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I've started to drink the kool-aide watching YouTube channels like "Not Just Bikes". But then I start watching other YouTube channels like Veratsium, ElectricBo

I've started to drink the kool-aide watching YouTube channels like "Not Just Bikes". But then I start watching other YouTube channels like Veratsium, ElectricBoom, Xyla Fox, Physics Girl, and others where it's clear they live in large house (may or may not be the suburbs). This large house gives them room for the workshop, garage for machinery, etc.... space that I would not have living in the city. Maybe that's ok but it's hard to give up that dream

kasey_junk 5y ago
There are shared garage/workshop areas that make way more sense in equipment utilization than building a shop for every person.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  Everyone owning their own car or bike doesn't make much sense either from a resource utilization standpoint either, but given the choice...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    Sharing would be _preferable_ by choice, since you could make one-way trips, but given the coordination problem...
- driscoll42 5y ago
  Sure... but then you also need to make sure you are close to them. I used to belong to a hackerspace, but it was a 30-45 minute bus/bike ride from my place and eventually quit. It was and is a great resource, but nothing beats just walking into your garage/basement to do the work you want.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  Yes, and I have space in my apartment for a home office/lab/hobby room, too. I'm not able to do a lot involving machinery or chemicals & such, but I am able to maintain a home computer lab, digital macro photography setup, and still have space for work/office use.
- t-writescode 5y ago
  I think this underestimates just how important having "My Shop" laid out in "My Way" is for developers and thinkers. Imagine if all of your production code was developed on a Library desktop with a single user login, or a 100kb folder that could be yours and everything else had to be public.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    Kind of except hackerspace shouldn't be like generic librarian setup, it should be more like ongoing iterative collaboration of experts to create something ready for beginners to jump in.
    - t-writescode 5y ago
      if I've gathered anything from looking at a few shops of skilled people online it's that their shops are very particular, set up in just that way, with the inventory organized in just a different way, and with machines in a particular format or order for just that reason. It's very personal to each person.
      - DarylZero 5y ago
        Check our Fireball Tool. Just about anybody who does that kind of work (metal fabrication) would prefer that shop over whatever they customized to their idiosyncrasies. That's the kind of thing that a collaborative space can aspire to.
  - prawn 5y ago
    A bigger issue might be the ability to leave a workspace and project in a state of progress, rather than cleaning up at the end of a session for someone to use the area after you. I'm all for shared spaces/tools at the block level because what we do now feels crazy, but my garage/shed are a permanent mess. I never have time to complete a full project in one go.
betaby 5y ago
Condos in Canada are surprisingly small, expensive and badly insulated compared to ones in Eastern or Southern Europe. So indeed it's easier to have a dedicated work/hobby room in US/CAN suburbs than in the city. Buy again cities in USA/Canada are not at all the same as in Europe. "Not Just Bikes" is more about West European living vs Canadian living.
fermentation 5y ago
I love having public transit over owning a car, but sometimes I start looking at houses in the Midwest and think about the massively different life I could have compared to my tiny city apartment.
anonporridge 5y ago
I have had the thought that part of America's secret sauce is the ability to spread out and have our own private spaces to tinker and experiment. Possibly develops more creative, industrious people who learn to just do things without waiting to ask for permission?
- alamortsubite 5y ago
  I like the utopia you're describing, but it's definitely not American suburbia.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    Perhaps not, but maybe still closer than ossified old world style cramped cities, where private spaces are tiny unless you're rich.
    - piva00 5y ago
      People aren't creative and inventive in Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the UK, Ireland, etc.?
      - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
        Japan, China, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea.
    - jcfrei 5y ago
      Square meter / person has only gone up here - and the population too.
  - w-j-w 5y ago
  - pkdpic 5y ago
    > I like the utopia you're describing, but it's definitely not American suburbia. Id definitely have to agree, over the last decade Ive seriously tried committing to life in the suburbs, megalopolises and extreme rural areas. Walkable to downtown in a midsized city is the only thing that even remotely works for me personally / my family. You do have to be "rich" but it was worth getting a dayjob for. Theres just something that feels really unsustainable and backwards about other types of spaces unless youre actually a millionaire or are growing your own food? Idunno again just my experience / opinion.
userbinator 5y ago
I've been to some of the more highly dense populated areas in southeast Asia, and in that environment there's definitely a strong dystopian feeling of living in a "factory farm".
thr0wawayf00 5y ago
