Suburbs are a Ponzi Scheme

[exlude]

http://www.businessinsider.com/strong-towns-growth-ponzi-scheme-suburbs-2011-10?op=1

It's too long to post it here, and includes a bunch of graphs, but I recommend the read. It talks a lot about the unsustainable nature of the suburban scheme, what we sacrifice in order to maintain it, and its effects on the housing/financial markets. I had never thought about it like this before.

[YALE]

They're really just good old fashioned land speculation. It's what America was built on.

[Baba Ganoush]

Makes me think of the documentary "Sprawling From Grace". Interesting read.

[Broncojohnny]

Meh, its old news. When the city runs out of money, it stops making capital repairs, the article points out the obvious solution to what it goes on to describe. Look at any old city that has stopped growing, the roads are horrible.

[exlude]

Meh, its old news. When the city runs out of money, it stops making capital repairs, the article points out the obvious solution to what it goes on to describe. Look at any old city that has stopped growing, the roads are horrible.

Well it's new to me, damnit!

It's focusing less on when the city runs out of money and more on what is forcing it to. Cities in suburban sprawls simply don't make enough money off their roads to keep them in working order. Instead they rely on short term investments of psuedo-growth that ultimately increase the budget deficit in the long term.

[Denny]

Just wait until the muni bond collapse... LOL

[Broncojohnny]

Well it's new to me, damnit!

It's focusing less on when the city runs out of money and more on what is forcing it to. Cities in suburban sprawls simply don't make enough money off their roads to keep them in working order. Instead they rely on short term investments of psuedo-growth that ultimately increase the budget deficit in the long term.

Sure, that is the article in a nutshell. My take is that the vast majority of what is quoted is road repairs. All I'm saying is that the simple solution is that the city just doesn't make the repairs. He said it in the article, $5 trillion in deferred repairs are out there, so it already happens. Ultimately it isn't the end of the world if a road isn't repaired, it just gets bumpy. That is kind of my point. But it makes for great articles with big scary numbers! With all that said, bridges along with water, sewer and gas lines are a different story obviously.

[GhostTX]

Meanwhile, near Detroit...

Unable to pay $4 million electric bill, Michigan city turns off and removes many streetlights

HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. — As the sun dips below the rooftops each evening, parts of this Detroit enclave turn to pitch black, the only illumination coming from a few streetlights at the end of the block or from glowing yellow yard globes.

It wasn’t always this way. But when the debt-ridden community could no longer afford its monthly electric bill, elected officials not only turned off 1,000 streetlights. They had them ripped out — bulbs, poles and all. Now nightfall cloaks most neighborhoods in inky darkness.
...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/unable-to-pay-4-million-electric-bill-michigan-city-turns-off-and-removes-many-streetlights/2011/11/03/gIQARqeCjM_story.html

[kingjason]

Meanwhile, near Detroit...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...CjM_story.html

This is not just in detroit. I have noticed more and more lights off in the southern regions of Dallas. One day at work I thought WTF as several of our major streets that have no houses directly on them go dark at night. Even where I live there are less street lights on at night.

[Taylor]

Just wait until the muni bond collapse... LOL

Won't happen.

[SMEGMA STENCH]

This is not just in detroit. I have noticed more and more lights off in the southern regions of Dallas. One day at work I thought WTF as several of our major streets that have no houses directly on them go dark at night. Even where I live there are less street lights on at night.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? Just seems like belt tightening. Maybe they should have done it long ago even when times were good. Just to save a buck.

[Denny]

Won't happen.

How do you figure?

[Broncojohnny]

Meanwhile, in Goatfuckistan....

http://gizmodo.com/5857475/without-trucks-the-tallest-building-in-the-world-would-become-the-tallest-mountain-of-poop

Without Trucks, the Tallest Building In the World Would Become the Tallest Mountain of Poop (Updated)
When I saw the Burj Khalifa in real life I was truly stunned. The tallest skyscraper in the world defies belief. Today I learned something that also defies belief: all the poop produced there has to be removed by trucks.

Updated with video.
Let's do the math here. The Burj Khalifa has 163 habitable floors. It's designed to hold 35,000 people at any given time. Now, humans produce 100 to 250 grams (3 to 8 ounces) of feces per day. Let's say 200 in this case, since these people are well fed. That's 7,000,000 grams per day. Seven tonnes of poop per day. Now, add human-produced liquids (pee, bathing, cleaning their teeth...) and the water to push the poop down its miles of sewage pipes. I think a very conservative total would be 15 tonnes of sewage per day.

That's a lot of poop.

And all of it has to be removed by trucks. The trucks take all this poop to a sewage treatement facility outside of the city. It's the same with most skyscrapers in Dubai, according to Kate Ascher, author of The Heights. Talking to Fresh Air's Terry Gross, Kate said that these trucks are in a permanent line waiting to get into the sewage treatment plant, waiting up to 24 hours before they can unload their crap:

TG: Right. So you know, you write that in Dubai they don't have, like, a sewage infrastructure to support high-rises like this one. So what do they do with the sewage?

KA: A variety of buildings there, some can access a municipal system but many of them actually use trucks to take the sewage out of individual buildings and then they wait on a queue to put it into a waste water treatment plant. So it's a fairly primitive system.

TG: Well, these trucks can wait for hours and hours on line.

KA: That's right. I'm told they can wait up to 24 hours before they get to the head of the queue. Now, there is a municipal system that is being invested in and I assume will connect all of these tall buildings in some point in the near future, but they're certainly not alone. In India many buildings are responsible for providing their own water and their own waste water removal.

Yes, India and many other places in the world have this problem. India doesn't have the amount of money the Dubai and its real estate developers have. That's why this fact surprises me so much. A sewage system may be complex, but it's not more complex than building these huge structures or their monorail. [NPR, NPR Transcript via Boing Boing]

[jnobles06]

who cares. this is nothing compared to the entire fractional reserve banking system. it is a huge ponzi scheme. i know no one wants to believe it, but it's true

http://www.dailypaul.com/119914/fractional-reserve-banking-is-fraudulent-ron-paul-on-cnbc

there are several other videos on this link that explain the history and another explaining how it is fraudulent.

[Denny]

who cares. the entire fractional reserve banking system is a huge ponzi scheme. i know no one wants to believe it, but it's true

http://www.dailypaul.com/119914/fractional-reserve-banking-is-fraudulent-ron-paul-on-cnbc

there are several other videos on this link that explain the history and another explaining how it is fraudulent.

Who doesn't believe it?