5 ms·

I'm curious about your premise, but absolutely nothing of what you posted here is at all persuasive. Can you link to a different explanation?

kkfx 2y ago
I have a more broad explanation https://kfx.fr/articles/2024-04-26-onnewdealexp-contrapolis/ https://kfx.fr/articles/2024-04-26-onnewdealexp-contrapolis/ and I can add some like https://watson.brown.edu/stoneinequality/events/2022/icebergs-ultrathins-and-real-estate-state-how-finance-capitalism-remaking-cities https://watson.brown.edu/stoneinequality/events/2022/iceberg... while others are cited in the first article. But in more practical terms: try to find a project of a MODERN condo, meaning one build with all current "energy regulations" of the western countries, let's say build in the last 10 years or so. Try to elicit the bill of materials, than try to do the same for single family homes of similar "luxury" of the apartments and simply multiply the single home bill of material times the number of apartments. In infra terms try to visualize how much infra a modern city demand, including highways and so on vs simple roads on a spread area. You'll find that some elements do cost much (like roofs) but overall single family homes cost less in mere raw materials. If we add the need of renewables and the lack of the mere ability to build a nation-wide smart-grid, while we can build smart-microgrid in homes, and we actually have them in all modern p.v. systems with storage/self consumption, you'll easily visualize that we can't create a "green new deal city" without falling in projects like Neom, Arkadag, Prospera, Innopolis and others modern Fordlandia distopic and disfunctional like the original one. Then you can add evolution, the fact we do not really know how climate change will reshape us humans, with migrations, wars and so on. Those who know try pushing air mobility https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-report.pdf https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-... not because it's cool nor cheap alone (so far such drones consume the equivalent of a tank vs a car) but because they do not need roads, and roads alone cost too much and can evolve too slowly. We try to push water transports for similar reasons. We know large infra can't be maintained and evolved for long. However finance capitalism needs dense cities where humans inside own nothing and have to obey simply to eat and sleep.
- quesera 2y ago
  I will read your links. But my first reaction to your above comment is that modern commercial/urban/residential builds are intended for longer lifespans, higher use, and lower maintenance than suburban-rural/SFH. Also the tools/technology available to the builders of each are very different. Materials selection is consequently also very different. And there are stricter zoning and permitting requirements (as well as different risks and goals that drive them) in cities than in rural areas, which definitely increases costs -- but the overarching intent is that a city build becomes part of the fabric and should serve (and be safe for) not only the builder/seller/owner but also the community. Cost is almost never the limiting factor for building though. So I'm not sure it makes sense to look at it through that lens.
  - kkfx 2y ago
    > my first reaction to your above comment is that modern commercial/urban/residential builds are intended for longer lifespans, higher use, and lower maintenance than suburban-rural/SFH. Yes, that's WAS the case. Was, because it's not anymore. In usage terms, just observe a thing: you have the office and the condo (stereotypically) and well, you use the condo for less than 12h/day, and so the office, the rest of the time you keep moving around. Is that a better usage than WFH not necessary from remote? Let's say a dentist can have his/her own cabinet at the ground floor while living at the first one in a small village. Isn't that building (witch is still small and easy to evolve) much more used than the same person who live in an apartment and commute to another one in a tower? If you really see "strong towns" explanations they tend to show "towns" who actually are old villages of small buildings, and yes they was working very well. But modern cities are not like that. Now imaging a small or medium or large condo built in the '60s, I do not know how they was built in the US but in southern EU at that time insulation was an unknown concept, fuel was VERY cheap, summers not much hot. Things change, people have changed the windows for 1-2 glaze to 3-glase low emissive ones, some have insulated the roof and so on, but the overall benefit was VERY limited and the cost high. Single family homes was not built differently of course, but insulating them, adding rooftop p.v., a water-water heat pump for the winter and minisplit for summer is far simpler and cheaper, also rebuild the home is doable. We can build durable homes, not the USA/JP cheap one, as we can build not durable big buildings, like most modern due to speculations, but we can't evolve the big one much and tech change fast as climate change fast so even a long lasting building is not a good thing, it can't evolve and we need to. > Cost is almost never the limiting factor for building though. So I'm not sure it makes sense to look at it through that lens. Really computing costs it's extremely time consuming and complex. But just try to imaging a different world in the current state of tech and climate. You can't get the numbers with such mental model, but you can get an idea. In making sense terms: with spread homes, let's be clear not too spread, there is a small and medium player economy, giants can be only certain industries, in a dense city there is room for the service economy by the giants. You will not use Just Eat nor Uber in a spread area, you'll not buy ready made foods delivered by Amazon robots and so on. Of course you will benefit from an autonomous lawn mower robot, a home floor cleaner robot, the industrial part remain, but the service part disappear.