"Not Just Bikes" did a video not too long ago talking about how unsustainably expensive suburban infrastructure is maintain long term that I found fascinating, especially as we start to property taxes rise throughout the country. One of the biggest problems our society currently faces is a lack of knowledge and interest in understanding why things like infrastructure cost so much, and that channel makes an interesting case as to why suburban infrastructure is prohibitively expensive to deal with long-term, and we're already starting to see that. Cities like Austin, with major suburban populations, are struggling to deal with public transportation expansion because everyone is so spread out, so meaningfully increasing access to transit becomes much more expensive. Suburbs are a perfect example of "make the next generation pay for it, I'm gonna enjoy this now."
- AuthorizedCust 5y ago
  That’s a silly trope of new urbanists. It mainly relies on a false narrative of current revenues paying for infrastructure. New suburban infrastructure is typically paid for by debt instruments, either directly (municipal bond) or indirectly (costs passed by developers to a new home’s first owners, usually paid via mortgage). Same goes for future major repairs or replacements: financed by new debt. No big deal.
  - orwin 5y ago
    Money is basically energy. Having an infrastructure that cost ten time as much money to maintain cost ten time as much energy to maintain. I agree with you, people should understand that their taxes do not pay for debt (usually), that public debt is `good` for their pensions and the economy at large, so the debt isn't an issue. But this is not a trope specific to new urbanists, it is a general trope of people not understanding modern economy. And a lot of old "economist" (Tv economists, not real researchers usually) still believe in this (or use it as a talking point for their own political agenda)
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      >Money is basically energy. Having an infrastructure that cost ten time as much money to maintain cost ten time as much energy to maintain. So at what point is society rich enough to afford it?
ruined 5y ago
the traditional solution is a studio. rent for a modest living space plus a separate modest studio space nearby is generally cheaper than an equivalent combined space, and when you split rent with co-tenants it becomes even more reasonable. even my broke friends working service jobs are able to afford this. more privately, townhouses in my area often include this kind of space with garages and what realtors like to call "bonus" rooms. and there's nothing that prevents apartment buildings from having shared space like this among the other amenities, except culture. if there's no collective space near you, perhaps that's an opportunity to establish one.
throw0101a 5y ago
> This large house gives them room for the workshop, garage for machinery, etc.... space that I would not have living in the city. It's possible to combine a lot of square footage / meterage and walkable density: * https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb Just get rid of the large ornament and generally useless front lawn. And it's not like more recent developments in the US suburbs aren't getting closer together either: > Have you noticed that the yards of American homes have been getting a lot smaller in the last few years? It's not your imagination. Cheddar explains why lawns are shrinking across the US - and why we even have them the first place > Further reading […] * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwOyA-pOTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwOyA-pOTY
- clairity 5y ago
  > "Just get rid of the large ornament and generally useless front lawn." walking (my dog) around my neighborhood, which has a surprising number of different setback standards, has led me to think about this issue abnormally often. some blocks designate as much as ~40 ft of setback, requiring large front lawns, while others have ~10 ft, with just a strip of greenway as a buffer between the street and building. observing that, i've settled on 12-15 ft setbacks being an ideal transition from public to private space in our urban landscapes: 4-5 ft of parkway, 4-5 ft of sidewalk, and 4-5 ft of vegetation to the building envelope. this provides plenty of greenspace and the requisite public walkway right through that greenery, while also maximizing the space left for housing. for unusually space-constrained blocks, you could remove the parkway, put the sidewalk right on the curb and get this down to 8-10 ft of setback. on top of this i'd convert all on-street parking to protected micromobility lanes and narrow neighborhood car lanes to 9 ft max. this would minimize the amount of urban space dedicated to cars, while still providing car access, and also allowing a diversity of mobility options. the last but most difficult change i'd suggest is requiring all car parking be underground, accessible via a single underground alley down the lengthwise spine of each block (houses with basements could have entries directly from the underground garage to the basement, for instance). this drastically reduces driveway cutouts and cross-modal intersections, thereby reducing cross-modal collisions, injuries and deaths, while also minimizing the surface area dedicated to driveways and parking.
refurb 5y ago
Yup. When I spent time in Asia you think people take up hobbies like metal working, auto repair, etc when it’s a family of 5 in a 2 bedroom apartment? It’s absolutely luxurious being able to afford 500 to 1,000 sq ft per person with your own yard. Having to drive everywhere is a fine trade off for many.

kasey_junk 5y ago

There are shared garage/workshop areas that make way more sense in equipment utilization than building a shop for every person.

