9 ms·

The home of Walmart wants to beat sprawl

33 points by e2e4 4y ago

e2e4 4y ago
https://archive.ph/92vaB https://archive.ph/92vaB
ars 4y ago
Am I like the last person on the planet who doesn't want to live in a dense city? Just thinking of it makes me nauseous. I'm current in suburbs, and I can almost touch my neighbors house through my window if I lean out very far, and I don't like that, but can tolerate it. Anything closer, is just horrifying to think about it. I've been in dense cities, I've stayed there. I would completely lose my sanity if that's where I had to live longterm. I utterly don't care if I can't walk places - I anyway hate walking. I don't care if there are no small shops - I have some here, and I've never in my entire life visited one. I take a car and I go to a larger store, with a larger selection (or I buy online).
- JaimeThompson 4y ago
  According to some my < .5 acre plot of land and home are going to be the downfall of society why this topic makes so many crank the emotion up to 10 I just don't understand.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    You could always stick it to them by using your land to engage in an economically useful activity.... like parting out cars. They'll stop hating your house real quick.
- gernb 4y ago
  I agree with you that people have different preferences. If only the suburbs would start paying their fair share. As it is they are subsidized by the cities https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI
- zach_miller 4y ago
  Personally fine with that. Plenty of land on this big blue ball, you want to live like that, go for it! That said, I do like to live in a city, and right now my city is designed for you. I’m excited for cities to cater to pedestrians!
- TheGigaChad 4y ago
- mrslave 4y ago
  You are not alone. Infrastructure in my home city is at least a decade behind, and every new road isn't intended to alleviate the ever increasing commute and toll road bill, but instead trampoline new high density developments, even along the city's periphery! Our cities are getting more and more crowded and even environmentally conscious mainstream media is busy shilling for developers to tear up parks, even schools, for new high rise developments.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    > Infrastructure in my home city is at least a decade behind, and every new road isn't intended to alleviate the ever increasing commute and toll road bill, but instead trampoline new high density developments Seems like that's exactly the right move actually. How else would they improve anything otherwise?
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  You hate: - walking - people being close to you - going to smaller stores - going to stores at all if there's an online option I genuinely think this is an antisocial and unhealthy state to be in, yes. Personally I wouldn't mind if there were a few non-dense suburbs for people like you to live in, the issue is that in many cities that's all there is because all of the city was restructured/bulldozed to meet this preference. Yet the way you frame it is as if it's like you're a minority. Your perspective completely and utterly dominated 20th century Anglosphere urban planning. It won so effectively that entire generations have grown up agreeing with you because literally the density of the pre-car era was eradicated and they know nothing different.
  - boredtofears 4y ago
    > I genuinely think this is an antisocial and unhealthy state to be in, yes I don't think so - I find neighbors in the burbs are much more likely to actually try to connect with each other and strike up a conversation with each other casually than I've ever experienced in urban areas. Granted it's a bit of a monoculture (mostly centered on raising families), and the lack of walkable areas absolutely sucks - I wish suburbs were planned so that commercial areas were interspersed in some way that I could walk to get a coffee and it didn't require a 2 mile drive. I'm currently in an urban area, and I do love the mobility aspect, but I don't really even have neighbors to connect with (one side is a rental, the other is an airbnb). The last house I owned in a suburbs I knew both my neighbors very well. I miss the BBQ's we used to have.
    - ShroudedNight 4y ago
      I understand the airbnb not allowing for much connection, but how does someone renting their domicile prevent you from connecting with them?
      - boredtofears 4y ago
        I guess it doesn't necessarily, it just makes the opportunity for connection less likely - their tenancy is temporary and they just aren't invested in things like lawncare or house maintenance or who just moved into the neighborhood.
- mbgerring 4y ago
  America is mostly empty. If every town of more than 10,000 starts building homes slightly closer together, you’ll still have plenty of space for solitude.
  - smallerfish 4y ago
    That depends a lot on your definition of empty.
    - mbgerring 4y ago
      Not containing significant numbers of people or human settlements
- Sankozi 4y ago
  I think most of people does not want to eliminate suburbia as some kind of aim, they just want to stop subsidizing it and want to end its strange "you can't touch this" status. You can live in suburbs if you like, just don't expect others to pay for your life choices and don't expect area where you live now will always be suburbs (I am sure there will always be suburbia somewhere else).
  - smcl 4y ago
    In addition, I think many people would be quite happy living slightly denser housing than the single-family homes that are the only permitted type of housing in some parts of the USA due to restrictive zoning laws.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  By and large, Americans like living in suburbs. You aren’t remotely alone. The problem, which others have already pointed out, is one of sustainability: America’s suburbs do not pay for themselves, and are on a crash course for insolvency (and consequently disrepair) over the next half century. You can hate cities all you’d like, but the faucet is going to stop flowing at some point.
- danans 4y ago
  > I'm current in suburbs, and I can almost touch my neighbors house through my window if I lean out very far, and I don't like that, but can tolerate it. You must be in an extremely dense suburb then, or you have absurdly long arms ;) I'm in an urban neighborhood with a population density of nearly 10000 people per square mile, and if I tried to reach to my neighbors house I'd fall out the window before I touched it (it is about 6 feet away). In the sparse suburb I grew up in the neighboring houses were 20-30 feet away on the sides and hundreds of feet away in the front and back. Also it had zero public transit. That was a suburb.
- chrischen 4y ago
  There's plenty of space for people like you still, but for society, we actually have to learn to live with one another and be closer to one another, especially if the environment and the future of the human race is of any concern. The problem these days is that we don't have enough well-functioning tight urban areas in the US, which is probably why you don't like to live in them. Whenever people bring up urban environments and how terrible they are, I always point to Tokyo where they manage to cram people denser than we can, and still maintain higher living standards than us (the USA). But I do agree with you that our urban environments are crap. Plus, we have plenty of space, so American suburbs are decent ignoring the environmental and sustainability aspects.
