4 ms·

The advances of technology allow us to live comfortably in tall buildings with little overall footprint, so that vast areas could be dedicated to greenery and r

The advances of technology allow us to live comfortably in tall buildings with little overall footprint, so that vast areas could be dedicated to greenery and rescinded to nature—which would in theory benefit the climate globally, while also being easily accessible in person (as in a decently planned dense city public transport can be mind-bogglingly fast and efficient). Yet for some reason many people seem to have a visceral rejection of a future like that. What is it motivated by? How could it be possible to make the idea of high-density living more accepted by the public?

isityouyesitsme 4y ago
To live in a city of any size, let alone a dense one, you need to be highly tolerant of things that irritate you or violate things you consider valuable, and in many cases, you must be tolerant of things that violate basic mores. The second it becomes a possibility, a significant percentage of people will flee the things that they have difficulty tolerating, simply because they no longer need to tolerate it.
- thfuran 4y ago
  Or they could value and be bothered by different things than you.
- strogonoff 4y ago
  > you need to be highly tolerant of things that irritate you or violate things you consider valuable, and in many cases, you must be tolerant of things that violate basic mores This is people everywhere, dense or sparse—the difference is that in a denser city you have the ability to choose to engage with people who satisfy your standards, unlike a small town or suburbia where it is more about whom you happened to have living nearby (count them on your fingers) and whom you have to acknowledge whether you like them and agree with their mores or not. I find this much more of an issue psychologically in smaller towns and countryside, where each individual ends up knowing much more about each other because there’s just no way around it (and whom sparseness and subsequent lack of things to do pushes to alcoholism, drugs and other vices). In a denser area I physically couldn’t care what each of the hundreds of strangers I come across every day does in their spare time, people tend to follow a certain protocol in public interactions, law enforcement is more efficient due to constrained area, and it generally feels safer and more respectful of my attention and privacy as a result. Problems like degraded mental health (and resulting substance abuse, high crime rate, etc.) can probably be exacerbated and contagious in denser areas but I think they are more prevalent in sparser ones.
roarcher 4y ago
> Yet for some reason many people seem to have a visceral rejection of a future like that. What is it motivated by? I know this is unpopular with the young childfree techie demographic of HN, but to many people, what you're proposing sounds like a human termite colony. The downtown high-rise lifestyle is great for careerists and twentysomethings whose life consists of work, happy hour, and dog parks, but most people want a little space and peace and quiet as they get older, especially if they want to raise a family. The desire to be left alone is strong. An existence of listening to your neighbors pound on your walls and ceiling and being beholden to a condo association full of petty tyrants just doesn't appeal to a large group of people. I lived in urban apartments for most of my adult life. Since moving to a semi-rural house a few years ago, my mental health is vastly improved.
- c-hendricks 4y ago
  The quiet, wooded property my grandparents owned when I was a kid, was great. You could get lost in the trees as a kid. Now the trees are so thin you can see the neighbors large trucks and hear them all hours of the day. Wanting peace and quiet is reasonable, but I don't think the only answer for it is perpetual sprawl.
  - roarcher 4y ago
    For sure. I realize that my moving to the country to get some space means that the people who were here before me have a little less of it. And the people who come after me mean that I'll have less. It's human nature to say "I want a house out here, but I don't want anyone else to have one". I try not to have that attitude, but I recognize the paradox. I don't know what the solution to sprawl is. I was merely answering the question of why everyone isn't on board with the high-rise lifestyle. "Just put everyone in skyscrapers" is one of those obvious solutions that fails to account for human nature. People aren't widgets that can just be "put" somewhere.
    - strogonoff 4y ago
      You completely and utterly missed my point, which was questioning why many people in the US and parts of Europe find high density living distasteful and how to overcome that sentiment—high density living quite literally being the only answer to sprawl and unfolding ecological disaster, on which I agree with TFA—rather than trying to figure out how to put people somewhere against their will.
kwhitefoot 4y ago
> The advances of technology allow us to live comfortably in tall buildings Do they? Or do they merely allow us to live. Comfort for me includes looking out of my living room window and seeing the next door cat silently hunting among the trees or just sitting in a tree looking at me. It includes being able to relax in my garden full of buzzing insects and not hear any other sounds. Do we really need to end up living in some poorly imagined version of a science fiction peak population hell?
- strogonoff 4y ago
  So what do you do if your neighbors have cat allergies? Move houses? Suffer in perpetual discomfort? By “comfort” I meant literal objective comfort (suitable temperature and humidity, clean air, soft bed, clean water and so on). Understandably, people can have other preferences—I’d be looking for a higher floor, you’d probably like a ground level floor or (I don’t know if you have seen modern high-rises) a floor next to a garden terrace. On the plus side, you will be more likely to have a cat-owning neighbor.
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    It's my neighbours cat!

