4 ms·

Why build an entire city instead of improving an existing one? I imagine it’s because of pesky governments run by elected citizens who share common interests w

Why build an entire city instead of improving an existing one? I imagine it’s because of pesky governments run by elected citizens who share common interests with their constituents. What unholy shenanigans will these billionaires force on their residents who will undoubtedly have no role in the government?

yieldcrv 3y ago
I like how you take the reason why every city exists ever and reappropriate that as controversial
- idontwantthis 3y ago
  I meant to be facetious. A government that a team of billionaires considers "pesky" is probably mostly doing its job to protect people from harm, even if it is inefficient.
  - dijit 3y ago
    I can see both sides a lot here. It's maybe uncommon knowledge but maintaining a road (or rebuilding a road) costs more than building a new road. (which is part of why the US has so many roads in the first place incidentally). The same holds true of buildings, Europe (as an example) has a lot of legacy and replacing buildings takes a long time and is enormously expensive than if you just had some land. SF itself is extremely NIMBY, if you build a new city (which, incidentally is why most cities became a thing in the first place) for a specific purpose then people at least get to see your vision instead of fighting the establishment because you want high rises but the people who live there preferring the charm do not. That said: I don't know many purpose made cities that actually succeeded. I'm not even aware of any "Company Towns" surviving the decline of the company that founded it; Eindhoven suffered greatly with the decline of Phillips but it had existed for 500 years prior. I can't think of other examples of cities that so heavily depend on companies surviving their inevitable decline.
    - aydyn 3y ago
      Yeah I dont believe you. Theres no way fixing potholes every few years, which is 99% of road maintenance, is more expensive than building a whole new road.
      - dijit 3y ago
        Eh, you massively underestimate road maintenance if you think its just a few potholes every now and again. https://www.governing.com/now/the-u-s-needs-to-fix-existing-roads-not-build-new-ones https://www.governing.com/now/the-u-s-needs-to-fix-existing-... Some information from Aukland specifically because details are hard to find on my phone for the US; https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2013/05/26/roads-arent-cheap-to-run/ https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2013/05/26/roads-arent-ch... https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2017/08/01/escalating-costs-building-roads/ https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2017/08/01/escalating-cos...
        aydyn 3y ago
        Those links dont support your claim that building a road is cheaper than maintaining it.
        dijit 3y ago
        Yes they do. Roads last longer than 1 year. Heck the annual budget for maintenance matches the current spend of building new roads on a yearly basis now: https://archive.curbed.com/2019/5/14/18622511/construction-highway-roads-infrastructure-week https://archive.curbed.com/2019/5/14/18622511/construction-h... The main issue here is that even if you take current spending into consideration, it's not really equivalent because roads are not being repaired at a required rate currently; they're being underinvested in and permitted to fall into worse conditions.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        3y ago
  - 6510 3y ago
    While a dystopian horror is entirely in the cards we do have this problem build into the capitalist system where we lack interesting products to buy for people with nonsensical wealth. Ideally these would be products that require employing a lot of people, do something new and experimental that contributes to society as a whole. If we cant make things interesting enough for these insane people all they have is their greed. Insane as in: they suffer from an addiction and that they will need ever larger shots of financially induced adrenaline until it kills the entire planet. As stupid as it might sound this kind of projects could be the only solution to the puzzle. We might want to limit wealth by law or in general have a government by the people for the people but I wouldn't know where to begin doing that.
6510 3y ago
Everyone will get brain implants powered by chat GPT
sofixa 3y ago
> Why build an entire city instead of improving an existing one NIMBYs (including people on the list of investors, like Horowitz who lobbied against the tiniest shred of densification in his city because "property values" "traffic" etc.) would dislike that very much. Getting a clean(-ish) slate gives the project better chances.
- pxtail 3y ago
  Better chances for what? Wealthy individuals won't create "dense" city because they don't have need and understanding for it, they have their personal jets, helicopters, chauffeurs to move around, moreover people and things come to them instead of other way around. In other words the are living in a completely different world than regular people. What this is is more like interesting endeavor, hobby project out of boredom and self entitlement to make something grandeur - regular folks would go hike around, paint plastic figurines, play sim-city on the computer - this bunch instead wants to play simcity in real life.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    They could be building a dense city because it's a good investment opportunity to provide housing in an area that needs it and density can increase the return on investment, not because they themselves want to live there.

