7 ms·

>Why would I do this? I hate apartments, they are cramped, noisy, I don't have a private yard, I can have bad neighbors and I don't really own it (just the apar

by kd913 5y ago

>Why would I do this? I hate apartments, they are cramped, noisy, I don't have a private yard, I can have bad neighbors and I don't really own it (just the apartment not the land). I'll stick to living in a rural area. I hate this dystopia you people envision of living packed like sardines in a can. Largely because traditional suburban/rural designs are not climate conscious, nor economically solvent. Your tax receipts wouldn't cover the maintenance costs of infrastructure. If the actual economic costs of maintaining the above weren't subsidized by people living in apartment blocks, you would probably change your tune.

dionidium 5y ago
There's actually a much more obvious and selfish reason somebody would want to do this: the tradeoffs are worth it. The reason people cluster together in cities is so that they can trade with each other and have sex with each other and learn from each other and attend gatherings with each other and look at each other's art and so on. And even most sexless, joyless, introvert-art-haters need to sell their labor or their wares. So, sure, everybody would like more space, more privacy, etc, but the way the world actually works is that you have to make tradeoffs.
- tharne 5y ago
  > So, sure, everybody would like more space, more privacy, etc, but the way the world actually works is that you have to make tradeoffs. That's the beauty of technology though. I really don't have to make these tradeoffs anymore. I can work from home which means I'm no longer limited to the job market in my immediate geography. I can order practically any product I want online so it really doesn't matter if I live close to a city with great stores or not. I can use a plethora of apps to meet people and date. And of course, I have my car (and uber as a backup) so I don't need to be cramped into some terrible apartment in order to make the world accessible. We love to romanticize these crowded industrial era cities, but when given the choice, most people would rather not live in dense cities at all.
  - dionidium 5y ago
    I'll just reiterate that I think you should be free to live however you want. What you should not be allowed to do is use zoning laws to enforce your preferences on everybody else. If a conservative is somebody standing athwart history yelling stop, then a NIMBY is someone who does the same thing to the city as it grows around them. That's a right you claim for yourself that I don't acknowledge. In fact I think it's plainly illegitimate and Unconstitutional.
    - pandaman 5y ago
      Zoning laws are at the township level. People living in the same location voted for them. Are you arguing that it's unconstitutional? On what grounds if you don't mind my asking?
      - dionidium 5y ago
        Because private property rights shouldn't be subject to a vote. That's the whole point of a Constitution. It's for the things that aren't up to a vote -- the things we agree are rights so fundamental that they are guaranteed, not subject to the whims of the electorate.
        pandaman 5y ago
        Are you talking about the US Constitution or something else? The US Constitution explicitly limits private property rights in the 5th amendment.
        dionidium 5y ago
        The SCOTUS case that modern zoning grows out of is Euclid v. Ambler. It's a plainly ridiculous ruling, full of irrelevant editorializing about the desirability of urban environments. Consider this passage from the majority: > With particular reference to apartment houses, it is pointed out that the development of detached house sections is greatly retarded by the coming of apartment houses, which has sometimes resulted in destroying the entire section for private house purposes; that in such sections very often the apartment house is a mere parasite, constructed in order to take advantage of the open spaces and attractive surroundings created by the residential character of the district. Moreover, the coming of one apartment house is followed by others, interfering by their height and bulk with the free circulation of air and monopolizing the rays of the sun which otherwise would fall upon the smaller homes, and bringing, as their necessary accompaniments, the disturbing noises incident to increased traffic and business, and the occupation, by means of moving and parked automobiles, of larger portions of the streets, thus detracting from their safety and depriving children of the privilege of quiet and open spaces for play, enjoyed by those in more favored localities-until, finally, the residential character of the neighborhood and its desirability as a place of detached residences are utterly destroyed. Under these circumstances, apartment houses, which in a different environment would be not only entirely unobjectionable but highly desirable, come very near to being nuisances. What is this nonsense? "[T]he apartment house is a mere parasite." So the Court prefers suburbs to apartment living? Who cares? This is no basis for overturning fundamental property rights. The Court in Euclid did what NIMBYs often do, which is to listen to all the arguments and then say, ultimately, "yeah, yeah, productivity, property rights, freedom, etc, I get it, I get it, but I don't want more density near me and isn't the intensity of my preferences on this issue what really matters?"
- navbaker 5y ago
