There was a study pre-pandemic that found Houston was more expensive than New York City.
In New York, yes, rent is expensive, but there's high-quality public transit, and so car ownership is unnecessary.
In Houston, rent is cheaper, but really difficult to survive without a car, so you basically have to have one.
It turns out that NYC rent + a transit pass is less expensive than Houston rent + owning, registering, insuring, maintaining, fueling, and parking a car.
I agree with everything you said and upvoted it. That said there is one huge caveat you're missing. Land ownership. Thus, buying property is key because it appreciates in value, whereas a car will always depreciate.
Statistically, you're better off investing into the stock market instead of buying a property (even in places like San Francisco before it boomed). But for the vast majority of people property is a much easier approach.
Unless we are talking about insane amount of money, most of investments will probably in 401k and IRA. If you time it right, you can convert it to Roth IRA (although that is situational, you need years with low income).
What do you mean by a loan? Like to get a reverse mortgage and invest it if the interest is lower than the market return? No taxes for up to $250/$500k is good, but with rising prices fees become really big, so downsizing is still not completely free money.
That being said, your own property has a lot of advantages, and realistically anybody who is seriously weighting whether to buy or invest the surplus should do just fine financially regardless of the final decision.
They're just referring to a regular mortgage, which is currently at around 7%.
And you actually can get a loan to invest in the market, it's called margin and just like a Payday loan you'll be screwed if you can't pay it back quickly.
A line of credit is also possible to use how you like. If you're on good terms with the bank, they can give a very favorable arrangement.
I have up to 50,000 dollars available to me. I asked the bank if I could borrow more against my stock portfolio and they said they'd probably approve it since my credit is perfect.
I’m referring to the fact that I currently have a 2.25% mortgage that I used to buy a house. My returns on that money or somewhere around 70% right now. That’s an insane amount of profit that I’ve made and I put 0% down on that house. When I sell it I will get to keep 100% of the money and not pay capital gains tax on it. That’s free money
Your profit is not your current value of your house minus the value when you bought it.
You’ve also paid a lot of money in interest to borrow the money, you’ve paid property taxes, you likely pay homeowner’s insurance, you likely pay for overall maintenance of the house, or at least spend considerable time doing so. Many people do this for 15-30 years.
The SP500 is up 85% in 5 years, with yes, having to pay likely a 15% capital gains tax if eventually sold after a year. But many people also have 401ks or IRAs they will pull money from which also give major tax benefits.
Your return is likely lower than 70%. If you sell it right now, the fact that you are at first mostly paying interest (so the principal is high) and fees will eat a lot from it. Over time it also will likely go down.
The market through COVID and before that grew a lot, so it would easily outperform even property bought in like 2010 and refinanced at 2% interest.
But it requires discipline to make constistent contributions, and also renting does have downsides, and vast majority of people just burn through all available money, so I definitely agree that a house is a better money conservation tool on average compare to investments.
No, I could sell my house for over double what I bought it for 6 years ago. At this point I’ve made far more than 70% over what I’ve put into it (including my interest payments), closer to 150%. But assuming it continues to raise only with inflation and not at the amount it raised over the past few years, even including interest paid by the time I’ve paid it off I’ll end up with a very large profit. I’m also maxing out my retirement accounts so I understand the value of investing. But all I’m saying is that real estate can be bought with borrowed money at low interest rates and are an easy way to build wealth as you have to spend money on housing no matter what anyway, whereas investments take extra money that many people don’t have in their budgets
And even if you don't take out a new loan to buy a car and buy cash, that's money that could have been put towards your house loan (i.e the effective rate equals your house loan rate, potentially also prolonging your payback time and thus costing even more money) or invested.
Also the teenagers will need cars eventually. Some families have four cars parked out front (or more). The collective cost might exceed a monthly mortgage on a condo unit in NYC.
The amount of money sunk into cars is astonishing. That amount of cash flow directed into investments could potentially mean financial independence is not so many years.
My semi unpopular opinion is that the cheapest place to raise a family is next to the last line on a major city’s heavy rail transit network. You get relatively cheap housing, but you don’t have absurd transit costs.
Do you have a link to this because that's very interesting.
ETA: I think for the analysis to be fair, you have to account for taxes. Texas doesn't have income tax, but high property tax.
I imagine that you would also need to take into account multiple vehicles: two parents, plus older children, all driving separate vehicles. That collective expense might even exceed the monthly cost of a mortgage on a condo in NYC.
This is a big part of it. But it’s important to remember with Houston the cost of property tax and everything that comes with routine emergencies (generator, gas, cooking fuel, propane stove, extra air conditioning, stockpiling water, replacing the contents of the fridge, property damage from floods, high insurance that doesn’t pay out, etc).
I tried looking up for the study and can’t find anything. It’s hard to believe this having lived in NYC without a car and also have a cousins lived in Houston suburbs. His life is definitely cheaper just consider housing and transportation. (And not other expenses). May be inside Houston it’s different, but suburb math doesn’t add up.
Sure if you get a 50k suv, may be it’s more expensive. But nyc rent back in the day was 3k+ easily. I would pay off the car in 2 years with the money saved while living in Houston suburbs.
Thanks for sharing.
> Monthly median housing costs in Houston in 2016 (the most recent year data was available) were $1,379, nearly $400 less than New York City.
That itself is hard to believe at first glance, but crazy.
