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Some years ago, Bay Area city officials visited Bangalore (on our tax dollars) to justify high density housing in Bay Area. They came up with reports and studie

Some years ago, Bay Area city officials visited Bangalore (on our tax dollars) to justify high density housing in Bay Area. They came up with reports and studies and stuff. Proponents of high density housing should visit and live a few months in dense cities before they start demanding a quality of life they haven’t ever experienced or can ever bear. The naivety is shocking. A world of pain awaits Bay Area. Resource scarcity is terrible. You can’t throw money at depleted groundwater or global warming to make it behave. Dense overpopulated cities with failing infrastructure will be a nightmare.

vinni2 3y ago
This is a bit of a narrow view imho and also comparing to Bangalore is not the optimal thing to do. There are more efficient denser urban areas which utilize resources more efficiently than sparse suburbia. Also there is a middle ground between the stringent zoning laws of the Bay Area and Bangalore.
rramadass 3y ago
> Some years ago, Bay Area city officials visited Bangalore (on our tax dollars) to justify high density housing in Bay Area. They came up with reports and studies and stuff. Can you please link to the concerned reports? As a person who has lived in the Bay Area and am currently residing in Bangalore, i am most interested in reading them. Bangalore is a textbook case of "How to Ruin a Urban City and Decimate its Future". It should never be used as a model of anything. Some articles/videos (from 2016 onwards): 1) Bengaluru will go down in history as one of the best examples of how we can ruin a city - https://archive.is/4XCAH https://archive.is/4XCAH 2) India’s supreme court thinks Bengaluru has become a template for urban ruin - https://qz.com/india-s-supreme-court-thinks-bengaluru-has-become-a-tem-1849973799 https://qz.com/india-s-supreme-court-thinks-bengaluru-has-be... 3) Bengaluru: From Boom to Bust? How India's Best City Is Being Ruined - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhkAkZXOD3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhkAkZXOD3A 4) Political vultures, real estate sharks and criminals ganged up to ruin Bengaluru - https://www.firstpost.com/india/political-vultures-real-estate-sharks-and-criminals-ganged-up-to-ruin-bengaluru-2953340.html https://www.firstpost.com/india/political-vultures-real-esta... (this is a two-part article with some suggestions for change and hence worth reading carefully).
- jelliclesfarm 3y ago
  Began in 2009: https://sfbangalore.org/ https://sfbangalore.org/ San Francisco – Bangalore Sister City Initiative was established in 2009 to engage Individuals and Institutions in Bangalore and San Francisco in creating sustainable 21st century cities through an exchange of environmental, economic, cultural and research ideas, expertise and resources. [..] https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/S-F-sustains-ties-with-Bangalore-3214257.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/S-F-sustains-ti... [..]Next month, a delegation of city officials and corporate executives, led by Mayor Gavin Newsom, will be spending three days in Bangalore, where initial agreements on projects involving sustainable building, health technology, water treatment and solid waste management are expected to be signed. All areas in which Bangalore, India's version of Silicon Valley, have said it could use some help.[..] But..they came back with a grand plan for much higher density housing plans for Bay Area. High density housing and CEQA bashing and rezoning became policy then. Thats around when all that talk began.. They never did bring back networked public transportation that is the most crucial requirement for overpopulated high density cities. Americans and Californians have no clue about what ‘high density’ means to resource scarcity and how it will make a city unlivable. Lost a lot of friends when I tried to explain it. Bay Area is a mess. PG&E is fleecing customers and it’s a monopoly. Even solar has to come through the grid. Water costs keeps on increasing. Traffic is a nightmare. Public schools are overcrowded. No new infrastructure. The cost of living in all of the state mandated high density cities in the Bay Area has only soared. Calling Bay Area a ‘mess’ is like naming Tyrannosaurus Rex, “Little Fatty’.

vinni2 3y ago

This is a bit of a narrow view imho and also comparing to Bangalore is not the optimal thing to do. There are more efficient denser urban areas which utilize resources more efficiently than sparse suburbia. Also there is a middle ground between the stringent zoning laws of the Bay Area and Bangalore.

rramadass 3y ago

> Some years ago, Bay Area city officials visited Bangalore (on our tax dollars) to justify high density housing in Bay Area. They came up with reports and studies and stuff. Can you please link to the concerned reports? As a person who has lived in the Bay Area and am currently residing in Bangalore, i am most interested in reading them. Bangalore is a textbook case of "How to Ruin a Urban City and Decimate its Future". It should never be used as a model of anything. Some articles/videos (from 2016 onwards): 1) Bengaluru will go down in history as one of the best examples of how we can ruin a city - https://archive.is/4XCAH https://archive.is/4XCAH 2) India’s supreme court thinks Bengaluru has become a template for urban ruin - https://qz.com/india-s-supreme-court-thinks-bengaluru-has-become-a-tem-1849973799 https://qz.com/india-s-supreme-court-thinks-bengaluru-has-be... 3) Bengaluru: From Boom to Bust? How India's Best City Is Being Ruined - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhkAkZXOD3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhkAkZXOD3A 4) Political vultures, real estate sharks and criminals ganged up to ruin Bengaluru - https://www.firstpost.com/india/political-vultures-real-estate-sharks-and-criminals-ganged-up-to-ruin-bengaluru-2953340.html https://www.firstpost.com/india/political-vultures-real-esta... (this is a two-part article with some suggestions for change and hence worth reading carefully).

jelliclesfarm 3y ago
Began in 2009: https://sfbangalore.org/ https://sfbangalore.org/ San Francisco – Bangalore Sister City Initiative was established in 2009 to engage Individuals and Institutions in Bangalore and San Francisco in creating sustainable 21st century cities through an exchange of environmental, economic, cultural and research ideas, expertise and resources. [..] https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/S-F-sustains-ties-with-Bangalore-3214257.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/S-F-sustains-ti... [..]Next month, a delegation of city officials and corporate executives, led by Mayor Gavin Newsom, will be spending three days in Bangalore, where initial agreements on projects involving sustainable building, health technology, water treatment and solid waste management are expected to be signed. All areas in which Bangalore, India's version of Silicon Valley, have said it could use some help.[..] But..they came back with a grand plan for much higher density housing plans for Bay Area. High density housing and CEQA bashing and rezoning became policy then. Thats around when all that talk began.. They never did bring back networked public transportation that is the most crucial requirement for overpopulated high density cities. Americans and Californians have no clue about what ‘high density’ means to resource scarcity and how it will make a city unlivable. Lost a lot of friends when I tried to explain it. Bay Area is a mess. PG&E is fleecing customers and it’s a monopoly. Even solar has to come through the grid. Water costs keeps on increasing. Traffic is a nightmare. Public schools are overcrowded. No new infrastructure. The cost of living in all of the state mandated high density cities in the Bay Area has only soared. Calling Bay Area a ‘mess’ is like naming Tyrannosaurus Rex, “Little Fatty’.