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>Of course we live this way, we designed our cities to make us live this way… I feel like you're almost making a moral statement there, it doesn't have the nua

>Of course we live this way, we designed our cities to make us live this way… I feel like you're almost making a moral statement there, it doesn't have the nuance I think exists. 1) You have people like my parents, siblings, and friends in the Midwest. The idea of living somewhere where they don't have the practical privacy of living on a farm literally horrifies them. I can't convince them otherwise, I've tried. They view me as simply "weird". Literally no hope, but maybe you can convince their kids. 2) You have people like me who love the energy, convenience, and stimulation of high density living but still end up driving and having a car because the cost differential is just way too extreme to logically justify living where I want to. There's a mystery to me in it. I spent time in Bangkok and Shanghai and why does it seem really easy to rent a centrally located place in a quality tall building, as if it's just normal, and without a prices that seems insanely disproportionate to other life expenses? Yet in the US, it's very rare. There's not enough demand? Labor costs are too high? Laws like building hight limits in the US prevent it? I've heard there are taboos in Europe for high buildings as well. I think there is also an element of culturally dictated space demands that comes into play. You can have these nice dense places in Bangkok because people will see 300 SQ ft and still rent it. In the US people told me I was brave for trying to survive by myself in "only" 500 SQ ft. They could never "stand not even being able to breathe". You won't have an easy time changing people's minds about this. Personally I'm willing to live in 150sq ft if I'm at the heart of the fun.

ryukafalz 5y ago
> I spent time in Bangkok and Shanghai and why does it seem really easy to rent a centrally located place in a quality tall building, as if it's just normal, and without a prices that seems insanely disproportionate to other life expenses? Yet in the US, it's very rare. There's not enough demand? Labor costs are too high? Laws like building hight limits in the US prevent it? There aren’t enough of them because in huge swaths of the country it’s illegal to build anything denser than a single-family home. There’s plenty of demand for it, there’s just not enough supply. Doesn’t even have to be high-rises, in most places it’s illegal to build the sort of mid-rises that are everywhere in European cities. EDIT: Oh, and it’s also usually illegal to put a business in a residential area, which forces things further apart and forces people to drive to get to anything.
ericmay 5y ago
I live in the midwest too. The vast majority of people live in the suburbs or an urban area. I don’t know why those who live on farms who already have the roads they need should be the primary voice we listen to, especially when nothing changes for them. That’s the thing. Nobody is changing their way of life. > 2) You have people like me who love the energy, convenience, and stimulation of high density living but still end up driving and having a car because the cost differential is just way too extreme to logically justify living where I want to. Right but those places are so expensive because they are so rare. Why are they so rare? Because we don’t build them. > I think there is also an element of space demands. You can have these nice dense places in Bangkok because people will see 300 SQ ft and still rent it. In the US people told me I was brave for trying to survive by myself in "only" 500 SQ ft. They could never "stand not even being able to breathe". This is another end of a spectrum, one which I don’t like either. We don’t need skyscrapers. We can build with a great level of density and have the best of all worlds. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/37/9b/26/379b266652e0a2013c0cff83b4011bfa.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/37/9b/26/379b266652e0a2013c0c... This is in Columbus. You can have a car, you can even have two, you can have a garage, or park on the street. But you can also ride your bike to work or walk. These aren’t 500 square foot homes. “Yea but all of that is so expensive” yes because we don’t build them. There is no reason this isn’t affordable except that we simply choose to not build like this. That’s it. We just choose to amputate our mobility and pay outrageous amounts of money to have the privilege of driving. The high prices of these homes demonstrate that they are desired. I don’t advocate for skyscrapers. They are an anti-pattern enabled by cheap energy and oil. The other end, the car-driven suburb is bad too. Ideally we’d have towns like they do in Europe with rural communities surrounding them. So your family can have their space and farm. And everyone who wants a town can have that too.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  > nothing changes for them People who don't live in cities still go to cities occasionally, and most anti-car proposals negatively impact this use case the most.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    Well then don’t live on a farm? I mean I’m not sure what they’re expecting. If anything there would be fewer cars on the road and less traffic. Maybe we should buy the land surrounding their farm and just place apartments and Wal-Marts and tear down the trees? They can live next to the city they wanted. Oh and that way I can go visit a farm whenever I want, easily and conveniently and feel like I’m on the countryside. Similar to a farmer getting to feel like they are part of the city or town. This cuts both ways. “But Eric this is already happening” Yea because we build suburbs, and have to spread everything out.
msrenee 5y ago
I would happily live in a 150 sq ft shed if it kept me out of the city and the "fun". It's not that I'm not willing to make do with a small space, it's that I don't want to be tripping over my neighborsband dealing with their noise and idiosyncrasies.
- ohCh6zos 5y ago
  I'm looking at spending a massive amount of money to move somewhere remote. I can't stand cities.
- verve_rat 5y ago
  The biggest problem with increasing density is noise. Some of it can be solved with better building standards, but that increases cost again. And in western countries there seems to have been a general erosion of the kind of local level government authority you need to deal with the one household that is a chronic noise problem for the hundreds of people they disturb around them. These discussions tend to gloss over the fact that more density is going to require tackling antisocial behaviour head on, and local government are neither willing or able to do so.
  - ryukafalz 5y ago
    > The biggest problem with increasing density is noise. Most of that noise is from the cars. https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8 https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8
    - verve_rat 5y ago
      Most of the noise might be from cars, but the noise that makes me want to hurt people is from stereos and parties and dickheads with power tools at fuck off O'clock in the morning. Edit: and motorbikes, fuck motorbikes. I'll give you that one.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
jjav 5y ago
> Personally I'm willing to live in 150sq ft if I'm at the heart of the fun. How could that work? Do you own anything? Do you have any hobbies? I'm having trouble imagining how that could possibly work. That's smaller than my office and my office only contains two desks, a few ikea shelves and a handful of computers and books. No beds, no kitchen, no bathroom (there's a bathroom in the office building elsewhere), no personal posessions, nothing.