  If only there was a world-wide communication network that enabled people to live apart from other people and still perform all these functions...
1234letshaveatw 5y ago
Rural infrastructure is not necessarily equivalent to the impact/cost of the suburbs. Your average suburban house has municipal sewer/water, long natural gas runs and paved roads. A Rural house is more likely to have gravel roads, a well/septic and propane or electric heat.
- oblio 5y ago
  Yeah, but how many people are actually living this rural lifestyle? 5%? 10%? 15% at most? The vast majority of people don't live like that.
  - jimmaswell 5y ago
    I have a septic and propane heat which is very common around here, and I'm in a small town, not even really remote at all.
    - pooper 5y ago
      I think they are talking about people like me who would like a cheap but modern home with reliable and inexpensive electricity, drinking water and sewage, gigabit fiber, paved roads to the door, and within driving distance to hospitals and Costco/Sam's Club. All with rock bottom taxes. Something has to give.
      - jimmaswell 5y ago
        I don't think all of that at once is realistic, yeah. Paved roads and sewage are probably least important to me. What's wrong with a septic system?
        pooper 5y ago
        > Paved roads and sewage are probably least important to me. What's wrong with a septic system? I am getting older. I was born in 1987 so I am already 30+. With my sedentary lifestyle, I am pretty much guaranteed to have health problems well before I am eligible for Medicare and there is no sign that we will have medicare for all in my lifetime. Therefore, I can only afford healthcare as long as I work. Long story short, I cannot afford to be airlifted out of the middle of nowhere when (not if) I have a major health crisis in the next thirty years. If we can use a septic tank for sewage, we can also use solar (and batteries) for electricity, a state of the art in-ground heat pump for heating (and cooling) the house, satellite Internet for remote work. We can do all that but we still need paved roads. I think (please don't quote me on this) this is the thing that the stronger towns dude keeps saying. We can probably afford to build sparsely populated suburbia and rural utopia ONCE where everyone has half an acre of backyard and where you aren't woken up in the middle of the night because your neighbor decided to do laundry at 3 AM on a Tuesday. However, who is paying to keep up all these roads? > for example, a representative cost in 2014 for reconstructing an existing lane of [...] a collector street in a small urban area would have set you back $1.5 million per mile https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-much-does-a-mile-of-road-actually-cost https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-much-does-... I wonder if building out railroads would be cheaper than building out paved roads to everywhere. Thoughts?
surge 5y ago
It'd be economically viable if what I pay in local/state versus federal taxes were flipped. What happens instead is I pay exorbitant federal taxes, then that gets given back to my state/local governments as grants/title X funding with stipulations to fix the roads, etc. At least the taxes I pay to local government I have more direct control of as an individual voter. Instead I'm just funding a massive military and protection of countries overseas and our oil interests. Also even though you get less room, the cost of living inside a city is insane. The trade offs don't make any sense. You can often live a much better QoL, for half as much anywhere else. Address the cost of living issues, then more people might be interested in the city lifestyle. The truth is even those that live in suburbs or rural areas that are interested living in the city simply can't afford it. If they work there they're paid just enough that they have to commute an hour or more to afford to live somewhere.
- kd913 5y ago
  >It'd be economically viable if what I pay in local/state versus federal taxes were flipped. It really wouldn't. I don't think there is a mechanism for making the above infrastructure sustainable short of tearing it down. In some places, the debt payments exceed total annual incomes for residents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfQUOHlAocY&list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa&index=4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfQUOHlAocY&list=PLJp5q-R0lZ...
  - undersuit 5y ago
    I'm from Montana. The only thing keeping our infrastructure as good as it is is the current arrangement of payments. Our current political climate in the state would not raise taxes on residents to compensate for the costs of our developed lifestyle being shifted fully onto us. I think this does need to change, but I'm the minority here. Most people "need" to drive because of the weather.
    - karmelapple 5y ago
      Here's a fun interactive map showing which states pay out more than they receive: https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-payments-portal/ https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-... Note that 2020 is an outlier year due to COVID, so probably best to look at 2019 or before. In 2019, 9 states paid more than they got back. And wow do some states make a lot of money: Virginia and Kentucky both have a per capita "more money than they take in" that's 3X that of Montana. But Montana still is raking in ~$4000 per capita than they pay out, whereas each Massachusetts resident sent out ~$2100. I grew up in North Dakota, so can I get a free day ski pass next time I come out west and swing by Montana? :)

