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Sounds like you and Buckminister Fuller would have gotten along. [0] Count me in, too. That said, if the 70s couldn't birth a few concrete proto-arcologies, I'

Sounds like you and Buckminister Fuller would have gotten along. [0] Count me in, too. That said, if the 70s couldn't birth a few concrete proto-arcologies, I'm not sure it's ever going to be politically possible. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project

ianai 4y ago
It definitely requires a culture level buy-in. Maybe places already having high density populations could birth such a project. But that’s a catch22 itself.
- _8j50 4y ago
  Yes it would. My idea was to start with the california coastline. Have it be very close to the ocean. 100k units facing the ocean, it makes it both economically viable (people will pay for it) and help bring housing prices and homelessness down. You will also have to fight a lot less NIMBY battles. The main problem is you need to commit billions of dollars to start with. The rent/hoa alone is probably not gonna give good ROI short term but having so many people there means a potential to design a very profitable center of economic activity. Ideally, the lowest levels would be stores. You would also be providing them with their supermarket, mall,hospitals,etc.... with an average total household income of 80k that's at least 3-4billion/year
  - ianai 4y ago
    Wouldn’t you need 400k units for 3-4 billion with that income per household? I suppose on the ocean would be interesting if it were tied with some desalination and generally using the ocean sustainably. One way to kick that sort of thing off might be individual, modular units which could be brought together to make ever larger complexes.
    - _8j50 4y ago
      Rent plus,groceries and most bills, if that is at least 50% of income (rent alone is typically a third of income) on 80k/yr that is 40k * 100k = 4B. Even with just 1500/mo rent that is 1.8B gross/yr and 18B in 10 years if net profit is only a 3rd of that (assuming it won't collect taxes like cities!) it will be 6B/10y. My point is, to recover costs in 10 years, you need to make it at a cost of 60k/unit which seems low but I am hoping economy of scale would make things cheaper. Like, it would make sense to have your own factories close by just for the concrete,wiring,etc... but at least with 100k/unit cost(10B) it should still be possible and the recovery time isn't too bad given mortgages go 30+ years. And picking a good location can guarantee occupancy.
  - octoberfranklin 4y ago
    No, the main problem with your plan is the California Coastal Commission.
    - _8j50 4y ago
      Only if a few hundred million dollars to change their mind plus making it within walking distance of the ocean but not beachfront might help or worst case a few miles from the beach with railway taking people from their units straight to a few of the nearest beaches. I can see calabassas be a good candidate or topanga if buying out all thr people there is economically viable.
  - fennecfoxen 4y ago
    Opinion: High density planned communities that try to take care of almost everything, like you describe, are a at serious risk of being insipid, mediocre, uninspiring, and worse. I think it’s something about the incentive structure, probably, but this is largely an empirical opinion; in my experience it’s just far better to live with a diversity of landlords in the area. New York has a great set of examples: A neighborhood like SoHo or Hell’s Kitchen or the Lower East Side is a magnet. An overproduced condo/office/retailplex like Hudson Yards, without much competition next door, is dull and insipid and soulless. A big complex like Rockefeller Center is actually kind of okay — because it’s embedded in a neighborhood where everyone has a dozen dozen places in a five minute walk they could go to instead. The D terminal at LaGuardia where everything is seamlessly integrated as a managed OTG Experience? The worst crime against commercial aviation in America in the past twenty years. Buy a hamburger there, I dare you.
    - fernmyth 4y ago
      You’ve hit on three of the four of Jane Jacobs’s conditions for a healthy, high-density neighborhood in her book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”! - Variety of building age/quality, to have rent levels that allow diversity of activities (low rent hole-in-the-wall for an art club; high rent, new construction, ground floor retail for luxury shopping) - Variety of building use schedules to ensure eyes on the street at all hours and full utilization of infrastructure (including restaurants). A pure residential area or pure office park will fail this and turn into a ghost town at some hours. Hudson Yards might hit 2 schedules but not 3, which is the ideal. - “a dozen dozen places in a five minute walk” allows niche businesses to survive, since the large effective service radius includes enough people to find some customers. Rockefeller Center’s arcade is actually quite important and covered in the book, since it cuts some too-long blocks into short enough blocks. I don’t remember the fourth condition, so read the book to find out.
      - _8j50 4y ago
        Perhaps instead of buildings we can think "floors"?
  - harambae 4y ago
    > california coastline The coastal commission of California makes the normal Cali NIMBY suburbanites look like absolute amateurs.

ianai 4y ago

It definitely requires a culture level buy-in. Maybe places already having high density populations could birth such a project. But that’s a catch22 itself.