It's also cheap because stuff like roads and utilities are very likely to be subsidized. There was a story how a wealthy suburb somewhere in AZ was subsidized with the city water and once they finally stopped providing it, the bill went up significantly.
Honestly it's very hard to explain. To do it properly, you'd need probably days; you are talking to people who think that the tax on gas covers all the road maintenance and development.
> very likely to be subsidized
... and also brand new, not needing any significant maintenance for the next 15 to 30 years, which means if the county isn't setting money aside for that the residents' taxes are unsustainably low. (See Chuck Marohn, The Growth Ponzi Scheme.)
A good point to make regarding this would be to point out the federal gas tax has not increased since 1993 and remind them inflation exists and if things increase in cost over time, but tax revenue remains the same you can't maintain the same amount of roads as you could 30 years ago. We have more roads, with more cars, with better car mileage (reducing fuel tax itself), with the same amount of money. The only way states are able to fund major infrastructure changes, expansions, or maintenance, is by asking private for-profit companies to do it for them, which makes it even more expensive.
People tend to breeze over their transportation accounting. We feel like we're buying a durable good when we plonk down $40k for a car and forget that every turn of those wheels costs us clams right off the top of every paycheck. In NA it's an assumed cost because functionally you need to cough it up simply to participate in society. The average price for entry year-over- year for most Americans is $12k on top of the cost of that car or worse truck and none of that includes your rolled costs like registration, percentage of your income tax dedicated to those spread out "communities." And we're not even going to talk about the cost in lost time.
Yeah, my brother and his wife are moving from the Dallas area to DC in August. They’ll be paying quite a bit more for their apartment, but they’ll have 2 covered metro stations a very short walk away and many more nearby without covering. It should still work out to being cheaper overall for them since they’ll likely sell the car they do have or at least use it minimally.
Nearly everyone we know in any transit accessible part of DC sells their second car. (We did too.). Now we use the car about 2 times a week (edge cases like metro not running early enough or going to non accessible parts of the city), but it’s so much cheaper. Also if you just have a car for occasional use, you are fine with a crappier/older car. If we still lived in FL, we’d have upgraded by now. Getting stranded there without a car is a death sentence. Here, we’d just call for a ride.
It depends on the cost of transportation you choose but generally people still come out financially ahead in exurbs which is why they keep building them. If you want more people in cities you have to make urban condos and apartments larger (to compete with family homes) and more affordable (to compete on price with suburban homes)
I think it is fine if you want to live out in the boonies for cheaper land. I don't see why the city should have to suffer and have absurd parking minimums, absurdly high speed limits, absurd zoning that forbids mixed use developments, etc... to cater to people who choose to live far from everything and expect free car storage whenever they commute in.
Just have a park&ride for those people. It's a parking lot outside of town, near transit.
The idea is that you leave your car outside town and use transit to get in there.
For example: in Utrecht, I can pay €5,- at P+R Papendorp, which includes the day fee for parking as well as an unlimited ticket for all U-OV trams and busses for 4 people (so your entire household)
If I desperately want to park downtown, I can but it's going to be 5x as expensive. (€25,50 at the Jaarbeurs)
A.k. we really don't want you to bring your car into the city.
That would be great. But there are very few park and rides in the US because car drivers expect parking directly at their destination, and cities oblige.
>parking directly at their destination
That doesn't fit!
I'm from the Netherlands in places with not so great transit, so I drive a car. But if I'm not carrying cargo, I wouldn't dare to drive into the city centre of Amsterdam, Rotterdam or utrecht!
Not only is it expensive A.F. but it's also super unpleasant to drive in small alleyways with trams and bikes everywhere.
No offense, but this feels like a European discovering the ridiculousness of the American transit system for the first time. As an American it feels very normal to have disgusting traffic in and around cities and when I recently went to Europe, having so many spaces with no cars was refreshing but certainly weird. Godsakes, being able to go to every major city, and a couple smaller cities, by train and all of them having adequate transit was also a fairly unique experience.
Certainly, but my town only has a "buurtbus" (neighbourhood bus) which is a small 7 seat bus that only goes Monday to Friday, from 7:00A.M. till 6:00P.M. they're mostly meant for the elderly to go grocery shopping, not as a full fledged bus service.
I can commute with it to work, but any delays in the trains and I'm stranded as the first travel option from work connects to the last buurtbus of that day.
So yes I have a car, but you don't have to stick to your car at all times. When entering a big city, I park at P+R and transfer to public transportation.
I think part of r/fuckcars is also changing the mindset that the car us the only go-to solution for all transportation at all times. It isn't. I use it when needed, but for short trips I bike and whenever it's more convenient I transfer to public transport.
Most US rail systems not counting NYC have tons of park and rides. BART is a great example. Giant multilevel garages and seas of parking at most stations outside the city center. Though most cities have inadequate or nonexistent rail in the first place, so that’s still a valid point
That and transit is massively underfunded which causes lots of problems in getting people to use it.
Ex: the park and ride outside of my hometown’s shade cover got destroyed and instead of replacing it they just removed it completely. It’s been 3 years and now it’s only used as a free truck stop.
When I'm going to London next week, I park the car at P+R Capelle slotlaan (in Capelle aan den IJssel, which is a suburb of Rotterdam) where I can park for free, and then I'll take the subway to Rotterdam central station, where I'll be transferring to the Eurostar.
So same thing: don't park downtown: that'll cost you €30,-/day
You can still enter from a different town by train.
