6 ms·

That is true, it might be the end of the sustainability of overpopulated cities ...

0_____0 6y ago
Funny because cities are more efficient from an energy and carbon footprint perspective. The only thing that makes it unsustainable is that some cities haven't figured out how to make it so everyone who should abbe able to live there can afford it
- humanrebar 6y ago
  It's not that complicated. Build more housing and better transportation options. If particular kinds of businesses have a hard time thriving (like grocers), actually pay attention to what kills those businesses and fix it. It's often some sort of overboard regulation like zoning.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    >It's not that complicated. On paper.
    - mywittyname 6y ago
      How dare you make housing affordable. I just spent 20x the median annual American salary on this house, and now you want to make it affordable? /s
      - imtringued 6y ago
        One day the fed will do the unbelievable, it will raise interest rates and all those mortgages will be underwater.
    - mdtusz 6y ago
      It really isn't all that complicated though, and just takes money to fix the urban planning mistakes that have been made in many metropolitan cities. Montreal is probably the most livable "big" city in North America, and it's mostly because of three things: 1. Excellent transportation. The metro is for the most part consistent, extremely affordable (it's ~$85/month, and about half that for students and youth), safe, and works as a great mainline transport. Busses are also very frequent - most coming at most 15 minutes apart during regular hours, and usually every half hour or so past 1am. You can get almost anywhere in the city in an hour or less using public transit. 2. Renters are protected. The Regie Du Logement heavily favours renters in housing related disputes, and as such, the prices also favour renters. Most individuals pay $1000 or less in rent, for entirely adequate housing, and if they want to move, it's almost certainly an option. 3. Permissive zoning. With the exception of the downtown core, there are grocery stores and pharmacies everywhere. Combined with depanneurs (corner stores) being within 500m of just about any point in the city, you are never far from milk, eggs, bread, beer, wine, and other necessities. Combined with businesses themselves being able to set up shop nearly anywhere as well. Ground floor business with residential above is the norm for nearly all "main" streets. Yes, there are difficult things for existing cities to recreate, but it is almost entirely due to poor urban planning choices being made by the municipal (or state/provincial) powers that be.
      - 0_____0 6y ago
        I have to point out here the co-existence of permissive zoning AND rent protection. This is the way. I'm not sure if rent control exists in Montreal, but advocacy organizations in US metros often push rent control as a standalone solution to various housing crises. But rent control requires the existence of a decently functional housing market to do its job correctly.
        imtringued 6y ago
        Yes, I have seen a lot of US cities that used rent control to do nothing except reduce accountability. You can build a decently functional housing market without rent control. But with rent control you don't need to build a functional housing market so the suffering continues.
      - michael1999 6y ago
        All true, but don't underestimate the impact of the FLQ/PQ crisis. Several hundred thousand people moved from Montreal in the 90s, and immigration and money shifted to Toronto and Vancouver. Montreal was a renters market for 2 decades as a result, and Toronto experienced a boom that hasn't stopped since.
      - refurb 6y ago
        You’re forgetting - there just aren’t that many people who want to live in Montreal. That keeps costs down significantly.
