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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, highe

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

> 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.