by kd913 5y ago

dionidium 5y ago

There's actually a much more obvious and selfish reason somebody would want to do this: the tradeoffs are worth it. The reason people cluster together in cities is so that they can trade with each other and have sex with each other and learn from each other and attend gatherings with each other and look at each other's art and so on. And even most sexless, joyless, introvert-art-haters need to sell their labor or their wares. So, sure, everybody would like more space, more privacy, etc, but the way the world actually works is that you have to make tradeoffs.

tharne 5y ago
> So, sure, everybody would like more space, more privacy, etc, but the way the world actually works is that you have to make tradeoffs. That's the beauty of technology though. I really don't have to make these tradeoffs anymore. I can work from home which means I'm no longer limited to the job market in my immediate geography. I can order practically any product I want online so it really doesn't matter if I live close to a city with great stores or not. I can use a plethora of apps to meet people and date. And of course, I have my car (and uber as a backup) so I don't need to be cramped into some terrible apartment in order to make the world accessible. We love to romanticize these crowded industrial era cities, but when given the choice, most people would rather not live in dense cities at all.
- dionidium 5y ago
  I'll just reiterate that I think you should be free to live however you want. What you should not be allowed to do is use zoning laws to enforce your preferences on everybody else. If a conservative is somebody standing athwart history yelling stop, then a NIMBY is someone who does the same thing to the city as it grows around them. That's a right you claim for yourself that I don't acknowledge. In fact I think it's plainly illegitimate and Unconstitutional.
  - pandaman 5y ago
    Zoning laws are at the township level. People living in the same location voted for them. Are you arguing that it's unconstitutional? On what grounds if you don't mind my asking?
    - dionidium 5y ago
      Because private property rights shouldn't be subject to a vote. That's the whole point of a Constitution. It's for the things that aren't up to a vote -- the things we agree are rights so fundamental that they are guaranteed, not subject to the whims of the electorate.
      - pandaman 5y ago
        Are you talking about the US Constitution or something else? The US Constitution explicitly limits private property rights in the 5th amendment.
        dionidium 5y ago
        The SCOTUS case that modern zoning grows out of is Euclid v. Ambler. It's a plainly ridiculous ruling, full of irrelevant editorializing about the desirability of urban environments. Consider this passage from the majority: > With particular reference to apartment houses, it is pointed out that the development of detached house sections is greatly retarded by the coming of apartment houses, which has sometimes resulted in destroying the entire section for private house purposes; that in such sections very often the apartment house is a mere parasite, constructed in order to take advantage of the open spaces and attractive surroundings created by the residential character of the district. Moreover, the coming of one apartment house is followed by others, interfering by their height and bulk with the free circulation of air and monopolizing the rays of the sun which otherwise would fall upon the smaller homes, and bringing, as their necessary accompaniments, the disturbing noises incident to increased traffic and business, and the occupation, by means of moving and parked automobiles, of larger portions of the streets, thus detracting from their safety and depriving children of the privilege of quiet and open spaces for play, enjoyed by those in more favored localities-until, finally, the residential character of the neighborhood and its desirability as a place of detached residences are utterly destroyed. Under these circumstances, apartment houses, which in a different environment would be not only entirely unobjectionable but highly desirable, come very near to being nuisances. What is this nonsense? "[T]he apartment house is a mere parasite." So the Court prefers suburbs to apartment living? Who cares? This is no basis for overturning fundamental property rights. The Court in Euclid did what NIMBYs often do, which is to listen to all the arguments and then say, ultimately, "yeah, yeah, productivity, property rights, freedom, etc, I get it, I get it, but I don't want more density near me and isn't the intensity of my preferences on this issue what really matters?"
navbaker 5y ago
If only there was a world-wide communication network that enabled people to live apart from other people and still perform all these functions...

