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With remote work, why are we still all trying to cram ourselves so close together? Also, why isn't building down economical?

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> With remote work, why are we still all trying to cram ourselves so close together? For one thing, many jobs can't be done remotely. But it's not just about work. People want to go to restaurants, community centers, live entertainment. The more sprawl there is, the fewer people can live within reasonable distance of it. Even if you want to live in a single family home, tall buildings are good. Instead of having to drive an hour through a landscape of other single family homes, you can live in one closer to the city while some of the people who used to live there can live in the city because they prefer being within walking distance to having a half acre of grass. Currently there are more people who want that than most cities have housing units and many of them get priced out, which in turn makes it more expensive to live in the suburbs.
jcranmer 5y ago
> Also, why isn't building down economical? Several issues: * Digging is expensive. There's several factors for this, but some unavoidable stuff include things like "you need to put the stuff you took out of the ground somewhere." * The deeper you go, the hotter it gets. Although it's probably not that bad if you're only digging a mile or so. * Natural light is hard to come by underground. * Groundwater intrusion becomes a much more significant concern. * Having to pump all of the sump water and sewage up to the sewer lines is not going to be fun.
rendall 5y ago
The idea is thrown around enough that it has been named depthscrapers or earthscrapers. There are many articles on it, if you're curious: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=depthscrapers+OR+earthscrapers&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=depthscrapers+OR+earthscrapers&ia=...

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

> With remote work, why are we still all trying to cram ourselves so close together? For one thing, many jobs can't be done remotely. But it's not just about work. People want to go to restaurants, community centers, live entertainment. The more sprawl there is, the fewer people can live within reasonable distance of it. Even if you want to live in a single family home, tall buildings are good. Instead of having to drive an hour through a landscape of other single family homes, you can live in one closer to the city while some of the people who used to live there can live in the city because they prefer being within walking distance to having a half acre of grass. Currently there are more people who want that than most cities have housing units and many of them get priced out, which in turn makes it more expensive to live in the suburbs.

jcranmer 5y ago

> Also, why isn't building down economical? Several issues: * Digging is expensive. There's several factors for this, but some unavoidable stuff include things like "you need to put the stuff you took out of the ground somewhere." * The deeper you go, the hotter it gets. Although it's probably not that bad if you're only digging a mile or so. * Natural light is hard to come by underground. * Groundwater intrusion becomes a much more significant concern. * Having to pump all of the sump water and sewage up to the sewer lines is not going to be fun.

rendall 5y ago

The idea is thrown around enough that it has been named depthscrapers or earthscrapers. There are many articles on it, if you're curious: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=depthscrapers+OR+earthscrapers&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=depthscrapers+OR+earthscrapers&ia=...