat and is at #26.
sirsar 6y ago
OP called out "skyscrapers". What counts as the precise cutoff for "tall buildings" is always going to be a matter of opinion. But I live in Cambridge, MA and I can assure you Somerville would remain one of the densest cities in the union if every last building therein was lopped down to 3 stories by a giant lawnmower.

d_burfoot 6y ago

> The key is to realize the cars themselves killed density. People have very naive explanations of why the US is so bad at density and urbanism. Canada and Australia, which are very similar to the US, have very dense cities like Montreal, Toronto, and Melbourne. Do they not have cars in Canada and Australia? If you want to find the real reason why all other developed countries have dense cities with good public transport, but the US doesn't, you need to look at what's different between the US and all other developed countries.

chrisco255 6y ago
Canada might have certain urban areas with public transport, but huge swaths of the country depend on cars. That is the same situation as the U.S. except we've got 10x the population as Canada...so we've got more people in more places. As for Australia, a huge chunk of the country is desert, and most people are situated along the coasts. The U.S. doesn't want urbanism. People by and large do not want to live in dense urban areas. Some people like it, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. With the remote work revolution, it's going to become even less appealing to live in a dense urban area.
- ghaff 6y ago
  There's a trope here that the US is some incredible outlier when it comes to per capita auto ownership. It's not. It's in the same ballpark as other wealthy developed countries. It's poorer countries (in Europe and elsewhere) that have lower rates of car ownership. According to a recent Pew survey [1], the US has slightly lower per capita car ownership than Italy and is in the ballpark of countries like France, Germany, South Korea, and Japan. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-17/a-pew-survey-charts-global-car-motorcycle-and-bike-ownership#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20developed%20countries%20showed,percent%20and%2081%20percent%20respectively https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-17/a-pew-sur...).
- dionidium 6y ago
  People who don't want density should be free to avoid it. What they should not be allowed to do is pass laws that prevent the rest of us from enjoying the benefits of density. The primary reason we don't have increased density in the United States is that it's illegal in most cities to build enough new housing to meaningfully densify neighborhoods.

jayd16 6y ago

LA also happens to have a vast bus system that is heavily used. We do not have subways partly because it would be very hard to build them in LA's geology. Seismic activity as well things like natural tar pits. Historically I don't think its right to say cars killed the density. LA was several cities that grew into each other. Part of the reason LA is so wide is because of white flight to the outskirts. Do you build transit for something like that?