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When there's not enough land, you build high rises. It's what everyone everywhere else in the world does. It's that simple.
by jdlyga 8y ago
When there's not enough land, you build high rises. It's what everyone everywhere else in the world does. It's that simple.
- xienze 8y agoYeah you just need to either find empty land to build said highrises, which doesn't exist, or force people out of their houses through eminent domain. Shocking that homeowners would vote against that.
- rayiner 8y agoThe government doesn’t take land by eminent domain to build high rises. (At least, not in Cupertino.) What these folks re voting for is laws to restrict what property owners can build on the land they own.
- ada1981 8y agoIn Brooklyn they took it away from housing to build a sports stadium.
- rayiner 8y agoEminent domain is limited to taking land for a public benefit. Sports stadiums are on the border, but sports are an important part of the culture of cities so you can see the "public benefit" angle. But governments can't use it just to build an apartment complex.
- ada1981 8y agoI did my grad work a decade ago in Urban Planning at one of the top programs in the world and eminent domain was always a controversial topic. It seems one could argue that affordable housing is much more a public benefit than a for profit sports stadium. As for Brooklyn, looks like the project was a bust. https://reason.com/blog/2016/01/12/barclays-center-eminent-domain-fail https://reason.com/blog/2016/01/12/barclays-center-eminent-d...
- adrianN 8y agoOr you offer sufficiently high prices for their land that they opt to sell? The problem is that people vote to make it illegal to build multi-family homes, no matter how high the price.
- xienze 8y agoMulti-family homes = poor people. Purchasing land for wildly-inflated amounts (remember, if you're not forcing someone to sell the seller has ALL THE LEVERAGE) and renting out to low-income residents isn't exactly a sound business move.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- adrianN 8y agoYou realize that most cities in Europe contain mainly multi family homes and apartment buildings? Look at Paris for example. Rents in luxury apartments are still sky high and poor people can't afford the city center. edit: I hear Manhatten is an example in the US for an area where apartments!=poor people (except in sitcoms).
- drewmate 8y agoI've observed the same re: the culture difference in NYC and other American cities. New York got dense before the advent of the automobile, so generations (both rich and poor) have lived there in apartments of varying quality. Other cities (like San Francisco) had some density but plenty of open land when cars became widespread, so the rich spread into the available land, and the poor stayed in (or immigrated to) the existing density. This is no longer the reality (it's basically rich people everywhere now) but the stigma of living in apartments remains and likely will until a generation or two has grown up in them.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoParis is famous for its height restrictions inside La Defense, though it is all multi-unit housing, they are only 5 stories or so. Of course, this maintains lots of charm.
- detaro 8y agoOr you allow property owners to replace their existing buildings with bigger ones? It also seems odd that in a city where Apple could buy a massive plot of land for their HQ somewhat recently there's no free space left?
- austenallred 8y agoThat’s not what’s happening. There is plenty of land to build high rises and plenty of developers with land to build it on, it’s just illegal to do so.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> which doesn't exist I grew up in Cupertino. There are still tons of empty lots everywhere. (Same in San Francisco.) Note that when I say "empty lot" I don't mean "park". It's just un-owned plots with garbage and grass everywhere.
- xienze 8y agoNo offense, but have you been there lately? That entire valley is packed.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> have you been there lately? Three weeks ago. Once in a while, the lots fill in and houses are developed. But there are still tons of empty lots there, at least in Cupertino.
- beamatronic 8y agoWhich part of Cupertino has “tons of lots”?
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> Which part of Cupertino has “tons of lots”? North of Bubb as you go up towards Regnart Road. (Many are odd-shaped due to Cupertino's history of altering streets to navigate around wealthy peoples' houses.)
- thepangolino 8y agoWhat do you mean by "un-owned" plots? Can I just get a permit and build a house there without anyone stopping me? Someone has to own it.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> What do you mean by "un-owned" plots? City owns them and refuses to sell or develop it into a park. Or it's owned but undeveloped, either because the owner is convinced the city will authorize multistory development any day now or the city has put a restriction on developing the lot. Getting construction permits can be very expensive in the Bay Area's suburbs.
- reaperducer 8y ago>It's what everyone everywhere else in the world does Simply not true. London, for example, has very few high rises for the number of people there. And the NIMBY battles are epic. Far more inflamed than even Silicon Valley or the Seattle suburbs.
- toasterlovin 8y agoThe fundamental problem is that the people who already own property have 0 incentive to change anything. They also happen to be the voters.