kkfx 2y ago

I have a more broad explanation https://kfx.fr/articles/2024-04-26-onnewdealexp-contrapolis/ https://kfx.fr/articles/2024-04-26-onnewdealexp-contrapolis/ and I can add some like https://watson.brown.edu/stoneinequality/events/2022/icebergs-ultrathins-and-real-estate-state-how-finance-capitalism-remaking-cities https://watson.brown.edu/stoneinequality/events/2022/iceberg... while others are cited in the first article. But in more practical terms: try to find a project of a MODERN condo, meaning one build with all current "energy regulations" of the western countries, let's say build in the last 10 years or so. Try to elicit the bill of materials, than try to do the same for single family homes of similar "luxury" of the apartments and simply multiply the single home bill of material times the number of apartments. In infra terms try to visualize how much infra a modern city demand, including highways and so on vs simple roads on a spread area. You'll find that some elements do cost much (like roofs) but overall single family homes cost less in mere raw materials. If we add the need of renewables and the lack of the mere ability to build a nation-wide smart-grid, while we can build smart-microgrid in homes, and we actually have them in all modern p.v. systems with storage/self consumption, you'll easily visualize that we can't create a "green new deal city" without falling in projects like Neom, Arkadag, Prospera, Innopolis and others modern Fordlandia distopic and disfunctional like the original one. Then you can add evolution, the fact we do not really know how climate change will reshape us humans, with migrations, wars and so on. Those who know try pushing air mobility https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-report.pdf https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-... not because it's cool nor cheap alone (so far such drones consume the equivalent of a tank vs a car) but because they do not need roads, and roads alone cost too much and can evolve too slowly. We try to push water transports for similar reasons. We know large infra can't be maintained and evolved for long. However finance capitalism needs dense cities where humans inside own nothing and have to obey simply to eat and sleep.

quesera 2y ago
I will read your links. But my first reaction to your above comment is that modern commercial/urban/residential builds are intended for longer lifespans, higher use, and lower maintenance than suburban-rural/SFH. Also the tools/technology available to the builders of each are very different. Materials selection is consequently also very different. And there are stricter zoning and permitting requirements (as well as different risks and goals that drive them) in cities than in rural areas, which definitely increases costs -- but the overarching intent is that a city build becomes part of the fabric and should serve (and be safe for) not only the builder/seller/owner but also the community. Cost is almost never the limiting factor for building though. So I'm not sure it makes sense to look at it through that lens.
- kkfx 2y ago
  > my first reaction to your above comment is that modern commercial/urban/residential builds are intended for longer lifespans, higher use, and lower maintenance than suburban-rural/SFH. Yes, that's WAS the case. Was, because it's not anymore. In usage terms, just observe a thing: you have the office and the condo (stereotypically) and well, you use the condo for less than 12h/day, and so the office, the rest of the time you keep moving around. Is that a better usage than WFH not necessary from remote? Let's say a dentist can have his/her own cabinet at the ground floor while living at the first one in a small village. Isn't that building (witch is still small and easy to evolve) much more used than the same person who live in an apartment and commute to another one in a tower? If you really see "strong towns" explanations they tend to show "towns" who actually are old villages of small buildings, and yes they was working very well. But modern cities are not like that. Now imaging a small or medium or large condo built in the '60s, I do not know how they was built in the US but in southern EU at that time insulation was an unknown concept, fuel was VERY cheap, summers not much hot. Things change, people have changed the windows for 1-2 glaze to 3-glase low emissive ones, some have insulated the roof and so on, but the overall benefit was VERY limited and the cost high. Single family homes was not built differently of course, but insulating them, adding rooftop p.v., a water-water heat pump for the winter and minisplit for summer is far simpler and cheaper, also rebuild the home is doable. We can build durable homes, not the USA/JP cheap one, as we can build not durable big buildings, like most modern due to speculations, but we can't evolve the big one much and tech change fast as climate change fast so even a long lasting building is not a good thing, it can't evolve and we need to. > Cost is almost never the limiting factor for building though. So I'm not sure it makes sense to look at it through that lens. Really computing costs it's extremely time consuming and complex. But just try to imaging a different world in the current state of tech and climate. You can't get the numbers with such mental model, but you can get an idea. In making sense terms: with spread homes, let's be clear not too spread, there is a small and medium player economy, giants can be only certain industries, in a dense city there is room for the service economy by the giants. You will not use Just Eat nor Uber in a spread area, you'll not buy ready made foods delivered by Amazon robots and so on. Of course you will benefit from an autonomous lawn mower robot, a home floor cleaner robot, the industrial part remain, but the service part disappear.