Stop the Plague of Sprawl!

[phx1138]

(Inspired by this post.)

what would have been if any one of Toronto's major mass transit plans dating back to the 1920s had come to pass.

LA's freeway system could've been even more expansive

Better option: upgrade the existing Red Car system to eliminate grade crossings. (Would've been a really good idea for all the interurbans, actually.)

A lot of the withering of public transportation in America I believe has to do with racial tensions and white flight; in Atlanta and Milwaukee from what I have heard, middle class white suburbanites fight public transport funding and infrastructure at least partly to keep minorities out of the suburbs, and the aforementioned Robert Moses was, according to the biography The Power Broker, something of a racist. Mitigating these tensions (I'm not sure they could be avoided; Blacks and "White Ethnics" wouldn't let the status quo continue forever) could mean American cities are more livable and less single-mindedly automobile focused and prevent much of the decay of inner cities in the Rust Belt and parts of the Northeast. This both involves and leads to substantial rapid transit and rail systems that either did not exist or did not survive IOTL.

This contributed to the destruction of the Red Cars. Mass transit, heavily used by blacks (& the poor generally, which is still true), allowed the "undesirable" to migrate into areas wealthier (& mainly white) neighborhoods. Destroy mass transit, you keep the riff-raff out.

The key to preserving the mass transit systems we had before WW2 is to keep pre-war zoning laws from changing too heavily in favor of auto-centric development. Have cities continue to build upwards as much as they do outwards, along with lower demand for cars (the most challenging part), and the incentive to preserve and expand the streetcar networks remains. Above all, prevent Robert Moses from controlling the urban planning of mid-century NYC. His policies rejecting mass transit investment in favor of highways largely set the tone for urban planning throughout the post-WW2 US.

You make a good point about zoning. There's also tax law at play: a lot of cities (most?) taxed farms at the urban fringe as if it was potentially developed land, rather than as farmland. That made it expensive to own & attractive to sell to developers.

Add the streetcars, which actually created the first "streetcar suburbs" in the 1910s & 1920s (earlier?). Then add the G.I. Bill, which encouraged buying new homes, as opposed to renovating older ones... Then add the mortgage income deduction, which enabled buying more expensive homes, which had the unintended effect of encouraging suburbs: higher cost wants lower taxes which wants 'burbs...

All of which contributes to sprawl. It also contributes to congestion & wasted time & more CO2...

The Interstate Highway System has taken a lot of the blame for urban sprawl in the U.S. Conspiracy has been blamed for destroying the urban & interurban tram systems.

So: how would you prevent it? What changes need to be made? Who needs to be removed from influence, or to gain it? Starting no further back than 1900...

Don't forget Canada, please. (Main emphasis on U.S. is fine, tho.)

 

[Riain]

I know that the anti-trust law where a company couldn't own a regulated (electricity) company and an unregulated (electric trolley) company didn't help, it killed the synergies that these companies had.

 

[TheMann]

I know that the anti-trust law where a company couldn't own a regulated (electricity) company and an unregulated (electric trolley) company didn't help, it killed the synergies that these companies had.

I'm not quite sure what benefit that would have, though. After WWII, most streetcar systems ran losses, so I'm not sure what benefit it would be to have these two industries together. You really do need to get mass transit as being less seen as a way for poor people to get around and more as a way of getting to where you want to go without driving. How you do that in the states is a good question. I figure the best way is to have the city centers of major American cities not get hollowed out by white flight in the 1960s, so that gentrification takes over by the late 1970s and massive traffic congestion forces expansion of mass transit in the 1980s.

 

[jkay]

It couldn't possibly be because the car's HIGHER TECH that lets you go places faster, could it? After all, I can drive an average commute here in Austin in 20-30 minutes, while "RAPID TRANSIT", even in NYC or London, average 50-60 min. Only twice to 3x as fast by car. Of course, crowded cities like NYC are so crowded that driving's no faster, so many like to take public transit there.

