Note that it could easily be culturally evolved, not genetically. I think there’s a lot of explanatory power in the land=status cultural belief as well. But really, I think there’s a typical mind fallacy that blinds you to the fact that many people legitimately and truly prefer those tradeoffs over denser city living. Personally, my tastes (and the character of many cities’ cores) have noticeably changed over my lifetime—in my youth, I loved the vibrance and variety, and the relatively short commute of being in a city. Now, I value the privacy and quiet that suburban living (still technically in-city, but in a quiet area) gets me.
More importantly, for many coastal American cities, it’s simply not true that people pay a lot to live in the suburbs. Even in the inflationary eras of the 1980s, a standalone single-family house in an area where most neighbors are rich and value education is more investment than expense (or was when they bought the house. Who knows whether it will be in the future).
I don’t have good answers for the commuting sucks and density correlates with productivity arguments, except that revealed preference seems to contradict those as being the most important things. Also, the measurements I’ve seen seem to include a range of circumstances that make it hard to separate the actual motivations. Living by choice in “the nice” suburbs is likely a very different experience with different desirability than living in a cheap apartment with a long commute because you can’t afford to live in the city. I’d be interested to see same-age, same-family-situation, similar wealth comparisons of city and suburb dwellers.
Note that it could easily be culturally evolved, not genetically. I think there’s a lot of explanatory power in the land=status cultural belief as well. But really, I think there’s a typical mind fallacy that blinds you to the fact that many people legitimately and truly prefer those tradeoffs over denser city living. Personally, my tastes (and the character of many cities’ cores) have noticeably changed over my lifetime—in my youth, I loved the vibrance and variety, and the relatively short commute of being in a city. Now, I value the privacy and quiet that suburban living (still technically in-city, but in a quiet area) gets me.
More importantly, for many coastal American cities, it’s simply not true that people pay a lot to live in the suburbs. Even in the inflationary eras of the 1980s, a standalone single-family house in an area where most neighbors are rich and value education is more investment than expense (or was when they bought the house. Who knows whether it will be in the future).
I don’t have good answers for the commuting sucks and density correlates with productivity arguments, except that revealed preference seems to contradict those as being the most important things. Also, the measurements I’ve seen seem to include a range of circumstances that make it hard to separate the actual motivations. Living by choice in “the nice” suburbs is likely a very different experience with different desirability than living in a cheap apartment with a long commute because you can’t afford to live in the city. I’d be interested to see same-age, same-family-situation, similar wealth comparisons of city and suburb dwellers.