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A large part of the argument behind the `suburban ponzi scheme' lies with the up-front profits made by municipalities when building these suburbs. There are a few other things.
Firstly, network effects could also be seen as requiring the `ponzi scheme' to keep growing.
That is, in order for the suburb to pay for itself, it needs to attract other suburbs.
Obviously, this does not immediately apply to network effects due to more business.
It should be noted that commutes suck and that having large suburbs starts to require large commutes to get to work.
Thus for sufficiently labor intensive business, there are inherent issues with the suburb network effects.
It is hard to say where this threshold of `sufficently labor intensive' lies though. Secondly, there is an issue of gradual density increases.
In the suburbs, it is a lot harder to upgrade the house on a lot to say a three-story flat. Besides tough zoning laws, there are HOAs to content with. Even more troubling is parking. Because suburbs require a car, such flats require a lot of parking. Finally, there is a simple argument that more gradual growth that works via a mix of density increases (i.e. building up, or just putting more houses on a lot) and a slower expansion of the city is plain better.
This of-course no longer argues that suburbs are a `ponzi scheme' but if this model is more sustainable than suburbs, it is kind of a moot point whether suburbs are sustainbable. The argument that this model is better than suburbia is more difficult, for it is inherently comparative. Notably though, this makes the argument `suburbs cost more than they bring in locally' relevant presuming that suburubs have the same network effects as the proposed model of growth.
To a first approximation, this depends on the quality of life, and the ability to grow to match demand. |