4 ms·

> - significantly higher cost (absent widespread R1 zoning, which drives the cost of apartments up), Also significantly higher return on investment. Homeowners

> - significantly higher cost (absent widespread R1 zoning, which drives the cost of apartments up), Also significantly higher return on investment. Homeowners build equity, renters don't. Houses increase in value faster than owned condos/apartments/townhouses. > - locations in the middle of desolate suburbia, It's not desolate. We have everything -- parks, stores, restaurants, schools, nearby downtown areas... > - dead neighbourhoods because almost no one lives there, Not dead at all. Plenty of kids playing all the time, people walking their dogs, etc. > - very few nearby stores and restaurants, Not true at all. There are hundreds of stores and restaurants where I live. They just aren't jammed between people's houses. > - no or limited public transit because it costs far too much to run in sprawling suburbia, Plenty of transit in my suburb. > - utter dependence on personal automobiles, and the complete lack of independence for children, young adults, and other non-driving members of society, Not true at all. People have ways to get around. Kids ride bikes. There are buses and trains not all that far away. > - the necessity of maintaining the grounds of your own personal park, It's not usually a big deal to maintain your yards. Most people seem to manage. Some hire gardeners, but many also take care of it themselves. > - poorly maintained or missing public infrastructure because everything is so spread out, All the infrastructure in most suburbs is fine. It's not like we all live in the 1800s or something. The roads are even paved! > - having to endure endless traffic because of your 1hr commute to work, A 1-hour commute is an outlier. It just is. The US average, last I checked, is something like 30 or 35 minutes.

frosted-flakes 4y ago
That may be true in your specific case, but is most definitely not true in general (your house also probably costs $3 million). Nonetheless, NONE of what you say justifies single family home MANDATES (as well as minimum parking mandates, minimum setbacks, maximum heights, etc.). Let people build what they want to, at the price they want to, and everyone will be happier. This is the United States we're talking about, supposedly the "land of the free"—why not make it actually true?
- twblalock 4y ago
  My house costs way less than $3 million. The restrictions exist because people want to ruin neighborhoods like mine. We made laws to prevent it. For every sane YIMBY who wants to build livable density, there seems to also be an unhinged person who thinks everyone should be forced to live in tower blocks. Many such people are in this thread. I used to think it was a strawman argument, but those people really do exist, they really want to take my home from me and turn my whole block into a high rise, and that’s not going to happen without a fight. That’s why the mandates exist. The biggest obstacle the YIMBY crowd faces is the insane people in their own camp: The crazy utopian socialist weirdos who think it’s morally wrong to live in a house in a suburb and drive a car. Force those people out, denounce them, and you’ll see a lot of the opposition to new housing go away.
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    Not one person in this thread thinks everyone should be forced to live in high-rise buildings, or in any particular type of building, and no one made any such argument. I certainly wouldn't want to live in such a place. All people want is the freedom to choose the set of tradeoffs that suit them (because everything has a tradeoff), and the freedom to build what people actually want. Forcing people to live in one particular style of low-rise building is the status quo and is what you are proposing be forced upon everyone. There's a big difference between high-rise and mid-rise, and all three can peacefully coexist. If you had watched the video I linked earlier you would have seen many examples of this. I will link it here again for convenience. Population Density 101: A Visual Guide to Suburbs and Skyscrapers by Oh The Urbanity!: https://youtu.be/y3XoUBzfXps https://youtu.be/y3XoUBzfXps

frosted-flakes 4y ago

That may be true in your specific case, but is most definitely not true in general (your house also probably costs $3 million). Nonetheless, NONE of what you say justifies single family home MANDATES (as well as minimum parking mandates, minimum setbacks, maximum heights, etc.). Let people build what they want to, at the price they want to, and everyone will be happier. This is the United States we're talking about, supposedly the "land of the free"—why not make it actually true?

twblalock 4y ago
My house costs way less than $3 million. The restrictions exist because people want to ruin neighborhoods like mine. We made laws to prevent it. For every sane YIMBY who wants to build livable density, there seems to also be an unhinged person who thinks everyone should be forced to live in tower blocks. Many such people are in this thread. I used to think it was a strawman argument, but those people really do exist, they really want to take my home from me and turn my whole block into a high rise, and that’s not going to happen without a fight. That’s why the mandates exist. The biggest obstacle the YIMBY crowd faces is the insane people in their own camp: The crazy utopian socialist weirdos who think it’s morally wrong to live in a house in a suburb and drive a car. Force those people out, denounce them, and you’ll see a lot of the opposition to new housing go away.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  Not one person in this thread thinks everyone should be forced to live in high-rise buildings, or in any particular type of building, and no one made any such argument. I certainly wouldn't want to live in such a place. All people want is the freedom to choose the set of tradeoffs that suit them (because everything has a tradeoff), and the freedom to build what people actually want. Forcing people to live in one particular style of low-rise building is the status quo and is what you are proposing be forced upon everyone. There's a big difference between high-rise and mid-rise, and all three can peacefully coexist. If you had watched the video I linked earlier you would have seen many examples of this. I will link it here again for convenience. Population Density 101: A Visual Guide to Suburbs and Skyscrapers by Oh The Urbanity!: https://youtu.be/y3XoUBzfXps https://youtu.be/y3XoUBzfXps