BobbyJo 5y ago
Everyone owning their own car or bike doesn't make much sense either from a resource utilization standpoint either, but given the choice...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- DarylZero 5y ago
  Sharing would be _preferable_ by choice, since you could make one-way trips, but given the coordination problem...
driscoll42 5y ago
Sure... but then you also need to make sure you are close to them. I used to belong to a hackerspace, but it was a 30-45 minute bus/bike ride from my place and eventually quit. It was and is a great resource, but nothing beats just walking into your garage/basement to do the work you want.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
actually_a_dog 5y ago
Yes, and I have space in my apartment for a home office/lab/hobby room, too. I'm not able to do a lot involving machinery or chemicals & such, but I am able to maintain a home computer lab, digital macro photography setup, and still have space for work/office use.
t-writescode 5y ago
I think this underestimates just how important having "My Shop" laid out in "My Way" is for developers and thinkers. Imagine if all of your production code was developed on a Library desktop with a single user login, or a 100kb folder that could be yours and everything else had to be public.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  Kind of except hackerspace shouldn't be like generic librarian setup, it should be more like ongoing iterative collaboration of experts to create something ready for beginners to jump in.
  - t-writescode 5y ago
    if I've gathered anything from looking at a few shops of skilled people online it's that their shops are very particular, set up in just that way, with the inventory organized in just a different way, and with machines in a particular format or order for just that reason. It's very personal to each person.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      Check our Fireball Tool. Just about anybody who does that kind of work (metal fabrication) would prefer that shop over whatever they customized to their idiosyncrasies. That's the kind of thing that a collaborative space can aspire to.
- prawn 5y ago
  A bigger issue might be the ability to leave a workspace and project in a state of progress, rather than cleaning up at the end of a session for someone to use the area after you. I'm all for shared spaces/tools at the block level because what we do now feels crazy, but my garage/shed are a permanent mess. I never have time to complete a full project in one go.

betaby 5y ago

Condos in Canada are surprisingly small, expensive and badly insulated compared to ones in Eastern or Southern Europe. So indeed it's easier to have a dedicated work/hobby room in US/CAN suburbs than in the city. Buy again cities in USA/Canada are not at all the same as in Europe. "Not Just Bikes" is more about West European living vs Canadian living.

fermentation 5y ago

I love having public transit over owning a car, but sometimes I start looking at houses in the Midwest and think about the massively different life I could have compared to my tiny city apartment.

anonporridge 5y ago

I have had the thought that part of America's secret sauce is the ability to spread out and have our own private spaces to tinker and experiment. Possibly develops more creative, industrious people who learn to just do things without waiting to ask for permission?

alamortsubite 5y ago
I like the utopia you're describing, but it's definitely not American suburbia.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Perhaps not, but maybe still closer than ossified old world style cramped cities, where private spaces are tiny unless you're rich.
  - piva00 5y ago
    People aren't creative and inventive in Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the UK, Ireland, etc.?
    - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
      Japan, China, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea.
  - jcfrei 5y ago
    Square meter / person has only gone up here - and the population too.
- w-j-w 5y ago
- pkdpic 5y ago
  > I like the utopia you're describing, but it's definitely not American suburbia. Id definitely have to agree, over the last decade Ive seriously tried committing to life in the suburbs, megalopolises and extreme rural areas. Walkable to downtown in a midsized city is the only thing that even remotely works for me personally / my family. You do have to be "rich" but it was worth getting a dayjob for. Theres just something that feels really unsustainable and backwards about other types of spaces unless youre actually a millionaire or are growing your own food? Idunno again just my experience / opinion.

userbinator 5y ago

I've been to some of the more highly dense populated areas in southeast Asia, and in that environment there's definitely a strong dystopian feeling of living in a "factory farm".

thr0wawayf00 5y ago

"Not Just Bikes" did a video not too long ago talking about how unsustainably expensive suburban infrastructure is maintain long term that I found fascinating, especially as we start to property taxes rise throughout the country. One of the biggest problems our society currently faces is a lack of knowledge and interest in understanding why things like infrastructure cost so much, and that channel makes an interesting case as to why suburban infrastructure is prohibitively expensive to deal with long-term, and we're already starting to see that. Cities like Austin, with major suburban populations, are struggling to deal with public transportation expansion because everyone is so spread out, so meaningfully increasing access to transit becomes much more expensive. Suburbs are a perfect example of "make the next generation pay for it, I'm gonna enjoy this now."

