Discussing Main Street, USA: marketing, livability and nostalgia
April 10, 2017 9:46 AM Subscribe
The Myth of Main Street: Don’t listen to President Trump. Going back to the good old days will cost us. ~ a New York Times op-ed by Louis Hyman, an economic historian, director of the Institute for Workplace Studies at the ILR School at Cornell. Response: "The Myth of Main Street" Myth: Globalism Fueled the Right, on Daily Kos | But what is this mythical Main Street some seek? You might find some answers in the blog The Myths of Main Street: exploring the developmental history of the American small town in its heyday (1870-1930), written by Kirin Makker, Associate Professor of Art and Architecture at Hobart and William Smith Colleges
If you want to skip the political back-and-forth, the blog is really interesting, though currently dormant (latest post was an interview with the author, posted on July 16, 2014). The next two posts are Knowing your Place on Norman Rockwell’s Main Street, which touches on how often Norman Rockwell paintings are used as small town USA promotional tools of nostalgia, especially in tough times, and Tracking Down the Goods sold on Main Street USA, in which Makker follows "the trail of company goods right at the moment big capitalism really spread its wings."
My hope is to track where a handful of companies sold their goods in order to describe a product’s national distribution, and hence its availability across small town America. I have found, and my research will argue, that one of the reasons that small town America is such a consistent idea in the nation’s cultural language is that the goods exchanged there had both local and national parameters. Some of this research has had to do with companies that literally produced small town America: the storefronts, the brick-making machinery, the lamps and posts. But other parts of the research is about the everyday objects that were sold in small towns, and how most of them during the period of small town America’s boom were not made locally or even regionally. The retailers were locals, but the items for sale on Main Street were typically sourced from manufactories or large distributors in cities. Again, Main Street is tied to the economy of very large cities and vice-versa.posted by filthy light thief at 10:00 AM on April 10, 2017 [10 favorites]
I just finished Happy City and it's one of the best nonfiction books I've read in a while – definitely worth a look if you're interested in the history of the urban environments and suburbs that so many of us inhabit.
posted by oulipian at 10:03 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by oulipian at 10:03 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
I didn't want to derail in the other thread, but I noticed that a lot of people who were saying "We still have healthy main streets" were on the eastern seaboard (with the exception of someone from Michigan.) I wonder if it's a population density thing. I think in those states you can live in a "small town" and still always be within an easy drive of a major metro area. Whereas the small towns I'm thinking of are more in the middle of nowhere.
I've lived in Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, and Minnesota (among other places!), and my experience in general is that it's not just Main Streets that are dying, it's the more remote small towns themselves, which are losing huge portions of their population to the sprawling metro areas. The people left behind are people who can't afford to move, in large part, and are disproportionately elderly. I feel like the dying main streets of those towns are more a symptom of the dying towns than anything else (though of course Walmart and Amazon don't help.)
The population (and the young, ambitious parts of it especially) draining from those small towns really does imperil the their way of life.
I am reminded of that NPR story we talked about in one of the political threads a while back, comparing two small towns in Kansas -- one which allowed and encouraged immigrants to settle there (and as a consequence is now only 40% white) and one which kept its racial demographics the same, but as a consequence has lost a lot of population... A Tale Of Two Kansas Towns: One Thrives As Another Struggles.
I think that in trying so hard to protect their Way of Life (TM) including the majority status of their religion and their folkways and so on, which they think are endangered by immigration, some small towns might actually be imperiling their Way of Life (TM) in a different fashion by making themselves vulnerable to dwindling populations and "brain drain." It's a no win situation, if your only definition of "winning" is going back to how things were in the first two thirds of the twentieth century. And many people who do have that definition are very angry about the fact that they can't seem to win...
Racism is of course a part of this story too, but I'll say, in defense of the small town people I know, that a big influx of immigration like Garden City's does change the culture and the social dynamics of the town in ways that are more noticeable than in the city. In the city you can find a community that suits you no matter who you are, pretty much. But in a small town, you have to find a way to be friends with the other people who live there, or become a hermit.
On the other hand, I think finding a way to make friends with people who are different than you, and exist outside your cultural comfort zone, is not THAT much to ask of people. And it's a lot better than the alternative of insisting that everything stay the same and then, when it doesn't, burning with resentment at the rest of the country which is willing to change with the changing world...
posted by OnceUponATime at 10:23 AM on April 10, 2017 [39 favorites]
I've lived in Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, and Minnesota (among other places!), and my experience in general is that it's not just Main Streets that are dying, it's the more remote small towns themselves, which are losing huge portions of their population to the sprawling metro areas. The people left behind are people who can't afford to move, in large part, and are disproportionately elderly. I feel like the dying main streets of those towns are more a symptom of the dying towns than anything else (though of course Walmart and Amazon don't help.)
The population (and the young, ambitious parts of it especially) draining from those small towns really does imperil the their way of life.
I am reminded of that NPR story we talked about in one of the political threads a while back, comparing two small towns in Kansas -- one which allowed and encouraged immigrants to settle there (and as a consequence is now only 40% white) and one which kept its racial demographics the same, but as a consequence has lost a lot of population... A Tale Of Two Kansas Towns: One Thrives As Another Struggles.
I think that in trying so hard to protect their Way of Life (TM) including the majority status of their religion and their folkways and so on, which they think are endangered by immigration, some small towns might actually be imperiling their Way of Life (TM) in a different fashion by making themselves vulnerable to dwindling populations and "brain drain." It's a no win situation, if your only definition of "winning" is going back to how things were in the first two thirds of the twentieth century. And many people who do have that definition are very angry about the fact that they can't seem to win...
Racism is of course a part of this story too, but I'll say, in defense of the small town people I know, that a big influx of immigration like Garden City's does change the culture and the social dynamics of the town in ways that are more noticeable than in the city. In the city you can find a community that suits you no matter who you are, pretty much. But in a small town, you have to find a way to be friends with the other people who live there, or become a hermit.
On the other hand, I think finding a way to make friends with people who are different than you, and exist outside your cultural comfort zone, is not THAT much to ask of people. And it's a lot better than the alternative of insisting that everything stay the same and then, when it doesn't, burning with resentment at the rest of the country which is willing to change with the changing world...
posted by OnceUponATime at 10:23 AM on April 10, 2017 [39 favorites]
I wonder if it's a population density thing.
It is totally a population density thing.
Toronto has dozens of "main streets". Silicon Valley struggles to have any even though it's really, really wealthy. Cupertino can't even sustain a shopping mall somehow. So it's not even being wealthy, although that helps. It's about density.
posted by GuyZero at 10:30 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
It is totally a population density thing.
Toronto has dozens of "main streets". Silicon Valley struggles to have any even though it's really, really wealthy. Cupertino can't even sustain a shopping mall somehow. So it's not even being wealthy, although that helps. It's about density.
posted by GuyZero at 10:30 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
But what is this mythical Main Street some seek?
C'mon, everyone knows Main Street! It's where you can drive your buggy past the sundae parlor, the patent medicine store, the tobacconist's, the bowling alley, the nickelodeon, the dry goods store, the blacksmith's, the swingy-doored bar, the courthouse where old Judge McGuffey presides over truancy cases and misdemeanor charges, the public stocks, the opera house, the bakery, the silversmithy, the delicatessen, the Christmas store, the monument to the War Dead, the pizzeria, the gazebo, the newstand, the purveyor of ointments, the bookshop whose owner occasionally solves mysteries, the pawnshop, the hot-rod garage, the notary public, the firehouse (positively sweating Dalmatians from every windows), the diner, the saddler's, the Masonic temple, the Carnegie library, the VW Hall, the fermented fish-sauce peddler, and Woolworth's.
posted by Iridic at 10:40 AM on April 10, 2017 [55 favorites]
C'mon, everyone knows Main Street! It's where you can drive your buggy past the sundae parlor, the patent medicine store, the tobacconist's, the bowling alley, the nickelodeon, the dry goods store, the blacksmith's, the swingy-doored bar, the courthouse where old Judge McGuffey presides over truancy cases and misdemeanor charges, the public stocks, the opera house, the bakery, the silversmithy, the delicatessen, the Christmas store, the monument to the War Dead, the pizzeria, the gazebo, the newstand, the purveyor of ointments, the bookshop whose owner occasionally solves mysteries, the pawnshop, the hot-rod garage, the notary public, the firehouse (positively sweating Dalmatians from every windows), the diner, the saddler's, the Masonic temple, the Carnegie library, the VW Hall, the fermented fish-sauce peddler, and Woolworth's.
posted by Iridic at 10:40 AM on April 10, 2017 [55 favorites]
I don't know if it's density so much as climate... San Jose does have Almaden, Winchester, and Santana Row... I think of those as 'main streets', but the 24/7 clement weather of the San Jose region allows for a lot more sprawl, it's like LA in that regards.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 10:42 AM on April 10, 2017
posted by LeRoienJaune at 10:42 AM on April 10, 2017
I second that. the "Myths Main Street" blog has been great reading!
posted by prozak at 10:49 AM on April 10, 2017
posted by prozak at 10:49 AM on April 10, 2017
It is totally a population density thing.
Not so fast. It's also a supply chain thing.
While urban areas are more robust to economic changes in general, many of these areas in now de-emphasized trade routes (think Hudson River, Mississippi River, midwest rail) have seen their economies, populations and now main streets atrophy.
Many of them have a built environment that is comparable but there's no lifeblood to keep it up and labor participants vote with their feet. Much of what kept these places going during the last generation was drawing down assets and then debt, but that game is soon to be over.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 10:50 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
Not so fast. It's also a supply chain thing.
While urban areas are more robust to economic changes in general, many of these areas in now de-emphasized trade routes (think Hudson River, Mississippi River, midwest rail) have seen their economies, populations and now main streets atrophy.
Many of them have a built environment that is comparable but there's no lifeblood to keep it up and labor participants vote with their feet. Much of what kept these places going during the last generation was drawing down assets and then debt, but that game is soon to be over.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 10:50 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
my experience in general is that it's not just Main Streets that are dying, it's the more remote small towns themselves, which are losing huge portions of their population to the sprawling metro areas.
I agree with this idea. Back in the late 1990s, my grandmother took me, my brother, and our cousin out to Missouri to see where she and her husband had grown up, and there were a lot of little towns with less than 1,000 people in them. Coming from coastal California, seeing all those vacant houses was weird, so my brother and cousin came up with the plan to Make Missouri Grand Again, a pitch to move people out to these shrinking towns where housing was plentiful. But as high school students, we didn't think of the other side of the equation: the reasons to move there weren't there, otherwise people would have stayed.
Now I live in New Mexico, which only gained the "urban" designation as a state with the announcement of the 2010 Census urbanized area populations, and there's a tiny town with a number of homes in terrible disrepair, and one local resident and representative wanted some government assistance to rehab the homes, so people could move back in. Again, the issue was not the livability of the homes, but the reason to live there.
Even in growing cities, it's hard to (re)create the old Main Street - that's a 2005 article from the New York Times on Las Cruces, NM, which talks about how the city demolished its (commercially) failed pedestrian plaza to bring back a Main Street business district with direct vehicular access, which finally opened up in 2014. Sadly, in 2016, a bistro and ale house closed down, which was one of the hopes for the Main Street revitalization. In the other end of the state, there's a Main Street success story: up in Farmington, the local brewery has done well enough as to support an annual summer free concert series, and they've also expanded to include an all-ages pool hall.
Of course, it's more than one successful business to make Main Street work (though that doesn't hurt at all). Lots has been written on the topic, and here's one take, with a list of five key features to make a good Main Street work (preview: 1. A superior pedestrian experience; 2. Density, but at human scale; 3. Viable local businesses; 4. Nature; 5. Nearby residences).
posted by filthy light thief at 10:51 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
I agree with this idea. Back in the late 1990s, my grandmother took me, my brother, and our cousin out to Missouri to see where she and her husband had grown up, and there were a lot of little towns with less than 1,000 people in them. Coming from coastal California, seeing all those vacant houses was weird, so my brother and cousin came up with the plan to Make Missouri Grand Again, a pitch to move people out to these shrinking towns where housing was plentiful. But as high school students, we didn't think of the other side of the equation: the reasons to move there weren't there, otherwise people would have stayed.
Now I live in New Mexico, which only gained the "urban" designation as a state with the announcement of the 2010 Census urbanized area populations, and there's a tiny town with a number of homes in terrible disrepair, and one local resident and representative wanted some government assistance to rehab the homes, so people could move back in. Again, the issue was not the livability of the homes, but the reason to live there.
Even in growing cities, it's hard to (re)create the old Main Street - that's a 2005 article from the New York Times on Las Cruces, NM, which talks about how the city demolished its (commercially) failed pedestrian plaza to bring back a Main Street business district with direct vehicular access, which finally opened up in 2014. Sadly, in 2016, a bistro and ale house closed down, which was one of the hopes for the Main Street revitalization. In the other end of the state, there's a Main Street success story: up in Farmington, the local brewery has done well enough as to support an annual summer free concert series, and they've also expanded to include an all-ages pool hall.
Of course, it's more than one successful business to make Main Street work (though that doesn't hurt at all). Lots has been written on the topic, and here's one take, with a list of five key features to make a good Main Street work (preview: 1. A superior pedestrian experience; 2. Density, but at human scale; 3. Viable local businesses; 4. Nature; 5. Nearby residences).
posted by filthy light thief at 10:51 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
I live in a city with a terrific downtown. We also have not one, but two free shuttles from downtown to BART! We're also an affluent Bay Area city, full of the buying power to sustain a downtown and connected to San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
So we don't have the brain-drain problem that OnceUponATime mentions, and I think is prevalent in the Plains and Midwest, especially. Small towns that are tourism hubs and/or connected to larger cities can thrive; small, remote towns that coalesced around farm country or factories are dying.
I don't think we can blame Amazon so much as I do big-box stores (partly), brain drains away from smaller towns, and the death of family farms and manufacturing - this latter started long before Amazon was a gleam in Jeff Bezos' eye. I think this is why small towns in the Midwest and Plains are going so fast. Family farms and small factories just don't exist anymore and a lot of these towns were built to serve them.
One thing about my city's downtown - it is thriving, but people don't really go there to buy workaday items like toilet paper and cat litter (I swear, just about everyone in my city has Amazon Prime! Or goes to Target). People buy shoes and bath bombs and iPhones and Christmas ornaments, and do lots of dining out, but they don't do their day to day shopping there for the most part. So having disposable income to buy stuff like this sustains a downtown, and, again, I think this is a Target/WalMart issue and happened long before Amazon. I was buying cat litter, etc. at Target long before I had Amazon Prime. That is a problem for downtowns in places where groceries, toilet paper, pet supplies, etc. really do sustain their downtowns.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:53 AM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
So we don't have the brain-drain problem that OnceUponATime mentions, and I think is prevalent in the Plains and Midwest, especially. Small towns that are tourism hubs and/or connected to larger cities can thrive; small, remote towns that coalesced around farm country or factories are dying.
I don't think we can blame Amazon so much as I do big-box stores (partly), brain drains away from smaller towns, and the death of family farms and manufacturing - this latter started long before Amazon was a gleam in Jeff Bezos' eye. I think this is why small towns in the Midwest and Plains are going so fast. Family farms and small factories just don't exist anymore and a lot of these towns were built to serve them.
