5 ms·

A city/town/neighborhood is part of a state and doesn't live in isolation. If you live in SF, your water comes from.... drum roll, Hetch Hetchy damn, which is

A city/town/neighborhood is part of a state and doesn't live in isolation. If you live in SF, your water comes from.... drum roll, Hetch Hetchy damn, which is a 3 h 49 min (177.7 mi) away. Now image if the people living where the pipes come along, decided not to have them in their backyard..... because of democracy, they vote to tear them away. No water for you.... Democracy can't exist without limits, otherwise you run the risk of 51% controller what the other 49% do in every way... Zoning laws are restriction on the rights of what can be build in a property, and they should exist in a Macro scale, Otherwise, your neighbors might decide against water pipes to come in your house, because democracy...

exabrial 9y ago
I think the lesson here is don't live in the desert... So your neighbors don't have to violate your rights
- woah 9y ago
  SF is not in the desert.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    In terms of locally-available water, it really pretty much is. As is almost all of the U.S. starting a couple hundred miles west of the Mississippi River and the Pacific, the Northwest excepted. San Francisco itself has next to no indigenous lakes or (fresh)waterways. Lake Merced, Laguna Honda, and Mountain Lake. A handful of springs. Already in the 19th century, water was in limited supply and brought in from the Peninsula. Much of San Francisco (the Richmond and Sunset districts) were sand dunes. The part that wasn't was in large part wetlands (Marina, Financial District, SoMa, Bayview). Rainfall ranges from about 12 in (30 cm) in a dry year to about 30 in (75 cm) in wet, but that's strongly concentrated in the winter months, meaning you need a large amount of water storage for the summer (and, again: no lakes). If you look at a population density map of the U.S., or one with higher levels of detail showing urbanisations, you note that the pattern devolves from very regular in the east to almost a desert-island scattering in the west. Much of that is accounted for by water availablility, and the water shadow of cities. Look at the map below, which shows the Colorado River, and realise that Los Angeles's watershed reaches very nearly to Denver. In many ways, it is effectively preventing any other cities from emerging throughout that region (not that several haven't tried). http://www.ancientrails.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/US_Population.png http://www.ancientrails.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/US_Po... A precipitation average map shows very nearly the same distribution. (Not precisely, of course, but close.) https://i.pinimg.com/originals/88/51/cc/8851cc3ed4f7e048b217014a7c21ec0a.gif https://i.pinimg.com/originals/88/51/cc/8851cc3ed4f7e048b217...
- twobyfour 9y ago
  Right... You realize that unless you're getting your water from a well in your backyard it's being piped from somewhere? And the backyard well option is used virtually nowhere in the developed world, and vanishingly few places with robust economic opportunity.
  - bradfa 9y ago
    I live in upstate NY, USA. Lots of people have well water and septic tanks around here. Growing up in NH, USA lots of people there had wells and septic tanks, too.
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      I seriously doubt there's enough well/aquifer water in the US to sustain the entire US population for very long. As I understand it, many aquifers are being depleted right now and/or at serious risk of salination due to over usage. If you moved everyone else who gets their water from reservoirs to well/aquifers, there would be no chance.
      - twobyfour 9y ago
        Right, and the other side of that is that cities couldn't exist at all if we relied on well water alone. There isn't enough concentrated in one place, even if it were clean enough to avoid continuzous cholera outbreaks. Even in relatively wet parts of the country. New York for instance uses billions of gallons daily, piped in from upstate - and has had to for over a hundred years.
        deadmetheny 9y ago
        Upstate New York is in no danger of drying out - they get plenty of rainwater from lake effect storms and snows.
        twobyfour 9y ago
        The point isn't that the area can't supply its own water, nor that upstate NY can't supply enough water for NYC. The point is that even in a water-rich region, a city like NYC (or even one the size of Albany) cannot support its population off well water. Thus the existence of modern economic centers is dependent on piping in water. Telling city dwellers that they should get their water from wells so as to avoid dependence on their neighbors for their water is an absurdity.
- unethical_ban 9y ago
  Expanding it, you're saying "If you can't self-sustain your residence from within an arbitrary municipal boundry, it's your own fault if others won't pipe water to you". That's just not how the world should work. Every major city in the country gets its water and power from other areas outside their town boundry.
- maccard 9y ago
  I just looked up where my water supply is sourced from, and it's 30 miles. I don't live in a desert, or anything close to it. I presume you feel the same about power? Again, I looked up my closest major power source, and it's a nuclear plant about 30 miles away the other direction.

