4 ms·
Perhaps this is just me, but I just don't like cities. I agree that the things listed in this article need fixing, but I also feel like they're missing the poi
by eslaught 10y ago
Perhaps this is just me, but I just don't like cities.
I agree that the things listed in this article need fixing, but I also feel like they're missing the point.
I grew up in a small college town (in a house), but have spent most of my adult life living in cities (in appartments). Somehow, those cities have never felt like home to me. I've always felt like I was missing something. Privacy is not quite the right word. Perhaps solitude.
Growing up, I could easily find space to be alone (and I mean, truly alone) . In my current city, there is literally no way to do that. My appartment is cramped, and low sound isolation means I can hear the neighbors. If I go outside to the park, there is approximately a person per couple thousand square meters (and the noise carries further). If I go to a coffee shop or other public place, it's even more crowded. I can go to the mountains, but it's about an hour by car to get there, and even then there are people around. (Unsurprisingly, the further I have to go, the less likely I am to do it on a regular basis.) This inability to have space has lead to a sort of mild chronic anxiety. Suffice it to say, I don't like cities, but I'm stuck where I am for other reasons.
So I can't exactly say I'm eager for even more population density. Some of the problems above could possibly be mitigated (e.g. better sound isolation), but the broader issues of how much personal space is really necessary just seems like it's not on people's radars. Is this just not an issue for other people? Am I crazy?
I hope that any discussion of better cities includes this as a component.
- collyw 10y agoI can see the good and bad in both. I grew up in suburbia, as a result I hate commuting as its just such a waste of time. I love the mountains and spent a few year living in fairly small towns. But there are no jobs there (for a techie, and remote working is hard to find), and night life is limited. Now in a dense city and I have tons of options for going out, but like you say no space, and a hassle to do any outdoor sports in comparison.
- hx87 10y agoThink about it this way: in an area with a given population, raising the population density of a subset of that area lowers it somewhere else, and you can live in that somewhere else. That being said, better sound insulation in walls, windows, ceilings and floors is absolutely necessary in most cities, and that is where regulations should focus on (with limited or no grandfathering), not setbacks and heights.
- cfreeman 10y agoGood luck on getting a rule like that implemented with little or no grandfathering. The economics of that are just too extreme.
- astrange 10y agoIf you move somewhere up in the mountains and never hear another person, can you still get a job? They're focusing on cities as economically productive spaces, not just nice places to retire to. Also, the carbon footprint of living by yourself is much higher since you still need to travel to further-away places and get goods delivered.
- rsync 10y ago"So I can't exactly say I'm eager for even more population density. Some of the problems above could possibly be mitigated (e.g. better sound isolation), but the broader issues of how much personal space is really necessary just seems like it's not on people's radars. Is this just not an issue for other people? Am I crazy?" A village is a different thing than a city. A village solves different problems and provides different things. You're not crazy for preferring a village. VIHKAL: Aspen, Colorado ... Coronado Island, California ... Calistoga, California ... Davos, CH ... Salares, Andalucia ...