isityouyesitsme 4y ago

To live in a city of any size, let alone a dense one, you need to be highly tolerant of things that irritate you or violate things you consider valuable, and in many cases, you must be tolerant of things that violate basic mores. The second it becomes a possibility, a significant percentage of people will flee the things that they have difficulty tolerating, simply because they no longer need to tolerate it.

thfuran 4y ago
Or they could value and be bothered by different things than you.
strogonoff 4y ago
> you need to be highly tolerant of things that irritate you or violate things you consider valuable, and in many cases, you must be tolerant of things that violate basic mores This is people everywhere, dense or sparse—the difference is that in a denser city you have the ability to choose to engage with people who satisfy your standards, unlike a small town or suburbia where it is more about whom you happened to have living nearby (count them on your fingers) and whom you have to acknowledge whether you like them and agree with their mores or not. I find this much more of an issue psychologically in smaller towns and countryside, where each individual ends up knowing much more about each other because there’s just no way around it (and whom sparseness and subsequent lack of things to do pushes to alcoholism, drugs and other vices). In a denser area I physically couldn’t care what each of the hundreds of strangers I come across every day does in their spare time, people tend to follow a certain protocol in public interactions, law enforcement is more efficient due to constrained area, and it generally feels safer and more respectful of my attention and privacy as a result. Problems like degraded mental health (and resulting substance abuse, high crime rate, etc.) can probably be exacerbated and contagious in denser areas but I think they are more prevalent in sparser ones.

roarcher 4y ago

> Yet for some reason many people seem to have a visceral rejection of a future like that. What is it motivated by? I know this is unpopular with the young childfree techie demographic of HN, but to many people, what you're proposing sounds like a human termite colony. The downtown high-rise lifestyle is great for careerists and twentysomethings whose life consists of work, happy hour, and dog parks, but most people want a little space and peace and quiet as they get older, especially if they want to raise a family. The desire to be left alone is strong. An existence of listening to your neighbors pound on your walls and ceiling and being beholden to a condo association full of petty tyrants just doesn't appeal to a large group of people. I lived in urban apartments for most of my adult life. Since moving to a semi-rural house a few years ago, my mental health is vastly improved.

c-hendricks 4y ago
The quiet, wooded property my grandparents owned when I was a kid, was great. You could get lost in the trees as a kid. Now the trees are so thin you can see the neighbors large trucks and hear them all hours of the day. Wanting peace and quiet is reasonable, but I don't think the only answer for it is perpetual sprawl.
- roarcher 4y ago
  For sure. I realize that my moving to the country to get some space means that the people who were here before me have a little less of it. And the people who come after me mean that I'll have less. It's human nature to say "I want a house out here, but I don't want anyone else to have one". I try not to have that attitude, but I recognize the paradox. I don't know what the solution to sprawl is. I was merely answering the question of why everyone isn't on board with the high-rise lifestyle. "Just put everyone in skyscrapers" is one of those obvious solutions that fails to account for human nature. People aren't widgets that can just be "put" somewhere.
  - strogonoff 4y ago
    You completely and utterly missed my point, which was questioning why many people in the US and parts of Europe find high density living distasteful and how to overcome that sentiment—high density living quite literally being the only answer to sprawl and unfolding ecological disaster, on which I agree with TFA—rather than trying to figure out how to put people somewhere against their will.

kwhitefoot 4y ago

> The advances of technology allow us to live comfortably in tall buildings Do they? Or do they merely allow us to live. Comfort for me includes looking out of my living room window and seeing the next door cat silently hunting among the trees or just sitting in a tree looking at me. It includes being able to relax in my garden full of buzzing insects and not hear any other sounds. Do we really need to end up living in some poorly imagined version of a science fiction peak population hell?

strogonoff 4y ago
So what do you do if your neighbors have cat allergies? Move houses? Suffer in perpetual discomfort? By “comfort” I meant literal objective comfort (suitable temperature and humidity, clean air, soft bed, clean water and so on). Understandably, people can have other preferences—I’d be looking for a higher floor, you’d probably like a ground level floor or (I don’t know if you have seen modern high-rises) a floor next to a garden terrace. On the plus side, you will be more likely to have a cat-owning neighbor.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  It's my neighbours cat!