One thing about my city's downtown - it is thriving, but people don't really go there to buy workaday items like toilet paper and cat litter (I swear, just about everyone in my city has Amazon Prime! Or goes to Target). People buy shoes and bath bombs and iPhones and Christmas ornaments, and do lots of dining out, but they don't do their day to day shopping there for the most part. So having disposable income to buy stuff like this sustains a downtown, and, again, I think this is a Target/WalMart issue and happened long before Amazon. I was buying cat litter, etc. at Target long before I had Amazon Prime. That is a problem for downtowns in places where groceries, toilet paper, pet supplies, etc. really do sustain their downtowns.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:53 AM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure why the artist picked a Dover, NH, postcard as an image for creeping sinister mythology. Dover, NH, in real life is a great example of a Main Street renaissance, with a thriving downtown and affordable housing that's attracting young people and entrepreneurship from across the region.
posted by Miko at 10:55 AM on April 10, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Miko at 10:55 AM on April 10, 2017 [6 favorites]
Santana Row... I think of those as 'main streets', but the 24/7 clement weather of the San Jose region allows for a lot more sprawl, it's like LA in that regards.
Santana Row and Cupertino "Main Street" are nice enough and certainly I go there but they're centrally-planned real-estate-developer visions of what a main street is. They're simply open-air shopping malls. They're a Disney vision of Main Street. Note the lack of, say, laundromats or corner stores. (Although the densified Target on Cupertino Main Street is totes adorable)
I don't think there's any necessary connection between clement weather and sprawl - there are plenty of east coast exurban sprawl areas and San Francisco itself is a mostly functional city. It's mostly density.
Not so fast. It's also a supply chain thing.
I don't think I completely agree but it's definitely a requirement to have a functioning city economy which is hard to do in any one-product town whether it's coal mining or transportation waypoints.
posted by GuyZero at 10:55 AM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
Santana Row and Cupertino "Main Street" are nice enough and certainly I go there but they're centrally-planned real-estate-developer visions of what a main street is. They're simply open-air shopping malls. They're a Disney vision of Main Street. Note the lack of, say, laundromats or corner stores. (Although the densified Target on Cupertino Main Street is totes adorable)
I don't think there's any necessary connection between clement weather and sprawl - there are plenty of east coast exurban sprawl areas and San Francisco itself is a mostly functional city. It's mostly density.
Not so fast. It's also a supply chain thing.
I don't think I completely agree but it's definitely a requirement to have a functioning city economy which is hard to do in any one-product town whether it's coal mining or transportation waypoints.
posted by GuyZero at 10:55 AM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
I live in a city with a terrific downtown.
I was in Walnut Creek for the first time a few weeks ago and I was totally floored. I thought "holy shit, an actual urban street with stores." I assume the city is insanely wealthy, even by Bay Area standards. It also helps that it's slightly too far to go shopping elsewhere unlike the South Bay.
posted by GuyZero at 10:57 AM on April 10, 2017
I was in Walnut Creek for the first time a few weeks ago and I was totally floored. I thought "holy shit, an actual urban street with stores." I assume the city is insanely wealthy, even by Bay Area standards. It also helps that it's slightly too far to go shopping elsewhere unlike the South Bay.
posted by GuyZero at 10:57 AM on April 10, 2017
It's not just a population density thing, but a population thing.
In Texas the state demographer has declared that the odds of any town with a population under 5,000 surviving the next 20 years are about 50/50.
"Main street" is also dying simply due to technology and the economies of scale. What Wal-Mart did to the mom & pop dry goods store, Amazon is now doing to Wal-Mart. The fact is that various middleman positions are simply being teched out of existence. The only reason car dealerships have survived is because they used their wealth to buy laws mandating their existence, other, less foresightful and centralized, goods distributors didn't and now they're vanishing.
Because, much as I hate Wal-Mart, the fact is it makes (or made) sense. Big centralized resellers can get bulk discounts and offer goods at a lower price than small balkanized resellers can. Now Wal-Mart is seeing that the dot net craze wasn't wrong, it was just too early, and tech is now catching up to that promise which is undermining their business model. Because the ultimate end is the end of middle men. I suspect Amazon will go under eventually as it becomes easier and easier for customers to directly connect with producers and completely get rid of the middle man.
Main Street is dying and whether that's good or bad, it's inevitable as technology progresses.
And so too are small towns. Some people like 'em, and for that reason a few will hang on, but mostly people don't as evidenced by the fact that people move out of small towns at tremendous rates.
posted by sotonohito at 10:59 AM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
In Texas the state demographer has declared that the odds of any town with a population under 5,000 surviving the next 20 years are about 50/50.
"Main street" is also dying simply due to technology and the economies of scale. What Wal-Mart did to the mom & pop dry goods store, Amazon is now doing to Wal-Mart. The fact is that various middleman positions are simply being teched out of existence. The only reason car dealerships have survived is because they used their wealth to buy laws mandating their existence, other, less foresightful and centralized, goods distributors didn't and now they're vanishing.
Because, much as I hate Wal-Mart, the fact is it makes (or made) sense. Big centralized resellers can get bulk discounts and offer goods at a lower price than small balkanized resellers can. Now Wal-Mart is seeing that the dot net craze wasn't wrong, it was just too early, and tech is now catching up to that promise which is undermining their business model. Because the ultimate end is the end of middle men. I suspect Amazon will go under eventually as it becomes easier and easier for customers to directly connect with producers and completely get rid of the middle man.
Main Street is dying and whether that's good or bad, it's inevitable as technology progresses.
And so too are small towns. Some people like 'em, and for that reason a few will hang on, but mostly people don't as evidenced by the fact that people move out of small towns at tremendous rates.
posted by sotonohito at 10:59 AM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
nice enough...but they're centrally-planned real-estate-developer visions of what a main street is
Remember that many towns/downtowns/neighborhoods started this way. It takes time, not just good planning to give places a 'feel' that is more human.
RE developers aren't the most loveable, but they're just another commercial adventurer and some of them really do understand the value of good urban design.
[not trying to target you, Guyzero, but we seem to disagree ;>]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:03 AM on April 10, 2017
Remember that many towns/downtowns/neighborhoods started this way. It takes time, not just good planning to give places a 'feel' that is more human.
RE developers aren't the most loveable, but they're just another commercial adventurer and some of them really do understand the value of good urban design.
[not trying to target you, Guyzero, but we seem to disagree ;>]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:03 AM on April 10, 2017
Mechanization of the food industry - specifically milling - in the early 1900's was a big factor in the "death" of small towns. More important factors were the rise of the automobile industry, the construction of freeways that bypassed them, and a drive in the late 50's and early 60's to "renew" downtown areas with big, brutalist-style buildings and the erasure of older historic structures. Add the need to increase traffic by removing street parking and you've got a great scenario for "okay, this town is dead, let's go to the mall".
posted by disclaimer at 11:04 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by disclaimer at 11:04 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
Main Street is dying and whether that's good or bad, it's inevitable as technology progresses.
And so too are small towns. Some people like 'em, and for that reason a few will hang on, but mostly people don't as evidenced by the fact that people move out of small towns at tremendous rates.
Yes, this. And so much of it is the small towns' fault. So many of them are not good places to live unless you are white, Christian, from one of the "good" families (as opposed to a family that is disliked!), straight, cis, and male, or if female, considered "respectable" (in a hetero marriage, a mother, goes to church, gender-conforming and obedient). If you don't fit into any of those categories, or just want broader horizons, you leave.
And many small towns are famously insular - you are "from here" or you are an outsider for life, and sometimes your parents or even grandparents have to be "from here." So many small towns do a great job of driving people away or not welcoming them in the first place.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:09 AM on April 10, 2017 [24 favorites]
And so too are small towns. Some people like 'em, and for that reason a few will hang on, but mostly people don't as evidenced by the fact that people move out of small towns at tremendous rates.
Yes, this. And so much of it is the small towns' fault. So many of them are not good places to live unless you are white, Christian, from one of the "good" families (as opposed to a family that is disliked!), straight, cis, and male, or if female, considered "respectable" (in a hetero marriage, a mother, goes to church, gender-conforming and obedient). If you don't fit into any of those categories, or just want broader horizons, you leave.
And many small towns are famously insular - you are "from here" or you are an outsider for life, and sometimes your parents or even grandparents have to be "from here." So many small towns do a great job of driving people away or not welcoming them in the first place.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:09 AM on April 10, 2017 [24 favorites]
Where people live has little or nothing to do with how much anyone "likes" living there so much as issues of affordability, mobility, opportunity, etc. Once again, cities can also be remarkably racist places.
One other thing that no one seems to see is that while negative attitudes toward immigration (or positive attitudes toward segregation) aren't exactly helping dying towns, most of these towns are dying because the industries or infrastructure that supported them are dying or dead as well. Positive thinking and can-do white upper-middle class liberal attitudes aren't going to save them. Even if they did, they'd become gentrified and residents would have to move out to the vacated crappy urban cores again.
posted by byanyothername at 11:48 AM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
One other thing that no one seems to see is that while negative attitudes toward immigration (or positive attitudes toward segregation) aren't exactly helping dying towns, most of these towns are dying because the industries or infrastructure that supported them are dying or dead as well. Positive thinking and can-do white upper-middle class liberal attitudes aren't going to save them. Even if they did, they'd become gentrified and residents would have to move out to the vacated crappy urban cores again.
posted by byanyothername at 11:48 AM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
Thanks for posting this!
I spent the first half of my life in between two different rural western towns with populations under 10k. I visit one annually and the other every few years.
It's funny out there. I wouldn't say either had, or has, a particularly functional main street, but neither are they all boarded up. Both towns are far enough from everything that they have some gravity from people who live farther out, so their businesses support larger populations than they look like they would on paper. Related, both are also near interstates that routed around them due to local regulations/tax incentives. So each supports satellite off-ramp businesses like truck stops, fast food, and gas stations that don't require a trip into town. That's where the Wal Marts got built.
I'd say the most noticeable change I see as an adult is that foot traffic is practically nil. People will pretty much drive around the corner to get a thing of milk, and pedestrians are inherently a little suspicious. This wasn't the case in Southern CO when I was a kid, although it's mostly been that way in WY as long as I can remember. People used to come into town from the freeway, fewer of them do now. Amazon does not seem to have killed the Tractor Supply/Wal Mart/Sporting Goods Market, but I suspect they and Wal Mart have killed a lot of the in-town stuff that isn't directly food-related.
Small towns drove me away for all the reasons Rosie describes, and I have no interest in going back for more than a visit. People who romanticize small towns but have never lived in one frustrate me. Every time I hear that Mellencamp song I yell at something.
Re: Main Streets in CA
Dunno how it is these days (or how I'd interpret it as an older, less scrappy person) but when I'd occasionally slink over there from Oakland Walnut Creek always felt like the Disney version of a Main Street.
In retrospect maybe that's because it was functional, and I was pretty disreputable-looking. But I always felt alienated and completely under surveillance there.
Maybe because of how the automobile shaped its cities I feel like CA in general tends toward these long Avenues and boulevards that are quite different from the kinds of main streets that developed in e.g. Pennsylvania.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:54 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
I spent the first half of my life in between two different rural western towns with populations under 10k. I visit one annually and the other every few years.
It's funny out there. I wouldn't say either had, or has, a particularly functional main street, but neither are they all boarded up. Both towns are far enough from everything that they have some gravity from people who live farther out, so their businesses support larger populations than they look like they would on paper. Related, both are also near interstates that routed around them due to local regulations/tax incentives. So each supports satellite off-ramp businesses like truck stops, fast food, and gas stations that don't require a trip into town. That's where the Wal Marts got built.
I'd say the most noticeable change I see as an adult is that foot traffic is practically nil. People will pretty much drive around the corner to get a thing of milk, and pedestrians are inherently a little suspicious. This wasn't the case in Southern CO when I was a kid, although it's mostly been that way in WY as long as I can remember. People used to come into town from the freeway, fewer of them do now. Amazon does not seem to have killed the Tractor Supply/Wal Mart/Sporting Goods Market, but I suspect they and Wal Mart have killed a lot of the in-town stuff that isn't directly food-related.
Small towns drove me away for all the reasons Rosie describes, and I have no interest in going back for more than a visit. People who romanticize small towns but have never lived in one frustrate me. Every time I hear that Mellencamp song I yell at something.
Re: Main Streets in CA
Dunno how it is these days (or how I'd interpret it as an older, less scrappy person) but when I'd occasionally slink over there from Oakland Walnut Creek always felt like the Disney version of a Main Street.
In retrospect maybe that's because it was functional, and I was pretty disreputable-looking. But I always felt alienated and completely under surveillance there.
Maybe because of how the automobile shaped its cities I feel like CA in general tends toward these long Avenues and boulevards that are quite different from the kinds of main streets that developed in e.g. Pennsylvania.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:54 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
Main Street is dying and whether that's good or bad, it's inevitable as technology progresses.
No, Main Street is not dying. It's true that the old idea of Main Street (the "myth") as a one-stop center for all your needs (grocery store, pharmacy, barber shop, dry goods, etc.) is no longer viable (although those things are often still available). It's true that suburbanization and big box stores were a huge blow to that old idea of Main Street. But Main Streets are reinventing themselves, and not just as strips of elite tourist boutiques.
I'm a preservationist in Michigan, and I've been in a LOT of small town communities over the course of my career (both in this state and elsewhere). I can tell you that in our state, at least, many small town downtowns are coming back strong. We have an active Main Street program in our state that provides technical assistance and small grants. The return on investment is high and occupancy rates are on the rise. They're not the downtowns of the 1890s, or the 1920s, or even the 1950s. But they sure aren't dying.
I dropped it in the election thread but I'll repeat it again here. Mosey on over to Main Street America to get a sense of the reach and impact of Main Street redevelopment.
posted by Preserver at 11:54 AM on April 10, 2017 [14 favorites]
No, Main Street is not dying. It's true that the old idea of Main Street (the "myth") as a one-stop center for all your needs (grocery store, pharmacy, barber shop, dry goods, etc.) is no longer viable (although those things are often still available). It's true that suburbanization and big box stores were a huge blow to that old idea of Main Street. But Main Streets are reinventing themselves, and not just as strips of elite tourist boutiques.
I'm a preservationist in Michigan, and I've been in a LOT of small town communities over the course of my career (both in this state and elsewhere). I can tell you that in our state, at least, many small town downtowns are coming back strong. We have an active Main Street program in our state that provides technical assistance and small grants. The return on investment is high and occupancy rates are on the rise. They're not the downtowns of the 1890s, or the 1920s, or even the 1950s. But they sure aren't dying.
I dropped it in the election thread but I'll repeat it again here. Mosey on over to Main Street America to get a sense of the reach and impact of Main Street redevelopment.
posted by Preserver at 11:54 AM on April 10, 2017 [14 favorites]
Looked for some data on my hypothesis that small town populations are falling more in the midwest than on the eastern seaboard... Seems like it's a very patchy thing without an obvious geographic pattern. (Would be interested to see a correlation between the county by county population loss data and Trump vote, though...)
But on the other hand, a huge part of the eastern seaboard (and half of Michigan) gets classified as belonging to metro areas in that dataset. And the data suggests that population growth has been net negative for non-metro areas overall between 2010 and 2015, while being significantly positive in metro areas.
I find it kind of surprising that the net population growth in non-Metro areas was positive until 2010! I guess the Walmart effect must have driven more of the dwindling main street before that than I thought. Though population growth certainly wasn't positive in the specific rural areas where I have family before that...
I think a good portion of the "non-Metro" population growth on that map is coming from the North Dakota oil boom, and wonder what it would look like with those counties removed.
Anyway, it's an interesting dataset to look through as we debate these issues.
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:20 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
But on the other hand, a huge part of the eastern seaboard (and half of Michigan) gets classified as belonging to metro areas in that dataset. And the data suggests that population growth has been net negative for non-metro areas overall between 2010 and 2015, while being significantly positive in metro areas.