And, sprawl's also GOOD because it's more affordable to build, and so live in. Yes, it's true. Check out rents in houses vs apartments and you'll see. That's because high buildings take tons and tons of digging.

And, while we're talking transit, 15 minute busses is a more important thing than fast trains, because overalltrip time's the most important thing, and that gives you the least waiting.

Though, no doubt racism's part of it, too. White flight definitely has been real. Though, now, we're even seeing some waves of black and Latino flight to the burbs.

 

[Thoresby]

Personally as a Brit I wish we had some sprawl, I'd love to be able to buy a decent sized house with a back-garden sometime before I'm 70. As it is I get to enjoy the "benefits" of living in a flat and using public transport.

 

[Riain]

I'm not quite sure what benefit that would have, though. After WWII, most streetcar systems ran losses, so I'm not sure what benefit it would be to have these two industries together. You really do need to get mass transit as being less seen as a way for poor people to get around and more as a way of getting to where you want to go without driving. How you do that in the states is a good question. I figure the best way is to have the city centers of major American cities not get hollowed out by white flight in the 1960s, so that gentrification takes over by the late 1970s and massive traffic congestion forces expansion of mass transit in the 1980s.

Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 was the law.

From Wiki:
"Most electric streetcar companies were private companies owned by electric utility holding companies. These streetcar companies were generally unregulated, while the electric utilities were regulated. The electric utility company would sell electricity to the streetcar affiliate company and artificially mark up the price in order to affect the accounting costs of the regulated utility. This allowed the utility company to subsidize the streetcar system while at the same time being able to raise their electric rates for other customers. The result of the provision was the divestiture of utility-owned electric streetcar companies, which were then acquired by various parties and very often dismantled in what became known as the General Motors streetcar conspiracy."

So basically the GM actions wouldn't have occured without the Law.

 

[phx1138]

It couldn't possibly be because the car's HIGHER TECH that lets you go places faster, could it?

That's because the surface rail, like trams, had all grade crossings, instead of elevateds.

Something I should've mentioned: tax break for interurbans so they don't pay a (property) tax on the rails which then goes to subsidize highways...

And, sprawl's also GOOD

it's more affordable to build, and so live in.

Because it's being subsidized by inner city taxpayers. If 'burb developers had to pay full cost of streets, sewer lines, & water lines (they don't), the prices would be higher... Also, why not tax suburbs higher? Say, increase the water/sewer rate the farther from center you get?

And, while we're talking transit, 15 minute busses is a more important thing than fast trains, because overalltrip time's the most important thing, and that gives you the least waiting.

No argument. Trams can run on that schedule just as well, & operate more cheaply.

The electric power trusts got busted by FDR...

So what would it have taken to get FDR to agree to a dollar-for-dollar investment in interurbans & trams under the NIRA or PWA? There was money going into roads, bridges, & parks; why not elevated crossings or elevated rail? Or heavier ties or something, for faster trains? Or track straightening? (Actually, all of them...)

 

[Anime Ninja]

Road Tolls, lot and lots of road tolls.

POD is that there are no freeways. All of the major roads and bridges are built and owned by private companies but by law they have to allow buses that carry 20 or more people on them for no toll.

 

[Krases]

I am currently writing a nice fat 25 page term paper on this subject. Basically the problem with sprawl/why it happened, the cure for sprawl (New Urbanism and controlled costs) and how the libertarian ideology of smaller government is the long term answer to controlling sprawl and how it can be reconciled with New Urbanism.

The interesting thing I discovered is how infrastructure is paid for in America. Basically, the problem isn't just overzealous highway construction, its infrastructure as a whole. A lot of the cost of building sprawl in the middle of nowhere, like building a far flung suburb, is eaten by government grants from the federal and state levels.

One example I found was a town that needed 300k dollars to replace part of their sewer system. Because the system had been overbuilt in the first place by government grants in the 40's and 50's, they couldn't even afford maintenance on it, their entire budget for all city services was 150k dollars. Thats their money for everything. Schools, police, really basic stuff.