1234letshaveatw 5y ago

Rural infrastructure is not necessarily equivalent to the impact/cost of the suburbs. Your average suburban house has municipal sewer/water, long natural gas runs and paved roads. A Rural house is more likely to have gravel roads, a well/septic and propane or electric heat.

oblio 5y ago
Yeah, but how many people are actually living this rural lifestyle? 5%? 10%? 15% at most? The vast majority of people don't live like that.
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  I have a septic and propane heat which is very common around here, and I'm in a small town, not even really remote at all.
  - pooper 5y ago
    I think they are talking about people like me who would like a cheap but modern home with reliable and inexpensive electricity, drinking water and sewage, gigabit fiber, paved roads to the door, and within driving distance to hospitals and Costco/Sam's Club. All with rock bottom taxes. Something has to give.
    - jimmaswell 5y ago
      I don't think all of that at once is realistic, yeah. Paved roads and sewage are probably least important to me. What's wrong with a septic system?
      - pooper 5y ago
        > Paved roads and sewage are probably least important to me. What's wrong with a septic system? I am getting older. I was born in 1987 so I am already 30+. With my sedentary lifestyle, I am pretty much guaranteed to have health problems well before I am eligible for Medicare and there is no sign that we will have medicare for all in my lifetime. Therefore, I can only afford healthcare as long as I work. Long story short, I cannot afford to be airlifted out of the middle of nowhere when (not if) I have a major health crisis in the next thirty years. If we can use a septic tank for sewage, we can also use solar (and batteries) for electricity, a state of the art in-ground heat pump for heating (and cooling) the house, satellite Internet for remote work. We can do all that but we still need paved roads. I think (please don't quote me on this) this is the thing that the stronger towns dude keeps saying. We can probably afford to build sparsely populated suburbia and rural utopia ONCE where everyone has half an acre of backyard and where you aren't woken up in the middle of the night because your neighbor decided to do laundry at 3 AM on a Tuesday. However, who is paying to keep up all these roads? > for example, a representative cost in 2014 for reconstructing an existing lane of [...] a collector street in a small urban area would have set you back $1.5 million per mile https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-much-does-a-mile-of-road-actually-cost https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-much-does-... I wonder if building out railroads would be cheaper than building out paved roads to everywhere. Thoughts?

surge 5y ago

It'd be economically viable if what I pay in local/state versus federal taxes were flipped. What happens instead is I pay exorbitant federal taxes, then that gets given back to my state/local governments as grants/title X funding with stipulations to fix the roads, etc. At least the taxes I pay to local government I have more direct control of as an individual voter. Instead I'm just funding a massive military and protection of countries overseas and our oil interests. Also even though you get less room, the cost of living inside a city is insane. The trade offs don't make any sense. You can often live a much better QoL, for half as much anywhere else. Address the cost of living issues, then more people might be interested in the city lifestyle. The truth is even those that live in suburbs or rural areas that are interested living in the city simply can't afford it. If they work there they're paid just enough that they have to commute an hour or more to afford to live somewhere.

kd913 5y ago
>It'd be economically viable if what I pay in local/state versus federal taxes were flipped. It really wouldn't. I don't think there is a mechanism for making the above infrastructure sustainable short of tearing it down. In some places, the debt payments exceed total annual incomes for residents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfQUOHlAocY&list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa&index=4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfQUOHlAocY&list=PLJp5q-R0lZ...
- undersuit 5y ago
  I'm from Montana. The only thing keeping our infrastructure as good as it is is the current arrangement of payments. Our current political climate in the state would not raise taxes on residents to compensate for the costs of our developed lifestyle being shifted fully onto us. I think this does need to change, but I'm the minority here. Most people "need" to drive because of the weather.
  - karmelapple 5y ago
    Here's a fun interactive map showing which states pay out more than they receive: https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-payments-portal/ https://rockinst.org/issue-areas/fiscal-analysis/balance-of-... Note that 2020 is an outlier year due to COVID, so probably best to look at 2019 or before. In 2019, 9 states paid more than they got back. And wow do some states make a lot of money: Virginia and Kentucky both have a per capita "more money than they take in" that's 3X that of Montana. But Montana still is raking in ~$4000 per capita than they pay out, whereas each Massachusetts resident sent out ~$2100. I grew up in North Dakota, so can I get a free day ski pass next time I come out west and swing by Montana? :)