I find it kind of surprising that the net population growth in non-Metro areas was positive until 2010! I guess the Walmart effect must have driven more of the dwindling main street before that than I thought. Though population growth certainly wasn't positive in the specific rural areas where I have family before that...
I think a good portion of the "non-Metro" population growth on that map is coming from the North Dakota oil boom, and wonder what it would look like with those counties removed.
Anyway, it's an interesting dataset to look through as we debate these issues.
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:20 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
aspersioncast: Maybe because of how the automobile shaped its cities I feel like CA in general tends toward these long Avenues and boulevards that are quite different from the kinds of main streets that developed in e.g. Pennsylvania.
The city's age definitely defines the shape of the city, including the length of city blocks. The worst I've experienced was Phoenix, where I walked the wrong way around a mega-block and I got sunburned on half of my face.
because I had to go the long way around the block. The mega-blocks are connected by high-speed arterial streets, making it daunting to cross mid-block, but if you want to get to a point across the street, you don't want to walk down to the light and back up to the point across from where you are because that's another 15 minutes, if not more.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:37 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
The city's age definitely defines the shape of the city, including the length of city blocks. The worst I've experienced was Phoenix, where I walked the wrong way around a mega-block and I got sunburned on half of my face.
because I had to go the long way around the block. The mega-blocks are connected by high-speed arterial streets, making it daunting to cross mid-block, but if you want to get to a point across the street, you don't want to walk down to the light and back up to the point across from where you are because that's another 15 minutes, if not more.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:37 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
On clicking around a little more, USDA does identify some geographic patterns in their comparisons of maps for 2002-2007 vs 2010-2015...
So yeah, I'm gonna take that as evidence in favor of my "declining main streets driven by declining populations" hypothesis after all.
(I'm also still interested in the question of whether low-density and/or declining populations can make people more patriarchal and/or nationalistic irrespective of the health of the business districts in those areas...)
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:39 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
Geographic patterns of population growth that held sway for decades can be seen on the map for 2002-07:They note that what happened in 2010-2015 is population decline spreading beyond those regions that had previously been affected, coupled with a big population boom in Dakotas.
-Population loss affected most nonmetro counties in the Great Plains from eastern Montana to west Texas, extending into Corn Belt areas of Iowa, Illinois, and parts of other Midwestern States.
-Population loss also occurred in areas of relatively high poverty in the southern Coastal Plains from eastern Texas to Virginia, and in Appalachia from eastern Kentucky through upstate New York.
-Rapid population gains in nonmetro counties proximate to large and medium-sized metro areas reflected long-term suburbanization trends that transformed hundreds of rural areas and small towns. Such nonmetro regions include those proximate to Atlanta in northern Georgia, Raleigh-Durham in central North Carolina, Minneapolis-St. Paul in southern Minnesota, and Denver in central Colorado.
-Rapid growth was also concentrated in recreation areas with attractive scenery and retirement destinations, such as throughout the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Coast regions, in the Ozarks and southern Appalachia, and along the Gulf of Mexico and southern Atlantic coasts.
So yeah, I'm gonna take that as evidence in favor of my "declining main streets driven by declining populations" hypothesis after all.
(I'm also still interested in the question of whether low-density and/or declining populations can make people more patriarchal and/or nationalistic irrespective of the health of the business districts in those areas...)
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:39 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
i'm another michigander who will repeat what he said in the other thread - not all main streets are dying - there are good towns and bad ones
i'll cite hastings as a very healthy one and three rivers as a struggling one - there's boutique-like main streets, ruined main streets and healthy main streets within an hour's drive of where i am - and if you count lake shore towns, you can see even more variety
frankly, i wonder if the closest some of these people commenting has been in an airplane flying overhead
posted by pyramid termite at 12:45 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
i'll cite hastings as a very healthy one and three rivers as a struggling one - there's boutique-like main streets, ruined main streets and healthy main streets within an hour's drive of where i am - and if you count lake shore towns, you can see even more variety
frankly, i wonder if the closest some of these people commenting has been in an airplane flying overhead
posted by pyramid termite at 12:45 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
Outside of agriculture and extraction of natural resources (mining/lumber/etc.), what is the expected main revenue source for a small town? Both these days and in the past? The model suggested in the times piece has them attaching themselves, remora-like to the cities, picking up the discards that are unwanted. But before this time, these towns had to be doing something to make money. Or were they all agricultural/extractive in nature?
posted by Hactar at 12:46 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Hactar at 12:46 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
some can have factories - however, that can be a bad thing if the factories lay off or close
posted by pyramid termite at 12:50 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by pyramid termite at 12:50 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
I was just thinking about main street issues the other day, walking home from the lovely little strip mall near my house. (More on that unlikely term below.)
Every Upper Midwest town or small city I know has been at pains to bring sustain or bring back its mainstreet identity, seemingly forever. I love a functioning main street, and I love a functioning downtown or ped mall area, which is distinct thing, to me. It's painful to visit towns where the main drag is a shell, and impossible to imagine what could bring them back. (Being in a college town sure seems to help, tho.)
The strip mall I like resembles one side of iridic's main street, with some modern updates. It's not perfect, but left-to-right:
- A florist - chain, but still fine, and my kid works there
- Family Dollar - not ideal, but highly useful and has saved my hide a bunch of times, eg posterboard for kids' projects
- Hobby Town - They sell Spaldeens and quadcopters, and they host RC races that are fun to watch.
- True Value Hardware - a legit operation that repairs lawn mowers and has 99% of what I need for most home projects. Good advice from the staff every time.
- A wine-and-spirits store - great selection, fun staff, etc.
- A shoe store specializing in work boots and the like.
- An old-timey barber shop - gossip, sports, old guys who shave your neck with a strop-honed straight razor.
- A bar-and-grill place - young folks, old folks, factory workers, professors. Good burgers.
- A dry cleaner
- A gift store
- A Bosnian grocery with breads, burek, sausages, etc.
- A men's clothing store
- A Chinese restaurant
- A locally-owned pharmacy that does compounding
- A dentist's office
- A coffee shop
Across the street, there's a farmer's market and a family practice center. On the opposite corner, a pizza place (chain, but oh well), an ice cream place run by a local dairy, a tea-and-popcorn outfit (strange, I know), and a local sub shop with ginormous sandwiches. 100 yards down the road, a local gas station with mechanics on duty 24/7 whose payment plans do not charge interest.
This is 0.75 miles from my house. I can just about run my whole life out of this area, so if that's what people miss from their hometown main street, I get it. The shops are stable, the staff get to know you pretty quick, you see neighbors and make new friends there.
It's also ugly as hell and just driving by it, you'd think it was failing and useless and why can't we have more places with pressed tin ceilings, etc. It's not a great pedestrian experience at all, since it sits on a busy intersection. No Rockwellian nostalgia touches to be found, aesthetically. Yet I love it.
All of which is to say: if people want this sort of place for their little town, I want it for them. If they want George McFly's Hill Valley, or Kingston Falls before the gremlins , that's understandable, but a (literally) manufactured notion.
posted by Caxton1476 at 1:08 PM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]
Every Upper Midwest town or small city I know has been at pains to bring sustain or bring back its mainstreet identity, seemingly forever. I love a functioning main street, and I love a functioning downtown or ped mall area, which is distinct thing, to me. It's painful to visit towns where the main drag is a shell, and impossible to imagine what could bring them back. (Being in a college town sure seems to help, tho.)
The strip mall I like resembles one side of iridic's main street, with some modern updates. It's not perfect, but left-to-right:
- A florist - chain, but still fine, and my kid works there
- Family Dollar - not ideal, but highly useful and has saved my hide a bunch of times, eg posterboard for kids' projects
- Hobby Town - They sell Spaldeens and quadcopters, and they host RC races that are fun to watch.
- True Value Hardware - a legit operation that repairs lawn mowers and has 99% of what I need for most home projects. Good advice from the staff every time.
- A wine-and-spirits store - great selection, fun staff, etc.
- A shoe store specializing in work boots and the like.
- An old-timey barber shop - gossip, sports, old guys who shave your neck with a strop-honed straight razor.
- A bar-and-grill place - young folks, old folks, factory workers, professors. Good burgers.
- A dry cleaner
- A gift store
- A Bosnian grocery with breads, burek, sausages, etc.
- A men's clothing store
- A Chinese restaurant
- A locally-owned pharmacy that does compounding
- A dentist's office
- A coffee shop
Across the street, there's a farmer's market and a family practice center. On the opposite corner, a pizza place (chain, but oh well), an ice cream place run by a local dairy, a tea-and-popcorn outfit (strange, I know), and a local sub shop with ginormous sandwiches. 100 yards down the road, a local gas station with mechanics on duty 24/7 whose payment plans do not charge interest.
This is 0.75 miles from my house. I can just about run my whole life out of this area, so if that's what people miss from their hometown main street, I get it. The shops are stable, the staff get to know you pretty quick, you see neighbors and make new friends there.
It's also ugly as hell and just driving by it, you'd think it was failing and useless and why can't we have more places with pressed tin ceilings, etc. It's not a great pedestrian experience at all, since it sits on a busy intersection. No Rockwellian nostalgia touches to be found, aesthetically. Yet I love it.
All of which is to say: if people want this sort of place for their little town, I want it for them. If they want George McFly's Hill Valley, or Kingston Falls before the gremlins , that's understandable, but a (literally) manufactured notion.
posted by Caxton1476 at 1:08 PM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]
This was also mentioned in the other thread: Part of this is the failure to recognize thriving main streets, because they get read as lower-class, because we have contradictory ideas in play -
Like, the mythical Main Street should be mostly small, local, non-corporate businesses serving diverse needs. But a bodega, which is precisely that, gets read as lower-class and maybe even an indicator of urban blight. Middle-class neighborhoods get the soulless corporate equivalent, like a Quick Chek or a Wawa or 7-11, and we moan about soulless impersonal corporations but I get the feeling my neighbors wouldn't actually trust a corner store to be clean unless it had that corporate feel, the neat shelves and the impersonal inorganic fluorescent lighting.
Same thing with motels, diners, laundromats, I think even gas stations.
It's also ugly as hell and just driving by it, you'd think it was failing and useless and why can't we have more places with pressed tin ceilings, etc. It's not a great pedestrian experience at all, since it sits on a busy intersection. No Rockwellian nostalgia touches to be found, aesthetically. Yet I love it.
Also this. One of the "main streets" I was thinking of is actually Route 22 in New Jersey, which is lined with businesses on both sides and in the middle. Too many to name. Not all chains. It's not Rockwell but it's functional as fuck.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 1:15 PM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]
Like, the mythical Main Street should be mostly small, local, non-corporate businesses serving diverse needs. But a bodega, which is precisely that, gets read as lower-class and maybe even an indicator of urban blight. Middle-class neighborhoods get the soulless corporate equivalent, like a Quick Chek or a Wawa or 7-11, and we moan about soulless impersonal corporations but I get the feeling my neighbors wouldn't actually trust a corner store to be clean unless it had that corporate feel, the neat shelves and the impersonal inorganic fluorescent lighting.
Same thing with motels, diners, laundromats, I think even gas stations.
It's also ugly as hell and just driving by it, you'd think it was failing and useless and why can't we have more places with pressed tin ceilings, etc. It's not a great pedestrian experience at all, since it sits on a busy intersection. No Rockwellian nostalgia touches to be found, aesthetically. Yet I love it.
Also this. One of the "main streets" I was thinking of is actually Route 22 in New Jersey, which is lined with businesses on both sides and in the middle. Too many to name. Not all chains. It's not Rockwell but it's functional as fuck.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 1:15 PM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]
"Outside of agriculture and extraction of natural resources (mining/lumber/etc.), what is the expected main revenue source for a small town? Both these days and in the past? The model suggested in the times piece has them attaching themselves, remora-like to the cities, picking up the discards that are unwanted. But before this time, these towns had to be doing something to make money. Or were they all agricultural/extractive in nature?"
Three main options: Manufacturing, culture or trade. Factories, colleges (despite the weird sneering from Cap'n Cornell), or being a place whose economy is mostly fueled through being on a larger trade route (e.g. a port). Both the manufacturing and trade towns have been hit harder than the college towns, in general, since colleges both generally enjoy a state subsidy and have a regular supply of young people coming to town to attend them. And despite the author's framing, liberals often support broad education for a non-economic reason, believing that it's an overall public good.
But put me down as another one vexed by the neoliberal just-so story that ignores possible political interventions, uses a misleading framing of "expense" and "elitism" to dismiss alternate frames — yes, reducing inequality does mean that market efficiency is often reduced. If you don't assume that efficiency is the central goal of the economy, then the assumption that "going back is costly" isn't an argument winner. And similarly, if you do believe that efficiency trumps all, then you end up back at advocating for an urban economy because of local knowledge network efficiency. Cities aggregate gain more quickly than small towns do.
Then he caps it off with an argument to get coal miners onto etsy, and it just feels incredibly tone deaf. There are glimmers of an argument here, but he got too up his own ass to make it.
posted by klangklangston at 1:27 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
Three main options: Manufacturing, culture or trade. Factories, colleges (despite the weird sneering from Cap'n Cornell), or being a place whose economy is mostly fueled through being on a larger trade route (e.g. a port). Both the manufacturing and trade towns have been hit harder than the college towns, in general, since colleges both generally enjoy a state subsidy and have a regular supply of young people coming to town to attend them. And despite the author's framing, liberals often support broad education for a non-economic reason, believing that it's an overall public good.
But put me down as another one vexed by the neoliberal just-so story that ignores possible political interventions, uses a misleading framing of "expense" and "elitism" to dismiss alternate frames — yes, reducing inequality does mean that market efficiency is often reduced. If you don't assume that efficiency is the central goal of the economy, then the assumption that "going back is costly" isn't an argument winner. And similarly, if you do believe that efficiency trumps all, then you end up back at advocating for an urban economy because of local knowledge network efficiency. Cities aggregate gain more quickly than small towns do.
Then he caps it off with an argument to get coal miners onto etsy, and it just feels incredibly tone deaf. There are glimmers of an argument here, but he got too up his own ass to make it.
posted by klangklangston at 1:27 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]
As a city dweller I can talk all day about the problems with the supposedly vibrant street economies in the cities. Right in the heart of two of the more affluent neighborhoods in Chicago there are several dead zones - property owners holding out for big chain rents, or looking to force out all their tenants to sell their entire block to a developer, spots that are just not attractive to foot traffic on a downward spiral, former big chain retailer buildings abandoned due to bankruptcy or moving. These places should not exist for long amidst the affluence and yet they persist sometimes for years.
There are problems everywhere. The big difference is that you can easily route around the dead spots in a city.
posted by srboisvert at 1:36 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
There are problems everywhere. The big difference is that you can easily route around the dead spots in a city.
posted by srboisvert at 1:36 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
I would certainly expect that there are factors which are essential to having a thriving Main Street that is accessible and useful to non-wealthy people. And many or even most small towns may lack those factors. It's just that there is a substantial difference between saying that towns with thriving and accessible Main Streets are in the minority or rare, and portraying such Main Streets and the people who grew up with them and use them all the time presently as mythological and as something which never existed.
posted by XMLicious at 1:43 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by XMLicious at 1:43 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
I took exception to the article's extremely narrow definitions of Main Street and success. Hyman framed community purely as a form of economic inefficiency and disregarded other desirable qualities of livable communities with useful redundancies. Chuck Marohn at Strong Towns says it better than I can in his rejoinder to Hyman's piece: Lessons from the Delta Implosion. Hyman's attack on gauzy-eyed nostalgia for Main Street is solid and persuasive, but his recommendation that we sit idly by as our communities become soulless, sprawling parking lots strikes me as quite cynical. Other countries have central business districts where people like to spend time. Why can't the United States?
posted by smrtsch at 2:08 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by smrtsch at 2:08 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
what is the expected main revenue source for a small town? Both these days and in the past?
