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> Other objections were particular to Berkeley — like a zoning board member’s complaint that shadows from the homes might hurt the supply of locally grown food.
by optimusclimb 9y ago
> Other objections were particular to Berkeley — like a zoning board member’s complaint that shadows from the homes might hurt the supply of locally grown food.
Bay Area housing woes summed up in one sentence.
- Justsignedup 9y agoWhen a statement so stupid is argued, you know you have a major problem...
- TheAdamAndChe 9y agoIt depends on the priorities of the people living there. If economic growth maximization for corporations is your priority, then high-density housing is incredibly important. If, however, your priority is greenhouse gas emission control and mitigation, then solid locally grown food production would be seen as more important.
- eckmLJE 9y agoHigh-density housing does more to mitigate energy use than growing food in your back yard instead of in the plentiful land throughout California.
- davidw 9y agoIf you want to curb greenhouse gas emissions, you want to fight sprawl and all the huge car commutes it entails. The easiest way to do that is to allow denser living - including daily necessities withing walking or biking distance. When I lived in Italy, we had withing walking distance: kids schools, grocery store, a few cafes and bars, a barber, a pastry shop and a few other things. A few urban gardens do not a serious supply chain make: better to preserve real farmland outside of cities.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoI prefer my sprawl and an electric car over dense urban living. The US has an enormous amount of farmland (915 million acres; two thirds of all land is farmland) [1], able to provide food for many times our current population. The problem with housing is "What do you want to be near, and how much will you pay to do so?" Try mandating or financially incentivizing remote work to employers, thereby disconnecting geography to income before dictating housing density. San Francisco's problem, for example, is that too many people want to live in the same place. You will never be able to satiate demand to be there (similar to how more roads begets more traffic). [1] https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources/Highlights/Farms_and_Farmland/Highlights_Farms_and_Farmland.pdf https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resou...
- davidw 9y agoThere's room for everyone is kind of the point - live and let live and all that. Some places would still be suburbs, some still very rural.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y agoIf there's room for everyone, then why are there locations where it costs $3k/month for a studio apartment? What do you think causes such insane prices?
- davidw 9y agoThis is a very well studied problem. You have a lot of demand, and limited supply: prices go up. Why do you have a lack of supply in that area? Read the article.
- s73ver_ 9y agoThere's room for everyone in the country as a whole. Hell, there's room for everyone who currently lives in California in California as a whole. The problem is that too many people want to live in certain smaller parts.
- nickbauman 9y agoIn most of Europe, roads compete with arable land for space. Not so in the US (yet).
- ng12 9y ago> If, however, your priority is greenhouse gas emission control and mitigation... Then you move to a self-sustaining homestead in Idaho. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
- luckydata 9y agoYou have to be pretty out of touch to think that lack of urban density curbs the emission of greenhouse gases.
- refurb 9y agoIf, however, your priority is greenhouse gas emission control and mitigation, then solid locally grown food production would be seen as more important. Is it? One could argue that commercial farming produces far less greenhouse gas emissions than a lone farmer in his backyard. Shipping a few hundred tons of tomatoes a few hundred miles is probably less CO2/tomato than a guy driving around Berkeley in his beater, dropping of a few pounds of tomatoes to his customers.
- mc32 9y agoThat they think they can be more productive than even a small family farm is silly. Cities are efficient in housing people, farms are efficient producing food. You can comingle that if you live in a suburb, or a rural area.... But in a city that invites this kind of NYMBYism. Else, if they really want to, make use of greenhouse technologies.
- closeparen 9y agoBerkeley is a suburb.
- mc32 9y agoIt may have started out as one, but now its a city proper with city issues. It's no longer a remote suburb. Probably not since the bridge was built across the bay.
- sjg007 9y agoOr just have roof top gardens.
- dsnuh 9y agoClassic Berkeley.
- gumby 9y agoIt's a clever argument, the equivalent of "think of the children!" aimed at winning over people who aren't really paying attention to the issue.
- el_benhameen 9y agoAnd the guy’s garden looked like trash, to boot. Just weeds and hard soil.
- jessaustin 9y agoHaha just imagine all the complaints he'd get if he ran a noisy gas-burning tiller through it.
- bluthru 9y agoYour property's access to sunlight is a real consideration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_light
- nickthemagicman 9y agoThis is actually a legit legal argument called servitude of sunlight. Architects are trained to consider lighting as a part of livability of a home. There's medical studies that say sunlight affects mood and health. If you love sun and/or spent a bunch of money on an architect to design a home centered around sunlight and a giant track home gets erected next to yours blocking all of your sunlight you've lost alot of value in your home. It becomes an even more interesting when your home is solar powered. Blocking your sun is literally reducing your energy and costing you money.