_8j50 4y ago
Yes it would. My idea was to start with the california coastline. Have it be very close to the ocean. 100k units facing the ocean, it makes it both economically viable (people will pay for it) and help bring housing prices and homelessness down. You will also have to fight a lot less NIMBY battles. The main problem is you need to commit billions of dollars to start with. The rent/hoa alone is probably not gonna give good ROI short term but having so many people there means a potential to design a very profitable center of economic activity. Ideally, the lowest levels would be stores. You would also be providing them with their supermarket, mall,hospitals,etc.... with an average total household income of 80k that's at least 3-4billion/year
- ianai 4y ago
  Wouldn’t you need 400k units for 3-4 billion with that income per household? I suppose on the ocean would be interesting if it were tied with some desalination and generally using the ocean sustainably. One way to kick that sort of thing off might be individual, modular units which could be brought together to make ever larger complexes.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    Rent plus,groceries and most bills, if that is at least 50% of income (rent alone is typically a third of income) on 80k/yr that is 40k * 100k = 4B. Even with just 1500/mo rent that is 1.8B gross/yr and 18B in 10 years if net profit is only a 3rd of that (assuming it won't collect taxes like cities!) it will be 6B/10y. My point is, to recover costs in 10 years, you need to make it at a cost of 60k/unit which seems low but I am hoping economy of scale would make things cheaper. Like, it would make sense to have your own factories close by just for the concrete,wiring,etc... but at least with 100k/unit cost(10B) it should still be possible and the recovery time isn't too bad given mortgages go 30+ years. And picking a good location can guarantee occupancy.
- octoberfranklin 4y ago
  No, the main problem with your plan is the California Coastal Commission.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    Only if a few hundred million dollars to change their mind plus making it within walking distance of the ocean but not beachfront might help or worst case a few miles from the beach with railway taking people from their units straight to a few of the nearest beaches. I can see calabassas be a good candidate or topanga if buying out all thr people there is economically viable.
- fennecfoxen 4y ago
  Opinion: High density planned communities that try to take care of almost everything, like you describe, are a at serious risk of being insipid, mediocre, uninspiring, and worse. I think it’s something about the incentive structure, probably, but this is largely an empirical opinion; in my experience it’s just far better to live with a diversity of landlords in the area. New York has a great set of examples: A neighborhood like SoHo or Hell’s Kitchen or the Lower East Side is a magnet. An overproduced condo/office/retailplex like Hudson Yards, without much competition next door, is dull and insipid and soulless. A big complex like Rockefeller Center is actually kind of okay — because it’s embedded in a neighborhood where everyone has a dozen dozen places in a five minute walk they could go to instead. The D terminal at LaGuardia where everything is seamlessly integrated as a managed OTG Experience? The worst crime against commercial aviation in America in the past twenty years. Buy a hamburger there, I dare you.
  - fernmyth 4y ago
    You’ve hit on three of the four of Jane Jacobs’s conditions for a healthy, high-density neighborhood in her book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”! - Variety of building age/quality, to have rent levels that allow diversity of activities (low rent hole-in-the-wall for an art club; high rent, new construction, ground floor retail for luxury shopping) - Variety of building use schedules to ensure eyes on the street at all hours and full utilization of infrastructure (including restaurants). A pure residential area or pure office park will fail this and turn into a ghost town at some hours. Hudson Yards might hit 2 schedules but not 3, which is the ideal. - “a dozen dozen places in a five minute walk” allows niche businesses to survive, since the large effective service radius includes enough people to find some customers. Rockefeller Center’s arcade is actually quite important and covered in the book, since it cuts some too-long blocks into short enough blocks. I don’t remember the fourth condition, so read the book to find out.
    - _8j50 4y ago
      Perhaps instead of buildings we can think "floors"?
- harambae 4y ago
  > california coastline The coastal commission of California makes the normal Cali NIMBY suburbanites look like absolute amateurs.