The one I was born in (in upstate New York) was basically agricultural + a wire mill and a couple other businesses. The wire mill closed, agriculture has slowed down / moved elsewhere, and the town is in bad shape these days. But it used to be a pretty stereotypical small town with Main Street and everything.
posted by thefoxgod at 2:11 PM on April 10, 2017
The one I was born in (in upstate New York) was basically agricultural + a wire mill and a couple other businesses. The wire mill closed, agriculture has slowed down / moved elsewhere, and the town is in bad shape these days. But it used to be a pretty stereotypical small town with Main Street and everything.
posted by thefoxgod at 2:11 PM on April 10, 2017
One of the "main streets" I was thinking of is actually Route 22 in New Jersey, which is lined with businesses on both sides and in the middle. Too many to name. Not all chains. It's not Rockwell but it's functional as fuck.
Unless you're not in a car.
I do think something that often gets missed with nostalgia for the "pedestrian experience" is that desire for walkability isn't just about aesthetics, it's about accessibility for everyone, and that whole not getting killed thing. Most of Route 22 is terrifying if you're on foot, and the few concessions made to allowing pedestrians to cross the street safely (there are a few pedestrian bridges) give the impression that they're being punished for something.
Other countries have central business districts where people like to spend time. Why can't the United States?
Parking has a lot to do with it.
posted by asperity at 2:24 PM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]
Unless you're not in a car.
I do think something that often gets missed with nostalgia for the "pedestrian experience" is that desire for walkability isn't just about aesthetics, it's about accessibility for everyone, and that whole not getting killed thing. Most of Route 22 is terrifying if you're on foot, and the few concessions made to allowing pedestrians to cross the street safely (there are a few pedestrian bridges) give the impression that they're being punished for something.
Other countries have central business districts where people like to spend time. Why can't the United States?
Parking has a lot to do with it.
posted by asperity at 2:24 PM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]
I keep hearing this song as I read.
posted by klangklangston at 2:33 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by klangklangston at 2:33 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
My neighborhood might still have two reasonable main streets if urban renewal hadn't bulldozed both of them fifty years ago for a doomed shopping mall and a freeway respectively. So now even if retail would want to move into my area, there's not too many places to locate.
posted by octothorpe at 2:49 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 2:49 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
OnceUponATime, I was definitely thinking anecdotally of how population trends would likely be a factor when this was brought up in the political thread.
I haven't traveled to Upstate New York recently, but around the turn of the century when I was doing so regularly many of the communities looked like mini-Detroits. I was surprised to find, when talking to my friends from the area, that while they were growing up the populations of students in their school systems were going down such that schools were being closed for lack of students.
Over here in NNE, when I was growing up back in the nineteen-hundreds, we had the opposite problem and the public and private schools at every level were bursting at the seams: having trouble building new schools and for example new housing in colleges fast enough. At the time I'd imagined it was just a consequence of population curves in general being exponential.
The retail economy has ebbed and flowed here, but I'm sure that an overall upward trajectory on both tax revenue and demand for private and government services gave both government and private interests working on Main Street more to work with even in the ebb times.
I also wondered if maybe the Cornell professor writing the NYT op-ed may have mostly visited Main Streets in Upstate New York, and if that personal experience may have colored his professional opinions.
posted by XMLicious at 3:02 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
I haven't traveled to Upstate New York recently, but around the turn of the century when I was doing so regularly many of the communities looked like mini-Detroits. I was surprised to find, when talking to my friends from the area, that while they were growing up the populations of students in their school systems were going down such that schools were being closed for lack of students.
Over here in NNE, when I was growing up back in the nineteen-hundreds, we had the opposite problem and the public and private schools at every level were bursting at the seams: having trouble building new schools and for example new housing in colleges fast enough. At the time I'd imagined it was just a consequence of population curves in general being exponential.
The retail economy has ebbed and flowed here, but I'm sure that an overall upward trajectory on both tax revenue and demand for private and government services gave both government and private interests working on Main Street more to work with even in the ebb times.
I also wondered if maybe the Cornell professor writing the NYT op-ed may have mostly visited Main Streets in Upstate New York, and if that personal experience may have colored his professional opinions.
posted by XMLicious at 3:02 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
the "pedestrian experience" is that desire for walkability isn't just about aesthetics, it's about accessibility for everyone, and that whole not getting killed thing.
The main street area in my SE MI home town has added a lot since the days of my childhood: a few more restaurants, coffee shops, even a small grocery store. But it's still doesn't feel very walkable, especially compared to my husband's hometown (which doesn't have a grocery store). The speed limits are similar, but my hometown has fewer stop lights and narrower sidewalks. Add in the lack of buffer from street parking spots you feel like you're a sneeze away from a driver swerving into you.
posted by ghost phoneme at 4:10 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
The main street area in my SE MI home town has added a lot since the days of my childhood: a few more restaurants, coffee shops, even a small grocery store. But it's still doesn't feel very walkable, especially compared to my husband's hometown (which doesn't have a grocery store). The speed limits are similar, but my hometown has fewer stop lights and narrower sidewalks. Add in the lack of buffer from street parking spots you feel like you're a sneeze away from a driver swerving into you.
posted by ghost phoneme at 4:10 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
This was also mentioned in the other thread: Part of this is the failure to recognize thriving main streets, because they get read as lower-class, because we have contradictory ideas in play -
Yeah, this exactly. Is why the main street in Santa Barbara isn't the touristy State Street, but the working class Milpas street. For San Jose, there's West Santa Clara Street, or Alum Rock road. Or El Camino Real, of course. I think the problem is that people look for the stereotype of a 50s downtown, instead of an actual working area.
Unless you're not in a car.
Case in point. A downtown built for oedestrians is one built for tourists. Not for me to get 20 pounds of groceries, several potted plants and fertilizer, some brackets, and take out dinner. Unless you're hauling a wagon.
But even for kind of tourist areas, is oedestrians top dip a good job or a bad job. Bad:Santa Barbara, which had carefully excised any local interest or utility from its downtown, making it a souless boutique besch street. In the other hand, in the San Jose area there's Campbell Avenue and Lincoln Avenue, which have spots that cater to to locals in addition to boutiques. They seem to attract a fair crowd.
posted by happyroach at 4:52 PM on April 10, 2017
Yeah, this exactly. Is why the main street in Santa Barbara isn't the touristy State Street, but the working class Milpas street. For San Jose, there's West Santa Clara Street, or Alum Rock road. Or El Camino Real, of course. I think the problem is that people look for the stereotype of a 50s downtown, instead of an actual working area.
Unless you're not in a car.
Case in point. A downtown built for oedestrians is one built for tourists. Not for me to get 20 pounds of groceries, several potted plants and fertilizer, some brackets, and take out dinner. Unless you're hauling a wagon.
But even for kind of tourist areas, is oedestrians top dip a good job or a bad job. Bad:Santa Barbara, which had carefully excised any local interest or utility from its downtown, making it a souless boutique besch street. In the other hand, in the San Jose area there's Campbell Avenue and Lincoln Avenue, which have spots that cater to to locals in addition to boutiques. They seem to attract a fair crowd.
posted by happyroach at 4:52 PM on April 10, 2017
Altoona, PA's downtown died when US 220 was re-routed as I99 out of town. So yeah it's all about the traffic. To be fair though I99 had to be built, Altoona had grown quite a bit and the downtown traffic that just wanted to go some where out of state was bad.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:02 PM on April 10, 2017
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:02 PM on April 10, 2017
A downtown built for oedestrians is one built for tourists.
New York? Toronto? Heck, even Vancouver.
or San Jose, there's West Santa Clara Street
That's a funny example because while I mostly agree with you I feel like I hardly ever see people there.
posted by GuyZero at 5:09 PM on April 10, 2017
New York? Toronto? Heck, even Vancouver.
or San Jose, there's West Santa Clara Street
That's a funny example because while I mostly agree with you I feel like I hardly ever see people there.
posted by GuyZero at 5:09 PM on April 10, 2017
A downtown built for oedestrians is one built for tourists. Not for me to get 20 pounds of groceries, several potted plants and fertilizer, some brackets, and take out dinner
Hrm, as GuyZero hints this seems like a very car-oriented mentality that hinges on questions of population density, region, and class. I basically live on Main Street, and I can walk to get any of the things you mention. I don't think my area particularly caters to tourists; it's essentially just an older commuter suburb whose city grew to surround it.
There are also plenty of people around here (DC) and in San Jose who just use the bus and a cart to schlep 20 lbs of groceries home from somewhere, although I suspect they'd probably get the plant on a separate trip if at all, and maybe skip the takeout.
But really none of the places we're talking about here fit into the small town American mythology, although there's probably a connection to be made between e.g. the rise of El Camino Real and its ilk in CA/car-based suburbs in general/the changing nature of small-town American main streets.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:51 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
Hrm, as GuyZero hints this seems like a very car-oriented mentality that hinges on questions of population density, region, and class. I basically live on Main Street, and I can walk to get any of the things you mention. I don't think my area particularly caters to tourists; it's essentially just an older commuter suburb whose city grew to surround it.
There are also plenty of people around here (DC) and in San Jose who just use the bus and a cart to schlep 20 lbs of groceries home from somewhere, although I suspect they'd probably get the plant on a separate trip if at all, and maybe skip the takeout.
But really none of the places we're talking about here fit into the small town American mythology, although there's probably a connection to be made between e.g. the rise of El Camino Real and its ilk in CA/car-based suburbs in general/the changing nature of small-town American main streets.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:51 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
This is the way people who don't use cars to go downtown get potted plants, groceries, etc.
posted by Miko at 7:02 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Miko at 7:02 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
Route 22 functional? I just moved, and now when I drive to work I commute down that part of 22. It's not functional at all. It has two states: backed up and crawling (daily, 4:30-7:30 PM), or dangerously high-speed (other times). It has short on-ramps, meaning that there is a constant brake-light ripple because people are unable to get up to speed when it's flowing. It also has short off-ramps, meaning anyone exiting into the many shopping plazas full of chain stores also have to brake and slow traffic to get in. There are businesses in the median, causing the problem on both sides of the road. There is no sidewalk and no pedestrian crossings. I routinely see people walking to their jobs along this highway (on the margin or in the road, because no sidewalk) and waiting to risk their lives dashing across two to three lanes of 50 mph+ traffic to get to the Target, the AMC, the carpet cleaning place, wherever they work. When it snows, it's more dangerous because there's nowhere for them to walk off the highway at all. The few mom-and-pop businesses along this stretch are things like the mattress store that posted "CNN is Fake News" on their marquee last month, sketchy-looking medical groups, etc. 80% at least is big box chain stores. Most of my neighbors work hard to avoid having to go to Route 22 to shop, to the point that they'll drive several miles out of their way to work from a quieter road. Believe me, this is not a model of sane urbanism.
posted by Miko at 7:07 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Miko at 7:07 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
Possibly relevant, this insightful blog post someone shared in on MeFi last year.
Small towns which are just the right distance from a major city might be able to thread the needle -- too expensive for big box profitability, but not so expensive you need tourist-gouging profits to stay in business.
(I realize I'm still assuming that "main streets are dying" is a true fact and not addressing the objections of those who say otherwise, but it IS true in my personal experience, and I don't know how to find none anecdote-based data about it.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:26 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
In the open access part of the country, we live in a classical economics world. If a city has opportunities, it leads to population inflows which cause incomes to moderate back toward equilibrium with the rest of the country. Housing supply pretty efficiently rises in these cities to increase housing without skyrocketing costs (unless there are extreme temporary fluctuations such as in the North Dakota oil fields). In closed access cities, opportunity leads to a bidding war for housing, so that incomes can remain elevated, but costs become elevated also.Since the defining feature of "open access cities" is cheap real estate, they may be more vulnerable to big box stores taking over the market. Whereas closed access cities, with expensive real estate, get either twee little touristy main streets with profit margins high enough to pay the steep rents, or food deserts / no main street at all.
The differences between these two types of cities are stark. You can tell what type of city it is just by looking through the newspaper. In open access cities, people complain that poor people are moving in and taking away jobs, pushing down wages. In closed access cities, people complain that rich people are moving in and bidding up rents.
Small towns which are just the right distance from a major city might be able to thread the needle -- too expensive for big box profitability, but not so expensive you need tourist-gouging profits to stay in business.
(I realize I'm still assuming that "main streets are dying" is a true fact and not addressing the objections of those who say otherwise, but it IS true in my personal experience, and I don't know how to find none anecdote-based data about it.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:26 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]
Two disconnected thoughts.
Out here in the land-rich Midwest, there are two small-size alternatives to a supermarket: a specialty (usually ethnic) grocery, and a gas station convenience store. (The other option is a drug store like Walgreen's with a grocery section, but those tend to be very large, not urban-storefront-sized.) Walkable Main Streets in my area tend to have one or the other (smaller towns much more typically a gas station convenience store; urban areas ethnic markets that fit in small storefronts). So with a gas station convenience store, what makes it work is that a LOT of people stop there for the gas, making it truly convenient to stop in for a loaf of bred, a gallon of milk, a bottle of wine, or a pizza (Casey's pizza represent!) -- convenient enough that people are willing to overlook the high convenience-store prices to grab a couple of necessities at a limited-selection store rather than run a second errand. Gas profits also help earn enough to keep the place staffed. So I think an important question for someone trying to create a walkable downtown in an urban area, or revitalize one in a small town where there's somewhat limited car traffic, and thinking ahead to a less-automobile future, is what product or service could drive enough business to support a convenience store OTHER than gas? Cell phone minutes? Electronics chargers (plus a charger bar where you can charge your phone for 15 minutes for 50 cents)? High-speed charging stations for electric cars? I have no super-great ideas, but I think to get viable non-gasoline bodegas in the wide-open spaces of supermarkets and Wal-Marts, we'd have to figure out what that is.
Other thought, there's been some buzz down here about the idea of a "downstate back office." Which is essentially how Illinois runs itself -- it splits its functions between Chicago (where the people are) and Springfield, where it's hella cheap for people to live and they can do a lot of HR/purchasing/paperwork-type functions at much lower cost. Some places already do this, like medical coders and call centers. But people have been kicking around the idea that you could provided benefits, some legal services, etc., that employ professionals (rather than clerks) and locate them in downstate cities where the salary scale is like 2/3 of what it is in Chicago and housing is like 1/5. Most of those cities have colleges or universities, many have large hospitals, etc., so there's a pretty big complement of professionals who may be trailing spouses, and there are a lot of people (like us) who just prefer the smaller-city lifestyle.
(The version of the idea that's been kicking around down here is a contractor, rather than moving in-house employees for a single corporation downstate; you'd have a small contact office in Chicago that would provide face-to-face service to businesses that hired contractors for some or all of their back office functions, and you provide it at a significant discount to the all-Chicago places, and use the glory of the internet so have the work done downstate. Ideally it'd be basically invisible to the client side.)