Well they couldn't get a grant on it because the project was too small. So they enlarged the project to well over 2 million dollars and got funding, but now they are just kicking the can down the road.

I believe the town was named Remer, Minnesota. There is a good video by Chuck Marohn who was the civic engineer who worked on the project.

 

[SactoMan101]

The US would probably have stopped the spread of suburban sprawl had cities required "green zones" outside urban areas like what was done in Great Britain.

That would have resulted in 8 to 15 storey buildings built near the city center, and you would see a many areas that now suburbs still remaining farmland (imagine Santa Clara Valley and Orange County in California and much of Long Island still remaining mostly farmland even in 2012).

 

[phx1138]

the libertarian ideology of smaller government is the long term answer to controlling sprawl and how it can be reconciled with New Urbanism.

Unfortunately, the "smaller government" approach has all sorts of other negative effects...

The interesting thing I discovered is how infrastructure is paid for in America. Basically, the problem isn't just overzealous highway construction, its infrastructure as a whole. A lot of the cost of building sprawl in the middle of nowhere, like building a far flung suburb, is eaten by government grants from the federal and state levels.

I have never heard this before. Thx!

A question, tho: what's the source of the funding from the feds &/or state?

The US would probably have stopped the spread of suburban sprawl had cities required "green zones" outside urban areas like what was done in Great Britain.

That would have resulted in 8 to 15 storey buildings built near the city center, and you would see a many areas that now suburbs still remaining farmland (imagine Santa Clara Valley and Orange County in California and much of Long Island still remaining mostly farmland even in 2012).

This sounds like a good idea. My trouble with it is the taxation of farms at city fringes. (Is that a state issue? It sounds like it.) If they're taxed at a high rate, which encourages conversion to 'burbs (as they frequently are in the U.S.), a "green zone" is a tax liability...

 

[iori]

One example I found was a town that needed 300k dollars to replace part of their sewer system. Because the system had been overbuilt in the first place by government grants in the 40's and 50's, they couldn't even afford maintenance on it, their entire budget for all city services was 150k dollars. Thats their money for everything. Schools, police, really basic stuff.

Well they couldn't get a grant on it because the project was too small. So they enlarged the project to well over 2 million dollars and got funding, but now they are just kicking the can down the road.

I believe the town was named Remer, Minnesota. There is a good video by Chuck Marohn who was the civic engineer who worked on the project.

The big thing to remember about these small towns is that when that kind of stuff was built their was an actual need for it, but over the decades people have migrated to Urban areas or places with better oppurtunities and the towns have seen demographic collapse with a much smaller population now than they had at their heights, of course this is'nt just something that happens to small twosn, it can hit cities to, for example Detroit has more infrastructure and stuff than it can pay for now, and parts of the city have been left to rot, however his is not the result of overbuilding but the result of the manufacturing sectors collapse which has resulted in Detroy going from having a population of 1.84 million in 1950 to 713,777 in 2010.

 

[Dr. Luny]

Part of the problem is the inevitable rise of the automobile. The war had greatly developed the American automotive industry and they needed to sell their products. Sprawl becomes inevitable whether encouraged by the Federal Government or by local landowners and businesses. If you had the US largely stay out of the war and the country stay poorer, you could prevent a lot of the sprawl from happening, but short of that you're going to see some sort of sprawl.

 

[phx1138]

Part of the problem is the inevitable rise of the automobile. The war had greatly developed the American automotive industry and they needed to sell their products. Sprawl becomes inevitable whether encouraged by the Federal Government or by local landowners and businesses. If you had the US largely stay out of the war and the country stay poorer, you could prevent a lot of the sprawl from happening, but short of that you're going to see some sort of sprawl.

I'd disagree. I find the cars enabled sprawl, & encouraged it, but didn't cause it. That is, with cars you could build the big supermarkets, but it wasn't mandatory they, nor the 'burbs, be built.

