> All of this is dependent on highways and new roads, new electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure. This is all very expensive to build and maintain, and the cities and municipalities are left to foot the bill.
That's not generally how this works. There aren't necessarily highways and new paved roads going to rural properties. Electrical service isn't only downtown in cities but for miles outside of them or from solar, propane, or any one of the many other technologies.
As everyone who has built a property outside of some service area knows, the homeowner is the one who pays to drop the lines or service to the properety. Water almost always comes from a well on the property, and sewage tanks are how the sewage are handled.
Later, if Frank & Martha's property gets annexed into the city, they will pay taxes and will be just as entitled to city services as others. They already pay county, state and other taxes, which means they are entitled to whatever their taxes pay for.
"In general, rural areas in the United States have higher homeownership rates than urban areas. Compared with urban areas, where the homeownership rate was 59.8 percent, rural areas had a homeownership rate of 81.1 percent." [1]
> As everyone who has built a property outside of some service area knows, the homeowner is the one who pays to drop the lines or service to the properety.
I've read recently that as of right now, if you're more than 1000 yards from the branch point the electrical company would run wire from, it is already cheaper to go fully off-grid. Not 100% true that this is true or at least universally applicable, but the curves all point in that direction.
That makes a lot of sense to me. I'm pretty sure there has been some cutoff like that for as long as there have been utilities.
I don't know exactly how many yards the breakeven point is. However, from what I've seen it is almost always monetarily cheaper to create your own services when possible - unless a neighbor has paid for services to get really close. It might make sense for neighbors to pool money for pulling services out. It all depends on the specifics, right?
> Suburban developments in the US are often in food deserts. There's usually nothing within walking distance and if there is it is prohibitively dangerous and unpleasant to walk there.
Is there data to back this up, particularly the "usually" part?
Having nearly always lived in suburban areas (a few times rural), food shopping is nearly always within an easy walk. I'm sure there are some cases where this might not be so, but I doubt it's the norm. For rural areas, sure.
If you have to cross a 40ft+ road with vehicles traveling at 50mph (i.e. 40mph speed limit), I consider that not walkable.
And 5 lane 40mph arterial roads (two each way and 1 turn lane), seems to be a standard feature of all suburbs all around the country, on which most grocery stores and shopping are located.
> If you have to cross a 40ft+ road with vehicles traveling at 50mph (i.e. 40mph speed limit), I consider that not walkable.
Ok, but that's a quite radical limitation to the definition of walkable. What is the reason to put up self-imposed limitations like that?
I mean, by that definition even most of Manhattan wouldn't be called walkable even thought it's the most walkable city in the US!
In my very suburban neighborhood, I can very easily walk to a 24hr supermarket in about 5-6 minutes, so I often do (except when it's super cold/raining).
Yes, I do have to cross a 4 lane road (two this way, two that way). I press the pedestrian crossing button, wait a handful of seconds and once it's my turn I cross the road with cars traveling at 0mph since they all have a red light.
> In my very suburban neighborhood, I can very easily walk to a 24hr supermarket in about 5-6 minutes, so I often do
some anecdata as a counterpoint to the "everything being super close to you in urban areas" narrative: i live in a pretty damn urban neighourhood ("old" or "core" Hollywood, CA), and it takes me ~15 minutes to walk to the nearest supermarket (just under 1 mile).
historically, there were a number of closer supermarkets but those large buildings & their parking lots tend to be eventually razed and replaced with luxury apartment buildings.
huh, actually i just checked and it looks like there is not a single 24-hour supermarket within any kind of reasonable walking distance of my home (2-3 miles). i am pretty sure the local VONS was 24hr before COVID, i wonder if that is why? now all the local VONS or Ralphs or what have you all close between 11pm and 1am.
> What is the reason to put up self-imposed limitations like that?
Because I have seen how risky it is to cross due to speeding drivers in large vehicles looking at their phones. It is a large distance to cross, and if someone is mobility impaired like an old person or handicapped or child, it can be quite harrowing.
Also, NYC is completely different because the speed cars travel at is actually 25mph. A world of difference in being able to stop or avoid a collision at 50mph.
And this is a best case scenario in many suburbs. I come across 7 to 9 lane wide arterial roads all the time. 3 lanes in each direction, 1 to 2 turn lanes and shoulder. Even as a healthy young guy, I feel intimidated walking across 80ft+ of vehicles that can be traveling at high speeds.
> NYC is completely different because the speed cars travel at is actually 25mph
Unless there's traffic jam, driving speeds in the 4+ lane avenues in Manhattan is certainly higher than 25mph. (Source: used to spend all my weekends in Manhattan so I've done a lot of walking and cycling all over it.)
