r/Urbanism

Quick background- spent maybe 2/3 of my life in/around NYC, moved to Sun Belt suburbs for the latest 1/3, recently visited NYC with my kids

Biggest thing that jumped out at me......... it seemed extremely lonely and isolated. People don't smile or look each other in the eye. It was weird to adjust the other way when I left NYC, but Im realizing I like it, even as somewhat of a loner/misanthrope

Studies seem to indicate it's kind of a fight or flight response from just being around too many people all the time. I think we know the clear environmental benefits of density but I feel like the quality of life & psychological aspects get glossed over. Is that just a NYC thing? I have been to other big cities and feel like it was kind of the same. Def was the case in California

I feel like there's a sweet spot of density that is dense enough to be walkable while still enabling people to have privacy/quiet/personal space. Places like NYC seem like too much IMO

Submission Statement:

In the coming era of federal fiscal pullback, American cities need a new business model. That model ought to focus on monetizing the value city governments help create, value that manifests in the price of urban land.

Whether through taxation of private land or leasing out public holdings, the impact would be not just to raise additional revenue, but to also realign the incentives of city government with broad based economic growth (instead of trading away tax abatements for things like sports stadiums in the hopes that they generate taxable economic activity).

My opinion:

Both can subsidize each other, but in most U.S. metros the stronger fiscal problem is often suburbs capturing tax base while central cities are more expansive to operate. It depends heavily on the metro’s tax structure.

Suburbs → city: Wealthy suburbs can effectively pull away property-tax revenue and higher-income residents while the central city continues paying for infrastructure and services. This is the tax-base fragmentation problem.

City → suburbs: Cities can also subsidize suburbs through regionally funded infrastructure: airports, transit, universities, hospitals, cultural institutions, freeways, water systems, and employment centers, that suburban residents use without bearing all of the costs.

State/federal transfers: Often blur the picture further. State and federal governments redistribute money among jurisdictions, so the local tax relationship isn’t necessarily the whole fiscal story.

High-cost cities: Homelessness, public transit, emergency services, and concentrated poverty can make the central city substantially more expensive to operate per resident.

Low-density suburbs: Suburbs can also impose higher infrastructure costs per resident because roads, utilities, and public services cover more land and fewer taxpayers.

All thoughts welcome.

Hi,

For locals: how difficult is it realistically to find overnight street parking around Union Square? Would having a car there be a headache?

Would you recommend staying in a more residential area instead?

Thank you!

I do not get the appeal of most suburbs. Like I understand the marketing of what it’s supposed to promise- space, comfort, privacy, wealth, safety, and stability. And I guess if your focus in life is on raising kids sure suburbs have their place.

But in practice what I just see is a lot of land and house I have to spend my free time taking care of, and a lot of my wealth affording and maintaining it. A lot of suburbs just don’t have soul to them either. Like you hardly know your neighbors and you’re far away from anything interesting and so I just end of feeling like I live in a box.

Manufactured homes neighborhoods are stereotyped as being trashy and undesirable, and while I think this isn’t always inaccurate, I think that nice ones are ragged on too much. I visited one of my friends in such a neighborhood and when I was there I wasn’t thinking “oh damn it sucks he has to live like this” I was thinking “wow, he’s within walking distance of a lot of things, knows his neighbors, and none of this feels cookie cutter and fake.”

Maybe it’s because I don’t have kids and I’m not materialistic but seeing my friends place i think I’d rather just live in a smaller house or manufactured home than spend so much money and effort trying to get a mccmansion. Like I don’t even think McMansions are nice tbh.

Like obviously mixed used neighborhoods and streetcar suburbs and dense missing middle housing is the best we can shoot for but I think manufactured homes have the potential for becoming little villages. Imagine if we allowed for grocery stores and maybe a bar or cafe to pop up in the middle of them they basically becomes villages right?

This is an issue I often wonder about. I’d love to make downtown space more walkable, for example. But insofar as a city lacks the money to buy brownfields or old buildings and do the development themselves, how do municipalities attract developers to create spaces with their vision in mind?