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Property values are a small-to-none factor. I don't want more noise. I don't want more traffic. I don't want more students at my kid's schools, which are alr

Property values are a small-to-none factor. I don't want more noise. I don't want more traffic. I don't want more students at my kid's schools, which are already at a 35/1 kid to teacher ratio. That's it for me. I think that's it for a lot of people, whether they live in cities or suburbs or far out in the country. Very few people want more crowding. The people who like living in dense cities already live there. Blaming greed and property values is just a distraction.

chgs 2y ago
Presumably double the density you also double the size of the school and double the teachers. If you don’t, the problem isn’t the density.
- nineplay 2y ago
  There are a lot of problems, none of which are going to be addressed if the only focus is property values. A school was knocked down in my neighborhood to build a pricey apartment complex. The district and the developers made a bunch of promises about how current schools would be expanded and more resources would be available. Those were all lies, of course. Apartment complexes make money, public schools do not. Guess which one wins.
- jjav 2y ago
  > Presumably double the density you also double the size of the school and double the teachers. It's not that easy. If you doubled the density, maybe there is nowhere left to go for the school to expand, or the land is now so expensive there is no way for the town to afford expanding the school. My town is an example. The middle school had two quite large empty lots on two sides. Those lots have now multi-story apartment buildings in construction. Presumably those apartments will attract younger families who might have kids going to middle school. But if that school ever needs to expand, it is now boxed in by housing on all sides. Time will tell how it goes.
  - mjmahone17 2y ago
    Couldn’t the school just build taller too?
    - wpm 2y ago
      Or just build another school on the other side of town? Who says the catchment areas don’t shrink once population increases past a certain point?
    - nineplay 2y ago
      'just' is doing a lot of work there. No one 'just' adds more stories onto existing buildings.
    - oerdier 2y ago
      Won't solve the worse than 35/1 student/reacher ratio problem of ancestor post if those extra classrooms won't have teachers in them. Seems like increasing teacher shortage is a problem in the US as well as here in the EU.
      - Jensson 2y ago
        Teacher shortage mostly happens in sparse communities not dense ones since it is easy to find teachers where lots of people live.
        oerdier 2y ago
        Here in the Netherlands, already a generally densely populated country, there's a teacher shortage everywhere, including cities. People rather have higher paying jobs, or quit because the job disappoints. I belong to the latter group. I quit teaching at secondary school (ages 15-18). After three different schools in three different areas, and having spoken with many colleagues and their experiences, I sadly had to conclude that broadly the work culture in secondary education (in this country, at least) is dramatically lacking professionalism. To a point where I think if my goal is to teach the next generation well enough, my time and energy is better spent elsewhere.
nemo44x 2y ago
I could never understand why some people don't understand that people buy into a community because they like the community in the state when they bought into it. And that making large changes to the community would alter the community and what people liked about it will be diminished. Not to mention the practical aspects like utilities, road capacity, schools, etc. as you've pointed out. For some reason, some people outside a community believe they should have a voice on what the actual community wants. As if a community should be expected to want to ruin what makes their space attractive so interlopers can infest it? Some development where it makes sense - sure. But no, we aren't converting our homes and properties into multi-family dwellings.
- camel_Snake 2y ago
  I'm probably one of those people you're referring to, and quite honestly it's not that I don't realize or understand - it's that I don't care. The community you love wasn't always that way - it changed to become what you enjoy, likely to the similar anger/detriment of the previous residents who like the "old" community. I imagine racial segregationists and apartheid advocates used disconcertingly similar arguments.
  - nemo44x 2y ago
    > it's that I don't care. Can you understand why a community would want to exclude you? That antisocial attitudes like this are shunned accordingly and projects that would attract them are avoided. We actively select to avoid these kinds of antagonistic attitudes getting a foothold because we know what makes our community attractive. Certainly it isn't people that "don't care" about what the community values. You'll need to find somewhere lower rent for that. > The community you love wasn't always that way - it changed to become what you enjoy, likely to the similar anger/detriment of the previous residents who like the "old" community. How do you know this? Likely even? Communities do change, of course. But there's a reason why the most highly sought after places continue to be the most highly sought after places and it isn't because they gleefully rip down the very things that make them sough after. Especially so "don't cares" can move in and not care about the place. > I imagine racial segregationists and apartheid advocates used disconcertingly similar arguments. What does that have to do with a community wanting to limit and select what they consider appropriate development in the modern age?