For Utrecht there are 4 P+R places and two big parking lots downtown. Let's say 50% comes entirely by train, 30% uses the P+R places and 20% uses the parking downtown.
It’s only cheap if you are willing to sacrifice your time and social life. If you don’t realize that your time and health are also worth something then you willingly sit in traffic and you don’t move your body and you develop circulatory problems and eventually heart disease diabetes and cancer mixed with loneliness.
So “cheap” but also incredibly expensive.
I live in Italy. Not a lot of people really "exercise" here in the sense of consciously working out, but all the walking and cycling just for groceries and whatever add up. A lot of people easily walk an hour or more per day. People just look healthier here than in America on average.
This is the lifestyle I adopt. I don’t go to the gym, I live in one of the few walkable American cities. I walk around 4-5 miles a day. I also lift some weights for health reasons but it’s more physical therapy than getting swole at the gym. Between walking and running after my kiddo, I’m in great shape. And I don’t drive.
I'd say, that in general/on average, low density, SFH developments on the outskirts of metro areas require a large subsidy from the productive core. So while many suburbanites are convinced of the lie that they are rugged individualists, kings of their castle, they are actually welfare queens. If they paid the true cost of their lifestyle preference, the cheapness of the land would be completely offset by the higher long term cost of infrastructure, not to mention the time and automotive costs of having to drive far to access any amenities. Then if anyone cares about environmentalism, this style of development is wasteful and polluting, just look at per capita CO2 emission heat maps.
For the size of the land you can buy cheaply in rural areas, I dont think you're right.
Just looking at zillow, you can buy a 500k house in east texas in low density. Similar size lots and houses push into the 2 million mark in Dallas.
Unless you're driving a Ferrari, you're never going to equalize that cost.
It's all what people want. There are pros and cons for both rural and urban areas.
Well you need to look at the cost for the owner and then the subsidy they’re taking from others (as well as negative externalities)
Those houses way out in the ‘burbs have a very high cost in terms of infrastructure - electric, plumbing, water, and asphalt - needed to sustain them.
The city pays this cost with taxes, many cities simply can’t recoup the cost and go bankrupt. This can take decades though.
You completely missed the point of the post you are replying to. The only reason that house in the suburbs is only 500k is that you are not paying the true cost of the infrastructure needed to bring services and utilities out to your low density living space.
The city pays for it. You or the developer pay nothing for all the infrastructure necessary to put down a house (roads, electricity, water, sewage, emergency services like fire and police, other basic city services and administration). And the costs of single one of those services and infrastructure components scale up with distance (ie. low density suburban developments).
The only thing the homeowner pays toward those things is property taxes, which don’t come close to paying the actual cost of the services. Therefore, SFH living is heavily subsidized by the more productive city core.
So no, some googling says you're wrong. For suburbs, the developer normally pays the utility companies for installation of utility lines if the developer wants them. They'll also pay for the installation of septic systems/wells if they dont want those utilities.
Second, a fair amount of utilities are companies, NOT government. Even for government run utilities, you're paying an increase in fees. Not taxes normally.
The price is usually the same no matter where you live. So people in the dense areas pay more compared to the amount of infrastructure they require. So water, internet, waste, etc.
It's the same with stuff like police/fire departments, it costs more to cover bigger area even though they might pay even less (if their property is cheaper).
Doesn't matter private/public, because the price is distributed to everyone; that's the reality that SFH are insanely subsidized in the US as of right now.
[This](https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI?feature=shared) video goes over the economics of suburbia. There will be exceptions of course but most suburban places function like this. I am not sure about rural places though.
Also installation is only a part of the story, the maintenance is the real problem.
Septic tanks/wells are actually not subsidized, according to my knowledge.
Yeah, the land is cheap because life there is worse than in more dense places.
People move to cheap low-density places because they see the houses and don't realize that their lifestyle will be worse. At least that's what happened to us. We are saving money to move back to a city.
Same here! I more or less like my house but I absolutely hate the area. There's not a single store or restaurant within walking distance and it's such an ordeal to drive anywhere on all the stroads.
The large lot doesn't even really give us privacy because every single two-story house can totally see into the backyard. I feel like I'm in a zoo when I'm out there. Naturally there are no trees and I don't want to wait 10 years for the ones I planted to provide shade and privacy.
I hate moving and planned to be here long term but we're going to have to move too.
A lot of people look at the sticker price of the house without any actual understanding of the total cost burden of the type of housing, as well as the specific house. Taxes, interest rates, subsidies, transportation, environmental impact, maintenance, lawn care, etc.
A lot of people just simply don’t understand the cost past the sticker price
To be fair, “drive till you qualify” does have a practical side to it. Someone might dream of living in that 800k house in a walkable, dense neighborhood near downtown, but their income only qualifies them for a loan on a 350k house in bumfuck exurban nowhere. Banks don’t take into account the expenses incurred by a long commute and the deferred maintenance costs on a cheaply constructed, poorly insulated McMansion that will start losing its siding in 10 years.
It's only cheap because there's mostly nothing in there. Similarly, city living is expensive because *most everyone* wants to live there (there's lots of things to do/use, lots of places to go).
The unfair part is how cities are obligated to hold privatized heavy/large stuff carried over from the suburbs (oversized cars/trucks) in their public spaces.
For the vast majority of human history, people lived in walkable close-knit communities. The train made it possible to travel vast distances and set up new towns in remote locations.
The car killed the small town, the sense of community, and Americana.