Anyway, these smaller cities have been trying to capture the magic of teleworking for a long time, but corporations are just reluctant to let people work off-site, and some people think this may be a way to capture some of those benefits and drive some economic diversity and well-paying professional jobs to downstate locations. The equal-and-opposite force in Chicago is the price of real estate and length of commutes making it harder and more expensive to hire support personnel.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:01 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
Out here in the land-rich Midwest, there are two small-size alternatives to a supermarket: a specialty (usually ethnic) grocery, and a gas station convenience store. (The other option is a drug store like Walgreen's with a grocery section, but those tend to be very large, not urban-storefront-sized.) Walkable Main Streets in my area tend to have one or the other (smaller towns much more typically a gas station convenience store; urban areas ethnic markets that fit in small storefronts). So with a gas station convenience store, what makes it work is that a LOT of people stop there for the gas, making it truly convenient to stop in for a loaf of bred, a gallon of milk, a bottle of wine, or a pizza (Casey's pizza represent!) -- convenient enough that people are willing to overlook the high convenience-store prices to grab a couple of necessities at a limited-selection store rather than run a second errand. Gas profits also help earn enough to keep the place staffed. So I think an important question for someone trying to create a walkable downtown in an urban area, or revitalize one in a small town where there's somewhat limited car traffic, and thinking ahead to a less-automobile future, is what product or service could drive enough business to support a convenience store OTHER than gas? Cell phone minutes? Electronics chargers (plus a charger bar where you can charge your phone for 15 minutes for 50 cents)? High-speed charging stations for electric cars? I have no super-great ideas, but I think to get viable non-gasoline bodegas in the wide-open spaces of supermarkets and Wal-Marts, we'd have to figure out what that is.
Other thought, there's been some buzz down here about the idea of a "downstate back office." Which is essentially how Illinois runs itself -- it splits its functions between Chicago (where the people are) and Springfield, where it's hella cheap for people to live and they can do a lot of HR/purchasing/paperwork-type functions at much lower cost. Some places already do this, like medical coders and call centers. But people have been kicking around the idea that you could provided benefits, some legal services, etc., that employ professionals (rather than clerks) and locate them in downstate cities where the salary scale is like 2/3 of what it is in Chicago and housing is like 1/5. Most of those cities have colleges or universities, many have large hospitals, etc., so there's a pretty big complement of professionals who may be trailing spouses, and there are a lot of people (like us) who just prefer the smaller-city lifestyle.
(The version of the idea that's been kicking around down here is a contractor, rather than moving in-house employees for a single corporation downstate; you'd have a small contact office in Chicago that would provide face-to-face service to businesses that hired contractors for some or all of their back office functions, and you provide it at a significant discount to the all-Chicago places, and use the glory of the internet so have the work done downstate. Ideally it'd be basically invisible to the client side.)
Anyway, these smaller cities have been trying to capture the magic of teleworking for a long time, but corporations are just reluctant to let people work off-site, and some people think this may be a way to capture some of those benefits and drive some economic diversity and well-paying professional jobs to downstate locations. The equal-and-opposite force in Chicago is the price of real estate and length of commutes making it harder and more expensive to hire support personnel.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:01 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'd telework if I trusted that I wouldn't lose my job in the next crunch and be trapped in a small town with no other opportunities. The last time I lived in a small town, my hours got cut in half and I lost access to sufficient food for two years until I could borrow money and move to the city where at least there were food service jobs I could pick up. I'm never doing that again. Very much a "sounds fun-- you go first" situation, but it would be solved with a universal basic income and single-payer universal health care.
A basic income would let parents stay home with their kids, for example. I think a major driver of Main Street is traffic from the stay-at-home parent taking care of business with children or while children are in school. That person can go to the grocery store off-peak, get lunch at a lunch counter with the toddler, go to the dry cleaner's for a minute, walk into town with the baby in the buggy, visit neighbors on the way, or other time-consuming things. If everyone has to work and kids are therefore in day care, the only businesses that can survive are big chains that can eat the cost of being open all day merely so they can capture the commuter rush of sales between work and bedtime. Small businesses need traffic.
posted by blnkfrnk at 6:15 AM on April 11, 2017 [7 favorites]
A basic income would let parents stay home with their kids, for example. I think a major driver of Main Street is traffic from the stay-at-home parent taking care of business with children or while children are in school. That person can go to the grocery store off-peak, get lunch at a lunch counter with the toddler, go to the dry cleaner's for a minute, walk into town with the baby in the buggy, visit neighbors on the way, or other time-consuming things. If everyone has to work and kids are therefore in day care, the only businesses that can survive are big chains that can eat the cost of being open all day merely so they can capture the commuter rush of sales between work and bedtime. Small businesses need traffic.
posted by blnkfrnk at 6:15 AM on April 11, 2017 [7 favorites]
The city's age definitely defines the shape of the city, including the length of city blocks.
Man do I hate those long-ass blocks with a passion -- they make cities feel like strip-mall suburbs.
See also: The Fall Line Cities. When inland navigation up a river was a hard limit to speedy transportation, the way cities were oriented toward rivers had a much different character than it does out West, where many rivers weren't navigable for big chunks of the year if at all.
Nonetheless towns like Pueblo, CO were still shaped by that limit. I've noticed part of the revitalization of a lot of these smaller cities (Providence comes to mind) has involved rehabilitating their rivers to be sort of like a the idealized Main Street experience, but with a "river walk" or some such.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:13 AM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]
Man do I hate those long-ass blocks with a passion -- they make cities feel like strip-mall suburbs.
See also: The Fall Line Cities. When inland navigation up a river was a hard limit to speedy transportation, the way cities were oriented toward rivers had a much different character than it does out West, where many rivers weren't navigable for big chunks of the year if at all.
Nonetheless towns like Pueblo, CO were still shaped by that limit. I've noticed part of the revitalization of a lot of these smaller cities (Providence comes to mind) has involved rehabilitating their rivers to be sort of like a the idealized Main Street experience, but with a "river walk" or some such.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:13 AM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]
I'd telework if I trusted that I wouldn't lose my job in the next crunch and be trapped in a small town with no other opportunities. The last time I lived in a small town, my hours got cut in half and I lost access to sufficient food for two years until I could borrow money and move to the city where at least there were food service jobs I could pick up. I'm never doing that again. Very much a "sounds fun-- you go first" situation, but it would be solved with a universal basic income and single-payer universal health care.
Blnkfrnk, I think you raise a really good point. In an era when stable jobs of 20 years or more are the exception rather than the norm - no more staying with the company from the time one graduates until one retires - I think a lot of people are thinking, "If I lose this job, can I find another one?" Cities offer that reassurance - if nothing else, there's the possibility of temp work or Starbucks, and in a small town or even a smaller city dependent on one company or industry, there isn't even that.
A universal basic income and Medicare or other single-payer for all would solve, or at least lessen, that problem and so many more.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:31 AM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]
Blnkfrnk, I think you raise a really good point. In an era when stable jobs of 20 years or more are the exception rather than the norm - no more staying with the company from the time one graduates until one retires - I think a lot of people are thinking, "If I lose this job, can I find another one?" Cities offer that reassurance - if nothing else, there's the possibility of temp work or Starbucks, and in a small town or even a smaller city dependent on one company or industry, there isn't even that.
A universal basic income and Medicare or other single-payer for all would solve, or at least lessen, that problem and so many more.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:31 AM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]
I just still wonder how much it's a problem that needs to be solved, although I'm with you in the single-payer/UBI camp.
I mean, small towns are incredibly inefficient economically and environmentally. Unless manufacture and agriculture start requiring a bunch more decentralized labor soon, I'd much rather live in a country full of Ebenezer Howard-style garden cities and national parks (organized along anarcho-syndicalist democratic principles, natch) than the dystopian strip-mall environmental catastrophe we seem doomed to inherit.
I know that's not going to happen, but it doesn't bum me out as an aspirational goal.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:13 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
I mean, small towns are incredibly inefficient economically and environmentally. Unless manufacture and agriculture start requiring a bunch more decentralized labor soon, I'd much rather live in a country full of Ebenezer Howard-style garden cities and national parks (organized along anarcho-syndicalist democratic principles, natch) than the dystopian strip-mall environmental catastrophe we seem doomed to inherit.
I know that's not going to happen, but it doesn't bum me out as an aspirational goal.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:13 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
I just still wonder how much it's a problem that needs to be solved
People in small, dying towns think it is. If our solution is just "sucks to be you," they're gonna keep hating Democrats and voting for Trumps that at least give lip service to caring about their communities...
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:24 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
People in small, dying towns think it is. If our solution is just "sucks to be you," they're gonna keep hating Democrats and voting for Trumps that at least give lip service to caring about their communities...
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:24 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
" they're gonna keep hating Democrats and voting for Trumps "
You mean, "the white ones," right? Because everyone else in the sub-$50K demographics did not.
posted by praemunire at 1:47 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
You mean, "the white ones," right? Because everyone else in the sub-$50K demographics did not.
posted by praemunire at 1:47 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
I mean the ones in dying small towns, who are mostly white, yes.
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:50 PM on April 11, 2017
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:50 PM on April 11, 2017
If you're going to get rid of the small, economically inefficient towns, you'll need to get rid of the Electoral College and gerrymandering, because otherwise, you'll get the sorts of cranky, ornery people who hold out in the towns when everyone else has left deciding your elections.
posted by acb at 3:28 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 3:28 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
That's literally what is happening. Except they're not just cranky and onery. In many cases they are desperate and without options.
posted by OnceUponATime at 3:31 PM on April 11, 2017
posted by OnceUponATime at 3:31 PM on April 11, 2017
I mean, small towns are incredibly inefficient economically and environmentally. Unless manufacture and agriculture start requiring a bunch more decentralized labor soon...
People seem to just toss this sort of claim off without questioning it, but my sense is completely the opposite. Cities are these gaping, voracious maws that suck resources in from all over the planet, and in a globalized economy their consumption of many things is only limited once world-wide scarcity is hit. Even the more common commodity-like stuff they need in bulk like fresh water or gravel has to be extracted from the countryside around them, often brought from hundreds of miles away.
Environmentally at least, if you dig down to the way figures for pollution and emissions are calculated, things seem rigged to try to make cities look better: when I've tried delving into it in the past and tracking down the methodologies used, it has appeared to me that those measurements are calculated to only count the pollution and carbon emitted within city limits. So for example emissions and energy production and consumption related to mining and processing all of the concrete and steel and glass and everything else to make skyscrapers, and the transportation of those materials to the city, may be added in to rural totals and split up per capita there instead of where it's all consumed.
Another example—in the majority of the land area of my town people get their water from private wells. You can't just use unlimited amounts of water: if you want to fill a swimming pool or you accidentally leave the sprinkler turned on watering your lawn (for people who even want lawns in the first place), you can drain your well dry. If I understand it properly, with the zoning in most of the town, if you can't dig a well and particularly if the soil fails a "percolation test" to prove it allows water from a septic system to filter back down to the aquifer (which happens over the course of decades) a home isn't going to be built in a given location.
It certainly isn't like that with every resource in a small town, but it seems to me that cities encourage the handwavy "it comes from somewhere, who knows" unrestrained consumption of resources, disconnected from any limits or environmental costs associated with obtaining those resources.
As far as centralized agriculture, are you talking about something like a Soviet agrogorod? That's the only case of a city-like centralization of agriculture I'm aware of, but my understanding is that it didn't work too well or scale too well.
As far as non-resource-extraction economic activity, there are many things which require cities for concentration and flexibility of labor, but I wonder whether that has to do with the way in which some technologies and industries needed to be jump-started during the 19th and 20th centuries, and that now we're looking at something which is more like path dependence and which could be overcome in a system built from the starting point of 21st-century technology and science. (And in the case of some white-collar jobs, perhaps there's also an appetite among white-collar workers for particular consumption-oriented lifestyles associated with cities that results in those jobs being located there without a practical necessity for it.)
Take seaports, for example: for humans, it has been inefficient to anchor a freighter offshore and unload the cargo by hand onto rowboats or other small craft that can land directly on a seashore. So instead, we have dredging of harbors and draining of river delta estuaries and other sorts of environmental destruction to make space for docks and warehouses, construction of seawalls and breakwaters and jetties to protect ships in port and prevent the coastline from moving, then trucking in sand and gravel and rock from elsewhere if we've accelerated erosion or caused other problems by screwing up natural sediment deposition, and concentrated pollution from the freighter traffic itself and due to runoff from all of the docks and warehouses and other infrastructure being perched right on the edge of the ocean.
But, it seems as though for many types of cargo, at some point in the relatively near future it may be possible, and more efficient, to simply park the freighter anywhere you want along the coast and have an ant-like train of amphibious autonomous longshoreman robots do the work of unloading it, or maybe even humans guiding highly-automated amphibious vehicles, rather than forklifts on docks and all of the attendant expenditure of energy and resources and environmental degradation necessary to put the docks and forklifts there and make it possible for a deep-sea freighter to get close enough to the shore to dock. And without needing the city that may be there in the first place only because the harbor and the docks are there. (And also, notable particularly in connection with climate change, the sea level could rise and the shoreline could move inland and it wouldn't be a problem.)
I've run into these statements about the supposed virtue of building cities and living in cities before on MeFi, and when I've pushed back so far I've gotten evidence like the per-capita numbers on emissions and pollution being lower in cities, which when I dig down into them seem to have been produced with disincentives to fully account for the costs of constructing, maintaining, and living in cities. I feel like there may be some chauvinism going on where people who live in cities and prefer it just reflexively assume, and make appraisals biased by wanting it to be the case, that it's best to live in cities and cities are the best for everything.
So as long as we're musing about anarcho-syndicalist democratic utopias, my take on the aspirational ideal is that we'd be better off with human populations more evenly distributed and more closely matched to the carrying capacity of the land (or sea!) and its resources, with goods and matériel that can't be produced locally and need to be transported long-distance moving directly from where they're produced to where they're consumed, rather than being moved into cities and moved out again or transported from one side of the Earth to the other.
tl;dr I think that many things portrayed as efficiencies in centering society around cities may simply not be more efficient when you look closely, or that we're seeing only one side and there are externalities associated with putting everyone in small high-population-density regions and dragging all of the stuff needed to support them there, externalities which hide true costs in the long run.
posted by XMLicious at 6:07 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]
I mean the ones in dying small towns, who are mostly white, yes.
I am really not sure this has been demonstrated.
posted by Miko at 6:43 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
I am really not sure this has been demonstrated.
posted by Miko at 6:43 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
Y'all are awesome. XMLicious, Miko, OnceUponATime, I really appreciate the thoughtful commentary.
I feel like there may be some chauvinism going on where people who live in cities and prefer it just reflexively assume, and make appraisals biased by wanting it to be the case, that it's best to live in cities and cities are the best for everything.
That's a thing. Conversely, most of the people I know who live in cities romanticize small towns in a way I find both naive and condescending.
we're seeing only one side and there are externalities associated with putting everyone in small high-population-density regions and dragging all of the stuff needed to support them there, externalities which hide true costs in the long run
Fine. I think there are other things to consider besides supporting human life, so I have a problem with ideas of the commons that involve trying to spread everyone equally over the surface of the earth. I can see an argument the other way, I just don't agree with it.
People in small, dying towns think it is.
Fuck 'em. I'm FROM there. The ones who aren't racist homophobic fucking assholes can figure out who to fucking vote for.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:11 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
I feel like there may be some chauvinism going on where people who live in cities and prefer it just reflexively assume, and make appraisals biased by wanting it to be the case, that it's best to live in cities and cities are the best for everything.
That's a thing. Conversely, most of the people I know who live in cities romanticize small towns in a way I find both naive and condescending.
we're seeing only one side and there are externalities associated with putting everyone in small high-population-density regions and dragging all of the stuff needed to support them there, externalities which hide true costs in the long run
Fine. I think there are other things to consider besides supporting human life, so I have a problem with ideas of the commons that involve trying to spread everyone equally over the surface of the earth. I can see an argument the other way, I just don't agree with it.
