7 ms·

I want my car. I need my car for when I drive to places NOT in the city. Like visiting family. Make it so I can still store my car (near) my unit. Also that

by mjevans 10y ago

I want my car. I need my car for when I drive to places NOT in the city. Like visiting family. Make it so I can still store my car (near) my unit. Also that there's a GOOD loading dock so I can get items to/from my unit and transport. This might be a mega-garage at the edge of a city with moving belt people movers and giant commercial promenades that are covered indoor malls /between/ buildings. It might just be more parking under the building out of sight. I also NEED sufficient privacy. I don't want to hear my neighbors slamming the microwave around, food processioning, or cleaning. Nor do I want to hear that idiot above me who thuds around too much. Build it in to the fire and privacy codes that there WILL be walls of sufficient thickness. Make that inner wall a complete full one, no plumbing or electrical/etc. That's where all of the insulation goes. That's the disconnect between units. Then /outside/ of that build the utility / facing wall that isn't for support, it's for finishing and routing of wall items. The roof? I'm not sure how to handle that other than, maybe something similar. Then, what I want, give me a good choice of true high-speed (Ethernet/Fiber) ISPs. Also, what other people want. Do all of the above, but also build in PLENTY of FAMILY sized units. Units with 4+ real rooms and a common area. Also make it easier to sublet within those rooms for friends (this means the inner doors might need locks as well, and should also sound-isolate).

davidw 10y ago
These are all things you can absolutely pay to have under a market-based system. More mixed-use housing does not mean there won't be other kinds of housing. Markets would probably also provide units without all the above and while you may not want to live there, perhaps someone would accept it rather than not be able to live in an area at all.
ghaff 10y ago
While I'm not especially sympathetic to a lot of the cities must change to accommodate what I want, it honestly sounds as if you like certain aspects of city living but not others. The problem is that they more or less come as a bundle.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  The problem is that they more or less come as a bundle. Not everywhere. Salt Lake City for example has wide streets and multi-story underground garages to allow locals and commuters alike to drive to the city, with a walkable city center above the garages. The newest residential buildings in the city also advertise their double-walled soundproofing between units.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    If you're OK with smaller cities, then there are quite a few options. I know quite a few people who live in downtown Raleigh for example. But I suspect that most of the people advocating for city living are thinking more in terms of SF and NYC.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      I'm in the process of moving from SLC to SF myself, and if you are okay with staying in like a five block radius, there are quite decent walkable food and living options in SLC. The air gets pretty bad, though.
      - ghaff 10y ago
        I was never especially wowed by SLC when I used to visit there semi-regularly though the nearby skiing is hard to beat. One issue I have with a lot of smaller cities with walkable cores is that you run out of choices pretty quickly. I'm familiar with a number of places in that vein and they're fine to visit once in a while but I think I'd tire of them as an example of "city living" pretty quickly if I were looking for that sort of thing.
        nitrogen 10y ago
        I never got bored with lunch for the two and a half years I worked downtown in SLC. Now that I'm in SF I am having a hard time finding replacements for some of my SLC favorites -- one advantage of a smaller city center is there's more variety in less walking distance. SLC has good Asian crossover, Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican (good stuff like mole), American, Thai, Italian, hipster, burger, pizza, sushi, etc. options all close to each other. Some of that is fairly recent.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dcosson 10y ago
I just moved to a new, big building in SF that has literally all of these things. This is the new market rate housing that Yimby groups are fighting for in cities, it's being built. At least part of the issue is a chicken and egg type problem. Older city housing stock mostly does not meet your criteria (or it does but costs several millions of dollars and has no density), so people oppose dense urban housing, so it doesn't get built, so we never get to see how it actually can meet the criteria people care about.
WildUtah 10y ago
You can have that. A freestanding home in a quiet neighborhood with a garden and space to park one car per family with affordable housing and high quality transit in reasonably dense urban development (150+ density, 2x that of the city of San Francisco) is possible. And it scales to millions of people, even tens of millions. But you need Japanese street geometry. That means small blocks and really narrow streets. Really narrow like 4-5m wide streets making up 80% of all street kilometers in your city. That's 4-5m building line to building line with no sidewalks because the entire street has to be shared. It works, but it's no good for daily driving. You can get out of town in a car with some patience, but you're going to take the train in town. If you can accept that, you can have it all. But no American city has made that choice.

by mjevans 10y ago

davidw 10y ago

These are all things you can absolutely pay to have under a market-based system. More mixed-use housing does not mean there won't be other kinds of housing. Markets would probably also provide units without all the above and while you may not want to live there, perhaps someone would accept it rather than not be able to live in an area at all.

ghaff 10y ago

While I'm not especially sympathetic to a lot of the cities must change to accommodate what I want, it honestly sounds as if you like certain aspects of city living but not others. The problem is that they more or less come as a bundle.

nitrogen 10y ago
The problem is that they more or less come as a bundle. Not everywhere. Salt Lake City for example has wide streets and multi-story underground garages to allow locals and commuters alike to drive to the city, with a walkable city center above the garages. The newest residential buildings in the city also advertise their double-walled soundproofing between units.
- ghaff 10y ago
  If you're OK with smaller cities, then there are quite a few options. I know quite a few people who live in downtown Raleigh for example. But I suspect that most of the people advocating for city living are thinking more in terms of SF and NYC.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    I'm in the process of moving from SLC to SF myself, and if you are okay with staying in like a five block radius, there are quite decent walkable food and living options in SLC. The air gets pretty bad, though.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      I was never especially wowed by SLC when I used to visit there semi-regularly though the nearby skiing is hard to beat. One issue I have with a lot of smaller cities with walkable cores is that you run out of choices pretty quickly. I'm familiar with a number of places in that vein and they're fine to visit once in a while but I think I'd tire of them as an example of "city living" pretty quickly if I were looking for that sort of thing.
      - nitrogen 10y ago
        I never got bored with lunch for the two and a half years I worked downtown in SLC. Now that I'm in SF I am having a hard time finding replacements for some of my SLC favorites -- one advantage of a smaller city center is there's more variety in less walking distance. SLC has good Asian crossover, Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican (good stuff like mole), American, Thai, Italian, hipster, burger, pizza, sushi, etc. options all close to each other. Some of that is fairly recent.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dcosson 10y ago

I just moved to a new, big building in SF that has literally all of these things. This is the new market rate housing that Yimby groups are fighting for in cities, it's being built. At least part of the issue is a chicken and egg type problem. Older city housing stock mostly does not meet your criteria (or it does but costs several millions of dollars and has no density), so people oppose dense urban housing, so it doesn't get built, so we never get to see how it actually can meet the criteria people care about.

WildUtah 10y ago

You can have that. A freestanding home in a quiet neighborhood with a garden and space to park one car per family with affordable housing and high quality transit in reasonably dense urban development (150+ density, 2x that of the city of San Francisco) is possible. And it scales to millions of people, even tens of millions. But you need Japanese street geometry. That means small blocks and really narrow streets. Really narrow like 4-5m wide streets making up 80% of all street kilometers in your city. That's 4-5m building line to building line with no sidewalks because the entire street has to be shared. It works, but it's no good for daily driving. You can get out of town in a car with some patience, but you're going to take the train in town. If you can accept that, you can have it all. But no American city has made that choice.