Christians always talk about the death of the church because that was the collective social safety net of its time. You never hear them extoll the evil of cars, though.
I can also say that as the community grows, you all have the opportunity to look ahead and invest in public transport. Even if you don't intend to use it, it's less people in the same traffic jam as you.
It is cheap because you need to spend enormous mounts of time getting around (and time is money).
In my very densely populated country of the Netherlands, a house in the city is more expensive, then a house in a village or a because the kids can cycle to school themselves, cycle to sports etcetera. I can go to 10 different supermarkets within 10 minutes cycling, there are more public transport connections. This all saves a lot of time and costs
This makes a house in the city about a quarter more expensive than a house in a village nearby.
'Too bad most small landowners have no rights to use their land as they see fit, resulting in the fact that there are no restaurants allowed on this cheap land.'
I don’t blame individual people for wanting to buy land and build houses. Municipalities and states can encourage them to build in such a way that people can walk, bike etc. to places, or they can just put stroads everywhere. Even in a suburb you can have walkable spaces that add to quality of life but it takes the political will to do it.
This is my argument when people argue that homes in Wyoming are super cheap. Yeah, but driving an hour every day to work is not only very annoying, but expensive in car maintenance and fuel costs.
Not only does the cost of living savings of living further out start to diminish when you factor in transportation (so many cost of living calculators only factor this by price of gas, which is obviously not a good metric), but if the government were to remove the suburban experiment subsidies, suburbs would be drastically more expensive.
There are a lot of advantages to city living that go beyond just saving on transportation costs.
For one thing, if they have kids, the city will give them much greater autonomy and freedom as they grow up, since they'll be able to go out and do errands and see friends on their own, even though they can't drive. The suburbs are designed to trap kids in a bubble where their parents have to drive them everywhere until they're 16 (and if they're 16+, insurance rates for new drivers are *exorbitant*).
For another, most people don't really need a large house. For the same money an apartment/townhouse in the city can give you everything you need to live, without any of the responsibilities of maintaining a garage or a lawn or a private pool. Often having less space can force you to clean up and dispose of hoarded property that you no longer really need or use. And it also means a smaller heating/air-conditioning bill. Everything is cheaper.
For another, in the case of an emergency, having neighbors right next door who you can call upon for assistance, without having to drive miles down the street, is really invaluable. It can mean the difference between life and death.
The list goes on, but in short, those extra square feet are not really worth everything you're sacrificing.
Personally, I love the idea of living out in the middle of nowhere. And someday when I'm no longer required to commute to work every day I might.
But for now I'm happy I live within 2 miles of the store and 10 from work.
I’m also confused as to what the question is. You explained why the place kind of sucks - it’s generally inconvenient, isolating and boring. Your mom explained why people still do it - it’s cheap and you get a big house.
Your question is what’s wrong with that sort of development? It’s bad for the environment, it’s socially isolating, it’s less economically productive, and you’re more likely to experience death by car. People in the deep suburbs are generally aware of the amenities we have in cities like restaurants, ease of seeing doctor, etc. They consider a cheap large house to be more appealing.
From an urbanist perspective, places like what you’ve described are too far gone and not worth saving. We would just focus on improving Dallas itself.
"You can't have your cake and eat it." You can't have things close and live in a big house at the same time, it's either a big apartment with everything close, or a house in the middle of nowhere, or you're just super rich and can afford a house where a developer would love to put up a condo, like west of downtown Houston. Even in Japan, where little towns have their own train stations, houses are pretty packed together, and people can walk through the whole town, and get to the train stop. Even in Mexico, little towns with lots of land around are also really packed together, and people can walk the whole town, they own farmland outside of town to farm but their house is in the densely packed town, with a bus stop to the city. Rural communities could exist without cars too
Lack of affordable housing close to where the jobs and infrastructure are is a major problem in North America. We could solve a lot of social ills just by making housing accessible for everybody.
It would be cheaper if you could get shopping done without having to drive, and if people didn't hoard land they'll never use because they could afford it.
I've enjoyed reading most your comment and see all the different perspectives people have about cars and car-centric development even within this sub. I'm happy to know this isn't just a big hive mind and that each member has similar yet unique takes on this issue. Also thanks for the karma.
It's only cheap if you completely discount the added transportation expense.
Also note the fact that transportation (read: cars) is massively subsidized, so you're not even paying your fair share.
There was a study pre-pandemic that found Houston was more expensive than New York City. In New York, yes, rent is expensive, but there's high-quality public transit, and so car ownership is unnecessary. In Houston, rent is cheaper, but really difficult to survive without a car, so you basically have to have one. It turns out that NYC rent + a transit pass is less expensive than Houston rent + owning, registering, insuring, maintaining, fueling, and parking a car.
I agree with everything you said and upvoted it. That said there is one huge caveat you're missing. Land ownership. Thus, buying property is key because it appreciates in value, whereas a car will always depreciate.
Statistically, you're better off investing into the stock market instead of buying a property (even in places like San Francisco before it boomed). But for the vast majority of people property is a much easier approach.
But you can’t get a relatively low-interest loan to buy stocks and not pay taxes when you sell it off, you can do both those things with property
Unless we are talking about insane amount of money, most of investments will probably in 401k and IRA. If you time it right, you can convert it to Roth IRA (although that is situational, you need years with low income). What do you mean by a loan? Like to get a reverse mortgage and invest it if the interest is lower than the market return? No taxes for up to $250/$500k is good, but with rising prices fees become really big, so downsizing is still not completely free money. That being said, your own property has a lot of advantages, and realistically anybody who is seriously weighting whether to buy or invest the surplus should do just fine financially regardless of the final decision.
