4 ms·

I think if given the opportunity, most people would move to a place where they have a shorter commute, which is one of the most consistent indicators of life sa

by mjfl 9y ago

I think if given the opportunity, most people would move to a place where they have a shorter commute, which is one of the most consistent indicators of life satisfaction, on par with having a happy marriage. The problem is that you can only afford to live in a city if you are poor enough to be subsidized or rich enough to afford to subsidize everyone else. The middle gets cut out.

brut 9y ago
Maybe there's a way to get the best of both worlds? High density with space? I don't know much about civil engineering, architecture and urban planning but I'm absolutely certain the the current state is just a local minimum, not an optimal solution. I'm pretty sure we could optimize for higher density, shorter commute and larger living spaces if we wanted to.
- mjfl 9y ago
  You just need family-size non-luxury apartments to buy (and not rent). The only apartments of that size in any city that I know cost in the millions per unit. That's simply out of reach for your local dentist or pizza shop owner with a wife and 3 kids.
  - crazy2be 9y ago
    Out of reach for your local dentist? Huh? Dentists make more than most people here, $159k/yr average[1]. Software developers make a little over half that on average, depending on which sub occupation they work in. [2]. [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/dentists.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/dentists.htm [2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/mobile/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
    - VLM 9y ago
      Dentists already have a mortgage sized student loan payment to make. People also confuse revenue with profit. My coworker's OB/GYN has great revenue, but her insurance costs are amazing, almost as much as my salary. From memory of my kids birth the hospital direct bills expensive equipment, certainly my buddies wife did not personally fund the construction of the birthing center room, however if my dentist wants a new x-ray or new chair AFAIK its literally cash out of his checking account. Its comparing apples and oranges. Much like comparing U3 employment stats in an employee culture like the USA where as in Japan I understand they hire once a year for new grads and if you don't make it into a real job at a real company (and very many don't) its a lifetime of either NEET or temp work, so their concept of U3 means very little compared to our concept of U3. Their concept of U3 is kind of like our concept of U3 of military service academy recent officer graduates.
    - mjfl 9y ago
      At best tangential to my point.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      In USA the dentists who are starting families and would theoretically be looking for this sort of apartment are all $300k in debt already.
- verisimilidude 9y ago
  Oddly enough, Tokyo felt like high density and high space to me. Although my apartment was just one tiny room, I realized I was spending all my waking time outside. My apartment was my bedroom and storage, nothing more. I did most of my living in the city. And Tokyo is HUGE. (This is in pretty stark contrast to my experiences in America, where I spend most of my waking time at home, even when hanging out with friends.) When I came to that conclusion, suddenly the density didn't bother me so much. It was a change in mindset rather than actual physical space.
ziikutv 9y ago
That's likely. I on the other hand would never want to live downtown. I like the suburban feeling. Love it. I commute for an hour and third. Downtown areas just feel too busy for me; congested, noisy, claustrophobic. Edit: Addendum, Toronto native.
shados 9y ago
Even if you can afford to live in the city, most richer people I know move to the suburb for quality of life reasons. Not just for space either. I live in an extremely gentrified neighborhood in one of the most densely populated city in the US. My condo is worth 1.2-1.5 million (I don't live in California nor NYC, so that's quite high here). Yet even with that, it took 3 police cars to get a dude with a ton of warrant who has been attacking local women to get off from my stairway...for the second time in 2 weeks. We keep having to call out to get drunk homeless people from my parking lot, and crack addicts hide by the door to our storage rooms. You can pay millions and still deal with that crap. Or you can move a 30 minute drive away and have a fancy house with a yard and instead of drunk people screaming you'll hear your neighbors kids screaming at each other while playing in a pool (which most people like better). I'm a city person, but it's not hard to figure out why people would not want to deal with the city, and why people in the city quickly become NIMBY. Now, I hear Japanese cities a somewhat more civilized. It might be a stereotype, but if its true and people can actually respect each other in close quarters, it changes the game completely.
- taurath 9y ago
  And if there were enough density to cover both rich and poor there would be way less homeless. Many of the homeless even here in Seattle are because they had an apartment but got priced out or lost their jobs.

