The concept of a 'front lawn', or even of easy access to nature in general, has not always been as popular as it is today. As Jackson notes, a front lawn is rather useless except as a status symbol (unlike a back lawn, people rarely use the front lawn for barbecues, etc.), and they can cut the amount of available space in a neighborhood by 50% or more, making them a truly luxury expense.
But this popularity wasn't always so widespread - and n fact, it isn't even so commonplace in some parts of the world today (though the Westernization of global cultures has changed this somewhat).
For those who are interested, the most expensive zip codes in New York are 10014 (by real estate) and 10128 (by income). The poorest would probably be 10451 (South Bronx).
Contrast those both to 10025 and 10027, the border of Harlem (poor, but rapidly gentrifying, historically black) and the Upper West Side (historically well-off for several decades, also a large Jewish community).
> The concept of a 'front lawn', or even of easy access to nature in general, has not always been as popular as it is today.
The divide between city and country living is ancient. I find most of your assertions based on Jackson hard to swallow. We were almost exclusively agrarian before industrialization. Your article gives the fraction of people living in cities as 1/3 in 1890 in the US. It's more than that today. It seems like lawns and easy access to nature have been around for a long time. If they are more in demand today, maybe it's because there is a natural need that's going unfilled.
(If anyone has a good chart of US city vs. non-city dwelling over time, please share.)
> As Jackson notes, a front lawn is rather useless except as a status symbol
A status symbol? Only if you are looking at it from the perspective of an apartment dweller. Suburban neighborhoods don't think of people in terms of their front yard. They don't think of front yards much at all, except when it comes time to cut them.
If your front yard is messy, that might reflect badly on you, but that sort of information will be conveyed in other ways. The front yard won't have much to do with it.
I suppose a more accurate way to phrase your argument would be "ornamentation". Even then, a front yard is not useless. People like to have space between them and their neighbors. It is a buffer between you and the road, and a place for your children to play. People like to have a space that's theirs.
I think it is much more likely that the size of yards is a function of what people find comfortable to have between them and their neighbors, with other factors like cost coming into play second.
Why, for instance, do New Yorkers buy their second homes in the surrounding rural areas? Why not another apartment?
When I lived in the city I felt cramped. Apartment living taxed my well-being. It's possible this is because of how I grew up. I think it's more likely it's a physical attribute of how I am. Suburbanites are probably the same way.
Open up Google Earth and pan over America. Are you suggesting all the front yards you see are equivalent to gold chains, and not some fundamental property of how people want to live?
> and they can cut the amount of available space in a neighborhood by 50% or more, making them a truly luxury expense.
Again, this could only come from a city perspective. Front yards are easy to get. Everyone who wants one has one. The objective function of a suburban area is not to maximize space efficiency.
By the end of your comment you steer the discussion back towards cities in particular---but Jackson is an argument on actual suburbanization, not "intra-city" suburbanization. So if you aren't talking about these concepts in general, why predicate your comment on Jackson's book/phenomenon?
This is only relevant for suburban (or village) style settlements.
For example, most of ex-USSR cities are built in huge 5-, 9- or 15-floor apartment blocks with lots of trees around them.
In this case, trees tell you nothing: there might be few trees because the part of the city is newly-built; there are no trees in historic inner city but it's usually the best and most expensive place. If there's a plenty of trees, it still tells you nothing.
Even in Western Europe there was a period in the 1950s and 60s when city planners constructed high-rise satellite towns with lots of trees between the apartment blocks, pretty much all of which are mainly populated by poor people to this day.
Maybe ratio of green to gray would be a better metric. Too much green or grey not good? Still, seems pretty tenuous until a country is beyond a certain level of development.
It's a very old, very small and well-preserved city, the poorer people tend to live in the villages (which are also very green, as it's rural and well-watered thanks to the mountains). Further, it doesn't have a large industrial economy.
I'm inclined to believe this article is the result of confirmation bias.
