The Suburbs Are Bleeding America Dry | Climate Town (feat. Not Just Bikes)

when i was growing up in the suburbs one of my favorite activities was to run around in my backyard as my friend john tried to shoot me in the head with a bb gun now i don't want you to worry because we did switch places every couple shots to make it fair and obviously neither of us is blind because we could never shoot for now i tell you this not to indict anyone's parents but to demonstrate the kind of thing that you do when you don't have a car in the suburbs and you're a 40-minute walk from the nearest business which as it happens is the dry cleaners and i know it's not exactly a hot take to say the suburbs are boring but in the next 30 years america's population is projected to expand by a hundred million and if we try to spread those people if we try to spread all those people into suburbs that means turning millions of acres of this and this into this well there's an easy solution we'll just also build things like apartments and townhouses and high-rises and duplexes and high-density housing for people who want it and that would be the right answer except for the fact that it's literally illegal to build anything but a single family detached house in the majority of america we don't build low density low efficiency housing because america prefers it we build them because housing developers are forced to because of a thing called single family zoning and yes i'm asking you to watch a video about zoning but don't worry because it's only like why is it so long why just make it shorter what do we okay whatever i'm gonna make this good because it's gonna take me like 80 hours to edit it and if i wanted to waste 80 hours of my life watching some unfathomably boring i would just watch [Music] as the american population expands and we're simultaneously trying to avoid being burned to the ground by climate change we've got to be smarter about how we do housing as countless studies show higher density housing lowers our emissions reduces traffic increases access to services the list goes on but due to a bunch of old laws written by a handful of dead rich dudes some of whom were racist by the way housing developers aren't free to build anything except for single family detached houses which means suburbs and that means paving thousands of miles of new roads to mcmansiony housing developments which means everyone will need a car which means everyone needs more gas and so on and so forth times a hundred million and there's an easy solution and you can even help maybe and speaking of help i have enlisted the help of a personal hero of mine city planning genius jason from the youtube channel not just bikes hey i'm jason from not just jason from i mean fudge bikes that was jason from not just bikes he's the brains i'm the me and me am raleigh williams climate science and policy master's degree recipient and a guy with the second lowest built in taekwondo so watch yourself and this is the story of how the suburbs are bleeding america dry featuring not just bikes welcome to climate town [Music] oh man did i learn some about zoning for one it's actually a great concept don't put a toilet in your kitchen don't put a heavy metal processing plant in your preschool district well a preschool district isn't really a thing as far as i know but yeah zoning is a critical part of good city design and every modern city has some kind of zoning even houston which keeps all the bad stuff from the zoning code but just doesn't call it zoning here in the netherlands we have strict zoning codes that result in great cities and japanese zoning is famous for building compact urban environments while maintaining affordable housing prices okay okay enough international talk it's time to focus on america in the mid-1800s or sepia times factories started popping up in early american cities to crank out things like textiles and barrels and lung disease workers moved in nearby because the only way to get to work in those days was to either walk or that was it actually you could walk or you could just die there in the street either way let's get back on those looms people your arms aren't going to tear themselves off [Music] but even worse than that the cities of the 1840s didn't have sewers so you can probably imagine how that must have smelled so city managers got their little top hats together and came up with land surveys to figure out how to move everyone's poop to a less lived in location and that meant figuring out where the sewers would go and that's kind of the first comprehensive city planet one thing led to another and by 1867 a tenement house law was passed that required buildings to provide just the absolute barest of essentials to the people living there and we're not talking like hot water we're talking a fire escape and one outdoor toilet per 20 people over the coming decades city planning started to become a profession and in 1909 the first national conference on city planning and the problems of congestion was held in washington dc with 49 attendees this was back when congestion didn't mean traffic congestion suburbs started cropping up that were separate from the city but remained accessible to downtown by streetcar lines and almost every city in america was built around trains and streetcars los angeles in particular had one of the most extensive streetcar networks in the world these so-called streetcar suburbs at least those that still remain are still some of the most desirable neighborhoods in all of north america in many ways this was peak city planning with the invention of the automobiles suddenly wealthier people could live even farther away and drive in and out of cities for work and the american suburb was born and that's when things got racist it's been one week since you looked at me actually no that's when things got more racist it's been no that's not true either that's when racism got suburbanized see in the mid 1910s it was just straight up okay to have a city ordinance that explicitly prohibited people from buying property if they were black or jewish or asian or you know what you don't need me to come up with a list of people who are discriminated against especially not when city ordinances have it all written down hey sorry can you guys we're trying to do a shot thank you so much but just just write down that way thanks you're the best other cities like san francisco i guess felt less comfortable being overtly racist but were still completely into the idea of passing racist laws so they developed a zoning practice known as r1 zoning san francisco-based real estate developer duncan mcduffie developed a tactic of maintaining white only neighborhoods by subdividing them into sections where it was only legal to build big expensive single-family homes the honor of the first official single-family house zone belongs to california's elmwood park which was specifically designed to prevent a black dance hall from opening so way to go duncan mcduffie you had a perfect name it's goofy it's fun it's good