4 ms·

This one is easy: people like the idea of this but still want a 4x3 300 square meter house on a quarter acre block. Or in the US is often an acre lot within a c

by cletus 6y ago

This one is easy: people like the idea of this but still want a 4x3 300 square meter house on a quarter acre block. Or in the US is often an acre lot within a city, which is crazy to me. And this just doesn’t scale. This is why communities are completely car dependent. Singapore is mentioned in this article but guess what? Living is much denser in Singapore. Obviously they’re constrained by geography. But it get a lot of benefit from this. Where space isn’t an issue people in the US and Australia at least have consistently chosen space and car dependence over convenience.

bluGill 6y ago
Be fair: people don't get a fair choice to anything else. Every try to rent in a dense neighborhood? Biggest you can get is a 3 bedroom apartment, which is enough for the poor, but not for anyone with a bit more money. If you are never home anyway, and don't have kids it works, but once you want a family you will want more space if you can afford it. In Europe larger apartments are available (and at a reasonable cost). Every try to get around in the US? With higher speed roads everywhere, and strict zoning ensuring nothing is in walking distance you have to drive everywhere, so you need space for your car. Everybody wants it all: 100 acres, and walk to everything. That isn't possible for many people (a super rich person could perhaps pull it off, but only one per city as a second trying would make even the most dense downtown too sparse). When the above factors eliminate the city as a reasonable compromise, then it is no wonder people go the other way. If I have to drive everywhere I may as well drive a bit father and get more land. NYC is the only place in the US that can honestly claim any sort of exception to the above, and they are not doing much to expand the part of the city with this claim (at their costs to build transit it would be stupid of them). Other cities try and have some small areas, but overall the city doesn't really leave anyone a serious alternative for those who aren't trying to make a statement.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  While expensive, though cheaper than NYC, Seattle and Portland can claim walkability too. Portland has the better public transit in the city and from suburbs in, Seattle has much more going on though, between the two. But I also think, most people really just dont like living in a downtown. Yes, there are plenty that do. But not everyone. It's really weird to keep pushing this idea that if you dont want to live in a dense area, there's something wrong with you.
  - asdff 6y ago
    You make a lot of sacrifices living downtown, some you don't notice until living there for a while and it wears on you. It can range from annoying to legitimately toxic to live in certain apartment complexes. After a while you start wishing you had more separation from your neighbor blasting music, your other neighbor's screaming kids, the teenagers smoking weed and leaving trash in the stairwell, the people airbnbing and drinking all day in the pool between kids taking cannonballs, or the homeless encampment outside the door that makes noise, starts fires, and raids the gated garage regularly for bikes, despite the surveillance cameras. Maybe those apartment walls start feeling very tiny and claustrophobic when you have a partner or children in there with you, all working from home. Maybe you wish it didn't take you 15 minutes to walk from your door to the first patch of grass where your dog can piss. Or you wish the bus didn't have to run in city traffic and take an hour and show up late, or that you could park closer than a 10-30 minute walk to your door. As much as we say how beneficial urban living is, the built urban environment we've crafted is toxic. Apartments are built thinwalled, small and cheap to cater to 22 year olds with an offer from a salary job and no one else. Cars are given the priority over transit, and suburban commuters are given priority over local resident car owners who might have to spend 30+ minutes after work hunting for parking in their neighborhood. The only new parkland you see in the 21st century seem to be a handful of grossly expensive freeway caps, or pocket parks, which pale in comparison to park development in the 19th century. Cities with good parkland are riding on the coattails of their better thinking 19-20th century planners. Schools are underfunded and charters loot the public school purse. Homelessness, crime, and the mental health crisis on our streets are not being addressed at any level of government and there is no signal that these things will be addressed anytime soon, since there has been zero plan of any kind. And on top of it all, few get jobs in cities that make any of this city life actually affordable. Once you get past the age where living in cheap uber distance of the bars matters, cities can be a legitimate drag due to how they've been designed over the past 100 years.
