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This. The reality is that finding a home you like is hard. You'll research neighborhoods, city policies, construction projects in the area, what the neighbors a

by shados 5y ago

This. The reality is that finding a home you like is hard. You'll research neighborhoods, city policies, construction projects in the area, what the neighbors are like, what internet is available, taxes, etc. Then you find a place that matches your needs and you move it. That's time consuming, difficult and stressful, especially if you're buying the home. It's also time consuming and difficult to get out, especially across long distances. So once people are in, ANY change is problematic. Increased density and construction is the common case these days because that's what we need, but the same would happen in reverse. If NYC's mayor said they were going to eminent domain the whole place to make it a low density suburb, even the people who get to keep their homes would lose their shit. You don't live in Manhattan because you want a big yard for your 6 dogs and 3 chickens. When it comes to housing, any kind of change is hard. So if you start from scratch, there's not much problems.

gpsx 5y ago
I didn't do this when I bought my place 20 years ago. I looked for houses I liked and could afford near where I worked. Being single, school districts were not as much of a concern, though that would probably be the biggest factor for families and a big driver for house price. I was admittedly heavily biased by where I lived before, because I am used to that area, which seems to be true of my friends, independent of where they actually work. Maybe this is just the Bay area. For me at the time Palo Alto and Menlo Park were too expensive, so I was looking in Mountain View, Sunnyvale or Redwood City. Fortunately for me Mountain View has gotten a bit nicer in that time.
closeparen 5y ago
That's why suburbia is so pervasive. It's almost never practical to create Manhattan on a cornfield. Cities occur incrementally as economic growth drives the need for more buildings. When you arrest that process in its infancy you will never get a city.

by shados 5y ago

gpsx 5y ago

I didn't do this when I bought my place 20 years ago. I looked for houses I liked and could afford near where I worked. Being single, school districts were not as much of a concern, though that would probably be the biggest factor for families and a big driver for house price. I was admittedly heavily biased by where I lived before, because I am used to that area, which seems to be true of my friends, independent of where they actually work. Maybe this is just the Bay area. For me at the time Palo Alto and Menlo Park were too expensive, so I was looking in Mountain View, Sunnyvale or Redwood City. Fortunately for me Mountain View has gotten a bit nicer in that time.

closeparen 5y ago

That's why suburbia is so pervasive. It's almost never practical to create Manhattan on a cornfield. Cities occur incrementally as economic growth drives the need for more buildings. When you arrest that process in its infancy you will never get a city.