at parties and you blew it in 1917 the supreme court ruled in buchanan vs warley that a city ordinance in kentucky prohibiting the sale of property to black people in white majority neighborhoods was a violation of the 14th amendment and therefore unlawful but don't cry cities seeking to enforce racist zoning because r1 zoning is technically just classist which means even though you can't explicitly ban certain races from home ownership they could just switch to banning poor people from those same rights and then let racist property developers deny black home ownership for discretionary reasons and this racist turned classist but still racist kind of zoning took off all across america at this point in time zoning still had detractors across the u.s mostly by people who claimed it interfered with personal property rights which i mean yeah it kinda did but all this changed with a landmark ruling in the village of euclid ohio euclid wanted to keep chicago's factories from expanding toward them and changing the character of the village and ultimately the supreme court agreed they ruled that this kind of zoning was not an unreasonable extension of the village's police power this kind of zoning became known as euclidean zoning named after the town and not euclidean geometry and the concept spread like a bad meme across the country and into canada too this was the first step toward the homogeneous sprawling asphalt-covered car infested strodline horror show that makes up the majority of cities and towns in the us and canada today now to be clear euclidean zoning was not explicitly racist presumably it was more about the factories themselves than the people working in those factories presumably now that's not to say zoning stopped being racist in the 20s when america went through a depression that they all agreed was pretty great fdr came out with the new deal which included a hot little number called the national housing act of 1934 which established brand new home ownership tools for low-income americans like the 30-year mortgage and low-interest loans guaranteed by the government unless you happen to live in a neighborhood with too high a percentage of foreign-born or negroes according to the u.s government in which case you couldn't get a loan because you lived in a red zone which is where the term redlining came from so okay yeah maybe a racist law from the early 1900s invented to keep non-white people from property ownership may have accidentally determined how almost all housing would develop in the most powerful country in the world and fine it is a little ironic that we are not free to build apartments or townhouses in most parts of the freest country in the world but are those things really preventing us from acting on climate change yes yes they are super are now i just want to say there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to live in a detached single-family home some people love them and to that i say whatever gets you out of bed in the morning brother brother brother brother brother brother brother brother i'm aware of how destiny is gonna take its course brother but the fact that 75 percent of all residential land is zoned for only detached single-family homes leads to a real problem when it comes to trying to keep our carbon dioxide emissions down and stave off early onset climate change the suburbs represent less than a quarter of the american population but are so energy intensive that they account for more than half of all household greenhouse gas emissions detached houses are the least efficient kind of housing to try to heat or cool because they're leaking energy from all four sides simultaneously the heating and electric bills in detached single-family houses are consistently higher which leads to power plants burning more fossil fuels which means more carbon dioxide emissions and it also leads to things like blackouts and that's just right now imagine a few more decades of being forced to move out and out further instead of just building up like four stories see when you build up you build stairs you build elevators and sometimes just fireman pulls but when you build out you build miles upon miles of roads and streets and calls to sac which i recently found out is the plural of cul-de-sac who knew wait what holy you're right how did i not know that those roads get built right over dirt and plants and once it's asphalt it no longer has the trivial quality of being able to absorb rain water to prevent things like flash floods or water pollution and since the construction of a single mile of asphalt road in america adds 4 000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere building out instead of up is an excellent way to ensure we blow past every single emissions reduction targets from here until 2050 and of course once you have roads instead of stairs you're putting thousands of cars onto those shiny new roads because those suburbs are almost universally cut off from functional public transportation there are sometimes bus routes but decades of under investment in public transportation means a 15-minute car ride becomes a two-hour commute via three buses a light rail and a goddamn rickshaw and of course all those cars need someplace to park when you're at work which means parking lots which means concrete and carbon dioxide emissions a reduction in natural spaces that can absorb that spike in carbon dioxide and a sharp increase in places for the sharks and the jets to knife fight to the death [Music] and as things spread farther and farther out access to everything from food to medical services and emergency services gets more expensive and more carbon intensive and just to be clear eliminating r1 zoning does not mean eliminating the single family detached house it just means developers are literally allowed to build something other than a detached house if people want it since only 25 of all residential land is allowed to be not a house developers are fighting over scraps and the ones who are winning those fights are often the bougie high-rise developers with the lawyers and the money to wade through mountains of red tape and secure artificially scarce land rights and that leads to this distinct feature in american cities suburbs suburbs suburbs and then boom skyscrapers out of nowhere you hit the end of the r1 zone and it's chaos and it's basically this way in like every american city in europe it's very common to see a wide range of different building sizes single family homes duplexes four to five story mid-rise buildings and even the occasional larger apartment or condo building if the majority of residential land in the us and canada wasn't zoned for r1 single-family homes you'd see a lot more different sizes and uses here too there has been a huge increase in demand for mixed-use walkable places as people start to realize that these places are just better places to be they result in urban environments that are at a human scale safe enjoyable and comfortable to be in and you don't need to spend all your time stuck in soul-crushing