m_fayer 2y ago
Asking people to sacrifice for the greater good requires that they trust their leaders and systems to do everything possible to maximize the benefits and ameliorate the harms. Absent that, it’s every man for themselves.
- nineplay 2y ago
  Asking people to sacrifice for the greater good is generally a non-starter and I'm not just taking about housing. It's certainly not something to consider when planning public policies.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  that's a false dichotomy -- everyone goes full-on communist, or else anything goes. real world governments and leadership is far more complicated.
mint2 2y ago
None of those are required in cities, and actually suburbs are the main cause of traffic jams. The main noise in most places is traffic, and traffic is usually caused caused by sprawl, low density and car oriented building. What you’re objecting to is fixed by more density
- nineplay 2y ago
  So your assertion is that if all the open space near me was mowed down to make room for massive apartment complexes, then I would actually experience less noise and traffic. It's a bold theory but not one I want to try out in practice.
  - fmobus 2y ago
    Cities aren't loud, cars are loud.
    - gymbeaux 2y ago
      We really need more public transit, though there also exist pavements that reduce road noise (most of it comes from tires) considerably… it’s just that it’s more expensive (and more effective) than noise walls… but government mandates say noise walls are “adequate”.
      - shiroiushi 2y ago
        Public transit isn't economically viable when you refuse to build densely.
        kjkjadksj 2y ago
        Its not designed to be economically viable. Its not a private business. It can be subsidized.
        shiroiushi 2y ago
durumu 2y ago
> The people who like living in dense cities already live there. One would then think that dense cities would build more housing, but that doesn’t seem to happen. NYC, SF, and Boston are the densest cities in the country and build barely any housing compared to areas like Houston and Austin. I also just think it isn’t true that everyone who wants to live in a dense city does. My experience is that a lot of people would absolutely love to live in NYC but can’t afford it, and I think this is primarily because there is not enough housing.
- pandaman 2y ago
  That's because few really like unbound density, people who move to cities want more density than a SFH-on-an-acre and/or perhaps can tolerate more of it but they do not enjoy density per se and don't "upgrade" by moving to even more crowded conditions just for the sake of having more nuisance. Sure, many people would love to move to NYC, but how many people would chose to move to a tiny apartment over a giant penthouse in there, if given such a choice. Say the employer pays for housing with no cost to the individual and no limit, how many people would go for the smallest place in their preferred location and how many would go for the largest? If the former group is in minority this would explain how the cities, ruled by a democratic process, do not strive to pump density.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 2y ago
Traffic? Build rail and deploy bussing like you fucking want it. Make it so good Japanese and European civil engineers ask you for help. Noise? That’s an engineering problem. Teacher ratios? Your property taxes too low for the services your community needs. Notice how I said need - it’s necessary. 20-1 is high, 30+ plus and your local governance is criminally incompetent. You’re distracted by change and upset that you need to adapt to a world that’s moved past you. Tale older than the dirt we walk on.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  Its easy to say "just build trains." It is much harder to actually do it. New rail costs on the order of a billion dollars a mile in American cities. It is not financially practical to expand rail service because of this. What usually ends up happening when suburban areas densify is just that traffic gets worse. It makes sense that people are worried about that when theyve seen it happen many times.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 2y ago
    Deploy the army Corp of engineers, tie to a massive jobs program with expedited eminent domain. Fund it by closing loopholes on wealthy tax cheats, tax unrealized gains for billionaires, tax loans against stocks, tax private jet travel 100%. And on and on. These are all solvable problems but no one has the will because the people empowered are too fucking comfortable watching the planet get destroyed while people die deaths of exposure and despair by the millions.
    - HDThoreaun 2y ago
      When you say "just bring in the army corps of engineers" everyone hears "we're not going to solve the problem" because the odds of that happening are extremely low compared to the odds of everyone just putting up with things being a little bit worse. We need to rebuild faith in our government in order to undertake projects that cause change.
  - mnky9800n 2y ago

chgs 2y ago

Presumably double the density you also double the size of the school and double the teachers. If you don’t, the problem isn’t the density.