  - odessacubbage 4y ago
    is there any developed nation where birthrates are on an upward trend? why do we have to prioritize being closer together?
    - chrischen 4y ago
      Being spread out means you’ll need cars, and it costs more in transportation cost to get things to you, and more things need to be built/consumed because it’ll be harder to share infrastructure of resources. Plus more heating and cooling costs as houses are bigger, and cannot share in heating/cooling. All of this equates to a much larger carbon footprint.
    - throw0101a 4y ago
      > why do we have to prioritize being closer together? Climate change is one reason: * https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environmental-footprint-of-transportation/urban-density-energy-consumption/ https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environment... Congestion: if you are driving you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic. (And EVs may help with climate change, but they don't help with congestion.) And let's not forget the fact that suburban design leads to bankrupt cities: * https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/8/28/the-growth-ponzi-scheme-a-crash-course https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/8/28/the-growth-pon... * https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6...
- brailsafe 4y ago
  It seems like you just want to live in a rural area rather than a city, and are resentful that people want a city to be a functional city. Why ask a city to stay rural when that's not the purpose a city serves? You have a strangely hostile relationship with small shops. Even the laziest suburbanite probably wouldn't single out local businesses as places they'd never go to, Costco being their favourite. That said, if you already live in the suburbs, most small shops end up being pretty awful chain stores, flavourless restaurants that serve people who favour convenience and predictable food, liquor stores, and commodity crap cafe's like Starbucks. So actually maybe none of your opinion is so surprising. Living in the suburbs is a kind of unimaginative antisocial hellscape When I visit my parents in the suburbs of my hometown, the closest cafe is about a 30min bus/walk, and the coffee is grotesque at best. So... so bad.
- mjevans 4y ago
  I like: * Clean Air * Quiet Building codes currently don't do enough to require _all_ exhausts be scrubbed. Positive pressure housing with scrubbed intakes would be nice too. Nor do they mandate acoustic isolation and insulation to ensure privacy. I'd even be for cars inside of a service layer, which would also have scrubbed ventilation and fresh air circulated in. This would work even better if we were in a post-ICE vehicle world. I've learned that in the US the closer you are to other people, the worse these issues. Those Canadian trucker protests are an exaggerated example of all the things I hate about living near other people.
  - throw0101a 4y ago
    "Cities Aren't Loud: Cars Are Loud" * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8
- sampo 4y ago
  > Am I like the last person on the planet who doesn't want to live in a dense city? There is currently more people who want to live in dense cities, than there are supplies of homes (apartments) in dense cities. It would be nice to build homes in the dense urban area so that the supply would match the demand. It would be to your benefit, too, if the "dense-loving" people would all get to move into the dense city area that they like. Currently some of these people fail to find a home in the city, so they are competing for the same suburban homes as you, and they don't even want to live in the suburbia. Also, the denser the city is for those who like dense, the less land area it takes, and then also your suburbia can fit a bit closer near the city. At least for those suburbanites who still prefer to have a relative short distance to the urban core.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  You can always find some old farm house or like far away from anything. Or even get the land and build something. The other way around is much harder.
- throw0101a 4y ago
  > Am I like the last person on the planet who doesn't want to live in a dense city? Define "dense". Is this "dense": * https://www.google.com/maps/place/50+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/50+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+O... * https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+... It's an example of a street car suburb: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 50-100 people per hectare seems to be the point where you don't have places like Manhattan or Hong Kong, but still can support non-car transportation efficiently: * https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environmental-footprint-of-transportation/urban-density-energy-consumption/ https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environment...
lbriner 4y ago
Smaller countries like Japan/UK have other issues with sprawl which is that people often want the best of both. I'm happy to enjoy the buzz of working in a city and its lots of choice of shops and restaurants but I want to live somewhere quiet with space and wildlife so we have the commute. Problem is that when you don't have a lot of space overall, cities start to sprawl and before you know it, the end of one city joins the beginning of another. Valuable open space and rural space is lost and often the housing it is replaced with is nothing near the same habitat for wildlife even if the gardens are big. The UK introduced "greenbelts" into planning law in the 20th century to try and prevent it but they do not exist automatically and so more and more rural areas get spoiled with low-density housing. I think there is still something to be said about well thought-out high density housing where everyone doesn't necessarily need their own garden but some open shared spaces to enjoy.
- Sharlin 4y ago
  Dense zoning along transit corridors, with public green spaces left inbetween, can give the best of both worlds, but only if the temptation to fill those green spaces with SFH sprawl is resisted.
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    Downvotes? Why? This is like sustainable development 101, nothing controversial.
- brigandish 4y ago
  Part of the problem with greenbelts like the one around London is that they increase demand by making an already in-demand area nicer to live while reducing the potential supply because building can't happen anymore. I think land use is more important, and number one for that would be a reversal of the policies that turned London from somewhere anyone in the country could expect to live into a primate city where only the rich can afford to buy while others can scratch along in their vicinity. (Which might mean less need for greenbelts as people would spread out more naturally, as they used to). However, that would mean dealing with immigration based on reality[1], the capture of the UK by banks, and probably making it incredibly hard for MPs to benefit from property (and hence voting for measures that benefit them), along with a whole host of other things. I'm not hopeful. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/city-eye-facts-on-a-plate-our-population-is-at-least-77-million-5328454.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/city-eye...