yieldcrv 3y ago

I like how you take the reason why every city exists ever and reappropriate that as controversial

idontwantthis 3y ago
I meant to be facetious. A government that a team of billionaires considers "pesky" is probably mostly doing its job to protect people from harm, even if it is inefficient.
- dijit 3y ago
  I can see both sides a lot here. It's maybe uncommon knowledge but maintaining a road (or rebuilding a road) costs more than building a new road. (which is part of why the US has so many roads in the first place incidentally). The same holds true of buildings, Europe (as an example) has a lot of legacy and replacing buildings takes a long time and is enormously expensive than if you just had some land. SF itself is extremely NIMBY, if you build a new city (which, incidentally is why most cities became a thing in the first place) for a specific purpose then people at least get to see your vision instead of fighting the establishment because you want high rises but the people who live there preferring the charm do not. That said: I don't know many purpose made cities that actually succeeded. I'm not even aware of any "Company Towns" surviving the decline of the company that founded it; Eindhoven suffered greatly with the decline of Phillips but it had existed for 500 years prior. I can't think of other examples of cities that so heavily depend on companies surviving their inevitable decline.
  - aydyn 3y ago
    Yeah I dont believe you. Theres no way fixing potholes every few years, which is 99% of road maintenance, is more expensive than building a whole new road.
    - dijit 3y ago
      Eh, you massively underestimate road maintenance if you think its just a few potholes every now and again. https://www.governing.com/now/the-u-s-needs-to-fix-existing-roads-not-build-new-ones https://www.governing.com/now/the-u-s-needs-to-fix-existing-... Some information from Aukland specifically because details are hard to find on my phone for the US; https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2013/05/26/roads-arent-cheap-to-run/ https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2013/05/26/roads-arent-ch... https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2017/08/01/escalating-costs-building-roads/ https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2017/08/01/escalating-cos...
      - aydyn 3y ago
        Those links dont support your claim that building a road is cheaper than maintaining it.
        dijit 3y ago
        Yes they do. Roads last longer than 1 year. Heck the annual budget for maintenance matches the current spend of building new roads on a yearly basis now: https://archive.curbed.com/2019/5/14/18622511/construction-highway-roads-infrastructure-week https://archive.curbed.com/2019/5/14/18622511/construction-h... The main issue here is that even if you take current spending into consideration, it's not really equivalent because roads are not being repaired at a required rate currently; they're being underinvested in and permitted to fall into worse conditions.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - 3y ago
- 6510 3y ago
  While a dystopian horror is entirely in the cards we do have this problem build into the capitalist system where we lack interesting products to buy for people with nonsensical wealth. Ideally these would be products that require employing a lot of people, do something new and experimental that contributes to society as a whole. If we cant make things interesting enough for these insane people all they have is their greed. Insane as in: they suffer from an addiction and that they will need ever larger shots of financially induced adrenaline until it kills the entire planet. As stupid as it might sound this kind of projects could be the only solution to the puzzle. We might want to limit wealth by law or in general have a government by the people for the people but I wouldn't know where to begin doing that.

6510 3y ago

Everyone will get brain implants powered by chat GPT

sofixa 3y ago

> Why build an entire city instead of improving an existing one NIMBYs (including people on the list of investors, like Horowitz who lobbied against the tiniest shred of densification in his city because "property values" "traffic" etc.) would dislike that very much. Getting a clean(-ish) slate gives the project better chances.

pxtail 3y ago
Better chances for what? Wealthy individuals won't create "dense" city because they don't have need and understanding for it, they have their personal jets, helicopters, chauffeurs to move around, moreover people and things come to them instead of other way around. In other words the are living in a completely different world than regular people. What this is is more like interesting endeavor, hobby project out of boredom and self entitlement to make something grandeur - regular folks would go hike around, paint plastic figurines, play sim-city on the computer - this bunch instead wants to play simcity in real life.
- sofixa 3y ago
  They could be building a dense city because it's a good investment opportunity to provide housing in an area that needs it and density can increase the return on investment, not because they themselves want to live there.