6 ms·

cities have only been like that for the last 10,000 years or so. they're the engine of growth of civilization. the artificial housing shortage trap has only bee

cities have only been like that for the last 10,000 years or so. they're the engine of growth of civilization. the artificial housing shortage trap has only been going on in the west since starting around 1960 or so.

s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
It's been a problem since industrialization. There was a mass migration in the 19th century to cities from small towns for work. It has caused the overcrowding you see today. Hopefully remote work, low orbit sat internet, solar efficiency, electric & autonomous cars will all lead to further decentralization. I don't see why if you could both live green and have space you wouldn't choose to do so. It doesn't seem to be a popular opinion here. All of the big city problems are caused by centralization. I certainly don't see why HN isn't embracing this perspective or at least entertaining it. I see cases brought against centralization of technologies every single day here. Luckily it's not up to you guys and it will naturally happen as we advance in technologies that allow us to spread out. Ironically y'all are developing it via Zoom, Slack, Figma, and any other collaboration tool that further allows us to asynchronously and remotely collaborate. What's the alternative? Abandoning the people that already live there and all the progress we've made in transportation in the last century. The writing is on the wall, the technologies and ideas are pointing in that direction. The current solutions are falling apart and covered in shit.
- brosinante 7y ago
  Hopefully remote work, low orbit sat internet, solar efficiency, electric & autonomous cars will all lead to further Technical solutions to people problems.
  - omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
    It's all people problems. To be fair, those technical solutions would address the people problems precipitated by the earlier technical solutions that drove people to cities in the first place, which were created to address earlier people problems, and so on....
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
    Remote work: your career is where you base your life around. If you want true freedom, remote work is necessary. Low orbit sat. internet: internet access should be a fundamental right to all humans, there are still areas all around the world, including the US where there's little to no service because it's not economically viable to put a tower up or run lines. Solar panels: if the internet is a right, then electricity definitely is. The ability to generate your own energy doesn't only embrace green ideals, it embraces American ideals. Electic & autonomous cars: America is huge, and we all want to be connected w/o being crowded. If we can travel and stay connected with each other in a clean and safe way we should do it. Trains are part of it, but let's not throwaway a century of progress. Source: I live in a small town. I have fresh air, I can see the stardust, and I paid $75k for my 3 bedroom house.
    - brosinante 7y ago
      Most people don't live in the states, many places don't get sun coverage and those that do are too poor to invest on solar or maintain it, there's better ways to get internet besides orbiting routers, what's "true freedom" and why is a career required to have it.
      - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
        > Most people don't live in the states, The thread I replied to referenced American housing so I chose that perspective both in terms of location and financial status. > there's better ways to get internet besides orbiting routers Carriers refuse to put up towers in low populated areas that won't make money. Utility companies and ISPs will not run fiber for the same reasons. Current satellite providers only offer geo-sat orbit and only have a couple satellites. This adds up to terrible latency and god awful bandwidth limits. Starlink on the other hand has a potential to be faster than fiber in some scenarios. Haven't heard from Loon. Facebook gave up. What's the way you suggest? Honestly satellites sound the most practical of those lol.
        vangelis 7y ago
        ISPs won't run fiber even when we give them money hand over fist to do it.
- moultano 7y ago
  Or we could just make tall buildings legal to build again.
  - yibg 7y ago
