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I agree with that, but their actions do impinge on my preferences. My preferences disappear the moment theirs are exercised. Here's an example. I absolutely do

I agree with that, but their actions do impinge on my preferences. My preferences disappear the moment theirs are exercised. Here's an example. I absolutely do not believe that this is actually a fair comparison. I do believe it follows the same logic as your example. Let me explain what I mean. Let's say that I lived in an apartment, and developed a habit of listening to extremely loud music with bass starting at 10pm, and ending at 5am. My neighbors have a "preference" to be able to not hear that loud music at all, and certainly not when they're trying to sleep. They may not _like_ the loud music, but that's as far as the harm goes. To enforce _their_ preference, they would have to restrict my behavior. Now all reasonable people would agree that playing deafening bass in the middle of the night is inappropriate, and that it would be perfectly fine to restrict my behavior. In other words, we restrict others' behavior pretty frequently. And, this restriction is based on "common sense" judgements. When the preferences of somebody falls outside of the norm under this regime, they may not have much recourse. Now to be clear, this is far from a perfect comparison: there are laws against noise pollution, and property lines are not really the same issue as "being obnoxious on purpose." In other words, I agree and admit that these two scenarios are not interchangeable in effect. (I do believe that they follow the same logic, however.) It's also not the case that in the "duplex" scenario that the greatest ill is not simply that I must "see" the duplex. Really, population density in an area has a number of effects: - More people means more noise pollution. (and in some cities, kids will play loud bass in their cars no matter what time of night it is) - More crime. (if not per-capita, then in absolute terms) - More trash, debris, and pollution in my general vicinity. - Longer travel times. - More crowds. - Etc. And again, I'm not suggesting that I should have a legal right to prevent density from occurring. However it seems that when density occurs I have no recourse but move. I don't have any way to preserve something which is singularly important to me.

warning26 5y ago
> However it seems that when density occurs I have no recourse but move. Sure, and what's wrong with that? If your goal is to live in a rural area without many people, then many countries today have plenty of depopulated areas on the outskirts of rural towns. Why not live there? It's like the parent commenter said; expecting desirable land near a city not to densify is like expecting a puppy to never grow into a dog.
- teakettle42 5y ago
  > If your goal is to live in a rural area without many people, then many countries today have plenty of depopulated areas on the outskirts of rural towns. Why not live there? If your goal is to live in a dense area packed with people, then many countries today have plenty of densely populated areas in the center of urban cities. Why not live there?
  - novok 5y ago
    The entire point for many americans, is there is really no choice for the most part. It's either rural areas, suburbs or hyper expensive urban areas because building an urban city is effectively illegal in most of the USA, so the few legacy cities that still exist have extremely high demand. In countries where there is a choice, this debate hardly happens. People who want their village life surrounded by farmland can go live in a small village with a train line stop and commute into the huge downtown city for work within 45 - 60 minutes. Look at berlin for example: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Dabendorf,+15806+Zossen,+Germany/Bahnhof+Berlin+Friedrichstraße/@52.3915289,13.3798942,10.34z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x47a86a5297705675:0xd7efd5d6ac572508!2m2!1d13.4375771!2d52.2376804!1m5!1m1!1s0x47a851c303492d73:0x6c4ed0dc30b6dc04!2m2!1d13.3869776!2d52.5202894!3e3!5m1!1e2 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Dabendorf,+15806+Zossen,+Ger... "Move to another country" is a complete non-starter for most Americans too. What Americans have done to their country is a fence sitting exercise that creates the worse of both worlds. Cities in Europe are smaller, more dense and the drop off into nature is significantly faster. When americans attempt to make something city like, they're noisy, dirty, traffic clogged and crime ridden because it's against the culture to make walkable, transit orientated cities that are significantly quieter, than an american car dependent 'city'. They still give themselves long commutes, but you get huge suburban sprawl that never really ends until your hours out, so you still don't get your log cabin lifestyle anyway. By allowing cities to properly happen, you ironically create the conditions that make what you want more frequent and would still let you work close enough to a city core to actually make good money. A key issue with rural living is a bad income, because your too far away from other humans to make large productive groups than can make money.
    - 5y ago
yhoneycomb 5y ago
> I don't have any way to preserve something which is singularly important to me. Well, have you thought about buying a larger plot of land? Seems like the obvious solution if you are intent on controlling wide swaths of land surrounding your house.
- teakettle42 5y ago
  Great idea. Expensive, though. What if, instead, a bunch of us buy land in the area, form a democratically-elected government, and mutually agree to limit development on that land such as to preserve the current level of density and our quality of life? We can call this idea “zoning”.
  - Pet_Ant 5y ago
    Why not buy it jointly? Otherwise you are telling people who bought the land what to do with it. If you want to have a say in it, pony up for it. Buy the land in the name of the township and turn it into a park.
    - teakettle42 5y ago
      No, you’re limiting the externalities that an individual land owner can impose on everyone else.
      - dionidium 5y ago
        "Externality" is one of the most tortured terms in widespread use and it would have been better if non-economists had never heard of it. Just because you don't like something, that doesn't mean anything has been "imposed" on you. You're dangerously close to describing the existence of other human beings as an "externality" that needs to be solved for, a view with a less-than-stellar track record.
  - heyitsanewacco 5y ago
    Oh cool, so as a suburbanite I get a vote too? No? Oh great, I guess I'll be commuting 2 hours to get to an office that is walking distance for my boss.
camgunz 5y ago
IMO the choice frame here is a little too narrow. They're just different environments--I wouldn't necessarily say you get more choice in one or the other. Sure in low-density areas you can crank out the jams without anyone else hearing. You might also have a well, septic system, propane tank, spotty internet, an hour drive to the nearest hospital, limited DoorDash options, no good dive bars, etc. As a counterexample, my partner and I require wherever we live to support life without a car. There's a handful of places in the US we can do that, all super urban. We'd be open to a lot of other places in the US were that possible, but it's singularly important to us. I wouldn't say you're making the following point exactly but, there is definitely a contingent of people who argue for rural or single-family housing by saying "it's just objectively better". But I really think that's incredibly hard to substantiate. Probably the best we can do here is that people have strong preferences for one or the other (though they can change over time) and we should try to get people what they want without destroying the planet/creating infested hell pits.
- everdrive 5y ago
  >we should try to get people what they want without destroying the planet/creating infested hell pits. I completely agree. I know there are a large number of people (perhaps a majority?) who prefer dense urban environments. I certainly don't want those to go away. I just also don't want to lose rural spaces.