- syshum 6y ago
  That is only true in a non-remote work environment where people would have to commute into office building for work if everyone is commuting 5 feet to a home office then the efficiency of rural vs urban becomes less disparate Add in Solar power and it becomes even less so of course there still is some in the delivery of supplies, but even these can be some what mitigated to where the differences are minor
  - pnutjam 6y ago
    Utilities, deliveries, etc... Urban areas are way better in many ways.
    - brianwawok 6y ago
      Heck just roads. At a certain level of rural you are paving and patching 10 miles of road per person. In the city you are paving like a few feet per person.
      - refurb 6y ago
        But add on top of that the cost of public transit infrastructure. 1 mile of underground BART line cost $1,500 per person. And that ignores maintenance.
        pnutjam 6y ago
        Pro-tip, most US cities don't have anything like that. Midwest are all buses except Chicago. I can't think of a single Southern city with a rail transit system.
  - adamcstephens 6y ago
    Per capita, rural and suburban are much less efficient and more costly. Infrastructure is orders of magnitude more expensive and resource demanding to build as distances spread. Water, sewer, electricity, internet, roads, etc. That’s without even looking at the supplies and movement of people. Sure, if you can afford to build yourself a self sufficient off grid home, you may perceive it as more efficient in day to day costs.
- wooger 6y ago
  They're already more efficient though, and there's no benefit to the current residents (tech rich or not) from massive incoming population growth. There won't be equivalent investment in services, recreation, leisure facilities to cope, so they'll degrade.
  - 0_____0 6y ago
    The scope of what I'm talking about is bigger than yours. Cities are more efficient, and we need to move more people into them (not just the ones that are big right now, just to cities in general) to give ourselves a better shot at keeping our planet habitable in the long run. To your second point - degradation of infrastructure is not an issues with cities, it's an issue with management and investment. On a practical level, with additional people should come additional industry and tax revenue which should in turn allow metropolitan areas to keep pace infra-wise.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    >There won't be equivalent investment in services, recreation, leisure facilities to cope, so they'll degrade. That's what happens in suburbia. You build a lot of infrastructure for very few people. That infrastructure was partly funded by private companies or federal government incentives. Once you have to collect property taxes and maintain the infrastructure you've overburdened yourself and can no longer meet your obligations precisely because there are not enough people living in that area.
- ramblerman 6y ago
  > some cities haven't figured out how to make it so everyone who should abbe able to live there can afford it Barcelona comes close. Perhaps not so much these days, but its a city that was really built with that in mind. And some of that persists.
  - 0_____0 6y ago
    Japan doesn't do too badly either. Some brief research is showing me that the configuration of apartment we would recognize as a 2BR would rent for something like $1200 or less in a lot of the Tokyo metro.
pjc50 6y ago
Where would people go? Underpopulated cities? Rapidly expand towns?
- pault 6y ago
  There is a massive population outflow from high COL coastal cities to smaller interior cities happening right now. SF, NY, LA, and Seattle are all shrinking.
  - harrydehal 6y ago
    Here's a great, interactive map based on Redfin data: https://www.redfin.com/news/data-center/migration/ https://www.redfin.com/news/data-center/migration/