 

[TxCoatl1970]

IMO urban sprawl's one of the worst environmental practices we do in the US.
Another is our culture's emphasis on personal, disposable stuff.
At any rate, urban sprawl after WWII AFAIK happened for several reasons to wit:

• Residential construction was at crawl (b/c getting loans was next to impossible) compared to population growth during the Depression so there was a ton of pent-up demand for housing from 1929-1945
• Millions of people went through a lot of forced communal housing in the military, NRA camps, and so forth 1933-1945. Even if they didn't go through that, there were plenty living in flophouses and tenements with shared bathrooms and so forth. LSS They wanted their own place.
• Construction techniques advanced tremendously during WWII. The knowledge was there in the 1930's but WWII urgency forced the development curve vertical on building new stuff quickly. Thus big developments could be built much more quickly and cheaply than before.
• AIUI there were post-WWII attempts to expand and rehab urban housing stocks that ran into significant red tape with zoning and permit issues.
  Developers got tired of being shaken down by various city machines and decided to find pliant town boards/councils where they could build as they liked.
• Farmers near urban centers found it much more profitable to sell to developers than farm. Also, lots of farmers' sons and daughters got shuffled around, got a taste of urban life and opportunities to live there and make a different life for themselves thanks to war plant work or the GI Bill.
• VA and FHA loan guarantees as well as the IHS and infrastructure loans/grants subsidized the whole suburban explosion. Federal money accelerated it, but other factors being in place, it'd have happened anyway, just slower IMO.
• White flight due to racism was a factor from the 1960's on with desegregation and busing, but it was part of an overall trend of middle-class whites going to the burbs where they didn't have the "urban" hassles.

So out of this melange of social and economic and technical factors, urban sprawl in the US was darned near inevitable.

Butterflying the Depression would do something for the credit crunch that stalled urban housing stock development and redevelopment for sixteen years.
I'd be talking through my hat about Depression-era housing lending/grant programs to finance new apartments or rehab them.

Butterflying the WWII mobilization(shorter or no war) would have shuffled less people around (folks would more likely have stayed on the farm or the neighborhood they grew up in).
Also the Seabees and construction engineers wouldn't be so interested in building stuff expeditiously and creating this huge capability to do so in the civilian world when they demobilized.

Butterflying the federal supports (VA/FHA loans) and IHS that made suburbs and car culture possible isn't quite as tricky. I'm with TheMann on subsidizing and rationalizing railroads in the 1950's to move people and cargo as effectively and efficiently as possible.

I really like phx1138's ideas tweaking the incentives for build-out,
Anime Ninja's road tolls, and SactoMan's green zones as well.

 

[iori]

You know I think we should make a difference between Urban sprawl and Suburban sprawl.

Urban sprawl would be New York city while Subruban sprawl would be, well, what we commonly think of as sprawl.

 

[Krases]

IMO urban sprawl's one of the worst environmental practices we do in the US.
Another is our culture's emphasis on personal, disposable stuff.
At any rate, urban sprawl after WWII AFAIK happened for several reasons to wit:

To me, the largest enabler of sprawl is spreading the costs through through re-allocating tax dollars. If people had to pay the full costs of sprawl, especially the infrastructure costs, sprawl would be greatly reduced. Sure you would still have some sprawl, and a little bit of sprawl is ok so long as its the exception and not the rule. Change the way these things are paid for and sprawl would be greatly reduced.

One way to do it: federal and state government is not allowed to fund infrastructure projects, only chartered cities can pool their resources to build infrastructure. This gives great incentive for government to only build infrastructure that connects two cities, not expand their borders needlessly. This all relates closely to who has the ability to tax.

 

[TxCoatl1970]

@ Krases
The big issue behind infrastructure isn't building it, but keeping it up and upgrading it PRN. As you mentioned with the Remer MN case study- the feds love to build things and turn the keys over to the locals in photo op, not maintain them.
Sustainability of projects is a mess b/c the rubric is as much about political preferences as conforming to fed regs, engineering and business standards.
Localities have limits on how much they can tax (in what way), and what the local Chamber of Commerce feels is a tolerable tax/fees burden.
The big issue from a local utility standpoint I've run into is the insistence on bond issues to fund current operations, endlessly kicking the can down the road, instead of charging fees that actually sustain the system, .
This was Dallas, a 1.1M pop. city in Texas unwilling to face fiscal reality, not some cash-strapped town.

