7 ms·

Would your "free market" also mean that the people living in the suburbs pay the true cost of living in suburbs? Including higher taxes to offset the higher inf

by OxO4 5y ago

Would your "free market" also mean that the people living in the suburbs pay the true cost of living in suburbs? Including higher taxes to offset the higher infrastructure costs and the higher impact on the environment?

bilbo0s 5y ago
Of course, if it didn't, it wouldn't be free market. The government would still have their finger on the scale.
quantumwannabe 5y ago
Sure, as long as people living in dense areas pay the true cost of living there. No more free or subsidized fares that only pay a fraction of the operating costs and zero of the capital costs of transit. Be ready to pay carbon tax on the steel and concrete used to construct tall buildings that the wooden suburban house doesn't have to pay. Maybe move some jobs out of the city to the suburbs; it's not fair that suburban commuters subsidize city people's lifestyles with the goods they buy while there for work and the taxes their employers pay on the property they work in. You can't just make up "externalities" for something you dislike; I guarantee you, anything you like has lots of "externalities" as well that may cancel out whatever you're trying to charge someone else for things they like. Gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees pay far more of the total expenditure on roads than transit fares pay for their infrastructure and operating costs. Be careful what you wish for, you may not like what you get.
- teclordphrack2 5y ago
  Wow, that comment is not based in reality.
  - quantumwannabe 5y ago
    Maybe you could counter my points so we can have a discussion instead of downvoting and dismissing me...
    - lmm 5y ago
      If you just flatly assert that received wisdom is false then of course you'll just be dismissed. Have you got anything to substantiate your claim that "Gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees pay far more of the total expenditure on roads than transit fares pay for their infrastructure and operating costs"?
      - quantumwannabe 5y ago
        Sure. Can you substantiate the claim that suburbs have infrastructure costs that they do not pay for and that cities do not? That assertion was equally unsourced, and it's not very polite to demand sources when you yourself don't provide any. 53.4% of US roads are paid for by user fees, user taxes, and tolls. [1] Transit comes nowhere close: In the US, 13.1% of capital expenses are paid for by transit agencies, and 33% of operating costs are covered by fares. [2] [1] https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/ https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/ [2] https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/ntd/data-product/134401/2018-ntst_1.pdf https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/ntd... (Page 12)
        fredophile 5y ago
        Lots of infrastructure in rural areas is subsidized. Remove the requirement for phone companies, ISPs, power companies, and USPS to provide service to unprofitable areas. It is much cheaper to wire up and provide those services in densely populated areas.
        quantumwannabe 5y ago
        I’m not talking about rural areas. I’m talking about low density cities and suburbs. They have population densities in the low thousands of people per square mile, more than enough for all services to be profitable.
        lmm 5y ago
        That's ignoring the cost of land usage, which is the whole argument. If your only measure is direct costs then we should use dirt roads everywhere since the capital/maintenance costs of those are 0, so then they would be infinity% covered by user fees. (And note that the land taken by car-based systems is not just the space directly occupied by roads but also the hidden expropriation of setback requirements, parking minimums etc.) Since car ownership is much higher in the suburbs, all of the car-first laws amount to a hidden subsidy of the suburbs by the cities - parking minimums, exemption from usual transport safety standards (this can be a huge factor in the cost of transit systems), lax environmental standards, exemption from public service requirements that are applied to other transport systems. I'm all in favour of everyone bearing the actual costs of their lifestyle (and that would certainly include a carbon tax reflecting the energy costs of construction, though I'm very skeptical that that would end up being lower for a suburban home than an inner-city one). But the idea that subsidised transit fares are a subsidy to the city doesn't add up to me: rather they're a subsidy to the poor, who are forced to live in the city, because the suburban lifestyle is simply unaffordable to those who can't afford a car. (And ultimately everyone, including the suburbanites, depends on those people as service workers etc.). It's like saying homeless hostels are a subsidy to the city because the homeless are in the city - but the reason for that is that if they were homeless in the suburbs then they'd starve.