    Plenty of tall buildings in some cities (like Toronto), with more being built. Prices are still stupid high.
    - baybal2 7y ago
      Because there is not enough of them! Having 1000000 people being able to afford $1m flats is better than 1000 of them
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
      If 1M people want to move to your city but you only build housing for 100k of them, it's not really going to move the needle very much on price, even if you built "a lot" of housing. The amount of housing built has to be considered in comparison to the demand for more housing. The absolute numbers matter much less than the relative ones.
      - yibg 7y ago
        Yes and it doesn’t matter much if those 100k are high rise or not, still not enough.
    - cactus2093 7y ago
      This is an argument I see all the time from the supply & demand denier side of the housing argument, and I'm sorry but it's just so incredibly stupid. It would be like if someone was dying of dehydration, they drink a couple drops of water but are still dehydrated, then conclude oh well, I guess water is not what I need. If you're not going to address the quantities involved how can you possible conclude that it's not working? I know less about Toronto but to use San Francisco as an example, there were something like 150,000 new jobs added in the last decade and 20,000 new housing units built. Of course it's not solving the problem yet, it doesn't mean that we don't need more housing, exactly the opposite.
- flaque 7y ago
  It might be unfair to call a city “overcrowded” since the defining nature of a city is growth and people.
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
    I didn't call cities overcrowded. There are many cities that are perfectly stable and have healthy housing markets and costs of living. I said the migrations caused overcrowding, and it caused it only in specific cities.
- vangelis 7y ago
  I'd rather see fiber run anywhere that's electrified than satellite internet.
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
    You'll see whatever is practical and economical. It'll be a combination of fiber/wireless in cities and low orbit satellites in rural areas.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  There was a golden age after the war and before the Interstate system, at least in the US. Decentralization causes more issues than it solves; it's extremely inefficient both from an energy and tax perspective (lots more infrastructure to serve the same people) and it ruins farmlands and existing biospheres. Density is very environmentally friendly, both in terms of energy use per person and in the fact that it limits the impact of human development.
  - notfromhere 7y ago
    It really doesn’t. These cities already exist and are depopulating. It would be inefficient to not use these already existing metropolises, many of which were built pre-mass transit and are actually more energy efficient than the post-ww2 boomtowns. Up until the 1980s, the variation in earnings and cost of living was around 20%. Meaning someone in rural Missouri could earn on average roughly 80% of a New Yorkers average wage. That wage premium has now skyrocketed, as has housing. Allowing capital to concentrate in so few cities is why we have a few high performing metros and a ton of depopulated ones. And why we have Bay Area residents bidding six to seven figures for SFHs that would be condemned elsewhere.
    - mcguire 7y ago
      Overall, I agree with your assessment, but the median household income in NYC is $57k; in Missouri, it's $53k. I don't have access to a breakdown now, but I would guess the difference is < 50%.
      - pchristensen 7y ago
        It sounds like you get it, but comparing a city to a state is misleading, especially for cities with a huge metro area that contains a lot of the prosperity. St. Louis County's median income is $35k (61% of NYC avg), and Jackson County (main part of Kansas City) is $26k (46% of NYC). The county median incomes NYC counties: Manhattan (New York County) is $67k, Brooklyn (Kings) is $25k, Queens is $26k, Bronx is $18k, and Staten Island (Richmond County) is $32k. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_counties_by_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_counties...
sushisource 7y ago
This position pretty brazenly ignores the reality that global population is, you know, maybe just a little bit higher than it was 10,000 years ago?

