Thoughts on cities.
I frequent a message board that discusses things like politics and news and such. One of the other posters is a militant vegan, libertarian, agnostic, southern californian computer guy. We actually agree on much. He is logical and consistant in (most) of his opinions which are most often well reasoned and the result of considerable thought. I say this, not because we agree on much and that it is somehow a reflection of [b]my[/b] opinions but I notice it more in the things we don't agree on. Mainly animal "rights" (I must put that one in quotes), and matters of faith. Anyway, he posted a question about the need for cities. Are they obsolete? He contends they are. I have thought something similar for a while and wondered if they would lose favor. I'm not so sure. Because they exist, they will likely carry forward. However, I believe he does have a point that if they did not exist now, they would not be able to be created out of whole cloth. Some 2nd and 3rd tier cities with Big City Envy (like Charlotte) continually bemoan the fact that they are not "world class" cities and come up with endless ideas how they can be. (Sports teams seems to come up a lot but I don't see how that is necessary.)
The result is the following exchange:
>I think the concept may now
>be anachronistic. Technologies like
>the internet have greatly reduced
>the need for physical proximity.
> Cities are well-known as
>breeding places of crime, traffic
>congestion, air pollution, high rents,
>etc. Most american cities
>are located where they are
>for historic reasons such as
>that they were near a
>river needed for transportation, that
>are no longer relevent.
There are certain things that will always require cities. Good need to be shipped rather than flown. As such you're always going to have business at ports (except in California where Goonion members are striking b/c they're only making 100K+.). Add to that the Trucks that then need to move the goods around the country. With this you have the attendant industries of petroleum, manufacturing, distribution, etc.
>Take a look at a
>map of any of them:
> there are all kinds
>of problems because they haphazardly
>grew without planning. (Note
>to the idiot gallery:
>State planning is not needed
>to plan communities, any more
>than GM needs the federal
>government to plan what kind
>of cars to make.)
Are you speaking of a lack of private planning? Much of it was due to micro expansion. The developers in question didn't have the money to buy huge pieces of land required to plan effectively. Furthermore, the neighboring planners either had different visions or simply went bankrupt. many of the homes outside NYC were farmers that simply subdivided and then sold the lots to individual families who then, built a house there. Hence there was NO planning whatsoever. Much of the infrastructure was added afterwards.
>
>A good part of why they
>exist is because they give
>a venue for statists, who
>gain money by taxing the
>people who live there and
>power by such as dispensing
>the patronage needed to build
>and maintain the "infrastructure" beloved
>of statists everywhere. Indeed, other
Actually, I side with your previous arguement that they are historic incarnations rather than artifices created for dispensation of patronage. They became that after they were created.
>than at this point in
>time cities may go forward
>for no better reason than
>that a lot of unmoveable
>capital has been invested in
>them, the main reason for
>their existence is political.
Increasingly the political has been the reason for the death of cities. In Philadelphia there are more people commuting OUT of the city than IN. Why? Rising crime rates and punative taxation on corporations and individuals living in the city limits have allowed the surrounding communities to draw businesses away from the city center. Personally I find it a welcome change. I work at Fortune 500 company site that is 15 miles outside the nearest major "city" (I put city in quotes b/c the city in question has only about 75K people) and I love it. I'm 10 miles from my house and don't have to contend with traffic (usually) to or from work. Compare that with my commuting into NYC where it took me 1h 15min (on average) to go 16 miles door to door.
>If they disappeared tomorrow, and
>the country had to be
>rebuilt statrting with a clean
>slate, I doubt whether
>anything remotely resembling the U.S.
>megalopolises would reappear. It may
>be time to evolve away
>from them, but that has
>been happening to e.g. NYC
>where the very many businesses
>that deal in essentially information
>have been moving out for
>at least ten years after
>they realized there was a
>lot more reason to leave
>than stay. We need
>to go to a plan
>B, even if that (gasp!
>horrors!) involves privatizing the sidewalks.
How do you envision Plan B?
Essentially I agree with your idea. It has often been said that when cities fail to reinvent themselves or renew themselves they die. Virginia Postrel is a big proponent of this theory. I think as information technology progresses and makes communication cheaper and easier you're going to see an increased migration away from cities. Many low tax/pro business states like NH have been enjoying a boom by offering natural settings, good schools and cheap housing for the employees and low regulation and low tax environment for businesses. The tipping point has been reached in many places. Boston businesses are fleeing over the border to NH to avoid such an environment. Nevada is also growing due to a very strong pro-business/low tax environment. In fact, they have a state constitutional prohibition against income tax. Furthermore, they have passed the strictest privacy laws in the nation in re: corporations.
Additionally many companies are re-evaluating the amount of risk they have. My company had an enormous amount of concentration risk in NYC. We had over 30,000 employees in mid-town Manhattan alone. After the 9/11 attacks we had some serious business continuity problems. After that, sites like Delaware, Westchester NY, and Newport, NJ became more attractive. Not only for BC reasons but employees prefer to work from these sites as they require far less commuting hassle. Add to that the increasing number of telecommuters and part time telecommuters and you'll see it is far more lucrative to spend a bit more on IT infrastructure and communications than on square footage simply to be in large cities.
