8 ms·

I feel every attempt at community-by-design bears within it the seed of inhumane horror. Forget about the energy equation of building a city in a desert, what's

by Bayart 5y ago

I feel every attempt at community-by-design bears within it the seed of inhumane horror. Forget about the energy equation of building a city in a desert, what's the on-boarding process for prospective inhabitants ? Putting the price of accommodation sky-high to make sure everybody's in the right tax-bracket (or even earns enough to not pay taxes) ? Going through an interview process to only take in people with the "right vibes" ? How do you get teachers, garbage collectors, plumbers, nurses, all sorts of manual workers ? Park them in a ghetto like in Dubai, make ideological adhesion rather than money the filter (good luck with funding) or try to automate them away ?

lprubin 5y ago
One idea is an expansion of a law already on the books in many cities. When you create a new building / housing complex (which will be 100% in a new city), you require X% of units to be "affordable housing". I could see the city just increasing the required % and then giving tax credits to developers to offset the lost revenue to them. Given that this city would be built in stages, it will give them time to hone in on the desired percentage.
- kiba 5y ago
  I don't think this work as this is just rent controlled housing. Better to cut the unnecessary red tape and let developers build more housing. Also, I think penalizing vacant properties would also be a good idea.
  - lprubin 5y ago
    I'm curious to hear why you think it doesn't work. I'm not necessarily disagreeing, just would like to know more.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      The point is that no matter how much housing you reserve to be "affordable housing", it will still be scarce and thus unaffordable to most. And this kind of well-intentioned red tape often ends up shrinking the supply of housing as a whole, which only makes it even less affordable.
      - lprubin 5y ago
        If you compensate the developers' losses in revenue with tax breaks, how does it shrink the supply?
        kiba 5y ago
        If it doesn't encourage developers to build more houses, then it does nothing. We care more about the number of people housed, not merely just people who are housed who can afford their bills.
        lprubin 5y ago
        The original question was "How do you get teachers, garbage collectors, plumbers, nurses, all sorts of manual workers ?" Those people all have some amount of money they can afford to pay their bills. Since a city needs some percentage of those workers, having housing they can afford is a big step towards attracting them.
        kiba 5y ago
        If you want affordable housing, then build houses.
      - throwawaysea 5y ago
        But where is the line? Rampant development can completely alter the feel and culture of a neighborhood and city. It can take away from those things the existing residents enjoy. Sure more supply can accommodate more humans but they won’t necessarily be the same humans if current residents leave, and it won’t necessarily be the same place afterwards. Desirability (demand) creates scarcity but scarcity can also be desirable in itself for some things. At some threshold, the answer isn’t build more but locate people elsewhere and build a more distributed economy rather than a few concentrated powerful cities or states.
        CodeShmode 5y ago
        The local government version of “f*** off, we’re full”
    - anamax 5y ago
      If "affordable housing" means "under market price", in practice AH means that it goes to the connected at that price. If they can, they resell at market later, if they can't, well, they just got subsidized housing. Remember, housing prices in high-priced areas are driven by location, location, location, location, location (yes, two more locations than ordinary housing), so "it's small" doesn't translate to "the market price is low." (It's just less expensive than big.) When the "market price" exceeds the cash price, the folks who get to buy are the ones who have some way to pay outside the system.
      - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
        Some countries have what's called "buyer-funded development". Property buyers invest into shares of the development company which then uses the funds to buy land and build housing. Investors get much cheaper prices, developers get easy liquidity. The downside is that you have to wait a year or two before moving in, and some theoretical risk. (Which can be managed with proper legislation.) But the scheme works if you want affordable housing.
        anamax 5y ago
