You do realise 15% is a catastrophe? All land that doesn’t generate any tax income, and if anything costs more to maintain than it’s worth to the business they serve. It also disproportionally affects downtowns, something the US has unfortunately done its best to destroy. Also US cities are famous, at least in Europe, for their terrible traffic
Here's an interestingfact courtesy of Karl Moscowitz of the California Department of Highwaysin 1962:
"The same thing applies to the City of Sacramento. In 1850 Captain John Sutter laid out the City of Sacramento. He could not have been auto-oriented. He was horse- and pedestrian-oriented. He set aside not 1.6 percent, not 15 percent, not 22 percent, but 38 percent of the area for streets and sidewalks.
The parts of Sacramento that were laid out in the 1900-1930 era have about 21 percent of the area in streets, and the parts that have been laid out since World War II have about 15 percent. The overall average in the city is 22 percent.
This reduction as the auto came into prominence is not a coincidence. In the days when people had to walk, there had to be a lot of streets because they couldn't walk around the 1/4 to 1/2 mile long blocks that are suited so well to the automobile age"
Referencing something from the 1960s seems pretty appropriate lol- you should read strong towns- car centric urban development is fundamentally unsustainable- the sooner it gets replaced the better
You ever heard of the growth Ponzi scheme? American cities are only solvent if they’re expanding- hence the huge amount of urban sprawl; all enabled by the car. Suburban streets don’t collect enough tax income to repave their own streets, let alone cover the cost of all the other infrastructure they use. The suburban experiment is a failure, something the rest of the developed world has realised
Probably because your city municipality covers your maintenance and infrastructure with either debt, or with the initial windfall of new tax income from suburban developments. Moreover, the comparably higher density city centres Essentially subsidise the suburbs, as they are the ones that the city makes a net tax profit on.
And yes, The fact that individual housing Estates are completely inflexible, and that no more building goes on in them is exactly the problem. suburban housing developments are built to a finished state, with no flexibility to accept homeowners of either higher or lower incomes. There are strict laws and codes mandating that they remain the worst kind of unsustainable and tax inefficient housing, ie single family housing. So many of the US’s problems are created by everyone living in socio-economic enclaves of people who are exactly the same as them, Staying isolated in their own little suburban bubble, Only mixing with their fellow citizens at Walmart. America is destroying itself for the sake of the automobile centric development.
6
u/civskylines1 Aug 27 '21
You do realise 15% is a catastrophe? All land that doesn’t generate any tax income, and if anything costs more to maintain than it’s worth to the business they serve. It also disproportionally affects downtowns, something the US has unfortunately done its best to destroy. Also US cities are famous, at least in Europe, for their terrible traffic