traffic to do normal everyday things like visiting friends or buying a bag of milk unfortunately there are very few truly walkable neighborhoods left in the us and canada usually only neighborhoods built before the 1940s so this new demand has resulted in skyrocketing housing prices for this limited stock not everyone is going to want to live in a mixed-use walkable neighborhood but it's clear that a lot of people do and given that these places are better for our health our city finances and the environment it would be crazy of us not to capitalize on this trend our city should be removing all of the outdated zoning and car centric regulations that have trapped us in car dependence and start building more of these walkable neighborhoods as fast as possible yeah i also heard him say bag of milk that's not a thing right [Music] why is this a thing for real i'm genuinely angry now it's inconvenient it doesn't stack if you set it down it spills milk everywhere a bag of milk is the single family housing of the beverage carrying world for real whatever when an area is zoned as mixed use it doesn't mean you can go right back to building a sewer through your daycare center mixed use zoning still has a ton of regulations it's just not as wildly restrictive as single-family housing only actually where i grew up there's an area of mixed use zoning called belmar and we can go there right now through the magic of magic of editing here's a real world example of mixed-use zoning in america you got apartments right next to a movie theater right next to a whole bunch of restaurants right next to a school now this place i'm standing right now used to be a big shitty parking lot for a big shitty mall called villa italia things had started to change and by the early 90s the signs of decline were obvious its retail activity peaked in in 1994 actually it was devastating we'd have a store leave and not come back and then another fun fact my friend eric rose did one time get away from the cops riding a skateboard through a parking garage so it's not all bad but once they shut the mall down they redevelop this area into a fun walkable livable zone that is one monologue away from not one not three but two grocery stores and now it's one of the most sought after areas to live in colorado because it's kind of fun to live here and it generates a whole bunch more money for the city than a parking lot for a struggling mall i mean the best store was jc penney's who's gonna go to that brother you're a cheap shot artist you take whatever you can get as quick as you want you were never in my corner you were always on the outside waiting for me to make the first move so while the landscape of america is currently just dominated by the lowest efficiency lowest density kind of housing cities all across the u.s are slowly starting to eliminate that zoning code and allow for more types of buildings to be made cities like minneapolis and los angeles and even the state of oregon have loosened their single family regulations and you can help keep that going there are a ton of ballot initiatives all across america and progressive groups looking to reform zoning linking the bio but you can also show up to your local zoning meetings and really raise hell about zoning practices they look something like this so last time we tried to get a bit of a field for what you wanted it just doesn't fit in the character of the of the neighborhood but it just doesn't fit and that and it sticks out like an eyesore the meetings are usually full of people who are terrified that their neighborhood might change even a little bit and the only perspective they ever get to hear is their own absolutely i have been to a few of these community engagement meetings and i have often been the youngest person there by about 30 years and i'm not young these meetings really do cater to the retired and bored demographic and the general consensus is usually that the whippersnappers need to get off their lawns so consider showing up to one of these meetings and advocating for mixed-use zoning or you can talk about how punishingly inconvenient and wasteful single-family housing is remember this isn't about taking away anyone's detached house it's about giving people the option to live more efficiently and in a more fulfilling way also it's about having more grocery stores and services that don't require you to get behind the wheel of a car every time you want a digiornose pizza or a a bag of milk america is currently a system where the easy decision and the right decision are not the same decision but what if they were we know you can rezone the suburbs to add more housing density and retrofit old malls to be livable mixed-use spaces and if you want that to happen where you live your voice is actually really important added a bunch of links in the description to zoning reform groups and bills that might be in your area as well as how to find your local hoa meetings and zoning meetings go check it out bring a friend or maybe a date no that don't do that that's a bad not a first date anyway no scratch you know what use your judgment i trust you also i'm not your parents i'm just a guy sitting in a room alone asking a complete stranger to go to a zoning meeting really makes you think i don't care where you stand i don't care what you believe in all i want from you is your best okay thank you so much for watching if you want to learn more about this stuff jason from not just bikes has a ton of videos about thoughtful urban planning check him out on his channel don't forget to subscribe also a great channel that's got a lot of this kind of stuff city beautiful it's absolutely crammed full of interesting and relevant city planning facts and as long as you're just subscribing to all these youtube channels william nilliam you might consider subscribing to climatetown that's this one that you're watching right now and if you really like this channel and i mean like in an unhealthy way you could go over and subscribe to our patreon page where for about five bucks a month actually for whatever you want it's you get to pick how much per month and it doesn't matter how much you pick and you get access to all of our stuff on patreon that is behind the scenes stuff zoom hangouts the kind of stuff that's just not good enough to be free that's over on the patreon page also we have a discord channel you can join link in the description come on down we got a bunch of channel you know how actually maybe you don't know how discord works well come on down and freaking find out brother brother brother brother they'll be trying to drink their own sweat to survive brother also check out our instagram our twitter my freaking tic tac i freaking myspace you know not the last one but the first three those are real check them out if you want we also have classroom friendly versions of these where i don't use the swear words okay that's really it thank you for watching go to a zoning meeting i'll see you next time i have not tried marijuana i have never used it [Music]