exabrial 9y ago

I think the lesson here is don't live in the desert... So your neighbors don't have to violate your rights

woah 9y ago
SF is not in the desert.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  In terms of locally-available water, it really pretty much is. As is almost all of the U.S. starting a couple hundred miles west of the Mississippi River and the Pacific, the Northwest excepted. San Francisco itself has next to no indigenous lakes or (fresh)waterways. Lake Merced, Laguna Honda, and Mountain Lake. A handful of springs. Already in the 19th century, water was in limited supply and brought in from the Peninsula. Much of San Francisco (the Richmond and Sunset districts) were sand dunes. The part that wasn't was in large part wetlands (Marina, Financial District, SoMa, Bayview). Rainfall ranges from about 12 in (30 cm) in a dry year to about 30 in (75 cm) in wet, but that's strongly concentrated in the winter months, meaning you need a large amount of water storage for the summer (and, again: no lakes). If you look at a population density map of the U.S., or one with higher levels of detail showing urbanisations, you note that the pattern devolves from very regular in the east to almost a desert-island scattering in the west. Much of that is accounted for by water availablility, and the water shadow of cities. Look at the map below, which shows the Colorado River, and realise that Los Angeles's watershed reaches very nearly to Denver. In many ways, it is effectively preventing any other cities from emerging throughout that region (not that several haven't tried). http://www.ancientrails.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/US_Population.png http://www.ancientrails.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/US_Po... A precipitation average map shows very nearly the same distribution. (Not precisely, of course, but close.) https://i.pinimg.com/originals/88/51/cc/8851cc3ed4f7e048b217014a7c21ec0a.gif https://i.pinimg.com/originals/88/51/cc/8851cc3ed4f7e048b217...
twobyfour 9y ago
Right... You realize that unless you're getting your water from a well in your backyard it's being piped from somewhere? And the backyard well option is used virtually nowhere in the developed world, and vanishingly few places with robust economic opportunity.
- bradfa 9y ago
  I live in upstate NY, USA. Lots of people have well water and septic tanks around here. Growing up in NH, USA lots of people there had wells and septic tanks, too.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    I seriously doubt there's enough well/aquifer water in the US to sustain the entire US population for very long. As I understand it, many aquifers are being depleted right now and/or at serious risk of salination due to over usage. If you moved everyone else who gets their water from reservoirs to well/aquifers, there would be no chance.
    - twobyfour 9y ago
      Right, and the other side of that is that cities couldn't exist at all if we relied on well water alone. There isn't enough concentrated in one place, even if it were clean enough to avoid continuzous cholera outbreaks. Even in relatively wet parts of the country. New York for instance uses billions of gallons daily, piped in from upstate - and has had to for over a hundred years.
      - deadmetheny 9y ago
        Upstate New York is in no danger of drying out - they get plenty of rainwater from lake effect storms and snows.
        twobyfour 9y ago
        The point isn't that the area can't supply its own water, nor that upstate NY can't supply enough water for NYC. The point is that even in a water-rich region, a city like NYC (or even one the size of Albany) cannot support its population off well water. Thus the existence of modern economic centers is dependent on piping in water. Telling city dwellers that they should get their water from wells so as to avoid dependence on their neighbors for their water is an absurdity.
unethical_ban 9y ago
Expanding it, you're saying "If you can't self-sustain your residence from within an arbitrary municipal boundry, it's your own fault if others won't pipe water to you". That's just not how the world should work. Every major city in the country gets its water and power from other areas outside their town boundry.
maccard 9y ago
I just looked up where my water supply is sourced from, and it's 30 miles. I don't live in a desert, or anything close to it. I presume you feel the same about power? Again, I looked up my closest major power source, and it's a nuclear plant about 30 miles away the other direction.