Funny because cities are more efficient from an energy and carbon footprint perspective. The only thing that makes it unsustainable is that some cities haven't figured out how to make it so everyone who should abbe able to live there can afford it

humanrebar 6y ago
It's not that complicated. Build more housing and better transportation options. If particular kinds of businesses have a hard time thriving (like grocers), actually pay attention to what kills those businesses and fix it. It's often some sort of overboard regulation like zoning.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  >It's not that complicated. On paper.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    How dare you make housing affordable. I just spent 20x the median annual American salary on this house, and now you want to make it affordable? /s
    - imtringued 6y ago
      One day the fed will do the unbelievable, it will raise interest rates and all those mortgages will be underwater.
  - mdtusz 6y ago
    It really isn't all that complicated though, and just takes money to fix the urban planning mistakes that have been made in many metropolitan cities. Montreal is probably the most livable "big" city in North America, and it's mostly because of three things: 1. Excellent transportation. The metro is for the most part consistent, extremely affordable (it's ~$85/month, and about half that for students and youth), safe, and works as a great mainline transport. Busses are also very frequent - most coming at most 15 minutes apart during regular hours, and usually every half hour or so past 1am. You can get almost anywhere in the city in an hour or less using public transit. 2. Renters are protected. The Regie Du Logement heavily favours renters in housing related disputes, and as such, the prices also favour renters. Most individuals pay $1000 or less in rent, for entirely adequate housing, and if they want to move, it's almost certainly an option. 3. Permissive zoning. With the exception of the downtown core, there are grocery stores and pharmacies everywhere. Combined with depanneurs (corner stores) being within 500m of just about any point in the city, you are never far from milk, eggs, bread, beer, wine, and other necessities. Combined with businesses themselves being able to set up shop nearly anywhere as well. Ground floor business with residential above is the norm for nearly all "main" streets. Yes, there are difficult things for existing cities to recreate, but it is almost entirely due to poor urban planning choices being made by the municipal (or state/provincial) powers that be.
    - 0_____0 6y ago
      I have to point out here the co-existence of permissive zoning AND rent protection. This is the way. I'm not sure if rent control exists in Montreal, but advocacy organizations in US metros often push rent control as a standalone solution to various housing crises. But rent control requires the existence of a decently functional housing market to do its job correctly.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        Yes, I have seen a lot of US cities that used rent control to do nothing except reduce accountability. You can build a decently functional housing market without rent control. But with rent control you don't need to build a functional housing market so the suffering continues.
    - michael1999 6y ago
      All true, but don't underestimate the impact of the FLQ/PQ crisis. Several hundred thousand people moved from Montreal in the 90s, and immigration and money shifted to Toronto and Vancouver. Montreal was a renters market for 2 decades as a result, and Toronto experienced a boom that hasn't stopped since.
    - refurb 6y ago
      You’re forgetting - there just aren’t that many people who want to live in Montreal. That keeps costs down significantly.
syshum 6y ago
That is only true in a non-remote work environment where people would have to commute into office building for work if everyone is commuting 5 feet to a home office then the efficiency of rural vs urban becomes less disparate Add in Solar power and it becomes even less so of course there still is some in the delivery of supplies, but even these can be some what mitigated to where the differences are minor
- pnutjam 6y ago
  Utilities, deliveries, etc... Urban areas are way better in many ways.
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    Heck just roads. At a certain level of rural you are paving and patching 10 miles of road per person. In the city you are paving like a few feet per person.
    - refurb 6y ago
      But add on top of that the cost of public transit infrastructure. 1 mile of underground BART line cost $1,500 per person. And that ignores maintenance.
      - pnutjam 6y ago
        Pro-tip, most US cities don't have anything like that. Midwest are all buses except Chicago. I can't think of a single Southern city with a rail transit system.
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  Per capita, rural and suburban are much less efficient and more costly. Infrastructure is orders of magnitude more expensive and resource demanding to build as distances spread. Water, sewer, electricity, internet, roads, etc. That’s without even looking at the supplies and movement of people. Sure, if you can afford to build yourself a self sufficient off grid home, you may perceive it as more efficient in day to day costs.
wooger 6y ago
They're already more efficient though, and there's no benefit to the current residents (tech rich or not) from massive incoming population growth. There won't be equivalent investment in services, recreation, leisure facilities to cope, so they'll degrade.
- 0_____0 6y ago
  The scope of what I'm talking about is bigger than yours. Cities are more efficient, and we need to move more people into them (not just the ones that are big right now, just to cities in general) to give ourselves a better shot at keeping our planet habitable in the long run. To your second point - degradation of infrastructure is not an issues with cities, it's an issue with management and investment. On a practical level, with additional people should come additional industry and tax revenue which should in turn allow metropolitan areas to keep pace infra-wise.
- imtringued 6y ago
  >There won't be equivalent investment in services, recreation, leisure facilities to cope, so they'll degrade. That's what happens in suburbia. You build a lot of infrastructure for very few people. That infrastructure was partly funded by private companies or federal government incentives. Once you have to collect property taxes and maintain the infrastructure you've overburdened yourself and can no longer meet your obligations precisely because there are not enough people living in that area.
ramblerman 6y ago
> some cities haven't figured out how to make it so everyone who should abbe able to live there can afford it Barcelona comes close. Perhaps not so much these days, but its a city that was really built with that in mind. And some of that persists.
- 0_____0 6y ago
  Japan doesn't do too badly either. Some brief research is showing me that the configuration of apartment we would recognize as a 2BR would rent for something like $1200 or less in a lot of the Tokyo metro.

pjc50 6y ago

Where would people go? Underpopulated cities? Rapidly expand towns?

pault 6y ago
There is a massive population outflow from high COL coastal cities to smaller interior cities happening right now. SF, NY, LA, and Seattle are all shrinking.
- harrydehal 6y ago
  Here's a great, interactive map based on Redfin data: https://www.redfin.com/news/data-center/migration/ https://www.redfin.com/news/data-center/migration/