        No, that scheme doesn't do what you think it does (and that scheme is occasionally done in the US, especially for luxury residences). Suppose that the residences will be worth $1000 when built and it costs $500 to build them. The pay-in-advance price will be around $1000 - interest. The pay-in-advance price won't be significantly less than $1000-interest because the builder can borrow the $500, and sell for $1000 when built, repaying the bank and pocketing the rest. The pay-in-advance price won't be significantly more than $1000-interest because if it is, folks who want to buy will wait and pay $1000 when the units are built (forcing the builder to borrow $500). In other words, pay in advance doesn't result in below market prices. If you add in some units which would sell for $500 but you're forcing the builder to sell them for $250, the question is "who gets them?" The answer to that question does not depend on when the payment is made. In the US, the vast majority of the "below market" units will be split between friends of the local govt and the developer. Yes, it would be nice if that wasn't true, but it is absurd to behave as if it isn't true (in the US).
  - jdavis703 5y ago
    In practice I don’t think this works for an green field city. Filtering takes decades to occur. In the meantime new housing will always be more expensive than a low-income worker can afford. If the city wants service workers they’re going to have to subsidize their initial housing.
    - swiley 5y ago
      One alternative is to pay workers enough to afford housing. It’s surprising how rarely people mention that idea. It’s very likely thee d of “worker+housing shortage” which is just a very roundabout way to say “massive inflation.”
      - nicoburns 5y ago
        Probably becayse the inflation has been disproportionately in housing only. Less true now since covid of course, but housing is still a separate problem to be dealt with.
    - postingawayonhn 5y ago
      I don't think that's necessarily true. Raw cost of housing is essentially the cost of the land + the cost of the building. In established cites the cost of land is high and developers tend to build expensive buildings on that land. Low-income workers than move to older buildings as they're cheaper (expensive land, cheap building). In a new greenfield city the land will be very cheap (for whoever established the city) so that can keep the cost of housing down (cheap land, expensive building).
    - nostrademons 5y ago
      If there are more houses built than people who want to live in the city, housing will be affordable for everybody, because an unhoused worker will just buy the vacant unit next door for less if a developer tries to gouge them. The reason new construction never works like this is because developers only build housing when there's already a severe shortage of housing in the metro area. They respond to price signals, and the price only starts going up when you have multiple bidders bidding for the same home. And why wouldn't they? If they built housing in places that already had an abundance of housing, they're making an economically foolish choice and will go bankrupt. When you observe that developers never build affordable housing, you're observing the effect of selection bias: in a region where there are enough houses for everyone and hence they're affordable to the average worker, developers aren't going to build even more new houses. You can observe this throughout the Rust Belt: there are more homes than people, so prices are very affordable, but developers would need to be insane to build even more houses (outside of specific neighborhoods or suburbs that are locally hot). Also when you get a macroeconomic crash in the middle of a housing boom: the houses get completed, they sell for dimes on the dollar, but nobody has jobs anymore so they can't afford to buy them,
- ac29 5y ago
  The problem is "affordable housing" isnt actually affordable for many. I qualify for it in the city I live in, and despite working full time for significantly above minimum wage, the rent on a 1bd apartment through this program would be about 75% of my take-home income.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - deleted 5y ago
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  - jsjohnst 5y ago
    Would you be willing to state what city this is and your profession? I think it would go a long way towards showing how real this problem is to skeptics.
  - nnnnnkkk 5y ago
    Only in the late twentieth century has a private 1br apartment for single people become something people feel they're entitled to. I've been in your situation, and you know what I did? I got a roommate. Really cuts on costs, and getting married makes the situation permanent. At no time in history have the poorest been able to afford one bedroom apartments alone. Remember the stories of huge families crammed into apartments from 100 years ago? The fact that you only need one roommate instead of eleven to get by is progress.
- neilparikh 5y ago
  Note that this strategy is a bit regressive. The law usually only applies to multi unit housing, and exempts single family housing. But those who live in single family housing are usually are richer than those in multi unit housing, so this essentially makes housing more expensive and difficult to build for the lower income people.