I'm currently looking for housing in charlotte, and tree cover tells me nothing about whether I want to live in a particular neighborhood. Like Ljubljana, trees are everywhere.
Interesting question. The answer might actually vary from country to country. In countries such as the U.S., where mortgages are the norm for all but the richest people, where you live is fairly strongly tied to current income, which dictates how large a mortgage you can qualify for. In other countries, if housing is primarily financed out of accumulated wealth rather than loans tied to current income, it might be more strongly determined by wealth.
It's also a part of city planning, take for example Canberra Australia (the capital city), except for the more recent sections of the city (which seems to be suburban sprawls) almost the entire city is tree covered.
Certain areas with high rise and high density don't have room for trees.
Not if they free-range their livestock. I used to live in Botswana, right on the border with South Africa, and the border was easy to spot. The South African side, with its managed farms, was always much greener than the Botswana side, where cattle and goats wander around at will.
New Hampshire has the 6th highest rate of millionaires per capita, and 9th highest income per person overall. We often top CQ's "Most livable states" list (which looks at schools, job growth etc.) We also have the highest percentage of tree cover in the nation. http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/08/06/new.hampshire.le...
The huge amount of tree cover in New Hampshire historically speaking is also a pretty recent event. 100+ years ago NH was mostly farmland with little to no tree cover.
Weird I was just discussing this while walking through Piedmont. I wondered if it was a viscous / virtuous cycle thing. The areas with nice trees attracted those with wealth who protected them with disposable income while those with fewer trees cost less to live in, attracted lower income residents who couldn't afford to protect them.
North Korea is one of the most unequal countries on the planet, so that's not a very good example. In fact they aren't even officially committed to equality, never mind how it works in practice. They dropped any leftist rhetoric in the 1990s, and now are a country based on the "Juche Idea" (a kind of idiosyncratic religion) combined with the "Military First" economic principle (that resources should be unequally divided, with the majority going to people connected with the military).
Yeah, I'm not really sure of the political message of the comparison. It's not surprising that wealthier people live in nicer areas with more greenspace....
Income inequality is not the enemy - in fact it is what incentivizes our economy and ultimately builds wealth for everyone. Corruption, lack of opportunity, abject poverty - those are the problems.
That makes sense. Because the same qualities that lead to higher incomes are required to care about things around you.
For example, building skills and wealth take a long term view and the ability to make sacrifices, deferring enjoyment now for the possibility of future enjoyment.
And a tree takes short term sacrifice of time for something that will have take years to materialize.
[+] [-] chimeracoder|13 years ago|reply
The concept of a 'front lawn', or even of easy access to nature in general, has not always been as popular as it is today. As Jackson notes, a front lawn is rather useless except as a status symbol (unlike a back lawn, people rarely use the front lawn for barbecues, etc.), and they can cut the amount of available space in a neighborhood by 50% or more, making them a truly luxury expense.
But this popularity wasn't always so widespread - and n fact, it isn't even so commonplace in some parts of the world today (though the Westernization of global cultures has changed this somewhat).
For those who are interested, the most expensive zip codes in New York are 10014 (by real estate) and 10128 (by income). The poorest would probably be 10451 (South Bronx).
Contrast those both to 10025 and 10027, the border of Harlem (poor, but rapidly gentrifying, historically black) and the Upper West Side (historically well-off for several decades, also a large Jewish community).
[+] [-] kcl|13 years ago|reply
The divide between city and country living is ancient. I find most of your assertions based on Jackson hard to swallow. We were almost exclusively agrarian before industrialization. Your article gives the fraction of people living in cities as 1/3 in 1890 in the US. It's more than that today. It seems like lawns and easy access to nature have been around for a long time. If they are more in demand today, maybe it's because there is a natural need that's going unfilled.
(If anyone has a good chart of US city vs. non-city dwelling over time, please share.)
