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Sure, value not costs. > There are plenty of apartments available in cities at rents lower than the average suburban mortgage payment. But what is the floor a

Sure, value not costs. > There are plenty of apartments available in cities at rents lower than the average suburban mortgage payment. But what is the floor area? Saying people don't need McMansions is not the same as saying additional bedrooms for kids isn't nice. > If we want revitalized cities where people want to live, we don’t just need low cost housing, we need high value housing. It's very easy to tear down walls making bigger units. Focusing on the cost of housing is the key part. Value comes after. Also remember that suburbs and driving is massively subsidize, even separately from the externalizes. It's not fair to expect cities to compete completely on costs without that being fixed. Go read https://www.strongtowns.org/ https://www.strongtowns.org/ for urbanism for small-scale romantics if big cities still sound "just bad".

kube-system 5y ago
I agree with everything here except I’m not sure that value will necessarily result from focusing on cost. I think if you focus on cost alone, you’re going to build poor neighborhoods and jump start a cycle of poverty. I think the key is to build diverse neighborhoods. You want poor, rich, and middle income housing all in the same place. The segregation of incomes is how we got into this mess to begin with.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  I'm not sure poor neighborhoods are built. Most construction these days is shit quality, with just a few cheap trappings making something "luxury". Other than physical dividers like highways, I don't really think segregation is built? One big exception is we certainly want the public housing to not be congregated in ghettos. That was another terrible NYCHA (and others) practice.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    The congregation of public housing into one place is an example of what I’m referring to as “building poor neighborhoods”. In contrast, you can build rich neighborhoods depending on the structure and how the land-use is controlled.
    - bobthepanda 5y ago
      The trick is to not really do anything at all and let the magic of agglomeration do its thing. Zoning is a very recent phenomenon. Cities were economically vibrant long before that. Even if there is zoning it doesn't need to be as exceedingly specific as American zoning tends to be.
      - Ericson2314 5y ago
        I'm worried that cars, given subsidies, are too much of an anti-agglomerator, and thus active measures must be taken. It is as if we used to have clumps of matter bound together by gravity, enforced by magic that new matter must be spread out (zoning) but also charged the matter (cars). Merely stopping the magic doesn't meant gravity will overpower electromagnetism. Zoning and car culture achieved dominance in tandem, and so I am quit skeptical of any certainty that fixing one alone is sufficient to roll back the clock. There could be other sorts of hystersis too that make this challenging. Really we should be very careful and vigilant and not rely on one tactic to eradicate the scourge of suburbanization.

kube-system 5y ago

I agree with everything here except I’m not sure that value will necessarily result from focusing on cost. I think if you focus on cost alone, you’re going to build poor neighborhoods and jump start a cycle of poverty. I think the key is to build diverse neighborhoods. You want poor, rich, and middle income housing all in the same place. The segregation of incomes is how we got into this mess to begin with.

Ericson2314 5y ago
I'm not sure poor neighborhoods are built. Most construction these days is shit quality, with just a few cheap trappings making something "luxury". Other than physical dividers like highways, I don't really think segregation is built? One big exception is we certainly want the public housing to not be congregated in ghettos. That was another terrible NYCHA (and others) practice.
- kube-system 5y ago
  The congregation of public housing into one place is an example of what I’m referring to as “building poor neighborhoods”. In contrast, you can build rich neighborhoods depending on the structure and how the land-use is controlled.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    The trick is to not really do anything at all and let the magic of agglomeration do its thing. Zoning is a very recent phenomenon. Cities were economically vibrant long before that. Even if there is zoning it doesn't need to be as exceedingly specific as American zoning tends to be.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      I'm worried that cars, given subsidies, are too much of an anti-agglomerator, and thus active measures must be taken. It is as if we used to have clumps of matter bound together by gravity, enforced by magic that new matter must be spread out (zoning) but also charged the matter (cars). Merely stopping the magic doesn't meant gravity will overpower electromagnetism. Zoning and car culture achieved dominance in tandem, and so I am quit skeptical of any certainty that fixing one alone is sufficient to roll back the clock. There could be other sorts of hystersis too that make this challenging. Really we should be very careful and vigilant and not rely on one tactic to eradicate the scourge of suburbanization.