warning26 5y ago

> However it seems that when density occurs I have no recourse but move. Sure, and what's wrong with that? If your goal is to live in a rural area without many people, then many countries today have plenty of depopulated areas on the outskirts of rural towns. Why not live there? It's like the parent commenter said; expecting desirable land near a city not to densify is like expecting a puppy to never grow into a dog.

teakettle42 5y ago
> If your goal is to live in a rural area without many people, then many countries today have plenty of depopulated areas on the outskirts of rural towns. Why not live there? If your goal is to live in a dense area packed with people, then many countries today have plenty of densely populated areas in the center of urban cities. Why not live there?
- novok 5y ago
  The entire point for many americans, is there is really no choice for the most part. It's either rural areas, suburbs or hyper expensive urban areas because building an urban city is effectively illegal in most of the USA, so the few legacy cities that still exist have extremely high demand. In countries where there is a choice, this debate hardly happens. People who want their village life surrounded by farmland can go live in a small village with a train line stop and commute into the huge downtown city for work within 45 - 60 minutes. Look at berlin for example: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Dabendorf,+15806+Zossen,+Germany/Bahnhof+Berlin+Friedrichstraße/@52.3915289,13.3798942,10.34z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x47a86a5297705675:0xd7efd5d6ac572508!2m2!1d13.4375771!2d52.2376804!1m5!1m1!1s0x47a851c303492d73:0x6c4ed0dc30b6dc04!2m2!1d13.3869776!2d52.5202894!3e3!5m1!1e2 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Dabendorf,+15806+Zossen,+Ger... "Move to another country" is a complete non-starter for most Americans too. What Americans have done to their country is a fence sitting exercise that creates the worse of both worlds. Cities in Europe are smaller, more dense and the drop off into nature is significantly faster. When americans attempt to make something city like, they're noisy, dirty, traffic clogged and crime ridden because it's against the culture to make walkable, transit orientated cities that are significantly quieter, than an american car dependent 'city'. They still give themselves long commutes, but you get huge suburban sprawl that never really ends until your hours out, so you still don't get your log cabin lifestyle anyway. By allowing cities to properly happen, you ironically create the conditions that make what you want more frequent and would still let you work close enough to a city core to actually make good money. A key issue with rural living is a bad income, because your too far away from other humans to make large productive groups than can make money.
  - 5y ago

yhoneycomb 5y ago

> I don't have any way to preserve something which is singularly important to me. Well, have you thought about buying a larger plot of land? Seems like the obvious solution if you are intent on controlling wide swaths of land surrounding your house.

teakettle42 5y ago
Great idea. Expensive, though. What if, instead, a bunch of us buy land in the area, form a democratically-elected government, and mutually agree to limit development on that land such as to preserve the current level of density and our quality of life? We can call this idea “zoning”.
- Pet_Ant 5y ago
  Why not buy it jointly? Otherwise you are telling people who bought the land what to do with it. If you want to have a say in it, pony up for it. Buy the land in the name of the township and turn it into a park.
  - teakettle42 5y ago
    No, you’re limiting the externalities that an individual land owner can impose on everyone else.
    - dionidium 5y ago
      "Externality" is one of the most tortured terms in widespread use and it would have been better if non-economists had never heard of it. Just because you don't like something, that doesn't mean anything has been "imposed" on you. You're dangerously close to describing the existence of other human beings as an "externality" that needs to be solved for, a view with a less-than-stellar track record.
- heyitsanewacco 5y ago
  Oh cool, so as a suburbanite I get a vote too? No? Oh great, I guess I'll be commuting 2 hours to get to an office that is walking distance for my boss.

camgunz 5y ago

IMO the choice frame here is a little too narrow. They're just different environments--I wouldn't necessarily say you get more choice in one or the other. Sure in low-density areas you can crank out the jams without anyone else hearing. You might also have a well, septic system, propane tank, spotty internet, an hour drive to the nearest hospital, limited DoorDash options, no good dive bars, etc. As a counterexample, my partner and I require wherever we live to support life without a car. There's a handful of places in the US we can do that, all super urban. We'd be open to a lot of other places in the US were that possible, but it's singularly important to us. I wouldn't say you're making the following point exactly but, there is definitely a contingent of people who argue for rural or single-family housing by saying "it's just objectively better". But I really think that's incredibly hard to substantiate. Probably the best we can do here is that people have strong preferences for one or the other (though they can change over time) and we should try to get people what they want without destroying the planet/creating infested hell pits.

everdrive 5y ago
>we should try to get people what they want without destroying the planet/creating infested hell pits. I completely agree. I know there are a large number of people (perhaps a majority?) who prefer dense urban environments. I certainly don't want those to go away. I just also don't want to lose rural spaces.