I frequent a message board that discusses things like politics and news and such. One of the other posters is a militant vegan, libertarian, agnostic, southern californian computer guy. We actually agree on much. He is logical and consistant in (most) of his opinions which are most often well reasoned and the result of considerable thought. I say this, not because we agree on much and that it is somehow a reflection of [b]my[/b] opinions but I notice it more in the things we don't agree on. Mainly animal "rights" (I must put that one in quotes), and matters of faith. Anyway, he posted a question about the need for cities. Are they obsolete? He contends they are. I have thought something similar for a while and wondered if they would lose favor. I'm not so sure. Because they exist, they will likely carry forward. However, I believe he does have a point that if they did not exist now, they would not be able to be created out of whole cloth. Some 2nd and 3rd tier cities with Big City Envy (like Charlotte) continually bemoan the fact that they are not "world class" cities and come up with endless ideas how they can be. (Sports teams seems to come up a lot but I don't see how that is necessary.)
The result is the following exchange:
>I think the concept may now
>be anachronistic. Technologies like
>the internet have greatly reduced
>the need for physical proximity.
> Cities are well-known as
>breeding places of crime, traffic
>congestion, air pollution, high rents,
>etc. Most american cities
>are located where they are
>for historic reasons such as
>that they were near a
>river needed for transportation, that
>are no longer relevent.
There are certain things that will always require cities. Good need to be shipped rather than flown. As such you're always going to have business at ports (except in California where Goonion members are striking b/c they're only making 100K+.). Add to that the Trucks that then need to move the goods around the country. With this you have the attendant industries of petroleum, manufacturing, distribution, etc.
>Take a look at a
>map of any of them:
> there are all kinds
>of problems because they haphazardly
>grew without planning. (Note
>to the idiot gallery:
>State planning is not needed
>to plan communities, any more
>than GM needs the federal
>government to plan what kind
>of cars to make.)
Are you speaking of a lack of private planning? Much of it was due to micro expansion. The developers in question didn't have the money to buy huge pieces of land required to plan effectively. Furthermore, the neighboring planners either had different visions or simply went bankrupt. many of the homes outside NYC were farmers that simply subdivided and then sold the lots to individual families who then, built a house there. Hence there was NO planning whatsoever. Much of the infrastructure was added afterwards.
>
>A good part of why they
>exist is because they give
>a venue for statists, who
>gain money by taxing the
>people who live there and
>power by such as dispensing
>the patronage needed to build
>and maintain the "infrastructure" beloved
>of statists everywhere. Indeed, other
Actually, I side with your previous arguement that they are historic incarnations rather than artifices created for dispensation of patronage. They became that after they were created.
>than at this point in
>time cities may go forward
>for no better reason than
>that a lot of unmoveable
>capital has been invested in
>them, the main reason for
>their existence is political.
Increasingly the political has been the reason for the death of cities. In Philadelphia there are more people commuting OUT of the city than IN. Why? Rising crime rates and punative taxation on corporations and individuals living in the city limits have allowed the surrounding communities to draw businesses away from the city center. Personally I find it a welcome change. I work at Fortune 500 company site that is 15 miles outside the nearest major "city" (I put city in quotes b/c the city in question has only about 75K people) and I love it. I'm 10 miles from my house and don't have to contend with traffic (usually) to or from work. Compare that with my commuting into NYC where it took me 1h 15min (on average) to go 16 miles door to door.
>If they disappeared tomorrow, and
>the country had to be
>rebuilt statrting with a clean
>slate, I doubt whether
>anything remotely resembling the U.S.
>megalopolises would reappear. It may
>be time to evolve away
>from them, but that has
>been happening to e.g. NYC
>where the very many businesses
>that deal in essentially information
>have been moving out for
>at least ten years after
>they realized there was a
>lot more reason to leave
>than stay. We need
>to go to a plan
>B, even if that (gasp!
>horrors!) involves privatizing the sidewalks.
How do you envision Plan B?
Essentially I agree with your idea. It has often been said that when cities fail to reinvent themselves or renew themselves they die. Virginia Postrel is a big proponent of this theory. I think as information technology progresses and makes communication cheaper and easier you're going to see an increased migration away from cities. Many low tax/pro business states like NH have been enjoying a boom by offering natural settings, good schools and cheap housing for the employees and low regulation and low tax environment for businesses. The tipping point has been reached in many places. Boston businesses are fleeing over the border to NH to avoid such an environment. Nevada is also growing due to a very strong pro-business/low tax environment. In fact, they have a state constitutional prohibition against income tax. Furthermore, they have passed the strictest privacy laws in the nation in re: corporations.
Additionally many companies are re-evaluating the amount of risk they have. My company had an enormous amount of concentration risk in NYC. We had over 30,000 employees in mid-town Manhattan alone. After the 9/11 attacks we had some serious business continuity problems. After that, sites like Delaware, Westchester NY, and Newport, NJ became more attractive. Not only for BC reasons but employees prefer to work from these sites as they require far less commuting hassle. Add to that the increasing number of telecommuters and part time telecommuters and you'll see it is far more lucrative to spend a bit more on IT infrastructure and communications than on square footage simply to be in large cities.
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