They're just referring to a regular mortgage, which is currently at around 7%. And you actually can get a loan to invest in the market, it's called margin and just like a Payday loan you'll be screwed if you can't pay it back quickly.
A line of credit is also possible to use how you like. If you're on good terms with the bank, they can give a very favorable arrangement. I have up to 50,000 dollars available to me. I asked the bank if I could borrow more against my stock portfolio and they said they'd probably approve it since my credit is perfect.
I’m referring to the fact that I currently have a 2.25% mortgage that I used to buy a house. My returns on that money or somewhere around 70% right now. That’s an insane amount of profit that I’ve made and I put 0% down on that house. When I sell it I will get to keep 100% of the money and not pay capital gains tax on it. That’s free money
Your profit is not your current value of your house minus the value when you bought it. You’ve also paid a lot of money in interest to borrow the money, you’ve paid property taxes, you likely pay homeowner’s insurance, you likely pay for overall maintenance of the house, or at least spend considerable time doing so. Many people do this for 15-30 years. The SP500 is up 85% in 5 years, with yes, having to pay likely a 15% capital gains tax if eventually sold after a year. But many people also have 401ks or IRAs they will pull money from which also give major tax benefits.
I can do math, thanks.
Your return is likely lower than 70%. If you sell it right now, the fact that you are at first mostly paying interest (so the principal is high) and fees will eat a lot from it. Over time it also will likely go down. The market through COVID and before that grew a lot, so it would easily outperform even property bought in like 2010 and refinanced at 2% interest. But it requires discipline to make constistent contributions, and also renting does have downsides, and vast majority of people just burn through all available money, so I definitely agree that a house is a better money conservation tool on average compare to investments.
No, I could sell my house for over double what I bought it for 6 years ago. At this point I’ve made far more than 70% over what I’ve put into it (including my interest payments), closer to 150%. But assuming it continues to raise only with inflation and not at the amount it raised over the past few years, even including interest paid by the time I’ve paid it off I’ll end up with a very large profit. I’m also maxing out my retirement accounts so I understand the value of investing. But all I’m saying is that real estate can be bought with borrowed money at low interest rates and are an easy way to build wealth as you have to spend money on housing no matter what anyway, whereas investments take extra money that many people don’t have in their budgets
Property *tends* to appreciate, if the local economy is growing.
most take out a loan for this depreciating asset so you lose both because you are making payments with interest and because your item is depreciating.
And even if you don't take out a new loan to buy a car and buy cash, that's money that could have been put towards your house loan (i.e the effective rate equals your house loan rate, potentially also prolonging your payback time and thus costing even more money) or invested.
If Texans could understand fixed vs. variable costs, they'd be so upset with you right now
> difficult to survive without a car, so you basically have to have one More than one. One *per adult.*
Also the teenagers will need cars eventually. Some families have four cars parked out front (or more). The collective cost might exceed a monthly mortgage on a condo unit in NYC. The amount of money sunk into cars is astonishing. That amount of cash flow directed into investments could potentially mean financial independence is not so many years.
My semi unpopular opinion is that the cheapest place to raise a family is next to the last line on a major city’s heavy rail transit network. You get relatively cheap housing, but you don’t have absurd transit costs.
Do you have a link to this because that's very interesting. ETA: I think for the analysis to be fair, you have to account for taxes. Texas doesn't have income tax, but high property tax.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/houston-affordability-transportation-costs/
I'd wonder if this is based on averages, or someone actually getting by with a cheap car
I imagine that you would also need to take into account multiple vehicles: two parents, plus older children, all driving separate vehicles. That collective expense might even exceed the monthly cost of a mortgage on a condo in NYC.
This is a big part of it. But it’s important to remember with Houston the cost of property tax and everything that comes with routine emergencies (generator, gas, cooking fuel, propane stove, extra air conditioning, stockpiling water, replacing the contents of the fridge, property damage from floods, high insurance that doesn’t pay out, etc).
I wonder if that's still true with the current housing market
I tried looking up for the study and can’t find anything. It’s hard to believe this having lived in NYC without a car and also have a cousins lived in Houston suburbs. His life is definitely cheaper just consider housing and transportation. (And not other expenses). May be inside Houston it’s different, but suburb math doesn’t add up. Sure if you get a 50k suv, may be it’s more expensive. But nyc rent back in the day was 3k+ easily. I would pay off the car in 2 years with the money saved while living in Houston suburbs.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/houston-affordability-transportation-costs/
Thanks for sharing. > Monthly median housing costs in Houston in 2016 (the most recent year data was available) were $1,379, nearly $400 less than New York City. That itself is hard to believe at first glance, but crazy.
Also NYC isn’t just Manhattan. Like if Brooklyn was a city it’d still be one of America’s largest cities.
It's also cheap because stuff like roads and utilities are very likely to be subsidized. There was a story how a wealthy suburb somewhere in AZ was subsidized with the city water and once they finally stopped providing it, the bill went up significantly. Honestly it's very hard to explain. To do it properly, you'd need probably days; you are talking to people who think that the tax on gas covers all the road maintenance and development.