AuthorizedCust 5y ago
That’s a silly trope of new urbanists. It mainly relies on a false narrative of current revenues paying for infrastructure. New suburban infrastructure is typically paid for by debt instruments, either directly (municipal bond) or indirectly (costs passed by developers to a new home’s first owners, usually paid via mortgage). Same goes for future major repairs or replacements: financed by new debt. No big deal.
- orwin 5y ago
  Money is basically energy. Having an infrastructure that cost ten time as much money to maintain cost ten time as much energy to maintain. I agree with you, people should understand that their taxes do not pay for debt (usually), that public debt is `good` for their pensions and the economy at large, so the debt isn't an issue. But this is not a trope specific to new urbanists, it is a general trope of people not understanding modern economy. And a lot of old "economist" (Tv economists, not real researchers usually) still believe in this (or use it as a talking point for their own political agenda)
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >Money is basically energy. Having an infrastructure that cost ten time as much money to maintain cost ten time as much energy to maintain. So at what point is society rich enough to afford it?

ruined 5y ago

the traditional solution is a studio. rent for a modest living space plus a separate modest studio space nearby is generally cheaper than an equivalent combined space, and when you split rent with co-tenants it becomes even more reasonable. even my broke friends working service jobs are able to afford this. more privately, townhouses in my area often include this kind of space with garages and what realtors like to call "bonus" rooms. and there's nothing that prevents apartment buildings from having shared space like this among the other amenities, except culture. if there's no collective space near you, perhaps that's an opportunity to establish one.

throw0101a 5y ago

> This large house gives them room for the workshop, garage for machinery, etc.... space that I would not have living in the city. It's possible to combine a lot of square footage / meterage and walkable density: * https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb Just get rid of the large ornament and generally useless front lawn. And it's not like more recent developments in the US suburbs aren't getting closer together either: > Have you noticed that the yards of American homes have been getting a lot smaller in the last few years? It's not your imagination. Cheddar explains why lawns are shrinking across the US - and why we even have them the first place > Further reading […] * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwOyA-pOTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKwOyA-pOTY

clairity 5y ago
> "Just get rid of the large ornament and generally useless front lawn." walking (my dog) around my neighborhood, which has a surprising number of different setback standards, has led me to think about this issue abnormally often. some blocks designate as much as ~40 ft of setback, requiring large front lawns, while others have ~10 ft, with just a strip of greenway as a buffer between the street and building. observing that, i've settled on 12-15 ft setbacks being an ideal transition from public to private space in our urban landscapes: 4-5 ft of parkway, 4-5 ft of sidewalk, and 4-5 ft of vegetation to the building envelope. this provides plenty of greenspace and the requisite public walkway right through that greenery, while also maximizing the space left for housing. for unusually space-constrained blocks, you could remove the parkway, put the sidewalk right on the curb and get this down to 8-10 ft of setback. on top of this i'd convert all on-street parking to protected micromobility lanes and narrow neighborhood car lanes to 9 ft max. this would minimize the amount of urban space dedicated to cars, while still providing car access, and also allowing a diversity of mobility options. the last but most difficult change i'd suggest is requiring all car parking be underground, accessible via a single underground alley down the lengthwise spine of each block (houses with basements could have entries directly from the underground garage to the basement, for instance). this drastically reduces driveway cutouts and cross-modal intersections, thereby reducing cross-modal collisions, injuries and deaths, while also minimizing the surface area dedicated to driveways and parking.

refurb 5y ago

Yup. When I spent time in Asia you think people take up hobbies like metal working, auto repair, etc when it’s a family of 5 in a 2 bedroom apartment? It’s absolutely luxurious being able to afford 500 to 1,000 sq ft per person with your own yard. Having to drive everywhere is a fine trade off for many.