s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago

It's been a problem since industrialization. There was a mass migration in the 19th century to cities from small towns for work. It has caused the overcrowding you see today. Hopefully remote work, low orbit sat internet, solar efficiency, electric & autonomous cars will all lead to further decentralization. I don't see why if you could both live green and have space you wouldn't choose to do so. It doesn't seem to be a popular opinion here. All of the big city problems are caused by centralization. I certainly don't see why HN isn't embracing this perspective or at least entertaining it. I see cases brought against centralization of technologies every single day here. Luckily it's not up to you guys and it will naturally happen as we advance in technologies that allow us to spread out. Ironically y'all are developing it via Zoom, Slack, Figma, and any other collaboration tool that further allows us to asynchronously and remotely collaborate. What's the alternative? Abandoning the people that already live there and all the progress we've made in transportation in the last century. The writing is on the wall, the technologies and ideas are pointing in that direction. The current solutions are falling apart and covered in shit.

brosinante 7y ago
Hopefully remote work, low orbit sat internet, solar efficiency, electric & autonomous cars will all lead to further Technical solutions to people problems.
- omgwtfbyobbq 7y ago
  It's all people problems. To be fair, those technical solutions would address the people problems precipitated by the earlier technical solutions that drove people to cities in the first place, which were created to address earlier people problems, and so on....
- s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
  Remote work: your career is where you base your life around. If you want true freedom, remote work is necessary. Low orbit sat. internet: internet access should be a fundamental right to all humans, there are still areas all around the world, including the US where there's little to no service because it's not economically viable to put a tower up or run lines. Solar panels: if the internet is a right, then electricity definitely is. The ability to generate your own energy doesn't only embrace green ideals, it embraces American ideals. Electic & autonomous cars: America is huge, and we all want to be connected w/o being crowded. If we can travel and stay connected with each other in a clean and safe way we should do it. Trains are part of it, but let's not throwaway a century of progress. Source: I live in a small town. I have fresh air, I can see the stardust, and I paid $75k for my 3 bedroom house.
  - brosinante 7y ago
    Most people don't live in the states, many places don't get sun coverage and those that do are too poor to invest on solar or maintain it, there's better ways to get internet besides orbiting routers, what's "true freedom" and why is a career required to have it.
    - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
      > Most people don't live in the states, The thread I replied to referenced American housing so I chose that perspective both in terms of location and financial status. > there's better ways to get internet besides orbiting routers Carriers refuse to put up towers in low populated areas that won't make money. Utility companies and ISPs will not run fiber for the same reasons. Current satellite providers only offer geo-sat orbit and only have a couple satellites. This adds up to terrible latency and god awful bandwidth limits. Starlink on the other hand has a potential to be faster than fiber in some scenarios. Haven't heard from Loon. Facebook gave up. What's the way you suggest? Honestly satellites sound the most practical of those lol.
      - vangelis 7y ago
        ISPs won't run fiber even when we give them money hand over fist to do it.
moultano 7y ago
Or we could just make tall buildings legal to build again.
- yibg 7y ago
  Plenty of tall buildings in some cities (like Toronto), with more being built. Prices are still stupid high.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    Because there is not enough of them! Having 1000000 people being able to afford $1m flats is better than 1000 of them
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    If 1M people want to move to your city but you only build housing for 100k of them, it's not really going to move the needle very much on price, even if you built "a lot" of housing. The amount of housing built has to be considered in comparison to the demand for more housing. The absolute numbers matter much less than the relative ones.
    - yibg 7y ago
      Yes and it doesn’t matter much if those 100k are high rise or not, still not enough.
  - cactus2093 7y ago
    This is an argument I see all the time from the supply & demand denier side of the housing argument, and I'm sorry but it's just so incredibly stupid. It would be like if someone was dying of dehydration, they drink a couple drops of water but are still dehydrated, then conclude oh well, I guess water is not what I need. If you're not going to address the quantities involved how can you possible conclude that it's not working? I know less about Toronto but to use San Francisco as an example, there were something like 150,000 new jobs added in the last decade and 20,000 new housing units built. Of course it's not solving the problem yet, it doesn't mean that we don't need more housing, exactly the opposite.
flaque 7y ago
It might be unfair to call a city “overcrowded” since the defining nature of a city is growth and people.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
  I didn't call cities overcrowded. There are many cities that are perfectly stable and have healthy housing markets and costs of living. I said the migrations caused overcrowding, and it caused it only in specific cities.
vangelis 7y ago
I'd rather see fiber run anywhere that's electrified than satellite internet.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
  You'll see whatever is practical and economical. It'll be a combination of fiber/wireless in cities and low orbit satellites in rural areas.
bobthepanda 7y ago
There was a golden age after the war and before the Interstate system, at least in the US. Decentralization causes more issues than it solves; it's extremely inefficient both from an energy and tax perspective (lots more infrastructure to serve the same people) and it ruins farmlands and existing biospheres. Density is very environmentally friendly, both in terms of energy use per person and in the fact that it limits the impact of human development.
- notfromhere 7y ago
  It really doesn’t. These cities already exist and are depopulating. It would be inefficient to not use these already existing metropolises, many of which were built pre-mass transit and are actually more energy efficient than the post-ww2 boomtowns. Up until the 1980s, the variation in earnings and cost of living was around 20%. Meaning someone in rural Missouri could earn on average roughly 80% of a New Yorkers average wage. That wage premium has now skyrocketed, as has housing. Allowing capital to concentrate in so few cities is why we have a few high performing metros and a ton of depopulated ones. And why we have Bay Area residents bidding six to seven figures for SFHs that would be condemned elsewhere.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    Overall, I agree with your assessment, but the median household income in NYC is $57k; in Missouri, it's $53k. I don't have access to a breakdown now, but I would guess the difference is < 50%.
    - pchristensen 7y ago
      It sounds like you get it, but comparing a city to a state is misleading, especially for cities with a huge metro area that contains a lot of the prosperity. St. Louis County's median income is $35k (61% of NYC avg), and Jackson County (main part of Kansas City) is $26k (46% of NYC). The county median incomes NYC counties: Manhattan (New York County) is $67k, Brooklyn (Kings) is $25k, Queens is $26k, Bronx is $18k, and Staten Island (Richmond County) is $32k. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_counties_by_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_counties...

sushisource 7y ago

This position pretty brazenly ignores the reality that global population is, you know, maybe just a little bit higher than it was 10,000 years ago?