@Iorl
Urban sprawl and suburban sprawl may seem like different things, but basically, they're a movement of folks from higher to lower-density communities with "better" amenities. Different starting points but the same process to the same conclusion. Differentiating the two is to me, silly.

What we're debating here is finding some way to butterfly the process of endlessly building out away from cities and inner-ring suburbs that has transformed America in ways I'm not real happy with.

 

[phx1138]

happened for several reasons to wit:

• Residential construction was at crawl (b/c getting loans was next to impossible) compared to population growth during the Depression so there was a ton of pent-up demand for housing from 1929-1945
• Millions of people went through a lot of forced communal housing in the military, NRA camps, and so forth 1933-1945. Even if they didn't go through that, there were plenty living in flophouses and tenements with shared bathrooms and so forth. LSS They wanted their own place.
• Construction techniques advanced tremendously during WWII. The knowledge was there in the 1930's but WWII urgency forced the development curve vertical on building new stuff quickly. Thus big developments could be built much more quickly and cheaply than before.
• AIUI there were post-WWII attempts to expand and rehab urban housing stocks that ran into significant red tape with zoning and permit issues.
  Developers got tired of being shaken down by various city machines and decided to find pliant town boards/councils where they could build as they liked.
• Farmers near urban centers found it much more profitable to sell to developers than farm. Also, lots of farmers' sons and daughters got shuffled around, got a taste of urban life and opportunities to live there and make a different life for themselves thanks to war plant work or the GI Bill.
• VA and FHA loan guarantees as well as the IHS and infrastructure loans/grants subsidized the whole suburban explosion. Federal money accelerated it, but other factors being in place, it'd have happened anyway, just slower IMO.
• White flight due to racism was a factor from the 1960's on with desegregation and busing, but it was part of an overall trend of middle-class whites going to the burbs where they didn't have the "urban" hassles.

So out of this melange of social and economic and technical factors, urban sprawl in the US was darned near inevitable.

That's a great list of the big factors IMO. Even if you butterfly out the tax issues, like the mortgage deduction, & the G.I. Bill, the "macro" issues are going to be in play. It's like a perfect storm...

To me, the largest enabler of sprawl is spreading the costs through through re-allocating tax dollars. If people had to pay the full costs of sprawl, especially the infrastructure costs, sprawl would be greatly reduced. Sure you would still have some sprawl, and a little bit of sprawl is ok so long as its the exception and not the rule. Change the way these things are paid for and sprawl would be greatly reduced.

AIUI, that's the big factor in how fast it happens.

Here's a thought: can a city or developer challenge tax breaks for a competitor under the Commerce Clause? There was a case that went to the Supreme Court over one state taxing another's riverboat traffic (IIRC). So, can you get a suit to prevent tax incentives? Was there any hope of it getting to SCotUS, & succeeding? This could help stop sprawl. It could also discourage establishing branch plants of foreign car companies...

One way to do it: federal and state government is not allowed to fund infrastructure projects, only chartered cities can pool their resources to build infrastructure. This gives great incentive for government to only build infrastructure that connects two cities, not expand their borders needlessly. This all relates closely to who has the ability to tax.

I'm not sure you can achieve that. You might be able to restrict it to infrastructure outside city limits, like bridges, highways, dams, & such; I think you're going to still get, still need, fed/state $$ for things like the NYC water tunnels.

If you say to cities/states, there will be no fed $ for anything inside city limits, tho, IMO you force cities to live within their tax base. How you achieve that, I have no clue...

basically, they're a movement of folks from higher to lower-density communities with "better" amenities. Different starting points but the same process to the same conclusion. Differentiating the two is to me, silly.

