5 ms·

Seems very questionable to me to call out Netherlands as having reached some hard limit that a country like Singapore has blown right by. Singapore has a 40%

Seems very questionable to me to call out Netherlands as having reached some hard limit that a country like Singapore has blown right by. Singapore has a 40% greater GDP per capita, 16 times (!) the population density, and would starve in a matter of weeks without food imports, or grind to a halt almost overnight, without energy imports. 3/4 of its GDP is services based. All of which is to say, a small nation with the right niche economic model can blow by the supposed limits Netherlands is encountering, albeit at the cost of any semblance of having a balanced or remotely self-sufficient economy.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
> 16 times (!) the population density This might come as a surprise to you, but that's the nightmare Europeans don't want. Europeans don't want to live as cramped as people in the big Asian metro areas do, and neither do the people living there which is why they emigrate if they can. So yeah, while it's technically possible to keep increasing population density several times over, most Europeans don't want that, as it means a decline in living standards and quality of life. We might as well just live in pods in giant towers like the humans farmed for energy in The Matrix, if that's the end game of human living density, but nobody wants to live like that.
- pelorat 4y ago
  I don't know about you, but I live on the 3rd floor in a NL city where building limit height is 70 meters. I have 12 hours of sun on my balcony and it's honestly great, but if I could move into a 200 meter high mega tower and have a balcony, maybe an inner yard as well, and a cool roof terrace with glass around it, I would in a heartbeat.
  - Tade0 4y ago
    Problem is, your downstairs neighbours all the way to the bottom have progressively worse quality of life - especially those on who your tower is casting its shadow.
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  This also requires a completely different, much more authoritarian mindset. Even living in high rises already significantly limits your freedom because you have twice as much neighbors.
- d1sxeyes 4y ago
  I don’t think OP was talking about “want”, just refuting that Netherlands has hit the limits of growth.
- walnutclosefarm 4y ago
  It's not that I don't understand that (I live, by choice, where the population density is 1/40th that of Netherlands). And, if Netherlands wants to choose not to grow, that's great. That's not encountering some inherent limit to growth, though, as the article implies - it's choosing not to grow. I think the really interesting, and hard, question - which to be fair, the article does hint at - is whether a country can opt for such limits, and still maintain a world-leading standard of living. I've never seen an economics model that convincingly has a path for no-growth. Clearly, we all need one.
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    > I think the really interesting, and hard, question - which to be fair, the article does hint at - is whether a country can opt for such limits, and still maintain a world-leading standard of living. That’s a trick question. You have to take into account that the way we mesure economic prosperity nowadays - mainly via GDP - is deeply flawed. Externalities are discounted everywhere. The way we chose to measure and control the economy really serves to enforce a power structure which is becoming more precarious by the day. If you look at the facts, the insane productivity gain of the twentieth century should have allowed every human on this planet to live a fairly good life. Materially speaking we could be living in a world free of hunger and extreme poverty and it’s something we can sustain in an ecologically friendly way. Yet inequality is rising nearly everywhere. What we are witnessing currently is a complete failure of leadership. We have built a complex system which is greatly advantageous to a few and their greed makes them prefer the destruction of everything to risking a chance of a change happening.
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  It always strikes me as so weird when someone deems it appropriate to speak for a whole group of people, especially a group as diverse as Europeans. Just say you don't want to live like that and then lobby government to put in place regulations that will allow you to live the way you want while allowing others to choose to live the way they want, even if that means in a 500 square foot highrise apartment in a densely packed area.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    It always strikes me weird when someone judges me without knowing me. And I'm not speaking for a group of people, but the real estate market in Europe speaks for itself and what the people are voting for, including with their wallets, and what the regulations allow for. It's what I noticed since I moved here. I'm not making this up, it's what the market looks like. Don't hate the messenger. If you pitch China style neighborhoods of concrete jungles full of high-rise buildings in Europe, for the sake of growth, nobody will want that. We already have some such buildings/neighborhoods and are usually low income migrant areas where nobody wants to live. And post-communist Eastern Europe has such areas of commie-blocks but that's a different story. The most desirable housing here where I live (Austria) is low-height (2-4 stories) low density neighborhoods with green gardens in walkable areas close to the old town where all the amenities are, or single family homes with large green areas in the country side. Those are also the most expensive forms of housing (d'uh!). I've notices this market preference applies to other EU countries that I lived in as well. Tall, high-rise concrete buildings here are few and are usually built as low-cost housing for low-income people and are usually located further from the old-town where building regulations allow for extra height and where land is cheaper because it's also in less desirable areas with more trafic noise, more pollution, less green spaces and worse schools/amenities/infrastructure. Nobody, except the people who can't afford better, wish to live in those high-rise dense buildings/neighborhoods as it's pretty depressing, and some of those neighborhoods are already showing signs of ghettoization including higher crime rates and low school performance, which doesn't help sell the idea of high dense living as being desirable to anyone. Maybe there are exceptions in the diverse EU, with cities that have made dense, tall, multistory concrete jungles a desirable living proposition even for the well off to have families in, but I haven't seen that yet. I'm sure tall and dense building could be made desirable here for many Europeans but it requires a complete shift in mentality, and a well though out urban planning that focuses on quality of life and livability for all social classes to live under the same roof, instead of building them as cheap housing for migrants in the middle of nowhere to turn into future ghettos.
- more_corn 4y ago
  Singapore is a very desirable place. Clean, safe, some good provisions for public housing. I can think of a dozen places I’d leave to move to Singapore.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  > Europeans don't want to live as cramped as people in the big Asian metro areas do London and Paris are more dense than Singapore and by far the best places to live in Europe. Please stop projecting what you want on the rest of us.
  - Tade0 4y ago
    > London and Paris are more dense than Singapore and by far the best places to live in Europe. Did you by chance mean "most expensive"? In any case I've been to London and Zurich and in my personal view the latter is in a wholly different league than the former in terms of general niceness.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