People in small, dying towns think it is.
Fuck 'em. I'm FROM there. The ones who aren't racist homophobic fucking assholes can figure out who to fucking vote for.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:11 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
People seem to just toss this sort of claim off without questioning it
I do hope you don't mean me, both because I respect you and because I actually question the shit out of that claim without caveats; I just think the claim wins despite them.
I think it really depends a lot on where you are and what your source of water is. Much of the mountain/desert west straight up *should not have cities in it.* There should not be a city like Denver between the Mississippi river and the rainy side of the Sierras, let alone a Las Vegas or SLC. At least if you concentrate cities in those places you have fewer giant lawns.
simply park the freighter anywhere you want along the coast
But that's not how ships work; ports aren't a solved problem by any means.
my take on the aspirational ideal is that we'd be better off with human populations more evenly distributed and more closely matched to the carrying capacity of the land (or sea!) and its resources
I mean, you're not wrong, but carrying capacity isn't the only concern at play, right? When you account for all the other stuff cities tend to win out. Natural gas would be cheapest next to the refinery, and if we all lived within a thousand miles of the equator we wouldn't need air conditioning.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:46 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
I do hope you don't mean me, both because I respect you and because I actually question the shit out of that claim without caveats; I just think the claim wins despite them.
I think it really depends a lot on where you are and what your source of water is. Much of the mountain/desert west straight up *should not have cities in it.* There should not be a city like Denver between the Mississippi river and the rainy side of the Sierras, let alone a Las Vegas or SLC. At least if you concentrate cities in those places you have fewer giant lawns.
simply park the freighter anywhere you want along the coast
But that's not how ships work; ports aren't a solved problem by any means.
my take on the aspirational ideal is that we'd be better off with human populations more evenly distributed and more closely matched to the carrying capacity of the land (or sea!) and its resources
I mean, you're not wrong, but carrying capacity isn't the only concern at play, right? When you account for all the other stuff cities tend to win out. Natural gas would be cheapest next to the refinery, and if we all lived within a thousand miles of the equator we wouldn't need air conditioning.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:46 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
What do you mean by "When you account for all the other stuff cities tend to win out"? This is the thing I'm reacting to—what specifically do cities win on, and what is the evidence that they win?
Not only might some things be less expensive if consumed near their source (though minimizing expense is not really my point) but less energy can be expended transporting them, regions can be more self-sufficient so that accidents and natural disasters which interfere with that transportation may cause less-widespread disruption, and there may be less wastage through a smaller transportation network. When doing online research on these sorts of topics in years past, I found a slide from a presentation at some sort of government conference claiming that 50% of all water distributed through water supply systems in the UK is lost to leaks. (I'm in the U.S. myself, though.)
I'm a bit confused by your comment about air conditioning, since it seems like heating is what we wouldn't need near to the equator.
The basic thing is: it would be great if modern cities were self-contained sealed science fiction arcologies; then they would unquestionably be superior. But the reality is the complete opposite: cities are so thoroughly dependent on the world outside their borders that getting cut off from the places they extract resources from and excrete waste into is immediately calamitous.
So I don't think it makes for an accurate assessment to regard the area within the physical borders of the city or its conurbation as the city's footprint versus a more spread out, lower-density distribution of population, when it has massive impacts on places very distant from it.
I could easily be wrong. I've just repeatedly seen people flatly state that cities are better for the environment and various other socio-economic goals, but asking what the assertion is based on or trying to do research myself on whether this is really a scientific consensus, or consensus in some more policy-oriented scholarly discipline, has not turned up comprehensive evidence which convinces me that's the case so far. Nor even a very thorough argument that tries to account for the activities involved in building and maintaining the city or the entirety of its consumption and waste.
I may just be bad at researching the subject too; or, I also wouldn't be surprised if the subject hasn't been explored in English or in developed countries where cities are already in place, but moreso in developing countries where they have actually built entire cities from scratch within living memory, like Brasília. (Though since Brasília was intentionally built as a national capital city, it's probably not a great example; I would think they probably made different calculations than they might have if they were just choosing among different ways of establishing communities for n million people.)
posted by XMLicious at 10:19 PM on April 11, 2017
Not only might some things be less expensive if consumed near their source (though minimizing expense is not really my point) but less energy can be expended transporting them, regions can be more self-sufficient so that accidents and natural disasters which interfere with that transportation may cause less-widespread disruption, and there may be less wastage through a smaller transportation network. When doing online research on these sorts of topics in years past, I found a slide from a presentation at some sort of government conference claiming that 50% of all water distributed through water supply systems in the UK is lost to leaks. (I'm in the U.S. myself, though.)
I'm a bit confused by your comment about air conditioning, since it seems like heating is what we wouldn't need near to the equator.
The basic thing is: it would be great if modern cities were self-contained sealed science fiction arcologies; then they would unquestionably be superior. But the reality is the complete opposite: cities are so thoroughly dependent on the world outside their borders that getting cut off from the places they extract resources from and excrete waste into is immediately calamitous.
So I don't think it makes for an accurate assessment to regard the area within the physical borders of the city or its conurbation as the city's footprint versus a more spread out, lower-density distribution of population, when it has massive impacts on places very distant from it.
I could easily be wrong. I've just repeatedly seen people flatly state that cities are better for the environment and various other socio-economic goals, but asking what the assertion is based on or trying to do research myself on whether this is really a scientific consensus, or consensus in some more policy-oriented scholarly discipline, has not turned up comprehensive evidence which convinces me that's the case so far. Nor even a very thorough argument that tries to account for the activities involved in building and maintaining the city or the entirety of its consumption and waste.
I may just be bad at researching the subject too; or, I also wouldn't be surprised if the subject hasn't been explored in English or in developed countries where cities are already in place, but moreso in developing countries where they have actually built entire cities from scratch within living memory, like Brasília. (Though since Brasília was intentionally built as a national capital city, it's probably not a great example; I would think they probably made different calculations than they might have if they were just choosing among different ways of establishing communities for n million people.)
posted by XMLicious at 10:19 PM on April 11, 2017
I should also say, I do completely agree with you that as a planning policy point there in general shouldn't be cities in formerly-desert areas if it can be avoided, nor much agriculture either. We really need to prune back or eliminate that where it's drawing from the Ogallala Aquifer and other aquifers that are in danger of being depleted.
posted by XMLicious at 10:35 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by XMLicious at 10:35 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
seems like heating is what we wouldn't need near to the equator
Oop yeah meant to just write HVAC.
What do you mean by "When you account for all the other stuff cities tend to win out"? This is the thing I'm reacting to—what specifically do cities win on, and what is the evidence that they win?
Happy to dig up some studies about the environmental, social, and economic advantages of cities; there's actually a ton of writing on this from a bunch of different angles. I'll have to find the syllabi.
The big one is that people tend to use fewer resources when they live in cities, even taking the hinterland into account. Residences tend to be smaller, often significantly. In North America this generally means more efficient usage of resources (instead of heating/air conditioning a 6 bedroom McMansion for two, you're heating an 800 ft.^2 apt.).
Fewer people in cities own cars, more people walk/bike/transit where they need to be. Utilities and goods are transported in bulk to nodes, and the final stage of getting them to a residence involves far less labor/cost/waste--instead of driving to the next town over that has a Wal Mart, you just end up taking the subway to Target.
Getting power/water/telecoms out to rural areas is inefficient (not just unprofitable) enough it generally has to be subsidized, or it would be completely unaffordable.
Modern farming has all kinds of problems. But as it stands, even the labor intensive stuff like fruit and lettuce requires remarkably few actual people. It would certainly be more efficient for people to all have green roofs and for more produce to be grown in the city, but most cereal crops are completely inefficient at that scale and make more sense on large fields. Those fields make more sense between/around cities (with access to different markets) than within them.
Modern animal husbandry has even more problems IMHO, and is itself pretty inherently an inefficient way to get calories. But until everyone stops eating meat, there's a trade-off between disease and efficiency, and keeping your disease vectors away (and preferably downstream) from your population centers tends to help with health outcomes. Swine and bird flus spread a lot faster in places where people keep their livestock in town.
I'd say disease is probably one of the areas where there's a disadvantage to cities; a virus can sweep through a population much faster. OTOH, like other services cities tend to support greater, more efficient, and more varied health care options (setting aside questions of insurance etc.), whereas many rural towns can't even support e.g. a dialysis center.
cities are so thoroughly dependent on the world outside their borders that getting cut off from the places they extract resources from and excrete waste into is immediately calamitous.
So I don't think it makes for an accurate assessment to regard the area within the physical borders of the city or its conurbation as the city's footprint versus a more spread out, lower-density distribution of population, when it has massive impacts on places very distant from it.
Absolutely, and people who talk about this kind of geography spend a lot of time on that exact problem. But this is the same for smaller conurbations as well, and economies of scale become relevant pretty quickly in that discussion.
Most pre-20th century conurbations were built because of geographical convenience (like the Fall Line I mentioned above) and proximity to multiple sets of resources. Some modern cities (Las Vegas) aren't situated that way, but even though we shouldn't be sticking a bunch of people out in the desert it's even worse to spread them all over the whole thing.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:54 AM on April 16, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oop yeah meant to just write HVAC.
What do you mean by "When you account for all the other stuff cities tend to win out"? This is the thing I'm reacting to—what specifically do cities win on, and what is the evidence that they win?
Happy to dig up some studies about the environmental, social, and economic advantages of cities; there's actually a ton of writing on this from a bunch of different angles. I'll have to find the syllabi.
The big one is that people tend to use fewer resources when they live in cities, even taking the hinterland into account. Residences tend to be smaller, often significantly. In North America this generally means more efficient usage of resources (instead of heating/air conditioning a 6 bedroom McMansion for two, you're heating an 800 ft.^2 apt.).
Fewer people in cities own cars, more people walk/bike/transit where they need to be. Utilities and goods are transported in bulk to nodes, and the final stage of getting them to a residence involves far less labor/cost/waste--instead of driving to the next town over that has a Wal Mart, you just end up taking the subway to Target.
Getting power/water/telecoms out to rural areas is inefficient (not just unprofitable) enough it generally has to be subsidized, or it would be completely unaffordable.
Modern farming has all kinds of problems. But as it stands, even the labor intensive stuff like fruit and lettuce requires remarkably few actual people. It would certainly be more efficient for people to all have green roofs and for more produce to be grown in the city, but most cereal crops are completely inefficient at that scale and make more sense on large fields. Those fields make more sense between/around cities (with access to different markets) than within them.
Modern animal husbandry has even more problems IMHO, and is itself pretty inherently an inefficient way to get calories. But until everyone stops eating meat, there's a trade-off between disease and efficiency, and keeping your disease vectors away (and preferably downstream) from your population centers tends to help with health outcomes. Swine and bird flus spread a lot faster in places where people keep their livestock in town.
I'd say disease is probably one of the areas where there's a disadvantage to cities; a virus can sweep through a population much faster. OTOH, like other services cities tend to support greater, more efficient, and more varied health care options (setting aside questions of insurance etc.), whereas many rural towns can't even support e.g. a dialysis center.
cities are so thoroughly dependent on the world outside their borders that getting cut off from the places they extract resources from and excrete waste into is immediately calamitous.
So I don't think it makes for an accurate assessment to regard the area within the physical borders of the city or its conurbation as the city's footprint versus a more spread out, lower-density distribution of population, when it has massive impacts on places very distant from it.
Absolutely, and people who talk about this kind of geography spend a lot of time on that exact problem. But this is the same for smaller conurbations as well, and economies of scale become relevant pretty quickly in that discussion.
Most pre-20th century conurbations were built because of geographical convenience (like the Fall Line I mentioned above) and proximity to multiple sets of resources. Some modern cities (Las Vegas) aren't situated that way, but even though we shouldn't be sticking a bunch of people out in the desert it's even worse to spread them all over the whole thing.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:54 AM on April 16, 2017 [1 favorite]
A lot of it has to do with lifestyle and the standard of living. Of course someone living a self-sufficient life uses fewer resources than someone in a city who uses appliances from China and goes on vacations in Paris and eats a variety of foods from different regions. But that's not really a city-vs-rural difference, it's a wealth-and-consumption vs frugality difference. You can be frugal in a city, too, if you wish, and I suspect it would be easier.
As it is, if you consider people of equal wealth, living in the city and a rural area, I think the person living in the rural area would have significantly higher resource consumption.
Plus, in the US, we build our cities in the cars-everywhere-for-everyone style. This drives up costs a lot. If we did find ourselves in a more resource-limited situation, the most obvious thing to do would be to centralize more, not less-- build housing on existing parking lots, increase mass transit, and create an environment where the average person can live a perfectly decent life without having to own a private vehicle.
less energy can be expended transporting them, regions can be more self-sufficient so that accidents and natural disasters which interfere with that transportation may cause less-widespread disruption, and there may be less wastage through a smaller transportation network
The flipside of less-widespread disruption is more intense local disruption: crop failures meaning starvation instead of economic woes. Our transportation networks are big and complicated, but they're also somewhat robust, and they are efficient in their way. What is more efficient, for example: every city having a washing machine factory, or a handful of centers that are hyper-specialized in making the most efficient washing machines at the lowest cost, and shipping them out to the rest of the world?
Or take the question of produce. If a farm produces 50,000 pounds of produce, what's more efficient: having 10,000 people from the local region travel an average of 10 miles to pick up their five pounds, or loading it all on a truck to travel 500 miles to a supermarket in a dense city, where 10,000 people can collect it by a short walk?
posted by alexei at 2:09 PM on April 16, 2017 [3 favorites]
As it is, if you consider people of equal wealth, living in the city and a rural area, I think the person living in the rural area would have significantly higher resource consumption.
Plus, in the US, we build our cities in the cars-everywhere-for-everyone style. This drives up costs a lot. If we did find ourselves in a more resource-limited situation, the most obvious thing to do would be to centralize more, not less-- build housing on existing parking lots, increase mass transit, and create an environment where the average person can live a perfectly decent life without having to own a private vehicle.
less energy can be expended transporting them, regions can be more self-sufficient so that accidents and natural disasters which interfere with that transportation may cause less-widespread disruption, and there may be less wastage through a smaller transportation network
The flipside of less-widespread disruption is more intense local disruption: crop failures meaning starvation instead of economic woes. Our transportation networks are big and complicated, but they're also somewhat robust, and they are efficient in their way. What is more efficient, for example: every city having a washing machine factory, or a handful of centers that are hyper-specialized in making the most efficient washing machines at the lowest cost, and shipping them out to the rest of the world?
Or take the question of produce. If a farm produces 50,000 pounds of produce, what's more efficient: having 10,000 people from the local region travel an average of 10 miles to pick up their five pounds, or loading it all on a truck to travel 500 miles to a supermarket in a dense city, where 10,000 people can collect it by a short walk?
posted by alexei at 2:09 PM on April 16, 2017 [3 favorites]
Wow, well, I wrote and wrote, and then I think the gigantic politics thread in another tab started to crash my browser, but I quickly pressed Ctrl-A Ctrl-C, and miraculously after the browser bit the dust completely all of this stuff was still in my clipboard rather than lost. That was a bit of a harrowing experience, so I must retire to my fainting couch, but hopefully this response to aspersioncast also answers the points you make, alexei. One note, though: my basic thing is that I think that just comparing lifestyle to lifestyle takes for granted considerable expenses involved in constructing and maintaining the city, necessary to make the city lifestyles possible in the first place.—
This gets into what I'm talking about insofar as changing technology, at least in the context where we're talking about utopias with everything in an ideal configuration and Ebenezer Howard-style garden cities are an option.