ryukafalz 5y ago

> I spent time in Bangkok and Shanghai and why does it seem really easy to rent a centrally located place in a quality tall building, as if it's just normal, and without a prices that seems insanely disproportionate to other life expenses? Yet in the US, it's very rare. There's not enough demand? Labor costs are too high? Laws like building hight limits in the US prevent it? There aren’t enough of them because in huge swaths of the country it’s illegal to build anything denser than a single-family home. There’s plenty of demand for it, there’s just not enough supply. Doesn’t even have to be high-rises, in most places it’s illegal to build the sort of mid-rises that are everywhere in European cities. EDIT: Oh, and it’s also usually illegal to put a business in a residential area, which forces things further apart and forces people to drive to get to anything.

ericmay 5y ago

I live in the midwest too. The vast majority of people live in the suburbs or an urban area. I don’t know why those who live on farms who already have the roads they need should be the primary voice we listen to, especially when nothing changes for them. That’s the thing. Nobody is changing their way of life. > 2) You have people like me who love the energy, convenience, and stimulation of high density living but still end up driving and having a car because the cost differential is just way too extreme to logically justify living where I want to. Right but those places are so expensive because they are so rare. Why are they so rare? Because we don’t build them. > I think there is also an element of space demands. You can have these nice dense places in Bangkok because people will see 300 SQ ft and still rent it. In the US people told me I was brave for trying to survive by myself in "only" 500 SQ ft. They could never "stand not even being able to breathe". This is another end of a spectrum, one which I don’t like either. We don’t need skyscrapers. We can build with a great level of density and have the best of all worlds. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/37/9b/26/379b266652e0a2013c0cff83b4011bfa.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/37/9b/26/379b266652e0a2013c0c... This is in Columbus. You can have a car, you can even have two, you can have a garage, or park on the street. But you can also ride your bike to work or walk. These aren’t 500 square foot homes. “Yea but all of that is so expensive” yes because we don’t build them. There is no reason this isn’t affordable except that we simply choose to not build like this. That’s it. We just choose to amputate our mobility and pay outrageous amounts of money to have the privilege of driving. The high prices of these homes demonstrate that they are desired. I don’t advocate for skyscrapers. They are an anti-pattern enabled by cheap energy and oil. The other end, the car-driven suburb is bad too. Ideally we’d have towns like they do in Europe with rural communities surrounding them. So your family can have their space and farm. And everyone who wants a town can have that too.

josephcsible 5y ago
> nothing changes for them People who don't live in cities still go to cities occasionally, and most anti-car proposals negatively impact this use case the most.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Well then don’t live on a farm? I mean I’m not sure what they’re expecting. If anything there would be fewer cars on the road and less traffic. Maybe we should buy the land surrounding their farm and just place apartments and Wal-Marts and tear down the trees? They can live next to the city they wanted. Oh and that way I can go visit a farm whenever I want, easily and conveniently and feel like I’m on the countryside. Similar to a farmer getting to feel like they are part of the city or town. This cuts both ways. “But Eric this is already happening” Yea because we build suburbs, and have to spread everything out.

msrenee 5y ago

I would happily live in a 150 sq ft shed if it kept me out of the city and the "fun". It's not that I'm not willing to make do with a small space, it's that I don't want to be tripping over my neighborsband dealing with their noise and idiosyncrasies.

ohCh6zos 5y ago
I'm looking at spending a massive amount of money to move somewhere remote. I can't stand cities.
verve_rat 5y ago
The biggest problem with increasing density is noise. Some of it can be solved with better building standards, but that increases cost again. And in western countries there seems to have been a general erosion of the kind of local level government authority you need to deal with the one household that is a chronic noise problem for the hundreds of people they disturb around them. These discussions tend to gloss over the fact that more density is going to require tackling antisocial behaviour head on, and local government are neither willing or able to do so.
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  > The biggest problem with increasing density is noise. Most of that noise is from the cars. https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8 https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8
  - verve_rat 5y ago
    Most of the noise might be from cars, but the noise that makes me want to hurt people is from stereos and parties and dickheads with power tools at fuck off O'clock in the morning. Edit: and motorbikes, fuck motorbikes. I'll give you that one.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

jjav 5y ago

> Personally I'm willing to live in 150sq ft if I'm at the heart of the fun. How could that work? Do you own anything? Do you have any hobbies? I'm having trouble imagining how that could possibly work. That's smaller than my office and my office only contains two desks, a few ikea shelves and a handful of computers and books. No beds, no kitchen, no bathroom (there's a bathroom in the office building elsewhere), no personal posessions, nothing.