> 16 times (!) the population density This might come as a surprise to you, but that's the nightmare Europeans don't want. Europeans don't want to live as cramped as people in the big Asian metro areas do, and neither do the people living there which is why they emigrate if they can. So yeah, while it's technically possible to keep increasing population density several times over, most Europeans don't want that, as it means a decline in living standards and quality of life. We might as well just live in pods in giant towers like the humans farmed for energy in The Matrix, if that's the end game of human living density, but nobody wants to live like that.

pelorat 4y ago
I don't know about you, but I live on the 3rd floor in a NL city where building limit height is 70 meters. I have 12 hours of sun on my balcony and it's honestly great, but if I could move into a 200 meter high mega tower and have a balcony, maybe an inner yard as well, and a cool roof terrace with glass around it, I would in a heartbeat.
- Tade0 4y ago
  Problem is, your downstairs neighbours all the way to the bottom have progressively worse quality of life - especially those on who your tower is casting its shadow.
tinus_hn 4y ago
This also requires a completely different, much more authoritarian mindset. Even living in high rises already significantly limits your freedom because you have twice as much neighbors.
d1sxeyes 4y ago
I don’t think OP was talking about “want”, just refuting that Netherlands has hit the limits of growth.
walnutclosefarm 4y ago
It's not that I don't understand that (I live, by choice, where the population density is 1/40th that of Netherlands). And, if Netherlands wants to choose not to grow, that's great. That's not encountering some inherent limit to growth, though, as the article implies - it's choosing not to grow. I think the really interesting, and hard, question - which to be fair, the article does hint at - is whether a country can opt for such limits, and still maintain a world-leading standard of living. I've never seen an economics model that convincingly has a path for no-growth. Clearly, we all need one.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  > I think the really interesting, and hard, question - which to be fair, the article does hint at - is whether a country can opt for such limits, and still maintain a world-leading standard of living. That’s a trick question. You have to take into account that the way we mesure economic prosperity nowadays - mainly via GDP - is deeply flawed. Externalities are discounted everywhere. The way we chose to measure and control the economy really serves to enforce a power structure which is becoming more precarious by the day. If you look at the facts, the insane productivity gain of the twentieth century should have allowed every human on this planet to live a fairly good life. Materially speaking we could be living in a world free of hunger and extreme poverty and it’s something we can sustain in an ecologically friendly way. Yet inequality is rising nearly everywhere. What we are witnessing currently is a complete failure of leadership. We have built a complex system which is greatly advantageous to a few and their greed makes them prefer the destruction of everything to risking a chance of a change happening.
snapplebobapple 4y ago
It always strikes me as so weird when someone deems it appropriate to speak for a whole group of people, especially a group as diverse as Europeans. Just say you don't want to live like that and then lobby government to put in place regulations that will allow you to live the way you want while allowing others to choose to live the way they want, even if that means in a 500 square foot highrise apartment in a densely packed area.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  It always strikes me weird when someone judges me without knowing me. And I'm not speaking for a group of people, but the real estate market in Europe speaks for itself and what the people are voting for, including with their wallets, and what the regulations allow for. It's what I noticed since I moved here. I'm not making this up, it's what the market looks like. Don't hate the messenger. If you pitch China style neighborhoods of concrete jungles full of high-rise buildings in Europe, for the sake of growth, nobody will want that. We already have some such buildings/neighborhoods and are usually low income migrant areas where nobody wants to live. And post-communist Eastern Europe has such areas of commie-blocks but that's a different story. The most desirable housing here where I live (Austria) is low-height (2-4 stories) low density neighborhoods with green gardens in walkable areas close to the old town where all the amenities are, or single family homes with large green areas in the country side. Those are also the most expensive forms of housing (d'uh!). I've notices this market preference applies to other EU countries that I lived in as well. Tall, high-rise concrete buildings here are few and are usually built as low-cost housing for low-income people and are usually located further from the old-town where building regulations allow for extra height and where land is cheaper because it's also in less desirable areas with more trafic noise, more pollution, less green spaces and worse schools/amenities/infrastructure. Nobody, except the people who can't afford better, wish to live in those high-rise dense buildings/neighborhoods as it's pretty depressing, and some of those neighborhoods are already showing signs of ghettoization including higher crime rates and low school performance, which doesn't help sell the idea of high dense living as being desirable to anyone. Maybe there are exceptions in the diverse EU, with cities that have made dense, tall, multistory concrete jungles a desirable living proposition even for the well off to have families in, but I haven't seen that yet. I'm sure tall and dense building could be made desirable here for many Europeans but it requires a complete shift in mentality, and a well though out urban planning that focuses on quality of life and livability for all social classes to live under the same roof, instead of building them as cheap housing for migrants in the middle of nowhere to turn into future ghettos.
more_corn 4y ago
Singapore is a very desirable place. Clean, safe, some good provisions for public housing. I can think of a dozen places I’d leave to move to Singapore.
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
> Europeans don't want to live as cramped as people in the big Asian metro areas do London and Paris are more dense than Singapore and by far the best places to live in Europe. Please stop projecting what you want on the rest of us.
- Tade0 4y ago
  > London and Paris are more dense than Singapore and by far the best places to live in Europe. Did you by chance mean "most expensive"? In any case I've been to London and Zurich and in my personal view the latter is in a wholly different league than the former in terms of general niceness.