You talk about extending telecom service to rural areas being inefficient, but since the last mile and further being wireless is becoming more and more adequate, and in fact many developing parts of the world aren't finding it worth it to run hard lines even in high-population-density areas, I would be interested to know what the actual comparison in cost would be between provisioning a high-density region from scratch in that fashion, accounting for costs related to spectrum and bandwidth being exhausted and increased infrastructure density and power requirements for transmitting through ferroconcrete buildings. It seems feasible to me that provisioning lower-density, more rural areas might come out ahead in per-capita costs, but even if that is not the case, I'd expect it would make for a far smaller "win" for cities versus a comparison based on 20th-century telecom infrastructure.
The kinds of greener, more distributed power generation regarded as more sustainable and ideal seem as though they're actually impaired at some point by increase in population density: solar panels on the roof of a multi-story high-occupancy building close to neighboring buildings, or a geothermal heat pump system installed during construction, wouldn't satisfy the electricity demands of the building's occupants, not at developed-world consumption rates and better-than-current efficiency rates, would they?
I'm also curious whether calculations of lower-per-capita power consumption from centralized sources in cities are really made accounting for the efficiency of transport and the cost of constructing the generation and transportation infrastructure, or if it's again a case where they're essentially making measurements as if nothing outside of the city itself exists. If you calculate the per-capita power consumption of a rural community in Quebec right next to a hydroelectric power plant or wind farm, and then the consumption of power from the same source once it makes it all the way down to New York City through the leaky resistive East-Coast power grid, is the consumption still that much better? Superconducting lines could eliminate some of the long-distance efficiency losses in a more utopian ideal, but per Wikipedia they still appear to be astronomically expensive to build and maintain and used only experimentally in very short runs at this point.
And, to pick a relatively trivial and contrived example, if you're comparing a town with no stoplights to a city with an extensive and complicated traffic management and public transportation infrastructure, is the electricity consumed by those systems also broken down per capita? Or is household being compared to household because that's easier to do, even though with the city a larger percentage of electricity expenditures related to non-commercial activity may exist outside the household (and even outside the city) rather than within it?
I would concede that under current conditions personal vehicle use in more rural locations, and expenditures enabling that personal vehicle use like construction and maintenance of local roads, are probably more energy consumptive per capita versus personal travel in cities, even when the full cost of constructing and maintaining public transit systems, and things like subways and buses running empty or nearly-empty when demand is low.
But I think we're going to need to accept far less personal travel, slower travel speeds, and higher latency in our transportation systems in the future. Once autonomous vehicles are ubiquitous, and vehicles can be shared among multiple people or otherwise hired as needed for travel, and may not need paved roads because they can travel at a much slower speed, and instead of going to a Walmart or Target an autonomous vehicle of exactly the appropriate size is delivering goods to your and your neighbors' homes which were routed to you over longer-distance transportation links from near to where they're produced, and perhaps a separate vehicle delivers in-season foodstuffs from nearby farms... at that point, if we make it that far, it might not make sense to dig tunnel systems under cities to make way for underground trains, nor have untold acres paved for moving people and goods around in both the city and the countryside.
That's a substantial departure from today's state of affairs. But anticipating an energy-starved future where our consumption levels might need to be more like those in the present developing world, and autonomous vehicles continuing to develop, I wonder if both infrastructure-heavy public transportation and driving around in personal vehicles might be vestigial path dependence in contrast to what would be most optimally ideal.
The question of water use efficiency touches on another dimension—a large part of the reason why a city-dweller needs to worry so much about the efficiency of their personal-use water consumption in the first place is because they're in the middle between an enormous resource-extraction network pulling water en masse from distant sources and an equally massive waste processing operation that often (usually?) mixes household outflows with industrial and other sources of wastewater and surface runoff. On the other hand, as I said above the water my household uses is drawn from the well under my house and departs into the septic tank in my yard where after many years it's returned down into the same aquifer. So, within certain limits, it doesn't actually matter how much water I consume; especially adding in rainfall, the aquifer remains at the same level no matter what.
There are variables related to aridity, hydrology, droughts, and other things between different small communities, and it may or may not be more efficient or better for the environment to have smaller separate extraction and waste processing systems calibrated to the type of use and types of pollutants; but my main point here is that, somewhat like calculating emissions within particular geographic boundaries, the very question itself and evaluating the answer as indicative of virtue betrays a mindset inherently oriented towards cities.
And a further aspect of all of this is that in many places outside of cities the aforementioned amenities aren't there solely for the benefit of the people who live locally; part of it is that when people who live in cities go on vacation or otherwise travel outside of them, they expect to have mobile phone reception and stuff like that. If people in cities limited themselves to short-range mobile phone systems like PHS as used in urban areas in some parts of the developing world, or otherwise accepted not having mobile phone service and other amenities beyond the city, it would be one thing, but there may be a limited degree to which further concentrating population in cities would eliminate infrastructure needs outside of them.
As another example, I was just recently watching a couple of documentaries about Madeira and one of the Canary Islands, (Islands of the Future, available on Netflix) showing how they've been able to construct integrated systems of green power generation and storage tied together with water collection, desalination, and storage, and with careful construction and management of these systems have managed to do fairly well meeting their own needs in those respects along with careful usage and low-water-use terraced gardening by people who often grow their own food. But then cruise ships full of tourists show up; they have to mandate that ships bring and offload cargoes of water along with the people.
As far as McMansions, I'd agree that living in a smaller footprint has advantages, but are McMansions actually associated with rural communities? There are a couple of unusually-wealthy towns near me where there are large houses like that, but the frequency with which you encounter them seems to get much higher as you move nearer to the centers of the largest cities in neighboring states. Certainly, when I've visited small towns in the Midwest, the houses I've been in weren't at all what I'd call a McMansion.
Besides that, it's not like there can't be multi-story, multi-family dwellings outside of cities, even in the middle of the woods out of sight from any other building; I've lived in at least one. Certainly, it may be easier to let various forces in cities squeeze people into smaller and smaller spaces, and use policy and regulation to prevent them from being relegated into overcrowding or closet-sized windowless dwellings; but in my opinion, all else being the same, in the ideal case it might be better to use policy and regulation to require smaller living areas on average in lower-density areas.
Really, though? You're certain that moving irrigation water whatever distance to the city, then up vertically onto rooftops, as well as soil or hydroponics systems and fertilizer, would be more efficient and supply some material percentage of the fruit and lettuce consumed by the populace versus farms? Note that doing this means that those rooftops can't be used for solar power generation, by the way.
I'm going to have to ask for a citation on this particular point, and for the assertion that the need for agricultural products like grain could actually be satisfied just from sources between and around cities.
This would again appear to completely contradict my (not-a-farmer) understanding of things. I thought that smaller herds that might be kept closer to neighbors tend to be healthier and consume fewer antibiotics or be capable of antibiotic-free management, though regardless of where they're kept, and it's massive industrial farms with immense herds packed in next to each other (again, basically a resource extraction operation drawn on serve consumers in distant cities) where diseases tend to run rampant and develop into antibiotic-resistant strains. Also, as far as zoonotic disease vectors, I could have sworn that there was an FPP at some point about how pet waste poses a substantial contagion and pollution problem both in cities and even in more thinly settled residential areas, but unfortunately I'm not finding it; besides that, I started to write something about contagion of human diseases with higher population density, before noticing that you'd already said it all.
Centralization of health care does seem like a good point in favor of cities, or at least in favor of a fair amount of population concentration sufficient to support both general and specialized hospitals. I was actually in the remote medicine biz doing software development in the last century, but having paid a bit of attention since then as a non-medical-professional, it doesn't seem as though any dramatic improvements are on the horizon that will make a substantial difference for people in rural areas, apart from a few very specific areas of care.
>
I'd appreciate a citation on this, too, or an example really; having spent a bunch of time googling for emissions and pollution numbers during previous discussions, and drilling down to the methodologies described in the studies I could access freely online, my impression was that this was not the approach at all. They seemed to make calculations based on various commercial numbers related to consumption or imports/customs in a particular region, or small-sample-size direct point measurements within a geographic region, rather than attempting to model emissions across a national or global economy and attribute activity throughout that economy to a particular city.
Anyways, I could go on and on (and I guess I have, sorry) and most of what I've said above is speculative, but hopefully I'm getting across why it does not seem entirely obvious and certain to me that cities are most efficient and best for the environment, particularly when considered outside of the factors that drove urbanization during the twentieth century.
posted by XMLicious at 3:18 PM on April 16, 2017
This gets into what I'm talking about insofar as changing technology, at least in the context where we're talking about utopias with everything in an ideal configuration and Ebenezer Howard-style garden cities are an option.
You talk about extending telecom service to rural areas being inefficient, but since the last mile and further being wireless is becoming more and more adequate, and in fact many developing parts of the world aren't finding it worth it to run hard lines even in high-population-density areas, I would be interested to know what the actual comparison in cost would be between provisioning a high-density region from scratch in that fashion, accounting for costs related to spectrum and bandwidth being exhausted and increased infrastructure density and power requirements for transmitting through ferroconcrete buildings. It seems feasible to me that provisioning lower-density, more rural areas might come out ahead in per-capita costs, but even if that is not the case, I'd expect it would make for a far smaller "win" for cities versus a comparison based on 20th-century telecom infrastructure.
The kinds of greener, more distributed power generation regarded as more sustainable and ideal seem as though they're actually impaired at some point by increase in population density: solar panels on the roof of a multi-story high-occupancy building close to neighboring buildings, or a geothermal heat pump system installed during construction, wouldn't satisfy the electricity demands of the building's occupants, not at developed-world consumption rates and better-than-current efficiency rates, would they?
I'm also curious whether calculations of lower-per-capita power consumption from centralized sources in cities are really made accounting for the efficiency of transport and the cost of constructing the generation and transportation infrastructure, or if it's again a case where they're essentially making measurements as if nothing outside of the city itself exists. If you calculate the per-capita power consumption of a rural community in Quebec right next to a hydroelectric power plant or wind farm, and then the consumption of power from the same source once it makes it all the way down to New York City through the leaky resistive East-Coast power grid, is the consumption still that much better? Superconducting lines could eliminate some of the long-distance efficiency losses in a more utopian ideal, but per Wikipedia they still appear to be astronomically expensive to build and maintain and used only experimentally in very short runs at this point.
And, to pick a relatively trivial and contrived example, if you're comparing a town with no stoplights to a city with an extensive and complicated traffic management and public transportation infrastructure, is the electricity consumed by those systems also broken down per capita? Or is household being compared to household because that's easier to do, even though with the city a larger percentage of electricity expenditures related to non-commercial activity may exist outside the household (and even outside the city) rather than within it?
I would concede that under current conditions personal vehicle use in more rural locations, and expenditures enabling that personal vehicle use like construction and maintenance of local roads, are probably more energy consumptive per capita versus personal travel in cities, even when the full cost of constructing and maintaining public transit systems, and things like subways and buses running empty or nearly-empty when demand is low.
But I think we're going to need to accept far less personal travel, slower travel speeds, and higher latency in our transportation systems in the future. Once autonomous vehicles are ubiquitous, and vehicles can be shared among multiple people or otherwise hired as needed for travel, and may not need paved roads because they can travel at a much slower speed, and instead of going to a Walmart or Target an autonomous vehicle of exactly the appropriate size is delivering goods to your and your neighbors' homes which were routed to you over longer-distance transportation links from near to where they're produced, and perhaps a separate vehicle delivers in-season foodstuffs from nearby farms... at that point, if we make it that far, it might not make sense to dig tunnel systems under cities to make way for underground trains, nor have untold acres paved for moving people and goods around in both the city and the countryside.
That's a substantial departure from today's state of affairs. But anticipating an energy-starved future where our consumption levels might need to be more like those in the present developing world, and autonomous vehicles continuing to develop, I wonder if both infrastructure-heavy public transportation and driving around in personal vehicles might be vestigial path dependence in contrast to what would be most optimally ideal.
The question of water use efficiency touches on another dimension—a large part of the reason why a city-dweller needs to worry so much about the efficiency of their personal-use water consumption in the first place is because they're in the middle between an enormous resource-extraction network pulling water en masse from distant sources and an equally massive waste processing operation that often (usually?) mixes household outflows with industrial and other sources of wastewater and surface runoff. On the other hand, as I said above the water my household uses is drawn from the well under my house and departs into the septic tank in my yard where after many years it's returned down into the same aquifer. So, within certain limits, it doesn't actually matter how much water I consume; especially adding in rainfall, the aquifer remains at the same level no matter what.
There are variables related to aridity, hydrology, droughts, and other things between different small communities, and it may or may not be more efficient or better for the environment to have smaller separate extraction and waste processing systems calibrated to the type of use and types of pollutants; but my main point here is that, somewhat like calculating emissions within particular geographic boundaries, the very question itself and evaluating the answer as indicative of virtue betrays a mindset inherently oriented towards cities.
And a further aspect of all of this is that in many places outside of cities the aforementioned amenities aren't there solely for the benefit of the people who live locally; part of it is that when people who live in cities go on vacation or otherwise travel outside of them, they expect to have mobile phone reception and stuff like that. If people in cities limited themselves to short-range mobile phone systems like PHS as used in urban areas in some parts of the developing world, or otherwise accepted not having mobile phone service and other amenities beyond the city, it would be one thing, but there may be a limited degree to which further concentrating population in cities would eliminate infrastructure needs outside of them.
As another example, I was just recently watching a couple of documentaries about Madeira and one of the Canary Islands, (Islands of the Future, available on Netflix) showing how they've been able to construct integrated systems of green power generation and storage tied together with water collection, desalination, and storage, and with careful construction and management of these systems have managed to do fairly well meeting their own needs in those respects along with careful usage and low-water-use terraced gardening by people who often grow their own food. But then cruise ships full of tourists show up; they have to mandate that ships bring and offload cargoes of water along with the people.
As far as McMansions, I'd agree that living in a smaller footprint has advantages, but are McMansions actually associated with rural communities? There are a couple of unusually-wealthy towns near me where there are large houses like that, but the frequency with which you encounter them seems to get much higher as you move nearer to the centers of the largest cities in neighboring states. Certainly, when I've visited small towns in the Midwest, the houses I've been in weren't at all what I'd call a McMansion.
Besides that, it's not like there can't be multi-story, multi-family dwellings outside of cities, even in the middle of the woods out of sight from any other building; I've lived in at least one. Certainly, it may be easier to let various forces in cities squeeze people into smaller and smaller spaces, and use policy and regulation to prevent them from being relegated into overcrowding or closet-sized windowless dwellings; but in my opinion, all else being the same, in the ideal case it might be better to use policy and regulation to require smaller living areas on average in lower-density areas.
It would certainly be more efficient for people to all have green roofs and for more produce to be grown in the city, but most cereal crops are completely inefficient at that scale and make more sense on large fields. Those fields make more sense between/around cities (with access to different markets) than within them.
Really, though? You're certain that moving irrigation water whatever distance to the city, then up vertically onto rooftops, as well as soil or hydroponics systems and fertilizer, would be more efficient and supply some material percentage of the fruit and lettuce consumed by the populace versus farms? Note that doing this means that those rooftops can't be used for solar power generation, by the way.
I'm going to have to ask for a citation on this particular point, and for the assertion that the need for agricultural products like grain could actually be satisfied just from sources between and around cities.
Swine and bird flus spread a lot faster in places where people keep their livestock in town.
