4 ms·
On one hand they propose dramatically increasing economic spending because if only one thing is certain and in no dispute, its that denser design is more expens
by VLM 11y ago
On one hand they propose dramatically increasing economic spending because if only one thing is certain and in no dispute, its that denser design is more expensive to construct AND maintain. On the other hand they dismiss property rights and representative government as obsolete concepts to be scoffed at because they stand in the way of "progress" where progress is curiously defined as lowering standards of living due to higher density. The only rational conclusion is they must be proposing socialized government owned and operated and maintained ultra high density housing. AKA "the projects". And nobody wanted to live there when we tried it.
Usually the WP has better written articles. The individual lines and paragraphs are well organized written. It only fails are the higher organizational writing levels where its wrong, and poorly organized. One exception is the conclusion is completely wrong. Detroit never stopped evolving. It just evolved in a direction most people hated, so everyone who could, left. FUD along the lines of turn this place into the projects or else it'll turn into the projects isn't very logical.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago> denser design is more expensive to construct AND maintain Really? Surely economies of scale would mean that building 10 flats is cheaper than building 10 individual houses?
- makomk 11y agoReally. It's important to remember that every floor in a building has to support all of the floors above it - not just physically, but all the services and access for the floors above too. Above three floors or so, you also need extra infrastructure like pumps to get drinking water to the upper floors, tanks to store it, and elevators so people near the top don't have to carry their shopping and furniture up all the flights of stairs. At the same time, you're losing economies of scale because rather than building the same house 10 times, you're building a one-off, with every floor having to be designed and analysed separately because it's under different loading. And of course that one building has the same transportation, power, water and sewerage needs and generates the same amount of garbage as all 10 houses, but now you have much less space at ground level to satisfy those needs with. And this just gets worse as the building gets taller. Eventually, the infrastructure required to add more floors removes so much usable space from all the floors below that it's not ever economically viable to do so, which is why all the tallest skyscrapers are built for bragging rights these days.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoAh, I see. Reminds me that the Burj Dubai and such have a lot of space in the building used simply for elevator shafts.