    - NoOneNew 6y ago
      Damn, you hit the nail on the head. I grew up in a rural area of florida. I competed in a business competition thing in high school that sent me and other classmates to Cincinnati. My first "big city" experience. We were all like, "Whoa!" The first few days. After day four or five, we were all complaining about missing trees. In my 20s, traveled, lived a few big cities, Seattle and Portland being the prominent ones. Yea, outside the cities it's nice. But the city itself, concrete, asphalt, homeless, random assholes just being assholes... it gets boring as you get older. Too much of the actual living experience is peacock posturing. Why live in the downtown to escape to nature through a shitty commute? I find it better to live on the cusp and visit a small city if I need to, escaping everyday into a tree infested woodland a small walk away. Sure, theres probably a better city planning philosophy that can address this, but the feasibility is probably remote. Not just economically, but by discipline. After 2 or 3 decades, there's barely any of the old guard that gave a shit about the new great plan. They're going to do their own thing for their own prestige or benefits. Shitting on the original plan. That's reality. So we have the system we have. Some want dense urban environments, some dont. Those that do want it, paint and tidy up your own home your own way. I dont care. But dont come to my side and demand I adopt all your ideas because trees are scary and need to be chopped down for a starbucks with apartments.
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
We also support that less dense living through subsidies and regulation. Without the subsidies and regulation, it may be that people would choose differently.
- oftenwrong 6y ago
  Part of the problem is that some of those subsidies are invisible to the average person. It's not a line item on their bills; it's more subtle. For example, the infrastructure required to service low-density settlements: https://granolashotgun.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/a-thousand-hidden-subsidies/ https://granolashotgun.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/a-thousand-h...
- Mvhsz 6y ago
  If a drive down a highway cost as much as a train ticket, I think US cities would indeed be very different. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/10/think-buses-and-trains-are-empty-take-a-look-at-rural-highways https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/10/think-buses-an... I'm definitely a city person, and there have been some well-meaning comments from non-city people wondering why people like me are opposed to their lifestyle. I don't mind people choosing to live in the suburbs or rural areas, I just want them to pay for the giant ugly highway that lifestyle requires. I want my taxes to go to city parks and schools and streetcars. Side note - I am aware that state and federal DOT funds most highways, but the city has to pay for the induced demand for car infrastructure that those highways create downtown. On the flip side, the state and federal DOT contribute minimally to the cost of me taking the subway.
oftenwrong 6y ago
It's hard to say what people actually prefer when the laws often constrain what may be built. For example, the building I live in could not be rebuilt without zoning variances today. It has no off-street parking, but if it were a new building, it would require a parking space for each apartment. The building is quite close to the edges of the property, and if it were a new building, it would need larger setbacks that are likely impossible to achieve. This is the norm in my dense, highly-desirable neighbourhood, where tiny flats are expensive. If someone wanted a large, detached house and yard, there is plenty of that available not far outside of the city at more reasonable prices. People pay the premium to live here precisely because they care about being close to things more than they care about having space. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/11/4/the-myth-of-revealed-preference-for-the-suburbs https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/11/4/the-myth-of-re...
refurb 6y ago
Indeed. Singapore does a very good job with the limited land it has. But nobody but the ultra-wealthy live in "landed home". It's a 700 sq ft 2 bedroom apartment for a family of 5 in a housing block with 600 other units. That's the typical middle class housing. Not sure that would fly in most Western countries. The funny part is having a big home on it's own land somewhere away from all the people is seen as luxury by quite a few. Basically suburbs.