by mjfl 9y ago

brut 9y ago

Maybe there's a way to get the best of both worlds? High density with space? I don't know much about civil engineering, architecture and urban planning but I'm absolutely certain the the current state is just a local minimum, not an optimal solution. I'm pretty sure we could optimize for higher density, shorter commute and larger living spaces if we wanted to.

mjfl 9y ago
You just need family-size non-luxury apartments to buy (and not rent). The only apartments of that size in any city that I know cost in the millions per unit. That's simply out of reach for your local dentist or pizza shop owner with a wife and 3 kids.
- crazy2be 9y ago
  Out of reach for your local dentist? Huh? Dentists make more than most people here, $159k/yr average[1]. Software developers make a little over half that on average, depending on which sub occupation they work in. [2]. [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/dentists.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/dentists.htm [2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/mobile/home.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
  - VLM 9y ago
    Dentists already have a mortgage sized student loan payment to make. People also confuse revenue with profit. My coworker's OB/GYN has great revenue, but her insurance costs are amazing, almost as much as my salary. From memory of my kids birth the hospital direct bills expensive equipment, certainly my buddies wife did not personally fund the construction of the birthing center room, however if my dentist wants a new x-ray or new chair AFAIK its literally cash out of his checking account. Its comparing apples and oranges. Much like comparing U3 employment stats in an employee culture like the USA where as in Japan I understand they hire once a year for new grads and if you don't make it into a real job at a real company (and very many don't) its a lifetime of either NEET or temp work, so their concept of U3 means very little compared to our concept of U3. Their concept of U3 is kind of like our concept of U3 of military service academy recent officer graduates.
  - mjfl 9y ago
    At best tangential to my point.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    In USA the dentists who are starting families and would theoretically be looking for this sort of apartment are all $300k in debt already.
verisimilidude 9y ago
Oddly enough, Tokyo felt like high density and high space to me. Although my apartment was just one tiny room, I realized I was spending all my waking time outside. My apartment was my bedroom and storage, nothing more. I did most of my living in the city. And Tokyo is HUGE. (This is in pretty stark contrast to my experiences in America, where I spend most of my waking time at home, even when hanging out with friends.) When I came to that conclusion, suddenly the density didn't bother me so much. It was a change in mindset rather than actual physical space.

ziikutv 9y ago

That's likely. I on the other hand would never want to live downtown. I like the suburban feeling. Love it. I commute for an hour and third. Downtown areas just feel too busy for me; congested, noisy, claustrophobic. Edit: Addendum, Toronto native.

shados 9y ago

Even if you can afford to live in the city, most richer people I know move to the suburb for quality of life reasons. Not just for space either. I live in an extremely gentrified neighborhood in one of the most densely populated city in the US. My condo is worth 1.2-1.5 million (I don't live in California nor NYC, so that's quite high here). Yet even with that, it took 3 police cars to get a dude with a ton of warrant who has been attacking local women to get off from my stairway...for the second time in 2 weeks. We keep having to call out to get drunk homeless people from my parking lot, and crack addicts hide by the door to our storage rooms. You can pay millions and still deal with that crap. Or you can move a 30 minute drive away and have a fancy house with a yard and instead of drunk people screaming you'll hear your neighbors kids screaming at each other while playing in a pool (which most people like better). I'm a city person, but it's not hard to figure out why people would not want to deal with the city, and why people in the city quickly become NIMBY. Now, I hear Japanese cities a somewhat more civilized. It might be a stereotype, but if its true and people can actually respect each other in close quarters, it changes the game completely.

taurath 9y ago
And if there were enough density to cover both rich and poor there would be way less homeless. Many of the homeless even here in Seattle are because they had an apartment but got priced out or lost their jobs.