ginko 5y ago
What's more did any of these planned communities ever pan out? There were plenty projects started in the 20th century alone. Guess Walt Disney's Epcot is the most well known failure.
- pmyteh 5y ago
  There are a bunch of planned new towns in the UK from the 20th century, as well as 'model' factory villages from the 19th. Some of them are really nice, some less so. Milton Keynes is the most interesting, I think. Well loved by the people who live there, mocked by those who don't, still successfully growing.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  Barcelona's Eixample comes to mind as a success with its 520 uniform housing blocks and 260,000 residents.
- JoshuaDavid 5y ago
  I'd say that Irvine, California panned out.
- jeffwass 5y ago
  Savannah, Georgia is a pretty city, based on the Oglethorpe Plan back in 1733. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglethorpe_Plan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglethorpe_Plan
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    Looking at https://www.travelsafe-abroad.com/united-states/savannah/ https://www.travelsafe-abroad.com/united-states/savannah/ So... How Safe Is Savannah Really? Savannah is a reasonably unsafe city. The crime index ranges from medium to high. The main problems here are robberies and assaults, car theft and theft, vandalism, violent crime, and drug problems. Nevertheless, the historic Savannah district is entirely safe for exploring the area day and night. Better to be in a company than one. Outside the historical site, district crime is more common. When studying a historical area, remember that this is a tourist area, and there will always be those who hunt tourists – be careful, but especially at night. One still needs to follow the dictates of common sense to avoid being victimized. Don’t walk around alone at night, particularly in unfamiliar neighborhoods. Lock vehicles and keep valuables out of sight. For cars, perhaps you need to be especially careful – the number of car thefts and hacks is enormous. Be sure to close the car and park in a guarded parking lot to avoid problems. Never leave anything in the car, not even trinkets. Do not get involved in any relationship with drug dealers; drugs are illegal here. Nevertheless, there are many who wish to offer or sell them to you. Keep an eye on your drink at the bar – there have been times when strangers added opiates to rob a victim.
panarky 5y ago
> energy equation of building a city in a desert Solar and nuclear work great in deserts. I'd be more concerned about water.
- zer0tonin 5y ago
  How do you cool a nuclear reactor without water?
  - fogof 5y ago
    I guess you don't. That's why they're concerned.
    - panarky 5y ago
      The Palo Verde Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located near Tonopah, in western Arizona. It is located about 72 km due west of downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and it is located near the Gila River, which is dry save for the rainy season in late summer. The power plant evaporates the water from the treated sewage from several nearby cities and towns to provide the cooling of the steam that it produces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_...
  - bgardell 5y ago
    Sewage
  - nanomonkey 5y ago
    Night radiative cooling, the Cosmic Background radiation temperature is 4 degrees K.
    - dave333 5y ago
      This can be great for houses as well see https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.solarmirror.com%2Ffom%2Ffom-serve%2Fbags%2Fskytherm.gif&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.solarmirror.com%2Ffom%2Ffom-serve%2Fcache%2F30.html&tbnid=xjB6DVEMaGWEVM&vet=12ahUKEwiU5M7gtOvyAhXfBTQIHTVUCWMQMygAegUIARClAQ..i&docid=K8Vd5-F81eBDvM&w=360&h=270&q=skytherm%20roof&ved=2ahUKEwiU5M7gtOvyAhXfBTQIHTVUCWMQMygAegUIARClAQ https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.solarm...
phkahler 5y ago
Well since they mention funding from investors we can expect to pay a lot of rent, or pay really high prices.
sakopov 5y ago
The idea is ambitious but incredibly dystopian because it completely excludes conflicts arising from our innate differences. It's literally a real-world imitation of the Brave New World plot.
tdeck 5y ago
My first thought was this city/settlement built by a cult in the Oregon desert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneeshpuram?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneeshpuram?wprov=sfla1 Not closely related to the article but a very odd story.
gremloni 5y ago
I feel like deserts are instinctively slept on. It’s always sunny, nice and hot, low humidity, great for solar energy and clean. The only problem is water and the plan seems to address that issue.
- freemint 5y ago
  And that it gets really, really cold at night.