This would again appear to completely contradict my (not-a-farmer) understanding of things. I thought that smaller herds that might be kept closer to neighbors tend to be healthier and consume fewer antibiotics or be capable of antibiotic-free management, though regardless of where they're kept, and it's massive industrial farms with immense herds packed in next to each other (again, basically a resource extraction operation drawn on serve consumers in distant cities) where diseases tend to run rampant and develop into antibiotic-resistant strains. Also, as far as zoonotic disease vectors, I could have sworn that there was an FPP at some point about how pet waste poses a substantial contagion and pollution problem both in cities and even in more thinly settled residential areas, but unfortunately I'm not finding it; besides that, I started to write something about contagion of human diseases with higher population density, before noticing that you'd already said it all.
Centralization of health care does seem like a good point in favor of cities, or at least in favor of a fair amount of population concentration sufficient to support both general and specialized hospitals. I was actually in the remote medicine biz doing software development in the last century, but having paid a bit of attention since then as a non-medical-professional, it doesn't seem as though any dramatic improvements are on the horizon that will make a substantial difference for people in rural areas, apart from a few very specific areas of care.
>
So I don't think it makes for an accurate assessment to regard the area within the physical borders of the city or its conurbation as the city's footprint versus a more spread out, lower-density distribution of population, when it has massive impacts on places very distant from it.
Absolutely, and people who talk about this kind of geography spend a lot of time on that exact problem.
I'd appreciate a citation on this, too, or an example really; having spent a bunch of time googling for emissions and pollution numbers during previous discussions, and drilling down to the methodologies described in the studies I could access freely online, my impression was that this was not the approach at all. They seemed to make calculations based on various commercial numbers related to consumption or imports/customs in a particular region, or small-sample-size direct point measurements within a geographic region, rather than attempting to model emissions across a national or global economy and attribute activity throughout that economy to a particular city.
Anyways, I could go on and on (and I guess I have, sorry) and most of what I've said above is speculative, but hopefully I'm getting across why it does not seem entirely obvious and certain to me that cities are most efficient and best for the environment, particularly when considered outside of the factors that drove urbanization during the twentieth century.
posted by XMLicious at 3:18 PM on April 16, 2017
Readers Respond to The Myth of Main Street
posted by Preserver at 1:13 PM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
I should have a chance to dig into the literature this week, XMLicious.
I did forget to make the point that I tend to think preserving large unpopulated areas is itself of value.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:03 PM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
I did forget to make the point that I tend to think preserving large unpopulated areas is itself of value.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:03 PM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
XMLicious, Let's leave aside the queastion of where these magical autonimous, offroad cars will be manufactured, likewise the solar panels and electronics. The question of dispersing people out into the countryside then becomes, how many people out of a city of say, five million people do you want living next to you? How many people are you willing to share your aquifier with?
There's also the practical problem that ruralization is bucking a trend that's been going on for millennia. Just what incentives or coercions will be used to get people to actually move to small towns?
Actually, just start with me. Convince me that I would be happier living again in a town where my choice of the only two restaurants either served the same Italian dishes everyday, or had a "Real Food for Real People" sign over it.
Make your case that I would do better, both career-wise and socially in a small town.
posted by happyroach at 3:15 PM on April 17, 2017
There's also the practical problem that ruralization is bucking a trend that's been going on for millennia. Just what incentives or coercions will be used to get people to actually move to small towns?
Actually, just start with me. Convince me that I would be happier living again in a town where my choice of the only two restaurants either served the same Italian dishes everyday, or had a "Real Food for Real People" sign over it.
Make your case that I would do better, both career-wise and socially in a small town.
posted by happyroach at 3:15 PM on April 17, 2017
which small town, happyroach? - and that's not a glib question, but the central one
and it seems to me that there's a fallacy of the excluded middle here - small to medium size cities - podunk or loose gravel might be appalling for you, but what about grand rapids, ft wayne or kalamazoo?
posted by pyramid termite at 5:14 PM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
and it seems to me that there's a fallacy of the excluded middle here - small to medium size cities - podunk or loose gravel might be appalling for you, but what about grand rapids, ft wayne or kalamazoo?
posted by pyramid termite at 5:14 PM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
This is all super-interesting, and I do think a lot of it is debatable, but we're definitely hogging this thread (and derailing quite a bit from the "Main Street" thing), maybe we should take it to MeMail? These poor mods. I just wrote way more than intended.
it does not seem entirely obvious and certain to me that cities are most efficient and best for the environment, particularly when considered outside of the factors that drove urbanization during the twentieth century
Absolutely. We have to imagine ways to live otherwise. I'm doing my best to argue in good faith and not make assumptions.
There's the question of whether we're talking about
That is still true, not necessarily for rational efficiency reasons but because I *hate* suburbs and strip malls and would place a large stock on preserving some places where there aren't people or the ugly-ass things they build when they aren't worried about space or aesthetics.
Belatedly, I realize I'm trying to extrapolate from what I've read on a and b, and I'm sure I'm not doing a particularly great job.
Most of the more rigorous work on this seems to be coming out in journals like Environment and Planning A (probably paywalled) and Architecture and Urban Planning, both of which may have a bit of pro-city bias.
"Efficiency" is a pretty squishy term. It seems like people usually work from ideas of economic/environmental efficiency or from desired policy or health outcomes, all of which are pretty contested.
I think you're making a lot of good points, and I don't really think I can do them all justice. A few things that jump out:
It seems feasible to me that provisioning lower-density, more rural areas might come out ahead in per-capita costs
Feasible, sure. If we're speculating, I'd actually assume that wireless is pretty greedy in terms of energy consumption compared to fiberoptic or even copper. This
is probably a little out of date and I haven't read it yet, but it appears to dig into the problem.
But I also mentioned power and water, which are even harder problems. An ideal power plant would be situated as close as possible to as many consumers as possible, but there are often trade-offs to be made in terms of pollution and location.
The kinds of greener, more distributed power generation regarded as more sustainable and ideal seem as though they're actually impaired at some point by increase in population density
Totally. This is one of the ones where changes in technology may make a serious difference. As of 2016 though, almost 84% of the US's power comes from Natural Gas, Coal, and Nuclear. So until that changes, the trade-off is between optimal efficiency and optimal health outcomes, and people tend to be healthier if they don't live right next to e.g. coal-fired power plants.
is the electricity consumed by those systems also broken down per capita?
In urban planning and geography, generally yes.
I think we're going to need to accept far less personal travel, slower travel speeds, and higher latency in our transportation systems in the future.
Me too.
Once autonomous vehicles are ubiquitous . . . may not need paved roads
I'll believe the first part when I see it, but I'm not following the second part. Paved roads aren't as efficient as rails, but almost any road is more efficient than flying, and any road requires maintenance. Are we picturing ATV robots on a two-track here, or what? BigDog running across the desert?
are McMansions actually associated with rural communities?
No, I'd say the specific "McMansion" phenomenon tends to be more associated with planned "communities" on the periphery of cities. This is where your point about the hinterland is relevant; if we count the shittiness and inefficiency of, e.g., the I-25 corridor, Denver and C. Springs start looking a lot less efficient. That said, although it's purely anecdata, each of my three (grown, small-town) siblings lives in a far bigger house than they need, in a climate that requires controlling most of the year. This is true of their peers as well.
in the ideal case it might be better to use policy and regulation to require smaller living areas on average in lower-density areas.
Totally. Although that runs into another urban/rural contrast: Policy/regulation/government tends to be much stronger in cities. Your average semi-rural Utahn or Arizonan isn't going to take that kinda proposal lying down. I don't have a citation, but I suspect part of the inefficiency people write about in the rural relates to lax or uneven enforcement of things like building codes.
You're certain that moving irrigation water whatever distance to the city, then up vertically onto rooftops, as well as soil or hydroponics systems and fertilizer, would be more efficient and supply some material percentage of the fruit and lettuce consumed by the populace versus farms?
I'm saying it would be more efficient for people to have green roofs and for more produce to be grown closer to where it's produced (not necessarily on those roofs). There are places where this would not be true, and for it to really work efficiently there'd need to be enough precipitation to capture the water locally and enough infrastructure to compost properly. But yeah, in a lot of places (here in DC, for example), a greenhoused roof can provide a ton of produce. It's probably not more efficient overall than farming in terms of labor/production, but a huge part of the inefficiency of produce comes from transporting it.
I'm going to have to ask for a citation on this particular point, and for the assertion that the need for agricultural products like grain could actually be satisfied just from sources between and around cities.There's a ton of stuff in a basic search on green roofs; I can find specifics if you want.
On the second part, "just from sources between and around cities" is where the fields are now, from the perspective of the city. Or did I imply something I didn't mean to? I was just saying it's really inefficient to harvest cereals without fields. I can imagine a different sort of situation with housing spread at the perimeter of the entire field, for example, but I'm not sure what you gain.
Re the livestock/disease issue, you're definitely right about the large-scale production contributing to disease, but my understanding was that the specific human/livestock path tended to happen more where more animals (including pets) and humans live in close quarters. I was actually raising that as a point against cities, but in retrospect it seems a little incoherent.
Anyway, I'm no apologist for cities, and overall I think humans in general and North Americans in particular are being pretty shitty and inefficient. And most of this is pretty orthogonal to the Main Street problem.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:50 PM on April 17, 2017
it does not seem entirely obvious and certain to me that cities are most efficient and best for the environment, particularly when considered outside of the factors that drove urbanization during the twentieth century
Absolutely. We have to imagine ways to live otherwise. I'm doing my best to argue in good faith and not make assumptions.
There's the question of whether we're talking about
- a. what's more efficient now,
b. what would be more efficient if we worked from the realities on the ground as things are, optimizing for efficiency
(whatever we take that to mean). Much of the academic speculation being done seems to be coming from this angle.
c. And what would be most efficient in a Utopian model assuming idealized conditions.
That is still true, not necessarily for rational efficiency reasons but because I *hate* suburbs and strip malls and would place a large stock on preserving some places where there aren't people or the ugly-ass things they build when they aren't worried about space or aesthetics.
Belatedly, I realize I'm trying to extrapolate from what I've read on a and b, and I'm sure I'm not doing a particularly great job.
Most of the more rigorous work on this seems to be coming out in journals like Environment and Planning A (probably paywalled) and Architecture and Urban Planning, both of which may have a bit of pro-city bias.
"Efficiency" is a pretty squishy term. It seems like people usually work from ideas of economic/environmental efficiency or from desired policy or health outcomes, all of which are pretty contested.
I think you're making a lot of good points, and I don't really think I can do them all justice. A few things that jump out:
It seems feasible to me that provisioning lower-density, more rural areas might come out ahead in per-capita costs
Feasible, sure. If we're speculating, I'd actually assume that wireless is pretty greedy in terms of energy consumption compared to fiberoptic or even copper. This
is probably a little out of date and I haven't read it yet, but it appears to dig into the problem.
But I also mentioned power and water, which are even harder problems. An ideal power plant would be situated as close as possible to as many consumers as possible, but there are often trade-offs to be made in terms of pollution and location.
The kinds of greener, more distributed power generation regarded as more sustainable and ideal seem as though they're actually impaired at some point by increase in population density
Totally. This is one of the ones where changes in technology may make a serious difference. As of 2016 though, almost 84% of the US's power comes from Natural Gas, Coal, and Nuclear. So until that changes, the trade-off is between optimal efficiency and optimal health outcomes, and people tend to be healthier if they don't live right next to e.g. coal-fired power plants.
is the electricity consumed by those systems also broken down per capita?
In urban planning and geography, generally yes.
I think we're going to need to accept far less personal travel, slower travel speeds, and higher latency in our transportation systems in the future.
Me too.
Once autonomous vehicles are ubiquitous . . . may not need paved roads
I'll believe the first part when I see it, but I'm not following the second part. Paved roads aren't as efficient as rails, but almost any road is more efficient than flying, and any road requires maintenance. Are we picturing ATV robots on a two-track here, or what? BigDog running across the desert?
are McMansions actually associated with rural communities?
No, I'd say the specific "McMansion" phenomenon tends to be more associated with planned "communities" on the periphery of cities. This is where your point about the hinterland is relevant; if we count the shittiness and inefficiency of, e.g., the I-25 corridor, Denver and C. Springs start looking a lot less efficient. That said, although it's purely anecdata, each of my three (grown, small-town) siblings lives in a far bigger house than they need, in a climate that requires controlling most of the year. This is true of their peers as well.
in the ideal case it might be better to use policy and regulation to require smaller living areas on average in lower-density areas.
Totally. Although that runs into another urban/rural contrast: Policy/regulation/government tends to be much stronger in cities. Your average semi-rural Utahn or Arizonan isn't going to take that kinda proposal lying down. I don't have a citation, but I suspect part of the inefficiency people write about in the rural relates to lax or uneven enforcement of things like building codes.
You're certain that moving irrigation water whatever distance to the city, then up vertically onto rooftops, as well as soil or hydroponics systems and fertilizer, would be more efficient and supply some material percentage of the fruit and lettuce consumed by the populace versus farms?
I'm saying it would be more efficient for people to have green roofs and for more produce to be grown closer to where it's produced (not necessarily on those roofs). There are places where this would not be true, and for it to really work efficiently there'd need to be enough precipitation to capture the water locally and enough infrastructure to compost properly. But yeah, in a lot of places (here in DC, for example), a greenhoused roof can provide a ton of produce. It's probably not more efficient overall than farming in terms of labor/production, but a huge part of the inefficiency of produce comes from transporting it.
I'm going to have to ask for a citation on this particular point, and for the assertion that the need for agricultural products like grain could actually be satisfied just from sources between and around cities.There's a ton of stuff in a basic search on green roofs; I can find specifics if you want.
On the second part, "just from sources between and around cities" is where the fields are now, from the perspective of the city. Or did I imply something I didn't mean to? I was just saying it's really inefficient to harvest cereals without fields. I can imagine a different sort of situation with housing spread at the perimeter of the entire field, for example, but I'm not sure what you gain.
Re the livestock/disease issue, you're definitely right about the large-scale production contributing to disease, but my understanding was that the specific human/livestock path tended to happen more where more animals (including pets) and humans live in close quarters. I was actually raising that as a point against cities, but in retrospect it seems a little incoherent.
Anyway, I'm no apologist for cities, and overall I think humans in general and North Americans in particular are being pretty shitty and inefficient. And most of this is pretty orthogonal to the Main Street problem.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:50 PM on April 17, 2017
happyroach—the aquifers (or at least, the fresh water resources overall) get shared whether people live in cities or not, except in the relatively few places around the world engaging in large-scale currently-energy-intensive desalination for their cities. And I would certainly concede that maximizing efficiency and minimizing harm to the environment may not result in maximizing happiness.
Thanks for taking the time to respond at length again, aspersioncast. I hate suburbs too, it seems to be another great point in favor of getting rid of cities! ☺ But you're right, fascinating though this discussion of rural areas versus the places between rural areas is, it's a bit off topic; so I'll follow up via MeMail.
posted by XMLicious at 7:55 PM on April 17, 2017
Thanks for taking the time to respond at length again, aspersioncast. I hate suburbs too, it seems to be another great point in favor of getting rid of cities! ☺ But you're right, fascinating though this discussion of rural areas versus the places between rural areas is, it's a bit off topic; so I'll follow up via MeMail.
posted by XMLicious at 7:55 PM on April 17, 2017
I just made an FPP that some of y'all might be interested in for its focus on the assumptions of planning.
posted by Miko at 9:44 AM on April 18, 2017
posted by Miko at 9:44 AM on April 18, 2017
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posted by prozak at 9:57 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]