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Its true, but the land that is available, like I said, is still being underutilized. Look a Japan, which is in a very similar situation near the major metropoli
by DiscourseFan 3y ago
Its true, but the land that is available, like I said, is still being underutilized. Look a Japan, which is in a very similar situation near the major metropolitan areas: very little land where people can actually settle, and yet housing is relatively affordable for most. Its not an accident, they're just better at managing urban density--and Tokyo especially has the benefit of a fantastically complex and well managed metro system, but not all the cities do, and they're still fine.
- ta1243 3y agoGreater-Tokyo has a population density about 15 times more than Greater-LA. If LA had Tokyo density you could fit pretty much the entire US population in it.
- DiscourseFan 3y agoSee, we don't even need land use to be that efficient!
- johnnyanmac 3y agoTokyo also fits you into apartments like sardines. You don't really have a "home" so much as a bathroom and bedroom you rent out long term to crash after 12 hour work days. And Tokyo still isn't cheap to live in despite that. Way cheaper than LA/SF but not by much. I think people are so steadfast in the discussion of walkable cities that they forget why suburbs developed. Post WW2 America had a huge economic boom and a lot of soldiers to compensate. The US has tons of land to give out so the Silent Generation was handed swaths of land to to build a home with and raise a family in, and the boomers popped up as a result of such. They then made such rules and regulations to upkeep such a lifestyle. It's not so much efficiency for a town as it was convinence for the individual. Great way to build up nationalism when you own more land than you know what to do with. Sure it backfired 70 years later, but you can understand why this move to "walkable cities" would feel like trying to take away some goodwill for those who benefitted back then.