by cletus 6y ago

bluGill 6y ago

Be fair: people don't get a fair choice to anything else. Every try to rent in a dense neighborhood? Biggest you can get is a 3 bedroom apartment, which is enough for the poor, but not for anyone with a bit more money. If you are never home anyway, and don't have kids it works, but once you want a family you will want more space if you can afford it. In Europe larger apartments are available (and at a reasonable cost). Every try to get around in the US? With higher speed roads everywhere, and strict zoning ensuring nothing is in walking distance you have to drive everywhere, so you need space for your car. Everybody wants it all: 100 acres, and walk to everything. That isn't possible for many people (a super rich person could perhaps pull it off, but only one per city as a second trying would make even the most dense downtown too sparse). When the above factors eliminate the city as a reasonable compromise, then it is no wonder people go the other way. If I have to drive everywhere I may as well drive a bit father and get more land. NYC is the only place in the US that can honestly claim any sort of exception to the above, and they are not doing much to expand the part of the city with this claim (at their costs to build transit it would be stupid of them). Other cities try and have some small areas, but overall the city doesn't really leave anyone a serious alternative for those who aren't trying to make a statement.

NoOneNew 6y ago
While expensive, though cheaper than NYC, Seattle and Portland can claim walkability too. Portland has the better public transit in the city and from suburbs in, Seattle has much more going on though, between the two. But I also think, most people really just dont like living in a downtown. Yes, there are plenty that do. But not everyone. It's really weird to keep pushing this idea that if you dont want to live in a dense area, there's something wrong with you.
- asdff 6y ago
  You make a lot of sacrifices living downtown, some you don't notice until living there for a while and it wears on you. It can range from annoying to legitimately toxic to live in certain apartment complexes. After a while you start wishing you had more separation from your neighbor blasting music, your other neighbor's screaming kids, the teenagers smoking weed and leaving trash in the stairwell, the people airbnbing and drinking all day in the pool between kids taking cannonballs, or the homeless encampment outside the door that makes noise, starts fires, and raids the gated garage regularly for bikes, despite the surveillance cameras. Maybe those apartment walls start feeling very tiny and claustrophobic when you have a partner or children in there with you, all working from home. Maybe you wish it didn't take you 15 minutes to walk from your door to the first patch of grass where your dog can piss. Or you wish the bus didn't have to run in city traffic and take an hour and show up late, or that you could park closer than a 10-30 minute walk to your door. As much as we say how beneficial urban living is, the built urban environment we've crafted is toxic. Apartments are built thinwalled, small and cheap to cater to 22 year olds with an offer from a salary job and no one else. Cars are given the priority over transit, and suburban commuters are given priority over local resident car owners who might have to spend 30+ minutes after work hunting for parking in their neighborhood. The only new parkland you see in the 21st century seem to be a handful of grossly expensive freeway caps, or pocket parks, which pale in comparison to park development in the 19th century. Cities with good parkland are riding on the coattails of their better thinking 19-20th century planners. Schools are underfunded and charters loot the public school purse. Homelessness, crime, and the mental health crisis on our streets are not being addressed at any level of government and there is no signal that these things will be addressed anytime soon, since there has been zero plan of any kind. And on top of it all, few get jobs in cities that make any of this city life actually affordable. Once you get past the age where living in cheap uber distance of the bars matters, cities can be a legitimate drag due to how they've been designed over the past 100 years.
  - NoOneNew 6y ago
    Damn, you hit the nail on the head. I grew up in a rural area of florida. I competed in a business competition thing in high school that sent me and other classmates to Cincinnati. My first "big city" experience. We were all like, "Whoa!" The first few days. After day four or five, we were all complaining about missing trees. In my 20s, traveled, lived a few big cities, Seattle and Portland being the prominent ones. Yea, outside the cities it's nice. But the city itself, concrete, asphalt, homeless, random assholes just being assholes... it gets boring as you get older. Too much of the actual living experience is peacock posturing. Why live in the downtown to escape to nature through a shitty commute? I find it better to live on the cusp and visit a small city if I need to, escaping everyday into a tree infested woodland a small walk away. Sure, theres probably a better city planning philosophy that can address this, but the feasibility is probably remote. Not just economically, but by discipline. After 2 or 3 decades, there's barely any of the old guard that gave a shit about the new great plan. They're going to do their own thing for their own prestige or benefits. Shitting on the original plan. That's reality. So we have the system we have. Some want dense urban environments, some dont. Those that do want it, paint and tidy up your own home your own way. I dont care. But dont come to my side and demand I adopt all your ideas because trees are scary and need to be chopped down for a starbucks with apartments.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago

We also support that less dense living through subsidies and regulation. Without the subsidies and regulation, it may be that people would choose differently.

oftenwrong 6y ago
Part of the problem is that some of those subsidies are invisible to the average person. It's not a line item on their bills; it's more subtle. For example, the infrastructure required to service low-density settlements: https://granolashotgun.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/a-thousand-hidden-subsidies/ https://granolashotgun.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/a-thousand-h...
Mvhsz 6y ago
If a drive down a highway cost as much as a train ticket, I think US cities would indeed be very different. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/10/think-buses-and-trains-are-empty-take-a-look-at-rural-highways https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/10/think-buses-an... I'm definitely a city person, and there have been some well-meaning comments from non-city people wondering why people like me are opposed to their lifestyle. I don't mind people choosing to live in the suburbs or rural areas, I just want them to pay for the giant ugly highway that lifestyle requires. I want my taxes to go to city parks and schools and streetcars. Side note - I am aware that state and federal DOT funds most highways, but the city has to pay for the induced demand for car infrastructure that those highways create downtown. On the flip side, the state and federal DOT contribute minimally to the cost of me taking the subway.

oftenwrong 6y ago

It's hard to say what people actually prefer when the laws often constrain what may be built. For example, the building I live in could not be rebuilt without zoning variances today. It has no off-street parking, but if it were a new building, it would require a parking space for each apartment. The building is quite close to the edges of the property, and if it were a new building, it would need larger setbacks that are likely impossible to achieve. This is the norm in my dense, highly-desirable neighbourhood, where tiny flats are expensive. If someone wanted a large, detached house and yard, there is plenty of that available not far outside of the city at more reasonable prices. People pay the premium to live here precisely because they care about being close to things more than they care about having space. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/11/4/the-myth-of-revealed-preference-for-the-suburbs https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/11/4/the-myth-of-re...

refurb 6y ago

Indeed. Singapore does a very good job with the limited land it has. But nobody but the ultra-wealthy live in "landed home". It's a 700 sq ft 2 bedroom apartment for a family of 5 in a housing block with 600 other units. That's the typical middle class housing. Not sure that would fly in most Western countries. The funny part is having a big home on it's own land somewhere away from all the people is seen as luxury by quite a few. Basically suburbs.