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> Nah, California really isn't that densely populated. Besides, denser-type development would be mean less resource usage, person for person. He's talking abou

by darawk 8y ago

> Nah, California really isn't that densely populated. Besides, denser-type development would be mean less resource usage, person for person. He's talking about Los Angeles specifically, not California generally. > Agglomeration of an industrial sector in a particular area is normal and fine. It happens, even though companies have to pay higher rents and higher salaries, because it's advantageous to productivity to concentrate a wide variety of specialists for a certain field in a particular area. If companies want to spread out more, of course that's fine, but forcing them to do so would almost certainly hurt their performance. If you want lots more high-paying jobs, maybe not the best idea. The essence of his point is that there's a tradeoff between livability and productivity. As an LA resident (though not a homeowner, so I don't have NIMBY-skin in the game), traffic is horrendous, and substantially increasing the population would make it unbearable. Now, you can argue that we should build better mass transit infrastructure, and I think that's a good idea. But that needs to happen first, and the point I think is that there are really a complex set of tradeoffs here between the character of a place (along many axes) and its population density. I do think that the scales are often overly tilted towards NIMBYism and against dense housing, but I also think its important to acknowledge the reality of the tradeoffs.

ummonk 8y ago
Things might be different in LA’s situation, but if it is anything like the Bay Area, dense housing located where the jobs are won’t worsen traffic much. Better to have people living near work than commuting in from distant suburbs because they can’t find housing near their workplace.
TulliusCicero 8y ago
> He's talking about Los Angeles specifically, not California generally. And I meant not just California as a whole, but California's metro areas and cities too. Los Angeles isn't that dense. > But that needs to happen first This is wrong. Transportation and land use are complementary, and development in each should happen (and has to happen) in parallel. If anything, since LA has been building rail the last couple decades, it's really zoning that needs to catch up: more people would actually use transit if they lived within easy walking distance of it. > I also think its important to acknowledge the reality of the tradeoffs. LA tried building out of traffic by doubling down on freeways and sprawl enablement for decades, and it only succeeded in making the problem worse. The only logical response is to try something new, perhaps something that's already proven successful in many other cities around the globe.
CydeWeys 8y ago
The transit won't get built if it doesn't make economic sense to do so, and right now it doesn't make sense to do so because most communities aren't dense enough to support it. Fix the zoning first and allow dense construction, and then it will become economical to build out transit. No one's going to build subway out to single family home suburbs; it will simply never be economical. About the only thing that makes sense there is bus routes (which already exist). But building subway to a neighborhood that consists of 5 floor multi-family homes and mixed street level retail? Yeah, that works. That's what large swaths of NYC look like, and land value here is higher because of it (which should appeal to existing owners).
- traek 8y ago
  The transit already getting built in LA. It’s just slow (Purple Line won’t be finished till 2028). Measure R is effective over 30 years. These things take time. It’s fine for a city to take a more measured approach to growth, and make sure that the infrastructure is capable of supporting it, before going full laissez-faire “build! build! build!”.
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    Ridiculous. How much do you want to bet I can walk a block or two from plenty of light rail/subway stations in LA and hit mandatory single-family homes? What's the point of spending tens of millions on a new train station, and then intentionally making it hard for people to actually access? "Gee, nobody uses the transit that we made sure people can't live next to. I wonder why?" Every train station should have at least mid-rise housing in a 4-block radius, and low-rise from 5 to 8 blocks out.

by darawk 8y ago

ummonk 8y ago

Things might be different in LA’s situation, but if it is anything like the Bay Area, dense housing located where the jobs are won’t worsen traffic much. Better to have people living near work than commuting in from distant suburbs because they can’t find housing near their workplace.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

> He's talking about Los Angeles specifically, not California generally. And I meant not just California as a whole, but California's metro areas and cities too. Los Angeles isn't that dense. > But that needs to happen first This is wrong. Transportation and land use are complementary, and development in each should happen (and has to happen) in parallel. If anything, since LA has been building rail the last couple decades, it's really zoning that needs to catch up: more people would actually use transit if they lived within easy walking distance of it. > I also think its important to acknowledge the reality of the tradeoffs. LA tried building out of traffic by doubling down on freeways and sprawl enablement for decades, and it only succeeded in making the problem worse. The only logical response is to try something new, perhaps something that's already proven successful in many other cities around the globe.

CydeWeys 8y ago

The transit won't get built if it doesn't make economic sense to do so, and right now it doesn't make sense to do so because most communities aren't dense enough to support it. Fix the zoning first and allow dense construction, and then it will become economical to build out transit. No one's going to build subway out to single family home suburbs; it will simply never be economical. About the only thing that makes sense there is bus routes (which already exist). But building subway to a neighborhood that consists of 5 floor multi-family homes and mixed street level retail? Yeah, that works. That's what large swaths of NYC look like, and land value here is higher because of it (which should appeal to existing owners).

traek 8y ago
The transit already getting built in LA. It’s just slow (Purple Line won’t be finished till 2028). Measure R is effective over 30 years. These things take time. It’s fine for a city to take a more measured approach to growth, and make sure that the infrastructure is capable of supporting it, before going full laissez-faire “build! build! build!”.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  Ridiculous. How much do you want to bet I can walk a block or two from plenty of light rail/subway stations in LA and hit mandatory single-family homes? What's the point of spending tens of millions on a new train station, and then intentionally making it hard for people to actually access? "Gee, nobody uses the transit that we made sure people can't live next to. I wonder why?" Every train station should have at least mid-rise housing in a 4-block radius, and low-rise from 5 to 8 blocks out.