Hey, God forbid that the government would want to encourage people following their dreams and raising their families in a safe place.

You talk about home ownership like it's comparable to drinking wine. It's not the case. People want to own their own home because they want a safe place for their kids. While I don't deny the influence of the government in creating the suburbia we see today, I think you're vastly overestimating the amount of influence the government has, and vastly underestimating peoples desire to live on a 1/4 acre of heaven, outside of the city. With two cars.

Let me put it to you this way: if the government has such power to influence peoples housing choices, why has all the money that's been poured into urban transit in areas like Portland over the last fifteen years not significantly changed peoples habits? No matter how you slice it, it's more convenient to be able to drive wherever you want than to follow the whims of a transit system. Likewise, it's nicer being able to blare your music or bang on the walls (or have loud sex, whatever) in your own house than to have to be courteous of your neighbours in an apartment block.

This is not to say that I support all of these things! These conveniences come at a terrible environmental cost, and, one could argue, a social cost as well. (Loss of a sense of community when everybody's in a shell all day -- a car that has all the conveniences, or a house that you never need to leave.) But that doesn't mean that those poor brainwashed masses (let's use a term that I hate, but is in favour here: "sheeple") are simply being told by the big powerful government how to live. People can make their own choices, and there seems to be a pretty powerful impetus to live a suburban lifestyle.

That was an interesting historical perspective and summary, thanks. You've addressed two principles, really, one of enabling one to buy ones own home, the other on the generation of a "better" transport infrastructure.

The parallel here in NZ is that the government actually built houses for the least well off to rent [more...], and these were by and large built as suburbs, rather than inner city housing.

Although I'd probably disagree with the term "socialist", particularly when applied to a US government, enabling people to buy their own home is certainly a democratizing measure. In NZ house ownership is 79%, most Kiwis expect to be able to own their own little bit of paradise.

What you dont explain is why (and this goes back to Jaws original point) why (potential) homeowners and builders dont choose to build and live in-city rather than suburbs, and here our Canadian contributor sums it up (with my added emphasis):



For Mr and Mrs average, there is apparently nothing wrong with the model of living in suburbia, and no credible mainstream information source telling them otherwise, so (and this goes right back to the top of the thread) they aren't doing anything wrong.

Interestingly, the South-east of England has a similar situation, everyone wants to live outside London but works in London, but commuting to London basically means rail, so many of the new developments are within a short drive to a railway station, enabling "park and ride".



Yeah, I have no neighbour problem, just a couple of teenagers yelling at me to turn it down. Heck, its like when I was living with my parents

Everyone wants to live outside of London because inner-city housing is either astronomically expensive or unliveable. Interestingly West London offers a shining example of what a well-built city can look like when built without government regulation.

http://massengale.typepad.com/photos/a_ ... to/01.html
(John Massengale's blog)

Of course to afford to live there you have to sell all of your still-unborn great-grandchildren into slavery. But I still hope if land use were to be deregulated we could build more like these.

People desire absolutely everything. The only obstacle in their path to have everything are costs. Mainly what they have to pay to live in suburbia. Under the current system, the government pays most of the costs for people to live in suburbia in the form of sprawlways and underutilized commuter rail, so it's no wonder people will choose to live in suburbia. They look at the costs they have to pay, and make the choice that's preferable for them.

What alternatives are they being offered? Regulation has made it impossible to build anything but sprawl for 60 years, which puts two options in front of the hopeful homeowner: a detached single-family or high-rise condo. Having less than two cars is not even an option offered.

Uh, jaws, hate to break it to you but: South Kensington is one of the richest areas in the _country_, let alone London.

I think you['ll find that internationally, the problems associated with any type of housing arrangement go away if the residents are sufficiently moneyed. eg. Tall appartment blocks on the waterfront in Vancouver. Now, these look a lot like the tower blocks that blight the landscape in the poor suburbs in London, but they are expensive appartments rented to those with means.

If you have lots of cash, you have a lot more control over your life and environment, and I think what you're seeing in South Ken is mainly that being financially secure enhances quality of life...

