[ethanbond]

Pick any moderate sized city in Europe! There's no reason Americans have to choose between glass and concrete imposing megastructures a la (parts of) NYC or sprawling car-dependent and socially atomized burbs a la Houston/Phoenix etc.

We can have moderately dense, highly walkable, transit-connected, safe, clean, private, quiet, socially vibrant, affordable towns and suburbs all over the country.

We just choose not to in large part because many Americans, brainwashed by The Automobile, can't even imagine such a state of affairs.

[Alupis]

The thing is, America is very big. For perspective, America is just shy of the square mileage of all of Europe - but America is just one country... and it has half the population of Europe.

This means things can be, and are, very spread out. It is not unusual for a person in the US to live 20-60+ miles from their work - by choice.

It is simply not possible for everyone in the US to live in or near these mega-cities. Nor do most people (by the numbers) want to live in or near these mega-cities.

When I visit mega-cities, I see overt drug usage on the streets, trash everywhere, homeless camps everywhere, parts of the city a visitor is unsafe being in... and worse. That doesn't mean these things don't exist in a suburb - but clearly they are more readily evident in a mega-city.

We can go on about externalized things like carbon emissions from the commuter cars... but every time I visit a mega-city, there's miles of idling cars just spewing emissions while in traffic.

If you like living in a mega-city - good for you. Enjoy it, as is your right. That, however, also means I get to enjoy my suburbs. We don't get to tell each other how to live.

[ethanbond]

The thing is, I grew up in a tiny town in rural Arizona. I’m amply familiar with how large our country is.

It simply does not track that because our country is huge, we must either live in uncomfortable mega-cities or in car-dependent and socially/economically/environmentally unworkable SFH sprawl. Americans overwhelmingly live in one of these two. They both have significant downsides that we truly don’t have to accept!

Americans have multiple health disasters on our hands - physical, emotional, and social - due at least in large part to the way we’ve built our living situation. It’s frankly sad that you think we have to accept it because… errr… mega cities are a bit dirty? You really think we ought to condemn generation after generation after generation of American to deteriorating quality of life because we couldn’t pull our heads out of our asses enough to build moderately sized cities with the physical infrastructure necessary to support strong communities? Good grief, what a low opinion of our country!

[Alupis]

The problems you attribute to how American's live are not unique to America. Therefore, correlation does not equal causation.

> tiny town in rural Arizona

I don't think most of us would say a tiny rural town is anything like a suburban area surrounding a moderate/mega city.

My suburb is near one of these moderately sized cities (less than 1 million population). None of these fantasies are working well for this moderately sized city. All of the same problems exist... drugs, crime, safety, privacy, homeless, trash, exceedingly expensive... plus public transit isn't sufficient to rely on either. It's literally the worst qualities of both combined into one special dump.

And... if you truly believe suburbs are a deterioration of quality of life in America, you really need to try living in one. I can just as easily wave my hand and exclaim mega-cities are the root of all problems in this nation. In fact, I'd have a lot more evidence to support condemnation of mega-cities, including how they doom people into permanently impoverished lives.

[ethanbond]

Gee wiz, I’ve lived in a tiny rural town in AZ, moderate sized city in Northern AZ, Palo Alto, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Seattle, Raleigh, and a small town outside of Albany.

Yes, the fact that your nearby city is the worst of both worlds is my point. This is a condemnation of the way we build cities. Note that you are still near a city due to the amenities and opportunities that only cities can provide. This effect appears only to get stronger, not weaker, with time. So how can we not condemn later generations to abysmal living conditions?

It doesn’t look like either of the options on the menu in the US today.

[Alupis]

I think you are mistaking the European way of policing with how cities are constructed. Most of the problems big cities have in the US come from high tolerance of overt crime, drug abuse, homelessness and more. - things that are mostly not tolerated elsewhere, and used to not be tolerated here either.

Half of the names of cities you have lived in are definitely mega-cities, or very close to being a mega-city. Manhattan, Brooklyn, Seattle, Palo Alto - none of these are even remotely similar to typical modern-day suburbs.

[sagarm]

Palo Alto qualifies as a mega-city?

