3 ms·

> about how homeless folks are interfering with their enjoyment > In practical terms you get to pick one. You can care about nebulous concepts like the social

by stale2002 5y ago

> about how homeless folks are interfering with their enjoyment > In practical terms you get to pick one. You can care about nebulous concepts like the social fabric Actually there was the other solution. The other solution compared to yours of "make people live in the small towns.", is instead "Make lots of tall skyscapers, so that big cities are affordable". If we lower the costs of big cities (By making lots and lots of supply, including tall skyscapers), then prices are lower for those who need them, and more people can live here, and take advantage of the big cities, and it can also benefit the poor by actually making it possible for them to live here, instead of on the streets. We don't have to force out the poor from the big cities. Instead we can make the big cities affordable to live in, with lots and lots of tall skyscrapers. > see people moving out of cities like San Francisco Actually, you are the one who is trying to get people to move out of the big cities. I want there to be more supply for everyone, in these big cities, with more skyscapers.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
Skyscrapers are inherently expensive to build, so building more skyscrapers isn't likely to make urban cores affordable for the types of folks who wind up homeless. I know a lot about homelessness. I spent nearly six years homeless and before that had a college class through SFSU called Homelessness and Public Policy and I still run several blogs on the topic, though I update them less than I used to as my focus has shifted to trying to solve the housing shortage that is a root cause of homelessness in the US.
- stale2002 5y ago
  > so building more skyscrapers isn't likely to make urban cores affordable for the types of folks who wind up homeless. Yes it will. Think of a skyscaper like a Yuppie containment center. For every high end apartment that exists, a Yuppie is no longer filling up an apartment in the mission, that very well could be afforable if they weren't currently full of yuppies. There are lots of yuppies who would love to live in those skyscapers, and if we build more of them, then those people will no longer be taking away afforable housing from other people who need it. Also, historically, this is how housing has worked. Previously high end apartments, become low end, over time, as the rich move out of those places, into other, newer apartments. > Skyscrapers are inherently expensive to build Doesn't matter. Because the goal is to get wealthy individuals, out of the existing apartments. The poor aren't forced to live in those skyscapers, but if the skyscapers exist, then there is less competition for the lower end of the market.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    Building more housing generally is good and does bring down rents. It still will not make big cities and skyscrapers in specific affordable for the types of people who end up homeless. Having been homeless and spoken to many homeless and so forth, I think we need some housing stock below $600/month in rent that will take households of up to three people. Skyscrapers are unlikely to be a means to provide housing at that price point, though they can be found sometimes in older low to mid-rise buildings. More skyscrapers may make downtowns more affordable for more middle class types who are currently forced out to the suburbs. They are unlikely to serve the types of people at high risk of homelessness, either directly or indirectly. There comes a point past which you simply can't lower the rent any further if your carrying costs are simply too high.
    - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
      The point of skyscrapers isn't that they provide the affordable housing. It's that they provide a lot of medium price housing so there is lower demand for housing in smaller buildings. The biggest problem with housing in big cities is that there isn't enough of it. When that is the case, the most important thing is putting more in. Even if the housing you put in is expensive, as long as it is dense, it will lower housing prices for other places because there is less competition.
      - DoreenMichele 5y ago
        At the risk of being accused of self promotion, a quote from one of my projects: At least one study suggests that four-story buildings are the sweet spot for minimizing energy usage. Though some people speculate that additional research will find that optimal height for minimizing carbon footprint will prove to be in the 6- to 12-story range, there is general agreement that very tall buildings are an energy burden to be avoided if we want to get climate change under control. http://projectsro.blogspot.com/2021/02/copenhagens-first-skyscraper-1960.html http://projectsro.blogspot.com/2021/02/copenhagens-first-sky... The study in question: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/getting-building-height-right-for-the-climate https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/getting-buildin... One of the things that is part of my mental model is that poor people are frequently people with serious health problems and our built environment is part of what fosters that. I'm dirt poor and not at my best tonight because of that. This late in the month I'm often broke as is the case currently. It's a very stressful way to live and it compounds problems. I have lived without a car for more than a decade which is challenging in the US. Our built environment requires a lot of Americans to own a car so they can get to work and get groceries and what not. We make it very difficult to make your life work without a car. We also have an obesity epidemic which means a lot of people suffering from preventable health problems. That epidemic is rooted in our built environment and the fact that it's so hard to walk anywhere. It's also hard to walk anywhere because of pollution and extremes of weather rooted in climate change. In my mind, all these things are very clearly tied together. But it's always challenging to express that effectively, more so when I am in poor health and dirt poor and can't seem to solve that. The poorest people in the US are people like me. And I have gotten off a bunch of prescription drugs in part by living without a car for a lot of years. But I get openly attacked and dismissed anytime I try to talk about that. I get told I'm making that up and a liar and yadda. I am not for building more skyscrapers, certainly not for what the article in question advocates of making them even taller. The myriad problems the US has are rooted in our not human scaled, not human friendly built environment. This includes issues like poor air quality, lack of opportunity to get exercise as a consequence of running errands on foot and many other issues. I think it's probably time for me to step away from this discussion. I don't know how to keep having it and comply with unstated expectations that my welfare is not important, my experiences are not real and cannot be expressed etc. That's not something I can politely deal with at the moment.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  So build the cheap 30 story concrete apartment blocks that dominate Asia. It doesn’t even need to be brutalesque.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