There's just no way the whole of London will ever, _ever_ be as affluent as South Kensington - it's an unrealistic expectation. Incidentally, most of London consists of individual "high streets" with their own ships and services, and plenty of them are crime-ridden (Peckham, for example). I don't think Kensington is a good model.

One thing I can assure you of is that commuter rail in London certainly isn't underutilized!!! More the opposite (think 7th circle of Hell).

You're not breaking anything to me. I made a point of stating that it was unnaffordable to the common man. However that's evidence of the success of the place.

Tower blocks and rich people making any environment liveable is really irrelevant to the discussion. What matters is that a group of the wealthiest people in the world chooses to live in dense urban housing. They all have the means to expatriate themselves to the suburbs, but they don't, because their environment affords a superior quality of life.

A "superior quality of life" depends on what you want from life. I started out looking at a volcano from the kitched window, traded it for a neighbours brick wall, and now have a mountain. It just took a long time for me to work out what "quality of life" meant to me.

The houses in South Kensington that are fairly unaffordable by any normal scale of money are not "dense urban housing"; they are big detached places with grounds, bigger houses with bigger grounds then most (not average, most) suburban homes in the UK.

One quick look at google maps shows this is not true.

West London is made up of row houses and private gardens. It turns out people like those better than suburbia and will pay a hell of lot for the right to live there.

I echo Jaws' thoughts on why developers and homeowners haven't rebuilt the inner cities of the US; there's too much regulation preventing such action. Unfortunately, many cities adopted zoning and transportation measures that induce sprawl over sustainability, and building sprawl is always cheaper for the invested parties out in the greenfield exurbs, rather than in urban infill conditions.

No, I'm afraid I dont.

Yeah, I guess it mist be true, some people must like living in terraced houses. For less money they could have a decent house with a garden, somewhere for the kids to play other than on the street, with an easy commute to London by train. Sure beats the hell out of me, I hated it, and am so glad to be out of what was my Victorian workers accomodation. Perhaps I've managed to wash many years of London off my skin. When you're young though, the place really is a buzz, and is a great place to live, irrespective of your accomodation.

But ultimately its their own personal choice, not a choice mandated or influenced by Government, socialist or otherwise. Though the government was (and probably still is) trying to work out where to build lots of new homes as the population continues to grow.

South Ken was a poor choice for my example, as it is mostly non-detached housing, even amongst the rich. All that Georgian stuff, if my memory serves. People live in Chelsea because its, well, it's Chelsea. It confers a certain social status upon one. As well as the right to drive a Chelsea Tractor.

Spec, I wouldn't expect you to understand. Just remember to thank a renter for shouldering some of your tax burden come April 15 when you take that mortgage deduction that you value so much.

Although for every client of mine who lives in South Ken (I work in investment banking, my clients in the industry are _very_ affluent and can live where they please), there are 2-3 living further out in Richmond, Surrey, Kent... I agree that South Ken is a great place to live. I also agree that the massive commutes are soul-destroying. But many many folks seem to see long commutes as part of the London lifestlye (pretty much all London commutes into the financial district are by train, so they do get to read books or a newspaper on the way - I think this is the main reason why the British are still one of the world's highest readers per capita of daily newspapers...)

I'm not trying to take sides here, just explaining the way things are laid out over here.

Part of it is also urban planning. To get into central London, you _have_ to be within at the outside, 10-15 mins drive or walk from a 60-70 minute train commute. You'll see that the urban areas closely follow train corridors and where the high-speed lines are. It's not physically possible for lots and lots of people to drive into central London as there's nowhere to park. Plus gas is already $8 a gallon over here and has been for quite some time! The price of gas + public policy mean that concentration of housing along rail lines is encouraged.

I agree that dense urban housing is the way forward (I suspect your best models would be Singapore or Hong Kong rather than London). I also know where you're coming from with the US model - things are _much_ lower density in the US from what I've seen, with the exception being places like Manhattan.

Incidentally Manhattan is another good example of high-density living - you'd probably be better off citing places like the West Village as being a better example of what you're trying to portray here...

Manhattan and Hong Kong are pretty hostile environments compared to Central London, and it isn't at all necessary to scale up to their densities for efficient transportation networks. The New Urbanists consider 3-6 stories to be the optimum.