by Bayart 5y ago

lprubin 5y ago

One idea is an expansion of a law already on the books in many cities. When you create a new building / housing complex (which will be 100% in a new city), you require X% of units to be "affordable housing". I could see the city just increasing the required % and then giving tax credits to developers to offset the lost revenue to them. Given that this city would be built in stages, it will give them time to hone in on the desired percentage.

kiba 5y ago
I don't think this work as this is just rent controlled housing. Better to cut the unnecessary red tape and let developers build more housing. Also, I think penalizing vacant properties would also be a good idea.
- lprubin 5y ago
  I'm curious to hear why you think it doesn't work. I'm not necessarily disagreeing, just would like to know more.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    The point is that no matter how much housing you reserve to be "affordable housing", it will still be scarce and thus unaffordable to most. And this kind of well-intentioned red tape often ends up shrinking the supply of housing as a whole, which only makes it even less affordable.
    - lprubin 5y ago
      If you compensate the developers' losses in revenue with tax breaks, how does it shrink the supply?
      - kiba 5y ago
        If it doesn't encourage developers to build more houses, then it does nothing. We care more about the number of people housed, not merely just people who are housed who can afford their bills.
        lprubin 5y ago
        The original question was "How do you get teachers, garbage collectors, plumbers, nurses, all sorts of manual workers ?" Those people all have some amount of money they can afford to pay their bills. Since a city needs some percentage of those workers, having housing they can afford is a big step towards attracting them.
        kiba 5y ago
        If you want affordable housing, then build houses.
    - throwawaysea 5y ago
      But where is the line? Rampant development can completely alter the feel and culture of a neighborhood and city. It can take away from those things the existing residents enjoy. Sure more supply can accommodate more humans but they won’t necessarily be the same humans if current residents leave, and it won’t necessarily be the same place afterwards. Desirability (demand) creates scarcity but scarcity can also be desirable in itself for some things. At some threshold, the answer isn’t build more but locate people elsewhere and build a more distributed economy rather than a few concentrated powerful cities or states.
      - CodeShmode 5y ago
        The local government version of “f*** off, we’re full”
  - anamax 5y ago
    If "affordable housing" means "under market price", in practice AH means that it goes to the connected at that price. If they can, they resell at market later, if they can't, well, they just got subsidized housing. Remember, housing prices in high-priced areas are driven by location, location, location, location, location (yes, two more locations than ordinary housing), so "it's small" doesn't translate to "the market price is low." (It's just less expensive than big.) When the "market price" exceeds the cash price, the folks who get to buy are the ones who have some way to pay outside the system.
    - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
      Some countries have what's called "buyer-funded development". Property buyers invest into shares of the development company which then uses the funds to buy land and build housing. Investors get much cheaper prices, developers get easy liquidity. The downside is that you have to wait a year or two before moving in, and some theoretical risk. (Which can be managed with proper legislation.) But the scheme works if you want affordable housing.
      - anamax 5y ago
        No, that scheme doesn't do what you think it does (and that scheme is occasionally done in the US, especially for luxury residences). Suppose that the residences will be worth $1000 when built and it costs $500 to build them. The pay-in-advance price will be around $1000 - interest. The pay-in-advance price won't be significantly less than $1000-interest because the builder can borrow the $500, and sell for $1000 when built, repaying the bank and pocketing the rest. The pay-in-advance price won't be significantly more than $1000-interest because if it is, folks who want to buy will wait and pay $1000 when the units are built (forcing the builder to borrow $500). In other words, pay in advance doesn't result in below market prices. If you add in some units which would sell for $500 but you're forcing the builder to sell them for $250, the question is "who gets them?" The answer to that question does not depend on when the payment is made. In the US, the vast majority of the "below market" units will be split between friends of the local govt and the developer. Yes, it would be nice if that wasn't true, but it is absurd to behave as if it isn't true (in the US).
- jdavis703 5y ago
  In practice I don’t think this works for an green field city. Filtering takes decades to occur. In the meantime new housing will always be more expensive than a low-income worker can afford. If the city wants service workers they’re going to have to subsidize their initial housing.
  - swiley 5y ago
    One alternative is to pay workers enough to afford housing. It’s surprising how rarely people mention that idea. It’s very likely thee d of “worker+housing shortage” which is just a very roundabout way to say “massive inflation.”
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      Probably becayse the inflation has been disproportionately in housing only. Less true now since covid of course, but housing is still a separate problem to be dealt with.
  - postingawayonhn 5y ago
    I don't think that's necessarily true. Raw cost of housing is essentially the cost of the land + the cost of the building. In established cites the cost of land is high and developers tend to build expensive buildings on that land. Low-income workers than move to older buildings as they're cheaper (expensive land, cheap building). In a new greenfield city the land will be very cheap (for whoever established the city) so that can keep the cost of housing down (cheap land, expensive building).
  - nostrademons 5y ago
    If there are more houses built than people who want to live in the city, housing will be affordable for everybody, because an unhoused worker will just buy the vacant unit next door for less if a developer tries to gouge them. The reason new construction never works like this is because developers only build housing when there's already a severe shortage of housing in the metro area. They respond to price signals, and the price only starts going up when you have multiple bidders bidding for the same home. And why wouldn't they? If they built housing in places that already had an abundance of housing, they're making an economically foolish choice and will go bankrupt. When you observe that developers never build affordable housing, you're observing the effect of selection bias: in a region where there are enough houses for everyone and hence they're affordable to the average worker, developers aren't going to build even more new houses. You can observe this throughout the Rust Belt: there are more homes than people, so prices are very affordable, but developers would need to be insane to build even more houses (outside of specific neighborhoods or suburbs that are locally hot). Also when you get a macroeconomic crash in the middle of a housing boom: the houses get completed, they sell for dimes on the dollar, but nobody has jobs anymore so they can't afford to buy them,
ac29 5y ago
The problem is "affordable housing" isnt actually affordable for many. I qualify for it in the city I live in, and despite working full time for significantly above minimum wage, the rent on a 1bd apartment through this program would be about 75% of my take-home income.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jsjohnst 5y ago
  Would you be willing to state what city this is and your profession? I think it would go a long way towards showing how real this problem is to skeptics.
- nnnnnkkk 5y ago
  Only in the late twentieth century has a private 1br apartment for single people become something people feel they're entitled to. I've been in your situation, and you know what I did? I got a roommate. Really cuts on costs, and getting married makes the situation permanent. At no time in history have the poorest been able to afford one bedroom apartments alone. Remember the stories of huge families crammed into apartments from 100 years ago? The fact that you only need one roommate instead of eleven to get by is progress.
neilparikh 5y ago
Note that this strategy is a bit regressive. The law usually only applies to multi unit housing, and exempts single family housing. But those who live in single family housing are usually are richer than those in multi unit housing, so this essentially makes housing more expensive and difficult to build for the lower income people.