Skyscrapers are inherently expensive to build, so building more skyscrapers isn't likely to make urban cores affordable for the types of folks who wind up homeless. I know a lot about homelessness. I spent nearly six years homeless and before that had a college class through SFSU called Homelessness and Public Policy and I still run several blogs on the topic, though I update them less than I used to as my focus has shifted to trying to solve the housing shortage that is a root cause of homelessness in the US.

stale2002 5y ago
> so building more skyscrapers isn't likely to make urban cores affordable for the types of folks who wind up homeless. Yes it will. Think of a skyscaper like a Yuppie containment center. For every high end apartment that exists, a Yuppie is no longer filling up an apartment in the mission, that very well could be afforable if they weren't currently full of yuppies. There are lots of yuppies who would love to live in those skyscapers, and if we build more of them, then those people will no longer be taking away afforable housing from other people who need it. Also, historically, this is how housing has worked. Previously high end apartments, become low end, over time, as the rich move out of those places, into other, newer apartments. > Skyscrapers are inherently expensive to build Doesn't matter. Because the goal is to get wealthy individuals, out of the existing apartments. The poor aren't forced to live in those skyscapers, but if the skyscapers exist, then there is less competition for the lower end of the market.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Building more housing generally is good and does bring down rents. It still will not make big cities and skyscrapers in specific affordable for the types of people who end up homeless. Having been homeless and spoken to many homeless and so forth, I think we need some housing stock below $600/month in rent that will take households of up to three people. Skyscrapers are unlikely to be a means to provide housing at that price point, though they can be found sometimes in older low to mid-rise buildings. More skyscrapers may make downtowns more affordable for more middle class types who are currently forced out to the suburbs. They are unlikely to serve the types of people at high risk of homelessness, either directly or indirectly. There comes a point past which you simply can't lower the rent any further if your carrying costs are simply too high.
  - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
    The point of skyscrapers isn't that they provide the affordable housing. It's that they provide a lot of medium price housing so there is lower demand for housing in smaller buildings. The biggest problem with housing in big cities is that there isn't enough of it. When that is the case, the most important thing is putting more in. Even if the housing you put in is expensive, as long as it is dense, it will lower housing prices for other places because there is less competition.
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      At the risk of being accused of self promotion, a quote from one of my projects: At least one study suggests that four-story buildings are the sweet spot for minimizing energy usage. Though some people speculate that additional research will find that optimal height for minimizing carbon footprint will prove to be in the 6- to 12-story range, there is general agreement that very tall buildings are an energy burden to be avoided if we want to get climate change under control. http://projectsro.blogspot.com/2021/02/copenhagens-first-skyscraper-1960.html http://projectsro.blogspot.com/2021/02/copenhagens-first-sky... The study in question: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/getting-building-height-right-for-the-climate https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/getting-buildin... One of the things that is part of my mental model is that poor people are frequently people with serious health problems and our built environment is part of what fosters that. I'm dirt poor and not at my best tonight because of that. This late in the month I'm often broke as is the case currently. It's a very stressful way to live and it compounds problems. I have lived without a car for more than a decade which is challenging in the US. Our built environment requires a lot of Americans to own a car so they can get to work and get groceries and what not. We make it very difficult to make your life work without a car. We also have an obesity epidemic which means a lot of people suffering from preventable health problems. That epidemic is rooted in our built environment and the fact that it's so hard to walk anywhere. It's also hard to walk anywhere because of pollution and extremes of weather rooted in climate change. In my mind, all these things are very clearly tied together. But it's always challenging to express that effectively, more so when I am in poor health and dirt poor and can't seem to solve that. The poorest people in the US are people like me. And I have gotten off a bunch of prescription drugs in part by living without a car for a lot of years. But I get openly attacked and dismissed anytime I try to talk about that. I get told I'm making that up and a liar and yadda. I am not for building more skyscrapers, certainly not for what the article in question advocates of making them even taller. The myriad problems the US has are rooted in our not human scaled, not human friendly built environment. This includes issues like poor air quality, lack of opportunity to get exercise as a consequence of running errands on foot and many other issues. I think it's probably time for me to step away from this discussion. I don't know how to keep having it and comply with unstated expectations that my welfare is not important, my experiences are not real and cannot be expressed etc. That's not something I can politely deal with at the moment.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
So build the cheap 30 story concrete apartment blocks that dominate Asia. It doesn’t even need to be brutalesque.