33 points by e2e4 4y ago

e2e4 4y ago

https://archive.ph/92vaB https://archive.ph/92vaB

ars 4y ago

Am I like the last person on the planet who doesn't want to live in a dense city? Just thinking of it makes me nauseous. I'm current in suburbs, and I can almost touch my neighbors house through my window if I lean out very far, and I don't like that, but can tolerate it. Anything closer, is just horrifying to think about it. I've been in dense cities, I've stayed there. I would completely lose my sanity if that's where I had to live longterm. I utterly don't care if I can't walk places - I anyway hate walking. I don't care if there are no small shops - I have some here, and I've never in my entire life visited one. I take a car and I go to a larger store, with a larger selection (or I buy online).

JaimeThompson 4y ago
According to some my < .5 acre plot of land and home are going to be the downfall of society why this topic makes so many crank the emotion up to 10 I just don't understand.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  You could always stick it to them by using your land to engage in an economically useful activity.... like parting out cars. They'll stop hating your house real quick.
gernb 4y ago
I agree with you that people have different preferences. If only the suburbs would start paying their fair share. As it is they are subsidized by the cities https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI
zach_miller 4y ago
Personally fine with that. Plenty of land on this big blue ball, you want to live like that, go for it! That said, I do like to live in a city, and right now my city is designed for you. I’m excited for cities to cater to pedestrians!
TheGigaChad 4y ago
mrslave 4y ago
You are not alone. Infrastructure in my home city is at least a decade behind, and every new road isn't intended to alleviate the ever increasing commute and toll road bill, but instead trampoline new high density developments, even along the city's periphery! Our cities are getting more and more crowded and even environmentally conscious mainstream media is busy shilling for developers to tear up parks, even schools, for new high rise developments.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  > Infrastructure in my home city is at least a decade behind, and every new road isn't intended to alleviate the ever increasing commute and toll road bill, but instead trampoline new high density developments Seems like that's exactly the right move actually. How else would they improve anything otherwise?
bigDinosaur 4y ago
You hate: - walking - people being close to you - going to smaller stores - going to stores at all if there's an online option I genuinely think this is an antisocial and unhealthy state to be in, yes. Personally I wouldn't mind if there were a few non-dense suburbs for people like you to live in, the issue is that in many cities that's all there is because all of the city was restructured/bulldozed to meet this preference. Yet the way you frame it is as if it's like you're a minority. Your perspective completely and utterly dominated 20th century Anglosphere urban planning. It won so effectively that entire generations have grown up agreeing with you because literally the density of the pre-car era was eradicated and they know nothing different.
- boredtofears 4y ago
  > I genuinely think this is an antisocial and unhealthy state to be in, yes I don't think so - I find neighbors in the burbs are much more likely to actually try to connect with each other and strike up a conversation with each other casually than I've ever experienced in urban areas. Granted it's a bit of a monoculture (mostly centered on raising families), and the lack of walkable areas absolutely sucks - I wish suburbs were planned so that commercial areas were interspersed in some way that I could walk to get a coffee and it didn't require a 2 mile drive. I'm currently in an urban area, and I do love the mobility aspect, but I don't really even have neighbors to connect with (one side is a rental, the other is an airbnb). The last house I owned in a suburbs I knew both my neighbors very well. I miss the BBQ's we used to have.
  - ShroudedNight 4y ago
    I understand the airbnb not allowing for much connection, but how does someone renting their domicile prevent you from connecting with them?
    - boredtofears 4y ago
      I guess it doesn't necessarily, it just makes the opportunity for connection less likely - their tenancy is temporary and they just aren't invested in things like lawncare or house maintenance or who just moved into the neighborhood.
mbgerring 4y ago
America is mostly empty. If every town of more than 10,000 starts building homes slightly closer together, you’ll still have plenty of space for solitude.
- smallerfish 4y ago
  That depends a lot on your definition of empty.
  - mbgerring 4y ago
    Not containing significant numbers of people or human settlements
Sankozi 4y ago
I think most of people does not want to eliminate suburbia as some kind of aim, they just want to stop subsidizing it and want to end its strange "you can't touch this" status. You can live in suburbs if you like, just don't expect others to pay for your life choices and don't expect area where you live now will always be suburbs (I am sure there will always be suburbia somewhere else).
- smcl 4y ago
  In addition, I think many people would be quite happy living slightly denser housing than the single-family homes that are the only permitted type of housing in some parts of the USA due to restrictive zoning laws.
woodruffw 4y ago
By and large, Americans like living in suburbs. You aren’t remotely alone. The problem, which others have already pointed out, is one of sustainability: America’s suburbs do not pay for themselves, and are on a crash course for insolvency (and consequently disrepair) over the next half century. You can hate cities all you’d like, but the faucet is going to stop flowing at some point.
danans 4y ago