> As Jackson notes, a front lawn is rather useless except as a status symbol
A status symbol? Only if you are looking at it from the perspective of an apartment dweller. Suburban neighborhoods don't think of people in terms of their front yard. They don't think of front yards much at all, except when it comes time to cut them.
If your front yard is messy, that might reflect badly on you, but that sort of information will be conveyed in other ways. The front yard won't have much to do with it.
I suppose a more accurate way to phrase your argument would be "ornamentation". Even then, a front yard is not useless. People like to have space between them and their neighbors. It is a buffer between you and the road, and a place for your children to play. People like to have a space that's theirs.
I think it is much more likely that the size of yards is a function of what people find comfortable to have between them and their neighbors, with other factors like cost coming into play second.
Why, for instance, do New Yorkers buy their second homes in the surrounding rural areas? Why not another apartment?
When I lived in the city I felt cramped. Apartment living taxed my well-being. It's possible this is because of how I grew up. I think it's more likely it's a physical attribute of how I am. Suburbanites are probably the same way.
Open up Google Earth and pan over America. Are you suggesting all the front yards you see are equivalent to gold chains, and not some fundamental property of how people want to live?
> and they can cut the amount of available space in a neighborhood by 50% or more, making them a truly luxury expense.
Again, this could only come from a city perspective. Front yards are easy to get. Everyone who wants one has one. The objective function of a suburban area is not to maximize space efficiency.
By the end of your comment you steer the discussion back towards cities in particular---but Jackson is an argument on actual suburbanization, not "intra-city" suburbanization. So if you aren't talking about these concepts in general, why predicate your comment on Jackson's book/phenomenon?
[+] [-] guard-of-terra|13 years ago|reply
For example, most of ex-USSR cities are built in huge 5-, 9- or 15-floor apartment blocks with lots of trees around them.
In this case, trees tell you nothing: there might be few trees because the part of the city is newly-built; there are no trees in historic inner city but it's usually the best and most expensive place. If there's a plenty of trees, it still tells you nothing.
[+] [-] brazzy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Swizec|13 years ago|reply
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Ljubljana,+%E3%83%AA%E3%83%A5...
There are trees everywhere. It's impossible to find a neighborhood or street that doesn't have plenty of trees.
[+] [-] Dn_Ab|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marquis|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] reefoctopus|13 years ago|reply
I'm currently looking for housing in charlotte, and tree cover tells me nothing about whether I want to live in a particular neighborhood. Like Ljubljana, trees are everywhere.
[+] [-] JamesLeonis|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotharbot|13 years ago|reply
They're correlated, but not the same thing.
[+] [-] _delirium|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smallblacksun|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdangu|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Evbn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmillikin|13 years ago|reply
http://persquaremile.com/2012/06/13/your-images-of-income-in...
Two of these images show a border between rich and poor areas. The visual effect is striking.
[+] [-] arscan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dublinclontarf|13 years ago|reply
Certain areas with high rise and high density don't have room for trees.
[+] [-] fleitz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmlorenzetti|13 years ago|reply
You can get a sense of this from this satellite picture: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mmathubudukwane,+Kgatleng,+Bo...
[+] [-] flogic|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lumberjack|13 years ago|reply
I engage in subsistence farming myself.
[+] [-] sp332|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alanfang|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carterschonwald|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richcollins|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Turing_Machine|13 years ago|reply
http://goo.gl/M4TfV
[+] [-] _delirium|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aneth4|13 years ago|reply
Income inequality is not the enemy - in fact it is what incentivizes our economy and ultimately builds wealth for everyone. Corruption, lack of opportunity, abject poverty - those are the problems.
[+] [-] magoon|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brooksbp|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ot86|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stretchwithme|13 years ago|reply
For example, building skills and wealth take a long term view and the ability to make sacrifices, deferring enjoyment now for the possibility of future enjoyment.
And a tree takes short term sacrifice of time for something that will have take years to materialize.
[+] [-] vacri|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smbwrs|13 years ago|reply