The Case for Condensed Living
I’m the happy father of a young family in Dayton, Ohio. My wife and I have lived the Miami Valley virtually our entire lives. In recent years, Dayton has made a fantastic turn around. When I was very young, Dayton had the feeling of a depressed city. As early as I can remember, I understood that auto-makers had been reducing jobs in our area for some time. There were stories of other big local companies were moving out. Auto-makers were moving out. The GM plant where my uncle was an engineer was nearly shutdown, and the factory was in bad shape. At one time, I even remember watching a historic Downtown Dayton building demolished with explosives with my dad. It was well understood that most of the towers downtown were nearly empty.
I remember when the National Cash Register (NCR) Corporation, the first manufacturer of mechanical cash registers, left Dayton. NCR had been located in Dayton since 1884. NCR’s first owner John Henry Patterson (who purchased a previous company and renamed it to NCR) is a local hero. Patterson adopted very progressive policies during a period where sweat shops were common. He ensured his workers worked reasonable hours in well lit spaces, exercised, and had access to natural spaces during their breaks. He invested in the Dayton community. He is even honored with a statue near one of the natural spaces he preserved for his workers at the Hills and Dales Metro Park. Seeing NCR go severely hurt the morale of the Dayton area.
Dayton had been depopulating ever since we lived in Dayton. However, in part thanks to the hard work of some of our local politicians, Dayton has made a comeback. Perhaps most importantly, Dayton’s 53rd mayor, Mike Turner initiated efforts to make Dayton much more attractive for businesses. He offered packages to bring companies to the downtown. In addition, he worked to revitalize culture aspects of Downtown such as the local baseball stadium and our performing arts center, the Schuster Center. Subsequently, as our representative, Mike Turner worked to maintain and increase federal investment in the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB). WPAFB is the largest employer of high-payed workers in the Dayton area. Turner even helped get the old GM plant has been purchased by a Chinese glass manufacturer called Fuyao — the largest Chinese manufacturing investment in the midwest.
There were other factors as well. The University of Dayton (UD) used its large endowment to invest in the community. UD purchased the old NCR building and turned it into a pristine research institute. Two of the mayors continued the turn-around started by Turner. Garry Leitzell started efforts to make Dayton attractive to immigrants. Turkish and Hispanic immigrants have started several small businesses in the Dayton area. Our current mayor Nan Whaley has dramatically increased investment in the downtown area. Downtown Dayton now has a thriving nightlife and a large number of residents. There is even demand for pricey living spaces downtown. Ohio has been fortunate to have two excellent back-to-back governors. Ohio now has one of the most business friendly tax environments in the nation. All of our urban centers have seen dramatic revitalization in the last 10 years.
However, I believe that during this time of revitalization Dayton saw other improvements that may not have received their due appreciation. The Five Rivers Metro Parks and continued creating new parks in the Dayton area. Dayton is now home to an surprising number of quality parks. Our parks include playgrounds, hiking, rivers, forest. and prairies. Our family loves our metro parks. They keep us healthy and happy all year-round. They’re beautiful in every season. In addition to the parks, Dayton is home to the longest interconnected bike network in the nation. The parks have dramatically improved our family’s standard of living.
Thanks to the Air Force base, I meet many people from other areas of the country. I often hear that they are impressed with the parks in the area, and that the parks are their favorite feature of the Dayton area. Our fantastic free parks see more traffic each year. I am also passionate about preserving Dayton’s natural heritage. Recently Bald Eagles have returned to the Dayton area, and last year, I saw the first red-tailed fox I’ve ever seen. Black-Crowned Night Herons used to populate islands along the river, but until recently were kept out due to invasive species.
But beyond fun and preservation, the parks are important for other practical reasons. The air quality in the Miami Valley is some of the worst in the nation. Our parks help clean our air. They also encourage a culture of physical activity. Natural spaces also have a profound influence on our mental well-being. In addition, as a defense contractor for the Air Force, I am continuously reminded of the severe dangers posed by climate change on global security. Ohio isn’t the sunniest part of the nation, so solar is less economical here. Natural spaces operate as import carbon-sinks offsetting our state’s pollution. Therefore, I’ve been excited for more areas to become conserved.
That’s why recent development in Dayton has been disturbing to me. I’m very grateful for the wealth entering the Dayton region. However, as it’s led to new development, the locations for the development has been surprising to me. Only a few years ago, there was a very large “undeveloped” natural space, just south of Dayton. Deer used to enjoy a pond in the area. There was a prairie and some woods. This spot was chosen for the development of a brand-new large shopping development known as Austin Landing. There’s many high-end retailers and restaurants. There are also some financial and tech businesses. It’s a wonderful space, but the choice of the location bothers me.
Just a few years before, another space had been developed and turned into a small town-like shopping area called The Greene. Dayton now has four large shopping centers along the same stretch of road. What I find disturbing is that there are still plenty of dilapidated areas that need new investment. However, instead of investing in these areas, new developments have been built by destroying natural spaces.
