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There isn’t much evidence that existing cities want innovation.
by ghiculescu 3y ago
There isn’t much evidence that existing cities want innovation.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoThis, there are literally thousands of comments on HN saying so and so, similar to the parent, but I've never got the impression on the ground in real city suburbs that even half the voting population would desire such 'innovations'. And that's across quite a lot of cities in the US and Canada. Most families who can afford to are willing to pay a huge premium in order to not share walls with a neighbour, even if it's only a few feet of grass and adds a longer commute. Whereas most of the opposing sentiments I can only find as talk by random accounts online... and not in actual behaviour.
- q1w2 3y agoDemocracies are great for preventing tyranny, but they are terrible at reform. Reform often comes from a smaller group of people pioneering a solution among a smaller more willing population, thus demonstrating to the majority that such solutions work. Democracies are, by definition, ruling by the median intelligence of the group, thus cherry picking a smaller set of the population, you can advance more complex ideas and solutions - hence efforts such as in OP's article.
- happytiger 3y agoThat’s quite a salient point and raises interesting questions.
- conception 3y agoI’ll toss out that I’d say the main reason people don’t like to share walls is poor construction makes it so you can hear everything through the walls. This can be easily mitigated but isn’t because money.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoThere's also the legal aspect along with the loss of some degree of freedom and flexibility. These are pretty huge downsides even if perfectly built walls became common.
- woleium 3y agoThe thing is they probably don't realize the benefits. Have a read of strong towns. I was surprised. https://www.strongtowns.org/ https://www.strongtowns.org/
- happytiger 3y agoThat’s quite a lovely movement. Very good link!