Agreed. And when you look at European cities, which have pop densities higher than most in the U.S. (compare Paris to Dallas, frex), "better" doesn't mean more sprawl.

What we're debating here is finding some way to butterfly the process of endlessly building out away from cities and inner-ring suburbs that has transformed America in ways I'm not real happy with.

I'd entirely agree: that's what I'm trying to get at. Not only how it's happening, & why, but how to prevent it. It's looking a lot harder than I expected.

Thinking of the Depression, tho, suppose you turn that around: make it worse & longer. Does it create a caution to get into debt? Or a caution by banks to lend? Even after things improve, that is. (I've a sense that wouldn't stop it, tho, just slow it, & maybe not much.) Any chance for a city (or state, probably) to change their tax laws to encourage lending on a smaller scale, for rebuild?

I wonder, tho: was it possible for a "city beautiful" movement to take hold & encourage reconstruction of slum neighborhoods into single-family homes on small lots? I've heard even cutting the lot size in half would've made a big difference. In the above vein, can you manipulate the state/local taxes to discourage large lots & large houses? (ISTM you'd still need to change the federal mortgage deduction, which makes it harder to get to, but easier to have national impact.)

I've also seen some proposed developments (none built...) with narrow, winding streets, lots of green space, & so forth, that looked really friendly to people.

There's two other factors, too, partly driven by the war: blacks attracted north, & people generally attracted into the Sun Belt, by war jobs. (Aircraft industry drew a lot of people to California & Texas.) So, can localities use local/state taxes to attract reconstruction & return?

Can cities discourage immigration? I'm thinking of something like the Red Car issue, where it was dismantled to prevent/discourage movement of the poor into richer neighborhoods. So, can cities discourage movement to 'burbs? (How, IDK.) Some kind of reaction to the Okies? (I do foresee a constitutional challenge...)

Thinking of cars, what about higher charges for car users? I've thought about high charges for downtown parking, special fees for car owners, higher fees for snow clearance, higher taxes (even very high special taxes) for parking lots (or surface parking), steep ticket fees for speeding or illegal parking (& strong enforcement)...with the money going into better & cheaper-to-ride public transit. (I entirely agree with TheMann, subsidies for rail generally, & interurban/tram specifically, in this case, would be a tremendous benefit; I also think, just cutting the property taxes would help.)

There's also one big factor: when does it get addressed? If the problem is recognized in the 1890s-1910s, with the streetcar 'burbs, can it slow the post-WW2 explosion? Can there be a strong enough movement to actual city planning & growth-regulation (which most cities don't have even now AFAIK)? Or is the "perfect storm" going to overwhelm any restrictions?

Just one more thing.p) My mom is no fan of using public transit, partly because it's confusing. (Hell, I get confused.) So making routes easier to understand & the trams easier to ride with confidence for elder riders would be a good thing.

Safety is also an issue, if the anecdotes about the MTA are any clue.

 

[Thoresby]

I really don't get the hatred of suburbia in America. I'm British, I live in a cramped flat in the middle of London because the Green Belt means London was frozen in aspic in 1930 and hasn't grown geographically since, despite several million more people moving here. I'm in my 20's, living with my girlfriend and like to go out in the evenings so if I was a Chicagoan or a Bostonite I'd want to be reasonably central, but thanks to "sprawl" (otherwise known as growth) my flat would be half the price as I wouldn't be competing with 40 years olds and I could reasonably hope to move out to a nice three bedroom house with a backgarden in a few years when we're ready to have kids. As it is I pay a ridiculous share of my wage on a 30 sq metre flat without a green space in sight. I'm only ever going to be able to get my own place with the help of my parents (and probably my partners parents) and even then it's going to be smaller and generally crappier while also being more expensive than if I was an Australian or American.
New Urbanism and all that crap basically means the state forcing people to adopt a lifestyle they don't want. Give people a choice and they'll vote for surburbia over "trendy" inner-city living 70-30, look at every country where the government hasn't interfered, Australia, America, Canada etc.