> I'm current in suburbs, and I can almost touch my neighbors house through my window if I lean out very far, and I don't like that, but can tolerate it. You must be in an extremely dense suburb then, or you have absurdly long arms ;) I'm in an urban neighborhood with a population density of nearly 10000 people per square mile, and if I tried to reach to my neighbors house I'd fall out the window before I touched it (it is about 6 feet away). In the sparse suburb I grew up in the neighboring houses were 20-30 feet away on the sides and hundreds of feet away in the front and back. Also it had zero public transit. That was a suburb.
chrischen 4y ago
There's plenty of space for people like you still, but for society, we actually have to learn to live with one another and be closer to one another, especially if the environment and the future of the human race is of any concern. The problem these days is that we don't have enough well-functioning tight urban areas in the US, which is probably why you don't like to live in them. Whenever people bring up urban environments and how terrible they are, I always point to Tokyo where they manage to cram people denser than we can, and still maintain higher living standards than us (the USA). But I do agree with you that our urban environments are crap. Plus, we have plenty of space, so American suburbs are decent ignoring the environmental and sustainability aspects.
- odessacubbage 4y ago
  is there any developed nation where birthrates are on an upward trend? why do we have to prioritize being closer together?
  - chrischen 4y ago
    Being spread out means you’ll need cars, and it costs more in transportation cost to get things to you, and more things need to be built/consumed because it’ll be harder to share infrastructure of resources. Plus more heating and cooling costs as houses are bigger, and cannot share in heating/cooling. All of this equates to a much larger carbon footprint.
  - throw0101a 4y ago
    > why do we have to prioritize being closer together? Climate change is one reason: * https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environmental-footprint-of-transportation/urban-density-energy-consumption/ https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environment... Congestion: if you are driving you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic. (And EVs may help with climate change, but they don't help with congestion.) And let's not forget the fact that suburban design leads to bankrupt cities: * https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/8/28/the-growth-ponzi-scheme-a-crash-course https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/8/28/the-growth-pon... * https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6...
brailsafe 4y ago
It seems like you just want to live in a rural area rather than a city, and are resentful that people want a city to be a functional city. Why ask a city to stay rural when that's not the purpose a city serves? You have a strangely hostile relationship with small shops. Even the laziest suburbanite probably wouldn't single out local businesses as places they'd never go to, Costco being their favourite. That said, if you already live in the suburbs, most small shops end up being pretty awful chain stores, flavourless restaurants that serve people who favour convenience and predictable food, liquor stores, and commodity crap cafe's like Starbucks. So actually maybe none of your opinion is so surprising. Living in the suburbs is a kind of unimaginative antisocial hellscape When I visit my parents in the suburbs of my hometown, the closest cafe is about a 30min bus/walk, and the coffee is grotesque at best. So... so bad.
mjevans 4y ago
I like: * Clean Air * Quiet Building codes currently don't do enough to require _all_ exhausts be scrubbed. Positive pressure housing with scrubbed intakes would be nice too. Nor do they mandate acoustic isolation and insulation to ensure privacy. I'd even be for cars inside of a service layer, which would also have scrubbed ventilation and fresh air circulated in. This would work even better if we were in a post-ICE vehicle world. I've learned that in the US the closer you are to other people, the worse these issues. Those Canadian trucker protests are an exaggerated example of all the things I hate about living near other people.
- throw0101a 4y ago
  "Cities Aren't Loud: Cars Are Loud" * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8
sampo 4y ago
> Am I like the last person on the planet who doesn't want to live in a dense city? There is currently more people who want to live in dense cities, than there are supplies of homes (apartments) in dense cities. It would be nice to build homes in the dense urban area so that the supply would match the demand. It would be to your benefit, too, if the "dense-loving" people would all get to move into the dense city area that they like. Currently some of these people fail to find a home in the city, so they are competing for the same suburban homes as you, and they don't even want to live in the suburbia. Also, the denser the city is for those who like dense, the less land area it takes, and then also your suburbia can fit a bit closer near the city. At least for those suburbanites who still prefer to have a relative short distance to the urban core.
Ekaros 4y ago
You can always find some old farm house or like far away from anything. Or even get the land and build something. The other way around is much harder.
throw0101a 4y ago
> Am I like the last person on the planet who doesn't want to live in a dense city? Define "dense". Is this "dense": * https://www.google.com/maps/place/50+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/50+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+O... * https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+... It's an example of a street car suburb: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 50-100 people per hectare seems to be the point where you don't have places like Manhattan or Hong Kong, but still can support non-car transportation efficiently: * https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environmental-footprint-of-transportation/urban-density-energy-consumption/ https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environment...