- kmonsen 5y ago
  Yeah that’s not even close to realistic. Almost all wealth in modern USA comes from services with are mostly in or close to the cities. Slightly suburban yes, what’s called suburban in the U.S. nope. Almost all wealth transfer is from cities to rural and coast states to inland.
  - quantumwannabe 5y ago
    Why are you changing the topic to rural areas? We’re discussing whether suburban living (defined as car dependent urban design rather than literal suburb) is subsidized by people living in the denser, transit dependent areas or vice versa. Farm subsidies and military bases and whatever other rural subsidies you had in mind aren’t relevant for this discussion and suburban (and low density urban) people work in the services you claim almost all wealth in the modern USA is generated from.
    - kmonsen 5y ago
      OK, It depends what you meant with suburban. If you mean the suburbs close to the big cities, sure they are part of the wealth generation. A large part of people living in those suburbs are using public transport to commute to work. The issue with cars is that it is impossible to build enough roads. The more you build the more convenient it becomes so more people drive etc. And of course the other externality of carbon pollution.
- nayuki 5y ago
  I think you're forgetting that house foundations are enormous slabs of concrete, especially on a per-resident basis.
  - quantumwannabe 5y ago
    Not really, a 1000 sq ft apartment with concrete floors and ceilings has the same amount of concrete used as a two story 2000 sq ft house in an area that uses slab foundations. The house also has no steel and did not require extremely heavy equipment to build.
centimeter 5y ago
The net direction of subsidy from rural to suburban to urban is complex to calculate and subject to dispute. For example, urban centers are net importers (of food, processed goods, building materials, etc.), and benefit disproportionately from heavy freight on roads. An example of a serious but less obvious negative externality imposed by urban centers is the bulk import of population, since urban centers always reproduce below replacement rate. The urban centers basically take most of the intelligent people from non-urban areas and then ensure they don't reproduce.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  More road space means people living further from one another. People living further from one another means exponentially more energy consumed to move mass further distances. Hence roads cause a huge externality of pollution.
  - centimeter 5y ago
    That's not what exponential means. Cities also rely on roads, just in a different way; they require road networks to bring them food and manufactured goods, transported at greater distances than similar products in rural areas.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      You need less road space to distribute resources to more people in dense areas. For example, the resources to deliver everything people need in Manhattan is less than if you took all those people out of Manhattan and spread them around in detached houses. By exponential, I meant when you increase the distance between them, you multiply everything consumed by an extra factor. More pipe for water and sewer and gas, more wire for electricity, more road for more intersections and wider roads, more miles driven for garbage trucks, more schools, it has a knock on effect of all consumption. And it’s just as simple as that - the more you consume, the more you pollute. The more you consume space, the more you consume everything since the further everything has to get pushed (assuming you’re still expecting all the trappings of modern life). I am guessing that the extra space I am consuming now is probably a luxury that future generations won’t have, assuming population levels of people who live an American lifestyle hold steady or rise.