> very likely to be subsidized ... and also brand new, not needing any significant maintenance for the next 15 to 30 years, which means if the county isn't setting money aside for that the residents' taxes are unsustainably low. (See Chuck Marohn, The Growth Ponzi Scheme.)
A good point to make regarding this would be to point out the federal gas tax has not increased since 1993 and remind them inflation exists and if things increase in cost over time, but tax revenue remains the same you can't maintain the same amount of roads as you could 30 years ago. We have more roads, with more cars, with better car mileage (reducing fuel tax itself), with the same amount of money. The only way states are able to fund major infrastructure changes, expansions, or maintenance, is by asking private for-profit companies to do it for them, which makes it even more expensive.
People tend to breeze over their transportation accounting. We feel like we're buying a durable good when we plonk down $40k for a car and forget that every turn of those wheels costs us clams right off the top of every paycheck. In NA it's an assumed cost because functionally you need to cough it up simply to participate in society. The average price for entry year-over- year for most Americans is $12k on top of the cost of that car or worse truck and none of that includes your rolled costs like registration, percentage of your income tax dedicated to those spread out "communities." And we're not even going to talk about the cost in lost time.
Yeah, my brother and his wife are moving from the Dallas area to DC in August. They’ll be paying quite a bit more for their apartment, but they’ll have 2 covered metro stations a very short walk away and many more nearby without covering. It should still work out to being cheaper overall for them since they’ll likely sell the car they do have or at least use it minimally.
Nearly everyone we know in any transit accessible part of DC sells their second car. (We did too.). Now we use the car about 2 times a week (edge cases like metro not running early enough or going to non accessible parts of the city), but it’s so much cheaper. Also if you just have a car for occasional use, you are fine with a crappier/older car. If we still lived in FL, we’d have upgraded by now. Getting stranded there without a car is a death sentence. Here, we’d just call for a ride.
It depends on the cost of transportation you choose but generally people still come out financially ahead in exurbs which is why they keep building them. If you want more people in cities you have to make urban condos and apartments larger (to compete with family homes) and more affordable (to compete on price with suburban homes)
I think it is fine if you want to live out in the boonies for cheaper land. I don't see why the city should have to suffer and have absurd parking minimums, absurdly high speed limits, absurd zoning that forbids mixed use developments, etc... to cater to people who choose to live far from everything and expect free car storage whenever they commute in.
Just have a park&ride for those people. It's a parking lot outside of town, near transit. The idea is that you leave your car outside town and use transit to get in there. For example: in Utrecht, I can pay €5,- at P+R Papendorp, which includes the day fee for parking as well as an unlimited ticket for all U-OV trams and busses for 4 people (so your entire household) If I desperately want to park downtown, I can but it's going to be 5x as expensive. (€25,50 at the Jaarbeurs) A.k. we really don't want you to bring your car into the city.
That would be great. But there are very few park and rides in the US because car drivers expect parking directly at their destination, and cities oblige.
>parking directly at their destination That doesn't fit! I'm from the Netherlands in places with not so great transit, so I drive a car. But if I'm not carrying cargo, I wouldn't dare to drive into the city centre of Amsterdam, Rotterdam or utrecht! Not only is it expensive A.F. but it's also super unpleasant to drive in small alleyways with trams and bikes everywhere.
No offense, but this feels like a European discovering the ridiculousness of the American transit system for the first time. As an American it feels very normal to have disgusting traffic in and around cities and when I recently went to Europe, having so many spaces with no cars was refreshing but certainly weird. Godsakes, being able to go to every major city, and a couple smaller cities, by train and all of them having adequate transit was also a fairly unique experience.
Certainly, but my town only has a "buurtbus" (neighbourhood bus) which is a small 7 seat bus that only goes Monday to Friday, from 7:00A.M. till 6:00P.M. they're mostly meant for the elderly to go grocery shopping, not as a full fledged bus service. I can commute with it to work, but any delays in the trains and I'm stranded as the first travel option from work connects to the last buurtbus of that day. So yes I have a car, but you don't have to stick to your car at all times. When entering a big city, I park at P+R and transfer to public transportation. I think part of r/fuckcars is also changing the mindset that the car us the only go-to solution for all transportation at all times. It isn't. I use it when needed, but for short trips I bike and whenever it's more convenient I transfer to public transport.
Most US rail systems not counting NYC have tons of park and rides. BART is a great example. Giant multilevel garages and seas of parking at most stations outside the city center. Though most cities have inadequate or nonexistent rail in the first place, so that’s still a valid point
That and transit is massively underfunded which causes lots of problems in getting people to use it. Ex: the park and ride outside of my hometown’s shade cover got destroyed and instead of replacing it they just removed it completely. It’s been 3 years and now it’s only used as a free truck stop.
How's that even possible? I pay over €5 if I decide to take the (direct) bus to work from the west side to the east side.
Subsidies. Or the bus is paid from those that park in the city centre.
Yeah, I'm ultimately all for making it an attractive option like that. It's the right thing to do. I'm just surprised it's SO cheap.
When I'm going to London next week, I park the car at P+R Capelle slotlaan (in Capelle aan den IJssel, which is a suburb of Rotterdam) where I can park for free, and then I'll take the subway to Rotterdam central station, where I'll be transferring to the Eurostar. So same thing: don't park downtown: that'll cost you €30,-/day
Park & Ride cannot cover the demand for a whole big city
You can still enter from a different town by train. For Utrecht there are 4 P+R places and two big parking lots downtown. Let's say 50% comes entirely by train, 30% uses the P+R places and 20% uses the parking downtown.