> Even as a healthy young guy, I feel intimidated walking across 80ft+ of vehicles that can be traveling at high speeds.
You should not be crossing when cars are traveling at any speed other than zero, that's what the pedestrian crossing lights are for.
In any case, you're right in that if you set a personal limitation on what is walkable that excludes nearly every part of the country (including Manhattan), then you won't find any walkable areas.
Personally I don't mind crossing a street (with a red-light protected crossing) so I find suburban areas to very walkable since I can (and do) get to any stores I want within an easy walk.
>You should not be crossing when cars are traveling at any speed other than zero, that's what the pedestrian crossing lights are for.
You would never finish crossing then. Lots of times there are cars traveling in the lanes that are approaching the intersection, and you have no way of knowing if they are paying attention or not to the traffic lights.
At low speeds, you can eyeball them sufficiently decreasing their speed and confirm they are stopping, but at high speeds, it is impossible to tell.
> >You should not be crossing when cars are traveling at any speed other than zero, that's what the pedestrian crossing lights are for.
> You would never finish crossing then.
Well I don't know what to say, it is quite the wild west wherever you live.
Around here (California) and everywhere else I've happened to live, all kinds of people (including the very old with mobility problems) finish crossing safely all day long without any trouble.
And when someone particularly slow is crossing and doesn't get to the other side before the pedestrian light goes red, cars just wait. Nobody's going to run them over just because the light changed.
I’ve lived in various suburban places around the bay and always had stores within a mile. My current place has three grocery stores within half a mile!
I also think suburban areas are nicer for bikes because there is no theft. Biking in SF is pretty rough for example. Here I don’t even have to lock my bike.
Many of your points are valid for many suburbs but also not for many others. Talking generally like this is weird, I've lived in about 6 different suburbs my whole life and nothing you listed was true for any of them.
I'm not a fan of suburbs but I'm tired of people holding up the worst possible examples and saying "SEE, SUBURBS SUCK!"
They certainly don't seem to be talking about suburban homes.
> But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments).
I don't think you're using the term "food desert" properly like you think you are. In the suburbs, it's expected that you'll get to your local grocery store and find healthy foods available at reasonable prices. In a food dessert, your local 15 grocery stores/bodegas/whatever you all them, won't have access to healthy foods. You might see a banana, or something, and it'll cost 4x what it would cost at a regular grocey store, hence there's an affordability aspect, to it, too.
Your points require a very specific definition of suburban. Many cities in the western US are almost 100% suburban, but if that gets brought up the goalposts move.
Is that really a city though? Wouldn't that more accurately described as a big collection of suburban sprawl? I don't have a particular people/sq mile/meter figure in mind, but if it's not dense enough to justify public transportation and for it to be comfortable to live without a car (ie a single train/bus/tram per hour doesn't count), I say we don't actually call it a city because it really isn't.
Is Portland a city? Because it is almost 100% made up of what would otherwise be considered suburban neighborhoods. Single family homes with yards. There is a tiny core nestled between the river and the hills with a few blocks of urban city. The city does have public transportation. Though you'd mostly find that living without a car would require sacrifices that people aren't willing to make.
And what about out west of there? Beaverton, is that city? Hillsboro? These places are suburban cities with public transit.
Could also look north, to Seattle. Larger than Portland for sure, but fundamentally similar concept.
So this is where I see the goalposts getting moved. Lots of people say 'suburban' and only think of the endless tracts of housing with no commercial or retail space. That's just one kind of suburbia. Common in some regions (midwest comes to mind), less so in others.
Whether an area is a suburb has nothing to do with whether people live in single family homes with yards. A suburb is an outlying part of a city or town or a smaller community adjacent to or within commuting distance of a city. [1]
That's not generally how this works. There aren't necessarily highways and new paved roads going to rural properties. Electrical service isn't only downtown in cities but for miles outside of them or from solar, propane, or any one of the many other technologies.
As everyone who has built a property outside of some service area knows, the homeowner is the one who pays to drop the lines or service to the properety. Water almost always comes from a well on the property, and sewage tanks are how the sewage are handled.
Later, if Frank & Martha's property gets annexed into the city, they will pay taxes and will be just as entitled to city services as others. They already pay county, state and other taxes, which means they are entitled to whatever their taxes pay for.
"In general, rural areas in the United States have higher homeownership rates than urban areas. Compared with urban areas, where the homeownership rate was 59.8 percent, rural areas had a homeownership rate of 81.1 percent." [1]
[1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/...