What exactly do you consider a "city" as opposed to a mega city?

[ethanbond]

Right, and the other half is not.

I’m clearly having difficulty speaking a language you understand, so have a good rest of your evening!

[mcphage]

> high tolerance of overt crime

I'm curious what you mean by this, given the unusually high incarceration rate in the US.

[unity1001]

> The thing is, America is very big. For perspective, America is just shy of the square mileage of all of Europe - but America is just one country... and it has half the population of Europe.

Every time Americans use that argument to defend anything that is wrong with the US policy, it looks crazy to people who are looking at the situation from another place around the world.

Neither size nor population are arguments for anything. There are gigantic countries on the planet that do not have America's suburb/car problem. They not only have well-run cities, but they also build fast trains and whatnot. The main trick is in not setting up entire urbanization and infrastructure to maximize profit for real estate, automotive and oil industries by spreading out people to immense areas like in the US. So, in that regard, the people who say that the 'suburban American dream' was a scam, they are right: It can be sustained in a few very rich regions. It is unsustainable for anywhere else. Even in those rich regions it causes many problems ranging from inefficiency to traffic congestion in the cities where the suburbanites have to go to work.

> When I visit mega-cities, I see overt drug usage on the streets, trash everywhere, homeless camps everywhere

Those have nothing to do with the concept of cities but everything to do with the US policies that prevent social services with public spending in order to maximize the tax breaks for the corporations and the rich.

> We don't get to tell each other how to live.

Actually, they do - you are spending their tax money for your inefficient suburb in a much higher rate than your tax money that they are spending for their city. An inefficient system is inefficient, even if those who run that system can afford to run it - like your local prosperous suburb. For the regional infrastructure in your own locale to be affordable by your suburb, a lot of taxpayer money will have to be spent for the society-wide infrastructure. So that the costs of being integrated to the larger infrastructure can even be affordable in your region regardless of its prosperity. From the larger power network to the transportation and communication networks, from production & supply chains to judiciary, police, even defense & military.

There is no small region that can afford the modern local amenities that they have without having a much larger society making those possible through society's aggregated spending regardless of how rich the region is.

[casey2]

Efficiency doesn't matter when billions just goes poof. Accountability is much more important.

You are also making the mistake of using gpd as a measure of productivity. It's not, it's just a measure of nickel and diming.

[unity1001]

That has nothing to do with the way a society's economic output is measured.

[matchbok]

Have you.... even lived in a city? You see miles of idling cars in cities... do you think those are city residents sitting in cars? Those cars are suburban commuters. People in cities don't own cars. You know that right? The whole point of living in a city is to avoid wasting hours of your life every day sitting in a car. What a depressing existence that is. And even so, the miles and miles of highway are an order of magnitude more - you just don't experience it the same way so it's hard to compare. Think about it.

It's not really debated that the carbon emissions of suburban life is an order of magnitude more than urban life. They just aren't comparable.

[331c8c71]

> This means things can be, and are, very spread out. It is not unusual for a person in the US to live 20-60+ miles from their work - by choice.

Probably less common, but it is not that unusual to meet someone in Europe who commutes long distance by train. Probably it will become even more common as WFH or partial WFH becomes the norm in many industries.

[oceanplexian]

If ZEV’s and alternative energy take off, and self driving eventually lives up to the hype, public transportation will be obsolete with the exception of dense cities.

Assuming such a future comes to pass (And that’s obviously a big question mark), desirability and property values in suburban-like neighborhoods would go up, since suburbs are no longer at a disadvantage for all those things you are arguing, like walkability, socially vibrancy, etc. A quick tap on your phone and 15 minutes later you can be at the bar or the shops or whatever else. Combine that with the remote work revolution and the future is looking great for suburbs and terrible for cities.

If anything, I’d argue Americans are ahead of the curve. In a society where self driving cars are cheap, environmentally sustainable, and always available people would naturally fan out into suburban living, with mixed-use development falling out of favor.

[ethanbond]

Unfortunately even in the optimistic case this will exacerbate many of the real insidious problems: obesity, loneliness/social atomization, extreme age and income stratification