ginko 5y ago

What's more did any of these planned communities ever pan out? There were plenty projects started in the 20th century alone. Guess Walt Disney's Epcot is the most well known failure.

pmyteh 5y ago
There are a bunch of planned new towns in the UK from the 20th century, as well as 'model' factory villages from the 19th. Some of them are really nice, some less so. Milton Keynes is the most interesting, I think. Well loved by the people who live there, mocked by those who don't, still successfully growing.
dougmwne 5y ago
Barcelona's Eixample comes to mind as a success with its 520 uniform housing blocks and 260,000 residents.
JoshuaDavid 5y ago
I'd say that Irvine, California panned out.
jeffwass 5y ago
Savannah, Georgia is a pretty city, based on the Oglethorpe Plan back in 1733. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglethorpe_Plan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglethorpe_Plan
- IncRnd 5y ago
  Looking at https://www.travelsafe-abroad.com/united-states/savannah/ https://www.travelsafe-abroad.com/united-states/savannah/ So... How Safe Is Savannah Really? Savannah is a reasonably unsafe city. The crime index ranges from medium to high. The main problems here are robberies and assaults, car theft and theft, vandalism, violent crime, and drug problems. Nevertheless, the historic Savannah district is entirely safe for exploring the area day and night. Better to be in a company than one. Outside the historical site, district crime is more common. When studying a historical area, remember that this is a tourist area, and there will always be those who hunt tourists – be careful, but especially at night. One still needs to follow the dictates of common sense to avoid being victimized. Don’t walk around alone at night, particularly in unfamiliar neighborhoods. Lock vehicles and keep valuables out of sight. For cars, perhaps you need to be especially careful – the number of car thefts and hacks is enormous. Be sure to close the car and park in a guarded parking lot to avoid problems. Never leave anything in the car, not even trinkets. Do not get involved in any relationship with drug dealers; drugs are illegal here. Nevertheless, there are many who wish to offer or sell them to you. Keep an eye on your drink at the bar – there have been times when strangers added opiates to rob a victim.

panarky 5y ago

> energy equation of building a city in a desert Solar and nuclear work great in deserts. I'd be more concerned about water.

zer0tonin 5y ago
How do you cool a nuclear reactor without water?
- fogof 5y ago
  I guess you don't. That's why they're concerned.
  - panarky 5y ago
    The Palo Verde Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located near Tonopah, in western Arizona. It is located about 72 km due west of downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and it is located near the Gila River, which is dry save for the rainy season in late summer. The power plant evaporates the water from the treated sewage from several nearby cities and towns to provide the cooling of the steam that it produces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_...
- bgardell 5y ago
  Sewage
- nanomonkey 5y ago
  Night radiative cooling, the Cosmic Background radiation temperature is 4 degrees K.
  - dave333 5y ago
    This can be great for houses as well see https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.solarmirror.com%2Ffom%2Ffom-serve%2Fbags%2Fskytherm.gif&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.solarmirror.com%2Ffom%2Ffom-serve%2Fcache%2F30.html&tbnid=xjB6DVEMaGWEVM&vet=12ahUKEwiU5M7gtOvyAhXfBTQIHTVUCWMQMygAegUIARClAQ..i&docid=K8Vd5-F81eBDvM&w=360&h=270&q=skytherm%20roof&ved=2ahUKEwiU5M7gtOvyAhXfBTQIHTVUCWMQMygAegUIARClAQ https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.solarm...

phkahler 5y ago

Well since they mention funding from investors we can expect to pay a lot of rent, or pay really high prices.

sakopov 5y ago

The idea is ambitious but incredibly dystopian because it completely excludes conflicts arising from our innate differences. It's literally a real-world imitation of the Brave New World plot.

tdeck 5y ago

My first thought was this city/settlement built by a cult in the Oregon desert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneeshpuram?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneeshpuram?wprov=sfla1 Not closely related to the article but a very odd story.

gremloni 5y ago

I feel like deserts are instinctively slept on. It’s always sunny, nice and hot, low humidity, great for solar energy and clean. The only problem is water and the plan seems to address that issue.

freemint 5y ago
And that it gets really, really cold at night.