What is the most "elastic" city in the United States?

[burythehatchet]

Many years ago I heard someone coin two terms, elastic and inelastic, to describe cities.

An elastic city is one that grows around its core, or urban center. Its growth is planned to maximize investment in municipal services. Any new development is controlled such that it is incorporated into the larger city. This is economical because everyone shares in the infrastructure.

An inelastic city is the opposite. It spawns new, self-contained suburban mini-cities that require continuous investment in new infrastructure like sewage capacity, water and electricity.

Take a look at your city, where does it stand on this measure. I live in Atlanta, and it is an example of almost complete inelasticity. There are probably 6 to 8 large suburban centers that are self-contained cities. The city is choking on traffic. Its a mess.

[MikeG]

1. They wear a lot of stretchy pants in Pittsburgh. Does that count?

[burythehatchet]

3. Aonly if they're the plaid kind with Steeler colors

:)

[donco6]

2. Nothing in the West in elastic.

We're all based on the L.A. model.

To see elastic, you need to visit Canada - Vancouver, Toronto - I think of them as much more elastic.

Of course, anything in Europe.

[burythehatchet]

4. I had heard that Seattle and Portland may be

has that changed over the past decade?

[donco6]

5. Seattle? No way.

Suburbs out the ying-yang. They're only as densely populated as they are because of their situation (up against the ocean).

Portland maybe. I don't recall a lot of suburbs there.

[burythehatchet]

6. Wow I didn't realize that about Seattle

Another point is that the existance of suburbs is quite alright as long as the growth is dependent upon the urban core. Something like a light rail commuter transport system is an element of infrastructure that would keep the suburb within the same sphere of influence. Hence the term elastic.

[donco6]

12. Yes - and that model is easily seen in Europe as well.

Most major European cities are built with a spoke pattern, separated by large green spaces, connected by commuter rail lines. I find the cities to be beautiful places to live.

[burythehatchet]

17. oh so true about most European cities

Perhaps it was because their cost of energy and resources has not been subsidized as much as it has been in the US.
In addition, those cultures have a rich history that they choose to preserve, rather than pave over.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Portland is under Oregon's urban growth boundary law

so it can't expand indefinitely, only in an ordered fashion. Since people can't build outward, they're building and renovating inside the city. There's the gentification angle, so that housing prices are expensive, but there are also no massive blighted areas full of abandoned buildings, such as you see in most major cities.

It has one of the best transit systems for a city of its size. Suburbanites not only work in downtown Portland but take the light rail to go downtown shopping or attending events on weekends.

I think the transit system is key. Tokyo sprawls all over the place, but the central city is still vital, thanks to ease of getting around. The trains may be crowded at times , but they move dependably, except when there's some unforeseen event like a typhoon or someone committing suicide by jumping in front of an uncoming train.

(Since Tokyo absorbed a lot of existing towns and cities, there are sub-centers, but they're transit oriented, not car-oriented.)

I've been listening to the traffic reports on the news here, and the trains have been right on time every day, while the freeways are always backed up for miles. I seriously wonder why anyone drives in this city. In any case, all those traffic jams are caused by 20% of the commuters, because the other 80% take public transit.

[burythehatchet]

21. the grand prize goes to you Lydia

its the automobile, and how it has fit into the transposrtation evolution (or de-evolution) of the US. Public transportation really seems to always turn up as the common unifying element to all successful cities. The better you can move people, the healthier your city will be, sorta like a human body perhaps.

Cars are the LEAST efficient way, and we of course take it to the HUMMER max.

[lectrobyte]

7. Raleigh Durham is definitely inelastic

The governments of Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Wake County, Wake Forest, Chapel Hill, etc. all duking it out...

[burythehatchet]

8. and we wonder whether peak oil is a real issue.

we end up using 2, 3, 4 times the resources we need even in building our cities.

[greekspeak]

9. It even happens in microcosms

I hail originally from Springfield, Missouri. Springfield has done everything in its power to cause its inner core to rot, while dashing south like a sprinter for the gold. So now, south of town, we have several cities trying to fight for rural land and see who will be biggest. Take the town of Ozark, for instance. 20 years ago, it took a while to get to Ozark. Now, Ozark and Springfield nearly touch. And Nixa, to the west of Ozark and south of Springfield, is trying to do what Ozark is. My father told me the other day that another town, Battlefield, has annexed a good mile north of where it was even 10 years ago. It had 300 or so folks in it 20 years ago. Now Battlefield is several thousand. Growing up, we had two convience stores to walk to. Now, within that same distance, there are shopping centers, grocery markets, and countless neighborhoods. Homes are being packed into tiny lots. All the while, Springfield and its metro area hangs onto its provincial notions when it comes to social and religious issues.

[burythehatchet]

11. I suspect the same goes for all the steel belt cites

that's where the wealth from the automotive industry in 50s 60s and 70's fueled the suburbanization of those areas. Meanwhile, the core, the middle class in those days, slowly degraded into urban war zones.

[davidinalameda]

10. I'd say San Francisco is elastic

we have neighborhoods but not to the extent that any area is independent from others

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. It helps that San Francisco has nowhere to expand

:-)

[Terran]

19. Right

SF has no choice but to be elastic.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

15. David Rusk, I think...in his book "Citys without Suburbs"....

...probaboy citys like Charlotte, NC, or places like Phoenix or Albuquergue or San Antonio, that annex their new suburban sprawl, are good examples of elastic citys.

What is the "most" elastic....Rusk has a chart in that book somewhere, I think.

For inelastic citys, classic example would be Cleveland or St Louis or, on the coast, Philadelphia and Baltimore and Boston.

[burythehatchet]

16. thank you thank you thank you

I had long forgotten to whom the concept should have been attributed.

[NervousRex]

18. Minneapolis is concrete...

Inelastic, and riddled with inefficient little fiefdoms. This metropolitain area is doomed...especially with the idealogues in charge of the Met Council...roads, roads, roads, they chant....to hell with what can be seen in other US cities...we are different...and (ahem)...we republicans love construction companies who build roads, and effectively run the state...(ahem)

[burythehatchet]

20. No kidding

here in Georgia, some time ago they decided that should change the name of the state agency from the Department of Highways to the Dept of Transportation.

Its as though if they were farmers, they would farm one piece of land and then move on another next year. This is how public funds are diverted, in the form of profits, to private hands. No serious consideration is given for what might be in the public good.