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The reason Bay Area cities can't afford their water and sewer and roads is because they are not dense enough. Apartment dwellers demand far less water, and dri

The reason Bay Area cities can't afford their water and sewer and roads is because they are not dense enough. Apartment dwellers demand far less water, and drive on roads much less than people who live in detached homes. Density is the _solution_ to infrastructure funding.

bluGill 7y ago
Long term you are correct, but in the near term the current water system needs to be upgraded to pipes large enough to get water to the new apartment before the apartment can go in.
- thedance 7y ago
  You can get developers to build the infrastructure and finance it on their future taxes. You wouldn't believe the incremental tax from building real buildings in the Bay Area. In one particularly egregious case a single apartment building replaced several detached homes that were paying a total of $1200/year in the city of Berkeley. The apartment building pays over a million dollars per year.
- stale2002 7y ago
  How do you even think this stuff gets upgraded in the first place? What happens, in every city, is that more housing gets built, then the infrastructure system starts to get closer to capacity, and then the infrastructure gets upgaded. Saying that they should upgrade all the infrastructure first, before there is any demand, is the same exact thing as saying that it should never be upgraded. Because the infrastructure isn't going to be upgraded if there is no demand for it yet.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Or the city an decide that the cost of upgrading are more than the future values of the additional units and not upgrade. Some upgrades in capacity have significantly higher costs than others. If the current system is the largest that can physically fit on the land the city owns they need to buy more land first. If they won't get a lot of new development it is better to stay just below capacity. The above doesn't apply to the cities in CA we are talking about: there is plenty of demand. It does apply to some semi-rural small towns.
    - stale2002 7y ago
      > If they won't get a lot of new development it is better to stay just below capacity. If a developer comes in and says "Hey I want to develop in this area", it is a contradictory response to say that this development should be prevented, because there is not enough demand. If a bunch of developers are trying to build houses, then by definition, we are in a situation where there is demand. This supports my point even more, because I was saying that the developers should build first, and then if the infrastructure starts to hit capacity, THEN the infrastructure should be updated. Don't build the infrastructure first. Instead build the housing, and fix any problems that come with it. Also, this is how all this infrastructure gets built in the first place, also. The developers, who are building the buildings, will upgrade the infrastructure as part of the process of building the buildings.
      - bluGill 7y ago
        You are assuming linear costs. However they are not. The system is good for 1 development at no extra cost, but the second goes over capacity and so they have to tear down the old system and build a bigger one. The new one is good for not 1 more development but 100 - which might or might not come. If it comes good, but if you just have the 1 development everybody is on the hook to pay it off, not that one development.
        stale2002 7y ago
        > but the second goes over capacity This is not how "capacity" works. It is not that there is some constant limit to something, and everything is 100% fine as long as you are under capacity, but breaks entirely when you go over capacity. Instead, capacity is flexible, and there are costs to it being flexible. Instead, capacity is something that you start bumping up against, and this starts to cause problems. And the more that you bump up against capacity, the more problems that you get. So, if you are only slightly over capacity, it means that, your roads will be a little bit congested some but not all of the time, or the town will have to purchase a little bit of energy from the town next over (or raise prices a little bit during certain times of the day to reduce demand), or a school will have a little bit more people attending it than previously intended, or you'll have to pay the police overtime hours more often. And when these problems get big enough, THEN, people will decide that it makes sense to upgrade the network. That solves your step wise function, that you are talking about. "Capacity" is actually pretty flexible. And you don't have to do some maximum upgrade, if you go over it. You can instead wait until you are over capacity enough that it makes sense to do the upgrade.
notJim 7y ago
> Apartment dwellers demand far less water It is also obviously far cheaper (and better for the environment) to water a single building than to water a bunch of dispersed SFHs.

bluGill 7y ago

Long term you are correct, but in the near term the current water system needs to be upgraded to pipes large enough to get water to the new apartment before the apartment can go in.

thedance 7y ago
You can get developers to build the infrastructure and finance it on their future taxes. You wouldn't believe the incremental tax from building real buildings in the Bay Area. In one particularly egregious case a single apartment building replaced several detached homes that were paying a total of $1200/year in the city of Berkeley. The apartment building pays over a million dollars per year.
stale2002 7y ago
How do you even think this stuff gets upgraded in the first place? What happens, in every city, is that more housing gets built, then the infrastructure system starts to get closer to capacity, and then the infrastructure gets upgaded. Saying that they should upgrade all the infrastructure first, before there is any demand, is the same exact thing as saying that it should never be upgraded. Because the infrastructure isn't going to be upgraded if there is no demand for it yet.
- bluGill 7y ago
  Or the city an decide that the cost of upgrading are more than the future values of the additional units and not upgrade. Some upgrades in capacity have significantly higher costs than others. If the current system is the largest that can physically fit on the land the city owns they need to buy more land first. If they won't get a lot of new development it is better to stay just below capacity. The above doesn't apply to the cities in CA we are talking about: there is plenty of demand. It does apply to some semi-rural small towns.
  - stale2002 7y ago
    > If they won't get a lot of new development it is better to stay just below capacity. If a developer comes in and says "Hey I want to develop in this area", it is a contradictory response to say that this development should be prevented, because there is not enough demand. If a bunch of developers are trying to build houses, then by definition, we are in a situation where there is demand. This supports my point even more, because I was saying that the developers should build first, and then if the infrastructure starts to hit capacity, THEN the infrastructure should be updated. Don't build the infrastructure first. Instead build the housing, and fix any problems that come with it. Also, this is how all this infrastructure gets built in the first place, also. The developers, who are building the buildings, will upgrade the infrastructure as part of the process of building the buildings.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      You are assuming linear costs. However they are not. The system is good for 1 development at no extra cost, but the second goes over capacity and so they have to tear down the old system and build a bigger one. The new one is good for not 1 more development but 100 - which might or might not come. If it comes good, but if you just have the 1 development everybody is on the hook to pay it off, not that one development.
      - stale2002 7y ago
        > but the second goes over capacity This is not how "capacity" works. It is not that there is some constant limit to something, and everything is 100% fine as long as you are under capacity, but breaks entirely when you go over capacity. Instead, capacity is flexible, and there are costs to it being flexible. Instead, capacity is something that you start bumping up against, and this starts to cause problems. And the more that you bump up against capacity, the more problems that you get. So, if you are only slightly over capacity, it means that, your roads will be a little bit congested some but not all of the time, or the town will have to purchase a little bit of energy from the town next over (or raise prices a little bit during certain times of the day to reduce demand), or a school will have a little bit more people attending it than previously intended, or you'll have to pay the police overtime hours more often. And when these problems get big enough, THEN, people will decide that it makes sense to upgrade the network. That solves your step wise function, that you are talking about. "Capacity" is actually pretty flexible. And you don't have to do some maximum upgrade, if you go over it. You can instead wait until you are over capacity enough that it makes sense to do the upgrade.

notJim 7y ago

> Apartment dwellers demand far less water It is also obviously far cheaper (and better for the environment) to water a single building than to water a bunch of dispersed SFHs.