4 ms·

I detest these agenda driven articles. I lived most of my life in dense, walkable, rental neighborhoods. It took years to get out and I don’t regret it one bit

I detest these agenda driven articles. I lived most of my life in dense, walkable, rental neighborhoods. It took years to get out and I don’t regret it one bit. It is impossible to have downtime when you’re surrounded above, below, and all around you with neighbors. It’s also impossible to state how different an owner-maintained building is from a landlord-maintained one. A better approach would be how to create walkable suburbs, with all of the benefits but none of the downsides. Instead, the articles are taking the lazy approach; and takes a lazy approach to reasoning on why homeowners are becoming more scarce. Edit: The timing of the article couldn’t also be worse. Covid has suddenly shown that density has significant downsides.

Ericson2314 6y ago
"walkable suburb" is an oxymoron. I believe you are looking for a thing called a "town".
- djrogers 6y ago
  Nahh, plenty of suburbs are set up with a nice quaint downtown area, with walkable housing surrounding that, and bikeable/driveable housing further out.
jeffbee 6y ago
Covid shows us that overcrowding in housing is bad, not that density is bad. There is no relationship between density and covid problems. The most-infected jurisdiction in America is Crowley County, Colorado, where fewer than 6000 people live in an area of 800 square miles, and where there are no cities.
- nobodyandproud 6y ago
  Crowley, CO is also a popular skiing destination, which your population count doesn’t account for.
gumby 6y ago
Clearly different people have different tastes; one benefit of capitalism is that it is supposed to provide more options than strict planning (though it requires planning as well). But this comment of yours struck me in particular: > It is impossible to have downtime when you’re surrounded above, below, and all around you with neighbors. Where were you living? We lived in busy Paris and Berlin and were able to consider our homes quiet refuges. We had a kid and all the other reasons why people transition from city to suburb. It felt more accommodating than the German suburb my brother in law lived in with his kids, full of bike lanes and the like. Now we’re in Palo Alto, a walkable suburb, which doesn’t seem much quieter. I still can’t see the stars, and getting to concerts, art exhibits and the like is inconvenient and doesn’t really happen. At least I can still walk to the grocery store or restaurants through of course the selection is limited.
- nobodyandproud 6y ago
  To answer your question: The dense outer boroughs of New York. New building or old, all it takes is one noisy neighbor to keep up half of the residents within a block. Loud noise is a notoriously difficult problem, and especially difficult to manage in a true mixing pot like NYC. Many years back: I was very annoyed to wake up at midnight on Christmas; some religious immigrants were going around door to door singing with their instruments (apartment building). They meant well, but that sound carries. Yes, I told them to quiet down.

Ericson2314 6y ago

"walkable suburb" is an oxymoron. I believe you are looking for a thing called a "town".

djrogers 6y ago
Nahh, plenty of suburbs are set up with a nice quaint downtown area, with walkable housing surrounding that, and bikeable/driveable housing further out.

jeffbee 6y ago

Covid shows us that overcrowding in housing is bad, not that density is bad. There is no relationship between density and covid problems. The most-infected jurisdiction in America is Crowley County, Colorado, where fewer than 6000 people live in an area of 800 square miles, and where there are no cities.

nobodyandproud 6y ago
Crowley, CO is also a popular skiing destination, which your population count doesn’t account for.

gumby 6y ago

Clearly different people have different tastes; one benefit of capitalism is that it is supposed to provide more options than strict planning (though it requires planning as well). But this comment of yours struck me in particular: > It is impossible to have downtime when you’re surrounded above, below, and all around you with neighbors. Where were you living? We lived in busy Paris and Berlin and were able to consider our homes quiet refuges. We had a kid and all the other reasons why people transition from city to suburb. It felt more accommodating than the German suburb my brother in law lived in with his kids, full of bike lanes and the like. Now we’re in Palo Alto, a walkable suburb, which doesn’t seem much quieter. I still can’t see the stars, and getting to concerts, art exhibits and the like is inconvenient and doesn’t really happen. At least I can still walk to the grocery store or restaurants through of course the selection is limited.

nobodyandproud 6y ago
To answer your question: The dense outer boroughs of New York. New building or old, all it takes is one noisy neighbor to keep up half of the residents within a block. Loud noise is a notoriously difficult problem, and especially difficult to manage in a true mixing pot like NYC. Many years back: I was very annoyed to wake up at midnight on Christmas; some religious immigrants were going around door to door singing with their instruments (apartment building). They meant well, but that sound carries. Yes, I told them to quiet down.