nineplay 2y ago
There are a lot of problems, none of which are going to be addressed if the only focus is property values. A school was knocked down in my neighborhood to build a pricey apartment complex. The district and the developers made a bunch of promises about how current schools would be expanded and more resources would be available. Those were all lies, of course. Apartment complexes make money, public schools do not. Guess which one wins.
jjav 2y ago
> Presumably double the density you also double the size of the school and double the teachers. It's not that easy. If you doubled the density, maybe there is nowhere left to go for the school to expand, or the land is now so expensive there is no way for the town to afford expanding the school. My town is an example. The middle school had two quite large empty lots on two sides. Those lots have now multi-story apartment buildings in construction. Presumably those apartments will attract younger families who might have kids going to middle school. But if that school ever needs to expand, it is now boxed in by housing on all sides. Time will tell how it goes.
- mjmahone17 2y ago
  Couldn’t the school just build taller too?
  - wpm 2y ago
    Or just build another school on the other side of town? Who says the catchment areas don’t shrink once population increases past a certain point?
  - nineplay 2y ago
    'just' is doing a lot of work there. No one 'just' adds more stories onto existing buildings.
  - oerdier 2y ago
    Won't solve the worse than 35/1 student/reacher ratio problem of ancestor post if those extra classrooms won't have teachers in them. Seems like increasing teacher shortage is a problem in the US as well as here in the EU.
    - Jensson 2y ago
      Teacher shortage mostly happens in sparse communities not dense ones since it is easy to find teachers where lots of people live.
      - oerdier 2y ago
        Here in the Netherlands, already a generally densely populated country, there's a teacher shortage everywhere, including cities. People rather have higher paying jobs, or quit because the job disappoints. I belong to the latter group. I quit teaching at secondary school (ages 15-18). After three different schools in three different areas, and having spoken with many colleagues and their experiences, I sadly had to conclude that broadly the work culture in secondary education (in this country, at least) is dramatically lacking professionalism. To a point where I think if my goal is to teach the next generation well enough, my time and energy is better spent elsewhere.

nemo44x 2y ago

I could never understand why some people don't understand that people buy into a community because they like the community in the state when they bought into it. And that making large changes to the community would alter the community and what people liked about it will be diminished. Not to mention the practical aspects like utilities, road capacity, schools, etc. as you've pointed out. For some reason, some people outside a community believe they should have a voice on what the actual community wants. As if a community should be expected to want to ruin what makes their space attractive so interlopers can infest it? Some development where it makes sense - sure. But no, we aren't converting our homes and properties into multi-family dwellings.

camel_Snake 2y ago
I'm probably one of those people you're referring to, and quite honestly it's not that I don't realize or understand - it's that I don't care. The community you love wasn't always that way - it changed to become what you enjoy, likely to the similar anger/detriment of the previous residents who like the "old" community. I imagine racial segregationists and apartheid advocates used disconcertingly similar arguments.
- nemo44x 2y ago
  > it's that I don't care. Can you understand why a community would want to exclude you? That antisocial attitudes like this are shunned accordingly and projects that would attract them are avoided. We actively select to avoid these kinds of antagonistic attitudes getting a foothold because we know what makes our community attractive. Certainly it isn't people that "don't care" about what the community values. You'll need to find somewhere lower rent for that. > The community you love wasn't always that way - it changed to become what you enjoy, likely to the similar anger/detriment of the previous residents who like the "old" community. How do you know this? Likely even? Communities do change, of course. But there's a reason why the most highly sought after places continue to be the most highly sought after places and it isn't because they gleefully rip down the very things that make them sough after. Especially so "don't cares" can move in and not care about the place. > I imagine racial segregationists and apartheid advocates used disconcertingly similar arguments. What does that have to do with a community wanting to limit and select what they consider appropriate development in the modern age?

