> "Bolwerk" gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:46c4de66$0$3762$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

>> rotten wrote:

>>> On Aug 16, 10:51 am, Bolwerk gmail.com> wrote:

>>>> rotten wrote:

>>>>> On Aug 16, 9:57 am, ste...@panix.com (Steven M. O'Neill) wrote:

>>>>>> Pat wrote:

>>>>>>> On Aug 15, 1:44 pm, "Stephen Sprunk" sprunk.org> wrote:

>>>>>>>> What do you expect when you're posting to alt.planning.urban
>>>>>>>> and misc.transport.urban-transit? Of _course_ most people in
>>>>>>>> those groups are in favor of urban living;

>>>>>>> Maybe most people in this group are, but in general, most
>>>>>>> people are not. That's the difference between many people here
>>>>>>> and Real People.

>>>>>> http://www.tstc.org/bulletin/index.html#article05
>>>>>> A significant percentage of Long Islanders (43%%) would
>>>>>> prefer to live within walking distance of a booming
>>>>>> downtown, neighborhood schools, and public services,
>>>>>> according to a recent Vision Long Island poll conducted by
>>>>>> the Stony Brook University Center for Survey Research.
>>>>>> That's a lot of people feeling trapped in their cars.

>>>>> Then what's stopping them? While that poll may be true, I'm sure that
>>>>> other issues may supersede that preference. Would you be willing to
>>>>> live in triple deckers or duplexes? Would you be willing to have your
>>>>> neighbors breathing down your neck? Would you be willing to have a
>>>>> tiny postage stamp yard? The fact of the matter is that there are
>>>>> plenty of areas in the US where this is possible, you just have to
>>>>> give up the suburban liftstyle. I don't think most people want to do
>>>>> that.

>>>> I personally stay where I am (Brooklyn) partially *because* nobody
>>>> breathes down my neck.
>>>>
>>>> There are probably lots of people who would like urban areas despite
>>>> what you describe above. Maybe not a majority, but a lot. There are
>>>> two other pretty damning factors:
>>>>
>>>> 1) economics. Nice cities, or the nice parts of cities, are expensive.
>>>> Studios break into thousand dollar range in many places besides New
>>>> York.

>>> The reason cities are so expensive is that housing supply is limited,
>>> artificially and unavoidably. But they fight tooth and nail whenever a
>>> developer wants to build new high rise units here in Boston. High
>>> rises are probably unavoidable if you want to increase housing supply.
>>> The NIMBY's are as bad here as they are in the suburbs. The situation
>>> is similar in NYC from what I read. How could you be against high
>>> rises in Manhattan?!?! High rises *are* Manhattan. To get prices down,
>>> they will have to increase supply in Manhattan and to do that they
>>> will ultimately have to ignore the NIMBY's and build high-rises. I
>>> swear, Jane Jacobs was both the best and worst thing to ever happen to
>>> urban planning.

>> Well, parts of Manhattan are about high-rises. There are great swaths of
>> it that are low-rise.
>>
>> It seems the city intentionally limits growth of the housing supply. There
>> are probably political reasons for that - the legislation authorizing rent
>> control only permitted it if the rental occupancy rate stayed below a
>> certain percentage, which I believe it has for decades.
>>
>> I don't know if high-rises are necessarily the answer, although they
>> provide an economical way to shift spent land to a higher-value use.
>> Afterall, in much of NYC (especially the highest demand places), there's
>> little room for more infill.

>
> You need to increase the supply of housing, the only way to do that is with
> high rises.

>> I'm not sure how easy or legal factory conversions are.
>>

>>>> 2) crime. Cities that aren't expensive usually aren't nice, often
>>>> because of crime, maybe just because of decay. But crime usually
>>>> follows decay.
>>>>
>>>> Then there are all sorts of ancillary factors, like taxes, local
>>>> corruption, aging infrastructure, less support/benefits from
>>>> states/feds, crappier schools, on and on. And face it, spaces are
>>>> smaller in cities, so there's little room for 2 >>>>

>>>>> But there is some push there. I was reading an article about how some
>>>>> retirees are moving into urban downtowns because they're decided that
>>>>> they like the car-free lifestyle more than suburban/exurban (but car-
>>>>> centric) tranquility.

>>>> The specific retirees you're talking about are often older people with
>>>> big checkbooks. There was something in the NY Times in the past year
>>>> about older old people in FL coming back to the northeast because the
>>>> eldercare is better.

>