Prices and Truths
A common error in our discourse on walkable urbanism
Strong Towns tweeted this the other day:
To which someone replied: “Will instantly become unaffordable for most Americans. The lack of diversity here kind of proves this.”
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve come across this sentiment. It feels right. It tracks with our experience in America. The new New Urbanist neighborhood costs more than the new subdivision. But it’s a misunderstanding. I’ve written about this before, in a piece called “Prices Aren’t Metaphysics,” but I think it’s a very important and subtle point, and I’m going to work through it again today.
Basically, a lot of people misread what the price signals around walkable urbanism are telling us. Yes, nice, clean, safe, walkable neighborhoods—like the one in the picture—get a premium; they’re expensive. But what does that mean? I think a lot of people think of “unaffordable” as an inherent, static characteristic, not an external, dynamic one.
They reason: Walkable urban neighborhoods are expensive things. Therefore, if we build more of them, more of America’s neighborhoods will become expensive. Likewise, we think of the lower housing prices in the suburbs as inherent as well; the suburbs are for the everyman; the fancy cities are for elites. The prices seem to tell us that—just like they seem to tell us, for example, that supermarket chicken breast is for the everyman while heirloom organic free-range chickens are for the farmer’s market snobs.
Because of factory farming and production efficiencies and lack of scalability, it probably is the case that the fancy chicken objectively costs more—that raising meat in that manner is inherently more expensive than raising it in a factory-farm setting. You might think the cost savings of conventional chicken are worth the externalities, or not. But the cost savings are probably real. Expanded availability of organic groceries in general might bring costs down a little on those items, but it does basically mean overall grocery prices go up for the consumer. Think, for example, “they replaced the regular bagged salad with the organic one and now a bag of salad is $5!”
But this isn’t the case for suburbs and cities. The key “real” or inherent cost is land. (And, of course, construction, but that’s the case for all buildings anywhere.) And obviously, land prices account for a lot of the final price discrepancy. Exurban land on the fringe of the metro area is cheap; core urban land is very expensive, at least in the cities and towns where people really want to live.
But there’s also just the massive undersupply of housing in the kinds of neighborhoods in that picture. We know there’s an undersupply because the high prices are telling us that! People want that, and they bid up the price of a scarce resource. But you can see how ordinary people end up getting it backwards: new buildings in nice neighborhoods are expensive! For the sake of affordability, don’t build them!
But if you build more densely, or if you develop a lot more land even at medium densities, the land cost diminishes, as does that special exclusive premium. A single unit of urban housing costs less, all things being equal. Objectively speaking, it’s very expensive to put detached houses on their own lots, and run water, sewer, and electric to all of them, and build a paved road network to connect them all. And effectively require every household to own at least one reliable car to navigate this landscape.
This reality is disguised by all of the effective subsidies for sprawl-style development, and by very tight zoning laws that result in real cities and classic towns feeling like rare lifestyle amenities rather than ordinary places to live. The antidote to this is to build a lot more of them.
I think there also might be something like moralism or self-denial at work here, and I’ve made this point before too: it’s almost like we do like walkable urbanism, but we think of it as something special: a treat. It would be self-indulgent to live like that, just like it would be self-indulgent to eat chocolate cake for dinner. The primary philosophical task of urbanism might just be to convince people that nice places can be normal. That living on a vibrant, pleasant street is not the moral equivalent of eating chocolate cake for dinner.
Analogies are really helpful with things like this: can you think of another one? What’s a good analogy for the psychology where high walkable-neighborhood prices—a mere snapshot of the current supply and demand—gets mistaken for a metaphysical revelation about the thing itself, which we then act upon by not building more of the thing, which would actually lower the price?
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I live 2 counties away and 40 miles from work. I’ve commuted for 20 years. My current house size would easily cost 300k - 400K more if I lived closer to work. The hours on I95 are my choice, not complaining.
But whenever I think of the kind of community I’d like to age in, it’s not my current neighborhood. I would love to be able to walk to stores, parks, restaurants. I would gladly trade 1000 SF for a walkable neighborhood.
The problem is these neighborhoods are not built in my county - it’s mostly single family homes and some townhouse communities. Even the apartment complexes we have are siloed. There are a few diverse neighborhoods with apartments, townhouses & houses but the sprawl is still immense. We have to drive to everything.
Even if citizens want walkable neighborhoods, how do we get developers to make that happen. My neighborhood was advertised to have trails in it but after all the houses were built the developer renege on the trails.
One thing which might contribute to this logical discontinuity is that people don’t own (or rent) neighbourhoods, but only individual properties within it.
They may well feel a sense of “ownership” (as I do with my neighbourhood) but so do many other people who only visit it (as I do with the next neighbourhood over).
I wish I could say where this thought leads. I can’t, but just wanted to throw it out there.
The other thing is that most cities do in fact have cheaper versions of walkable neighborhoods. The housing stock is usually older, has often been modified many times since built, and is probably a little run down. But they are still nice, walkable, interesting neighbourhoods.
They are also ripe for gentrification. That would make them more expensive, at least in housing costs per individual. (The house that used to shelter four families of five now shelters one family of three, for example.)
One other aspect is that what I often see touted as walkable neighbourhoods aren’t complete ones. They do not have retail selling basic needs. In my neighbourhood; I can buy an amazing bagel or a delicious pastry, I can go to a bar or out for breakfast or dinner, I could put my visiting relatives up at either a moderately expensive B&B or at one with eye watering rates. But if I want to buy groceries I have to walk a bit more than is truly convenient and if I want to buy a spool of thread or a sheet of sandpaper, I have to get in my car and drive to the edge of town.