by OxO4 5y ago

bilbo0s 5y ago

Of course, if it didn't, it wouldn't be free market. The government would still have their finger on the scale.

quantumwannabe 5y ago

Sure, as long as people living in dense areas pay the true cost of living there. No more free or subsidized fares that only pay a fraction of the operating costs and zero of the capital costs of transit. Be ready to pay carbon tax on the steel and concrete used to construct tall buildings that the wooden suburban house doesn't have to pay. Maybe move some jobs out of the city to the suburbs; it's not fair that suburban commuters subsidize city people's lifestyles with the goods they buy while there for work and the taxes their employers pay on the property they work in. You can't just make up "externalities" for something you dislike; I guarantee you, anything you like has lots of "externalities" as well that may cancel out whatever you're trying to charge someone else for things they like. Gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees pay far more of the total expenditure on roads than transit fares pay for their infrastructure and operating costs. Be careful what you wish for, you may not like what you get.

teclordphrack2 5y ago
Wow, that comment is not based in reality.
- quantumwannabe 5y ago
  Maybe you could counter my points so we can have a discussion instead of downvoting and dismissing me...
  - lmm 5y ago
    If you just flatly assert that received wisdom is false then of course you'll just be dismissed. Have you got anything to substantiate your claim that "Gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees pay far more of the total expenditure on roads than transit fares pay for their infrastructure and operating costs"?
    - quantumwannabe 5y ago
      Sure. Can you substantiate the claim that suburbs have infrastructure costs that they do not pay for and that cities do not? That assertion was equally unsourced, and it's not very polite to demand sources when you yourself don't provide any. 53.4% of US roads are paid for by user fees, user taxes, and tolls. [1] Transit comes nowhere close: In the US, 13.1% of capital expenses are paid for by transit agencies, and 33% of operating costs are covered by fares. [2] [1] https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/ https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/ [2] https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/ntd/data-product/134401/2018-ntst_1.pdf https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/ntd... (Page 12)
      - fredophile 5y ago
        Lots of infrastructure in rural areas is subsidized. Remove the requirement for phone companies, ISPs, power companies, and USPS to provide service to unprofitable areas. It is much cheaper to wire up and provide those services in densely populated areas.
        quantumwannabe 5y ago
        I’m not talking about rural areas. I’m talking about low density cities and suburbs. They have population densities in the low thousands of people per square mile, more than enough for all services to be profitable.
      - lmm 5y ago
        That's ignoring the cost of land usage, which is the whole argument. If your only measure is direct costs then we should use dirt roads everywhere since the capital/maintenance costs of those are 0, so then they would be infinity% covered by user fees. (And note that the land taken by car-based systems is not just the space directly occupied by roads but also the hidden expropriation of setback requirements, parking minimums etc.) Since car ownership is much higher in the suburbs, all of the car-first laws amount to a hidden subsidy of the suburbs by the cities - parking minimums, exemption from usual transport safety standards (this can be a huge factor in the cost of transit systems), lax environmental standards, exemption from public service requirements that are applied to other transport systems. I'm all in favour of everyone bearing the actual costs of their lifestyle (and that would certainly include a carbon tax reflecting the energy costs of construction, though I'm very skeptical that that would end up being lower for a suburban home than an inner-city one). But the idea that subsidised transit fares are a subsidy to the city doesn't add up to me: rather they're a subsidy to the poor, who are forced to live in the city, because the suburban lifestyle is simply unaffordable to those who can't afford a car. (And ultimately everyone, including the suburbanites, depends on those people as service workers etc.). It's like saying homeless hostels are a subsidy to the city because the homeless are in the city - but the reason for that is that if they were homeless in the suburbs then they'd starve.
kmonsen 5y ago
Yeah that’s not even close to realistic. Almost all wealth in modern USA comes from services with are mostly in or close to the cities. Slightly suburban yes, what’s called suburban in the U.S. nope. Almost all wealth transfer is from cities to rural and coast states to inland.
- quantumwannabe 5y ago
  Why are you changing the topic to rural areas? We’re discussing whether suburban living (defined as car dependent urban design rather than literal suburb) is subsidized by people living in the denser, transit dependent areas or vice versa. Farm subsidies and military bases and whatever other rural subsidies you had in mind aren’t relevant for this discussion and suburban (and low density urban) people work in the services you claim almost all wealth in the modern USA is generated from.
  - kmonsen 5y ago
    OK, It depends what you meant with suburban. If you mean the suburbs close to the big cities, sure they are part of the wealth generation. A large part of people living in those suburbs are using public transport to commute to work. The issue with cars is that it is impossible to build enough roads. The more you build the more convenient it becomes so more people drive etc. And of course the other externality of carbon pollution.
nayuki 5y ago
I think you're forgetting that house foundations are enormous slabs of concrete, especially on a per-resident basis.
- quantumwannabe 5y ago
  Not really, a 1000 sq ft apartment with concrete floors and ceilings has the same amount of concrete used as a two story 2000 sq ft house in an area that uses slab foundations. The house also has no steel and did not require extremely heavy equipment to build.

centimeter 5y ago

The net direction of subsidy from rural to suburban to urban is complex to calculate and subject to dispute. For example, urban centers are net importers (of food, processed goods, building materials, etc.), and benefit disproportionately from heavy freight on roads. An example of a serious but less obvious negative externality imposed by urban centers is the bulk import of population, since urban centers always reproduce below replacement rate. The urban centers basically take most of the intelligent people from non-urban areas and then ensure they don't reproduce.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
More road space means people living further from one another. People living further from one another means exponentially more energy consumed to move mass further distances. Hence roads cause a huge externality of pollution.
- centimeter 5y ago
  That's not what exponential means. Cities also rely on roads, just in a different way; they require road networks to bring them food and manufactured goods, transported at greater distances than similar products in rural areas.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    You need less road space to distribute resources to more people in dense areas. For example, the resources to deliver everything people need in Manhattan is less than if you took all those people out of Manhattan and spread them around in detached houses. By exponential, I meant when you increase the distance between them, you multiply everything consumed by an extra factor. More pipe for water and sewer and gas, more wire for electricity, more road for more intersections and wider roads, more miles driven for garbage trucks, more schools, it has a knock on effect of all consumption. And it’s just as simple as that - the more you consume, the more you pollute. The more you consume space, the more you consume everything since the further everything has to get pushed (assuming you’re still expecting all the trappings of modern life). I am guessing that the extra space I am consuming now is probably a luxury that future generations won’t have, assuming population levels of people who live an American lifestyle hold steady or rise.