Two years ago, another new development destroyed an entire wood to builda Costco, Kroger, Cabella’s, and some surrounding restaurants. Yet, a quarter of a mile away, there’s an old shopping strip that’s laid mostly dormant for years. There’s a an old Cubs Food just laying empty. On the west side of Dayton (historically where most of Dayton’s minorities live), there is need and room for redevelopment; however, again and again, I see what used to be natural spaces destroyed to make way for brand-new buildings.
I finally got the motivation to spend a weekend afternoon to write this when ground broke on a new housing development right next to my neighborhood. There is a nice little wood right next to my neighborhood. It was one of our family’s reasons for picking our neighborhood. In the span of a few days, nearly half the trees were chopped down to make room for a new housing development ironically named “The Woods”.
But I’m an engineer. I like to understand why things happen the way they do in order to make predictions. While many areas in my city have homes that need demolished, there aren’t entire areas for a new development. No one wants to build a new home in an old neighborhood that looks radically different from the surrounding homes. Meanwhile, demand for homes is increasing. So if we aren’t going to tear down and rebuild home sporadically throughout neighborhoods, developers have to find new spaces to build an build a whole new development.
As an engineer, I’m also obsessed with efficiency and optimization. So after considering the current housing model and doing a bit of research, I realized that our entire method of housing is expensive and untenable. There’s an idea infused into many of our minds that each family needs to have a home with a small yard, garage, etc. However, consider the cost and all the systems that are required to make this possible.
Providing living spaces in this way requires a vast amount of space. Each home must be connected to the electrical and telecommunications grid. There’s miles of pipes under ground connecting us to the sewage system. Waste pickup has to traverse hundreds of square miles. Street lights are required for these homes. Consider all the concrete required to builds those sidewalks and roads to accommodate each home. Lastly, my system’s engineering training forces me to remember that for each one of these systems there are sustainment and disposal costs.
Finally, consider the fact that each home has some amount of grassy land. This requires thousands of home owners to spend time mowing the grass, trimming trees and hedges, and treating their lawns with chemicals. Then consider the opportunity cost. All these homes sit on areas that could be parks or conserved natural spaces.
With this in mind, lets briefly consider the advantages and disadvantages of building vertically (and therefore in closer proximity). More condensed housing means that less pipes and copper are required to deliver energy, telecommunications, and water. In addition, this approach is more energy efficient. It also efficient in other ways. Instead of having 20 different roofs that all need replaced every 15 years you have one roof for 20 housing units. This type of development is also more energy efficient in terms of heating and cooling. I could go on, but I think you get the picture, but frankly, I’m running out of time to write this. I’ve got a five year-old who wants to play.
So what are some of the disadvantages? Well, obviously, you lose the yard; however, this is something else I find interesting. While most people want a yard, very few people in my neighborhood use their yard! More often folks will want to grill out. But shared spaces for grilling are often provided by condensed living spaces. And what about that pool? This is another thing, I find ironic. We had a pool growing up, and we used it a lot. But so often, I see people who have paid for expensive in-ground pools, and they hardly ever use them because they don’t want to take the time to maintenance them! Again, condensed living solutions often offer pools (which you don’t have to maintain). Heck, I’ve noticed that even at vacation resorts that while people pay more for a place with a pool, the pool is usually vacant. (People are so strange.) Given the enhanced efficiency of condensed living, it is also dramatically cheaper.
Another issue is transportation, if everyone lives close together, transportation turns into a nightmare. Sure you can have a car garage to compactly, store vehicles, but once those cars are out on the road, the volume is still larger, and the roads can’t be too large in urban areas. This leads to why condensed living solutions largely aren’t happening right now and what’s required to make them happen.
The solution to the transportation issue is fairly obvious. Mass public transport becomes the answer for a large number of citizens. However, biking and walking also become common transportation solutions. Reduced car ownership saves even more money and reduces health and environmentally averse pollutants even more. But developing mass public transport, and to some extend condensed housing requires public investment. Now why is that? If it’s a good idea with a demand, why would the private sector already do it? I default to distrusting the government, and in general, I trust the private sector to more efficient execute solutions.
However, this is a good example of where public investment makes sense. The private sector has no interest in developing infrastructure that anyone can use. A private company only builds what is profitable to itself. That’s why this is one of those few areas where the public sector needs to step in to develop infrastructure.
I hope that in the near future, overpopulation and environmental awareness will bring people into more dense urban centers. Condensed living will make us wealthier, happier, and healthier. It will save us time and provide more space to purify our air, habitats for Ohio’s wildlife, and space for exploration. If our own desires don’t push us toward a more condensed and efficient lifestyle, economics, overpopulation, and environmental challenges will. I just hope we start making the switch before we loose too much of our natural heritage to expanding development.