lbriner 4y ago

Smaller countries like Japan/UK have other issues with sprawl which is that people often want the best of both. I'm happy to enjoy the buzz of working in a city and its lots of choice of shops and restaurants but I want to live somewhere quiet with space and wildlife so we have the commute. Problem is that when you don't have a lot of space overall, cities start to sprawl and before you know it, the end of one city joins the beginning of another. Valuable open space and rural space is lost and often the housing it is replaced with is nothing near the same habitat for wildlife even if the gardens are big. The UK introduced "greenbelts" into planning law in the 20th century to try and prevent it but they do not exist automatically and so more and more rural areas get spoiled with low-density housing. I think there is still something to be said about well thought-out high density housing where everyone doesn't necessarily need their own garden but some open shared spaces to enjoy.

Sharlin 4y ago
Dense zoning along transit corridors, with public green spaces left inbetween, can give the best of both worlds, but only if the temptation to fill those green spaces with SFH sprawl is resisted.
- Sharlin 4y ago
  Downvotes? Why? This is like sustainable development 101, nothing controversial.
brigandish 4y ago
Part of the problem with greenbelts like the one around London is that they increase demand by making an already in-demand area nicer to live while reducing the potential supply because building can't happen anymore. I think land use is more important, and number one for that would be a reversal of the policies that turned London from somewhere anyone in the country could expect to live into a primate city where only the rich can afford to buy while others can scratch along in their vicinity. (Which might mean less need for greenbelts as people would spread out more naturally, as they used to). However, that would mean dealing with immigration based on reality[1], the capture of the UK by banks, and probably making it incredibly hard for MPs to benefit from property (and hence voting for measures that benefit them), along with a whole host of other things. I'm not hopeful. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/city-eye-facts-on-a-plate-our-population-is-at-least-77-million-5328454.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/city-eye...