6 ms·

> Isn't it a slippery slope though?? You have to just keep adding supply but unfortunately the amount of living space that can be built in an urban area is cons

by Kalium 3y ago

> Isn't it a slippery slope though?? You have to just keep adding supply but unfortunately the amount of living space that can be built in an urban area is constrained at some point both vertically and horizontally. You're absolutely right. There's definitely real limits, vertically and horizontally, to how much density is physically possible. As an upper limit, we have good historical examples density of around 1.2 million people per square kilometer being workable. I don't think any part of the US today comes close to that - what data I can find says that the most densely populated part of the US is at 66,000 people per square km. That's multiple orders of magnitude different. With that in mind, I think it's possible that we haven't yet hit any real physical or space-based limits in American cities. Only political ones.

whitemary 3y ago
That kind of density requires trains. However, thanks to the privatisation of every aspect of our society, we can't build trains anymore.
bloak 3y ago
Where did they have "1.2 million people per square kilometer"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_cities_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_cities_by_popula... only goes up to about 80 thousand ... and the city with the highest population density in that list is one I must admit I'd never heard of, so there's a pub trivia question, perhaps.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dublinben 3y ago
  It's hardly a shining example of livability, but the former Kowloon Walled City purportedly had a population density of over 1.9 million/km2. [0] More realistically, we can see examples of nice residential neighborhoods in Washington DC ranging from 30,000-100,000+/km2. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City [1] https://ggwash.org/view/42469/what-do-80000-people-in-a-square-mile-look-like-depends-on-where-you-put-them https://ggwash.org/view/42469/what-do-80000-people-in-a-squa...
  - ahoy 3y ago
    And DC has wide streets & building height limits!
  - trinovantes 3y ago
    According to this youtube video [1], some city blocks in Manhatten can reach up to 280k/km2 [1] https://youtu.be/y3XoUBzfXps?t=453 https://youtu.be/y3XoUBzfXps?t=453
- jcranmer 3y ago
  Kowloon Walled City made it to 1.9 million people per km². Your list of cities misses this because it's comparing entire metropolitan regions (not clear how this is precisely defined), as opposed to neighborhood-level densities, which is where you can get the hundreds of thousands or millions of people per km².
  - duped 3y ago
    It housed 33,000 people. While on paper that's extremely dense it's not necessarily scalable - and kind of provably so, since they tore it down and evacuated everyone who lived there. What would the sewage infrastructure look like for a 1km square with almost two million people in it? How about the ventilation? Police and fire? It's not really tenable.
    - tormeh 3y ago
      Tore it down against the will of the people living there. And the building height was constrained by an overhead airport approach. KWC could have been even denser. I don't think going full KWC density is a good idea, but comparisons to it serves as a rough measure of how far from "full" a city really is. And I think it's important to remind ourselves of that from time to time. SF, to pick an example near and dear to HN readers, is not full. All residents of the Bay Area could fit between Market Street and Van Ness Avenue with lots of room to spare.
nerdchum 3y ago
Why force people to cram into the miserable conditions of 1.2 million people per kilometer to get a good job?
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  Because dense, urban areas are the most environmentally friendly places humans can live, for one.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    not that i disagree, but could you elaborate on that please? as one commenter suggested, the problem is that job locations are too concentrated. we have already proven that remote work is effective, so there is no need for that any more, and super high density is not necessary. the environmental issue with low density is mostly cars, which can be solved with good public transport, which btw will also be needed in super high density areas because people will also want to go out of the city some times. i also believe that environmental friendly construction affects the possible density a city can have. concrete is not exactly environmental friendly material. (for high density steel without concrete would be better, it's more lightweight too, so allows for higher buildings) in short, there are a lot of factors that go into environmental friendly living. what are the factors that favor high density?
    - dublinben 3y ago
      This paper goes into great detail about how urban households have lower emissions than suburban ones.[0] This is made up of the different energy, transportation, food, goods, and services emissions of the different lifestyles associated with each area. For instance, going beyond transportation, climate control for buildings is one of the top uses of energy. Detached single-family homes are pretty must worst case, compared to attached housing, or even multi-story apartments, etc. [0] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es4034364 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es4034364
      - em-bee 3y ago

by Kalium 3y ago

whitemary 3y ago

That kind of density requires trains. However, thanks to the privatisation of every aspect of our society, we can't build trains anymore.

bloak 3y ago

Where did they have "1.2 million people per square kilometer"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_cities_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_cities_by_popula... only goes up to about 80 thousand ... and the city with the highest population density in that list is one I must admit I'd never heard of, so there's a pub trivia question, perhaps.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dublinben 3y ago
It's hardly a shining example of livability, but the former Kowloon Walled City purportedly had a population density of over 1.9 million/km2. [0] More realistically, we can see examples of nice residential neighborhoods in Washington DC ranging from 30,000-100,000+/km2. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City [1] https://ggwash.org/view/42469/what-do-80000-people-in-a-square-mile-look-like-depends-on-where-you-put-them https://ggwash.org/view/42469/what-do-80000-people-in-a-squa...
- ahoy 3y ago
  And DC has wide streets & building height limits!
- trinovantes 3y ago
  According to this youtube video [1], some city blocks in Manhatten can reach up to 280k/km2 [1] https://youtu.be/y3XoUBzfXps?t=453 https://youtu.be/y3XoUBzfXps?t=453
jcranmer 3y ago
Kowloon Walled City made it to 1.9 million people per km². Your list of cities misses this because it's comparing entire metropolitan regions (not clear how this is precisely defined), as opposed to neighborhood-level densities, which is where you can get the hundreds of thousands or millions of people per km².
- duped 3y ago
  It housed 33,000 people. While on paper that's extremely dense it's not necessarily scalable - and kind of provably so, since they tore it down and evacuated everyone who lived there. What would the sewage infrastructure look like for a 1km square with almost two million people in it? How about the ventilation? Police and fire? It's not really tenable.
  - tormeh 3y ago
    Tore it down against the will of the people living there. And the building height was constrained by an overhead airport approach. KWC could have been even denser. I don't think going full KWC density is a good idea, but comparisons to it serves as a rough measure of how far from "full" a city really is. And I think it's important to remind ourselves of that from time to time. SF, to pick an example near and dear to HN readers, is not full. All residents of the Bay Area could fit between Market Street and Van Ness Avenue with lots of room to spare.

nerdchum 3y ago

Why force people to cram into the miserable conditions of 1.2 million people per kilometer to get a good job?

idopmstuff 3y ago
Because dense, urban areas are the most environmentally friendly places humans can live, for one.
- em-bee 3y ago
  not that i disagree, but could you elaborate on that please? as one commenter suggested, the problem is that job locations are too concentrated. we have already proven that remote work is effective, so there is no need for that any more, and super high density is not necessary. the environmental issue with low density is mostly cars, which can be solved with good public transport, which btw will also be needed in super high density areas because people will also want to go out of the city some times. i also believe that environmental friendly construction affects the possible density a city can have. concrete is not exactly environmental friendly material. (for high density steel without concrete would be better, it's more lightweight too, so allows for higher buildings) in short, there are a lot of factors that go into environmental friendly living. what are the factors that favor high density?
  - dublinben 3y ago
    This paper goes into great detail about how urban households have lower emissions than suburban ones.[0] This is made up of the different energy, transportation, food, goods, and services emissions of the different lifestyles associated with each area. For instance, going beyond transportation, climate control for buildings is one of the top uses of energy. Detached single-family homes are pretty must worst case, compared to attached housing, or even multi-story apartments, etc. [0] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es4034364 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es4034364
    - em-bee 3y ago