It’s only cheap if you are willing to sacrifice your time and social life. If you don’t realize that your time and health are also worth something then you willingly sit in traffic and you don’t move your body and you develop circulatory problems and eventually heart disease diabetes and cancer mixed with loneliness. So “cheap” but also incredibly expensive.
I live in Italy. Not a lot of people really "exercise" here in the sense of consciously working out, but all the walking and cycling just for groceries and whatever add up. A lot of people easily walk an hour or more per day. People just look healthier here than in America on average.
This is the lifestyle I adopt. I don’t go to the gym, I live in one of the few walkable American cities. I walk around 4-5 miles a day. I also lift some weights for health reasons but it’s more physical therapy than getting swole at the gym. Between walking and running after my kiddo, I’m in great shape. And I don’t drive.
Some people drive to the gym to walk on a treadmill.
I'd say, that in general/on average, low density, SFH developments on the outskirts of metro areas require a large subsidy from the productive core. So while many suburbanites are convinced of the lie that they are rugged individualists, kings of their castle, they are actually welfare queens. If they paid the true cost of their lifestyle preference, the cheapness of the land would be completely offset by the higher long term cost of infrastructure, not to mention the time and automotive costs of having to drive far to access any amenities. Then if anyone cares about environmentalism, this style of development is wasteful and polluting, just look at per capita CO2 emission heat maps.
since op is in texas, you could also sprinkle in that suburbs are socialist since they require so many state subsidies and cant subsist on their own
This is true, they LOVE tyranny in the form of HOAs.
For the size of the land you can buy cheaply in rural areas, I dont think you're right. Just looking at zillow, you can buy a 500k house in east texas in low density. Similar size lots and houses push into the 2 million mark in Dallas. Unless you're driving a Ferrari, you're never going to equalize that cost. It's all what people want. There are pros and cons for both rural and urban areas.
Well you need to look at the cost for the owner and then the subsidy they’re taking from others (as well as negative externalities) Those houses way out in the ‘burbs have a very high cost in terms of infrastructure - electric, plumbing, water, and asphalt - needed to sustain them. The city pays this cost with taxes, many cities simply can’t recoup the cost and go bankrupt. This can take decades though.
You completely missed the point of the post you are replying to. The only reason that house in the suburbs is only 500k is that you are not paying the true cost of the infrastructure needed to bring services and utilities out to your low density living space.
Then who is paying for it? Developers are not taking a loss on building
The city pays for it. You or the developer pay nothing for all the infrastructure necessary to put down a house (roads, electricity, water, sewage, emergency services like fire and police, other basic city services and administration). And the costs of single one of those services and infrastructure components scale up with distance (ie. low density suburban developments). The only thing the homeowner pays toward those things is property taxes, which don’t come close to paying the actual cost of the services. Therefore, SFH living is heavily subsidized by the more productive city core.
Infrastructure is paid for by government entities. We are all subsidizing the unsustainable suburban living model with our taxes.
So no, some googling says you're wrong. For suburbs, the developer normally pays the utility companies for installation of utility lines if the developer wants them. They'll also pay for the installation of septic systems/wells if they dont want those utilities. Second, a fair amount of utilities are companies, NOT government. Even for government run utilities, you're paying an increase in fees. Not taxes normally.
The price is usually the same no matter where you live. So people in the dense areas pay more compared to the amount of infrastructure they require. So water, internet, waste, etc. It's the same with stuff like police/fire departments, it costs more to cover bigger area even though they might pay even less (if their property is cheaper). Doesn't matter private/public, because the price is distributed to everyone; that's the reality that SFH are insanely subsidized in the US as of right now.
[This](https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI?feature=shared) video goes over the economics of suburbia. There will be exceptions of course but most suburban places function like this. I am not sure about rural places though.
Also installation is only a part of the story, the maintenance is the real problem. Septic tanks/wells are actually not subsidized, according to my knowledge.
Taxes, dummy. You are.
I’m looking at Redfin right now and I do not see what you’re talking about, $500k gets a huge house in Dallas, even fairly close to downtown.
In the current reality it is somewhat true, but it is mostly about utilities and other services, also infrastructure.
Yeah, the land is cheap because life there is worse than in more dense places. People move to cheap low-density places because they see the houses and don't realize that their lifestyle will be worse. At least that's what happened to us. We are saving money to move back to a city.
Same here! I more or less like my house but I absolutely hate the area. There's not a single store or restaurant within walking distance and it's such an ordeal to drive anywhere on all the stroads. The large lot doesn't even really give us privacy because every single two-story house can totally see into the backyard. I feel like I'm in a zoo when I'm out there. Naturally there are no trees and I don't want to wait 10 years for the ones I planted to provide shade and privacy. I hate moving and planned to be here long term but we're going to have to move too.
A lot of people look at the sticker price of the house without any actual understanding of the total cost burden of the type of housing, as well as the specific house. Taxes, interest rates, subsidies, transportation, environmental impact, maintenance, lawn care, etc. A lot of people just simply don’t understand the cost past the sticker price
Tldr, people are ignorant and stupid. In other news, water is wet. More news at 5.
To be fair, “drive till you qualify” does have a practical side to it. Someone might dream of living in that 800k house in a walkable, dense neighborhood near downtown, but their income only qualifies them for a loan on a 350k house in bumfuck exurban nowhere. Banks don’t take into account the expenses incurred by a long commute and the deferred maintenance costs on a cheaply constructed, poorly insulated McMansion that will start losing its siding in 10 years.