Channel: Climate Town

Views: 1,051,789

Keywords: climate town, city planning, not just bikes, city design, zoning, singe family zoning, r1 zoning, single family detached house, detached house, low density housing, suburbs, urban, rural, the suburbs are bleeding america dry, carbon emissions, carbon, fossil fuels, rollie, construction, city council, hulk hogan, burbs, rollie williams, history, sprawl, mixed-use zoning, skyscraper, belmar

Id: SfsCniN7Nsc

Length: 20min 59sec (1259 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 07 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/birthnight]

bleeing

[u/PleasureMissile]

I’m not watching something that is 20 hours long

[u/DatEngineeringKid]

I have no issues with suburbs and detached housing. What I do have a problem with is the rest of the city having to subsidizing their existence.

And I definitely have a problem with making it straight up illegal to build anything but single family housing units in the vast majority of cities, and making it so that only SFH can be built in an area.

[u/kju1289]

I deliver pizza to that neighborhood he’s standing in. Solterra in Lakewood Colorado. They tip like shit lol

[u/Syzygy_Stardust]

I just rewatched the video about gas ovens a couple days ago! I love this channel's use of humor to popularize important information.

[u/lyingspaceman]

Great YouTube channel. He's really fun to watch

[u/Pinguaro]

Does everything have to be noisy/snappy comedy to get people's attention?

[u/theclipclop28]

Damn, didn't know how bad it is un USA. You have to have a car to do everything, like buying groceries, going to the gym, school, movies, commuting to work. Want some fruit? Gotta drive. Can't walk anywhere, can't bike anywhere. Metal coffin is the only way.

[u/67thou]

I have lived in apartments and townhomes. I hated sharing a wall, floor, and/or ceilings with neighbors.
-Getting my wall pounded on by the neighbor because i was watching TV at 9pm
-Spending 35 minutes after getting home from work circling block after block to find parking, then having to walk 3 blocks home when i just wanted to chill on the couch
-Being kept up late on Friday and Saturday nights because the bars let out and the masses were loudly stumbling home
-Having mysterious dents appear on my car doors in the parking garage

Add to those i've known people who were displaced from their apartment homes because some inconsiderate neighbor decided it was a good idea to fall asleep while smoking and burn their home and all of their neighbors homes to the ground.

I made an intentional effort to move into low density housing because i wanted to have my own space that was truly my own space. These suburbs wouldn't exist if there weren't people happy to move there.