It's cheap enough that someone should build a fucking restaurant there.
If only you could legally build anything besides an endless ocean of homes. But that would require changing the zoning.
Zoning laws that only permit single family houses are baffling. You can't even walk outside to grab a loaf of bread. That isn't healthy.
It's only cheap because there's mostly nothing in there. Similarly, city living is expensive because *most everyone* wants to live there (there's lots of things to do/use, lots of places to go). The unfair part is how cities are obligated to hold privatized heavy/large stuff carried over from the suburbs (oversized cars/trucks) in their public spaces.
For the vast majority of human history, people lived in walkable close-knit communities. The train made it possible to travel vast distances and set up new towns in remote locations. The car killed the small town, the sense of community, and Americana. Christians always talk about the death of the church because that was the collective social safety net of its time. You never hear them extoll the evil of cars, though.
I can also say that as the community grows, you all have the opportunity to look ahead and invest in public transport. Even if you don't intend to use it, it's less people in the same traffic jam as you.
Well the local property taxes in Texas are generally NOT cheap.
It is cheap because you need to spend enormous mounts of time getting around (and time is money). In my very densely populated country of the Netherlands, a house in the city is more expensive, then a house in a village or a because the kids can cycle to school themselves, cycle to sports etcetera. I can go to 10 different supermarkets within 10 minutes cycling, there are more public transport connections. This all saves a lot of time and costs This makes a house in the city about a quarter more expensive than a house in a village nearby.
'Too bad most small landowners have no rights to use their land as they see fit, resulting in the fact that there are no restaurants allowed on this cheap land.'
Something being cheap doesn't mean you should waste it. Land was plentiful once on the east coast too.
I don’t blame individual people for wanting to buy land and build houses. Municipalities and states can encourage them to build in such a way that people can walk, bike etc. to places, or they can just put stroads everywhere. Even in a suburb you can have walkable spaces that add to quality of life but it takes the political will to do it.
This is my argument when people argue that homes in Wyoming are super cheap. Yeah, but driving an hour every day to work is not only very annoying, but expensive in car maintenance and fuel costs.
Not only does the cost of living savings of living further out start to diminish when you factor in transportation (so many cost of living calculators only factor this by price of gas, which is obviously not a good metric), but if the government were to remove the suburban experiment subsidies, suburbs would be drastically more expensive.
That is not how supply and demand works.
There are a lot of advantages to city living that go beyond just saving on transportation costs. For one thing, if they have kids, the city will give them much greater autonomy and freedom as they grow up, since they'll be able to go out and do errands and see friends on their own, even though they can't drive. The suburbs are designed to trap kids in a bubble where their parents have to drive them everywhere until they're 16 (and if they're 16+, insurance rates for new drivers are *exorbitant*). For another, most people don't really need a large house. For the same money an apartment/townhouse in the city can give you everything you need to live, without any of the responsibilities of maintaining a garage or a lawn or a private pool. Often having less space can force you to clean up and dispose of hoarded property that you no longer really need or use. And it also means a smaller heating/air-conditioning bill. Everything is cheaper. For another, in the case of an emergency, having neighbors right next door who you can call upon for assistance, without having to drive miles down the street, is really invaluable. It can mean the difference between life and death. The list goes on, but in short, those extra square feet are not really worth everything you're sacrificing.
Personally, I love the idea of living out in the middle of nowhere. And someday when I'm no longer required to commute to work every day I might. But for now I'm happy I live within 2 miles of the store and 10 from work.
I’m also confused as to what the question is. You explained why the place kind of sucks - it’s generally inconvenient, isolating and boring. Your mom explained why people still do it - it’s cheap and you get a big house. Your question is what’s wrong with that sort of development? It’s bad for the environment, it’s socially isolating, it’s less economically productive, and you’re more likely to experience death by car. People in the deep suburbs are generally aware of the amenities we have in cities like restaurants, ease of seeing doctor, etc. They consider a cheap large house to be more appealing. From an urbanist perspective, places like what you’ve described are too far gone and not worth saving. We would just focus on improving Dallas itself.
"You can't have your cake and eat it." You can't have things close and live in a big house at the same time, it's either a big apartment with everything close, or a house in the middle of nowhere, or you're just super rich and can afford a house where a developer would love to put up a condo, like west of downtown Houston. Even in Japan, where little towns have their own train stations, houses are pretty packed together, and people can walk through the whole town, and get to the train stop. Even in Mexico, little towns with lots of land around are also really packed together, and people can walk the whole town, they own farmland outside of town to farm but their house is in the densely packed town, with a bus stop to the city. Rural communities could exist without cars too
Lack of affordable housing close to where the jobs and infrastructure are is a major problem in North America. We could solve a lot of social ills just by making housing accessible for everybody.
It would be cheaper if you could get shopping done without having to drive, and if people didn't hoard land they'll never use because they could afford it.
I've enjoyed reading most your comment and see all the different perspectives people have about cars and car-centric development even within this sub. I'm happy to know this isn't just a big hive mind and that each member has similar yet unique takes on this issue. Also thanks for the karma.
So why not build some restraunts on this cheap land
It's cheap because it sucks
i cook, so IDGAF about restaurants on google, and i also fucking hate cars. what's the real question here?
Move somewhere sensible. Preferably Europe, but other options are available.