m_fayer 2y ago

Asking people to sacrifice for the greater good requires that they trust their leaders and systems to do everything possible to maximize the benefits and ameliorate the harms. Absent that, it’s every man for themselves.

nineplay 2y ago
Asking people to sacrifice for the greater good is generally a non-starter and I'm not just taking about housing. It's certainly not something to consider when planning public policies.
red-iron-pine 2y ago
that's a false dichotomy -- everyone goes full-on communist, or else anything goes. real world governments and leadership is far more complicated.

mint2 2y ago

None of those are required in cities, and actually suburbs are the main cause of traffic jams. The main noise in most places is traffic, and traffic is usually caused caused by sprawl, low density and car oriented building. What you’re objecting to is fixed by more density

nineplay 2y ago
So your assertion is that if all the open space near me was mowed down to make room for massive apartment complexes, then I would actually experience less noise and traffic. It's a bold theory but not one I want to try out in practice.
- fmobus 2y ago
  Cities aren't loud, cars are loud.
  - gymbeaux 2y ago
    We really need more public transit, though there also exist pavements that reduce road noise (most of it comes from tires) considerably… it’s just that it’s more expensive (and more effective) than noise walls… but government mandates say noise walls are “adequate”.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      Public transit isn't economically viable when you refuse to build densely.
      - kjkjadksj 2y ago
        Its not designed to be economically viable. Its not a private business. It can be subsidized.
        shiroiushi 2y ago

durumu 2y ago

> The people who like living in dense cities already live there. One would then think that dense cities would build more housing, but that doesn’t seem to happen. NYC, SF, and Boston are the densest cities in the country and build barely any housing compared to areas like Houston and Austin. I also just think it isn’t true that everyone who wants to live in a dense city does. My experience is that a lot of people would absolutely love to live in NYC but can’t afford it, and I think this is primarily because there is not enough housing.

pandaman 2y ago
That's because few really like unbound density, people who move to cities want more density than a SFH-on-an-acre and/or perhaps can tolerate more of it but they do not enjoy density per se and don't "upgrade" by moving to even more crowded conditions just for the sake of having more nuisance. Sure, many people would love to move to NYC, but how many people would chose to move to a tiny apartment over a giant penthouse in there, if given such a choice. Say the employer pays for housing with no cost to the individual and no limit, how many people would go for the smallest place in their preferred location and how many would go for the largest? If the former group is in minority this would explain how the cities, ruled by a democratic process, do not strive to pump density.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 2y ago

Traffic? Build rail and deploy bussing like you fucking want it. Make it so good Japanese and European civil engineers ask you for help. Noise? That’s an engineering problem. Teacher ratios? Your property taxes too low for the services your community needs. Notice how I said need - it’s necessary. 20-1 is high, 30+ plus and your local governance is criminally incompetent. You’re distracted by change and upset that you need to adapt to a world that’s moved past you. Tale older than the dirt we walk on.

HDThoreaun 2y ago
Its easy to say "just build trains." It is much harder to actually do it. New rail costs on the order of a billion dollars a mile in American cities. It is not financially practical to expand rail service because of this. What usually ends up happening when suburban areas densify is just that traffic gets worse. It makes sense that people are worried about that when theyve seen it happen many times.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 2y ago
  Deploy the army Corp of engineers, tie to a massive jobs program with expedited eminent domain. Fund it by closing loopholes on wealthy tax cheats, tax unrealized gains for billionaires, tax loans against stocks, tax private jet travel 100%. And on and on. These are all solvable problems but no one has the will because the people empowered are too fucking comfortable watching the planet get destroyed while people die deaths of exposure and despair by the millions.
  - HDThoreaun 2y ago
    When you say "just bring in the army corps of engineers" everyone hears "we're not going to solve the problem" because the odds of that happening are extremely low compared to the odds of everyone just putting up with things being a little bit worse. We need to rebuild faith in our government in order to undertake projects that cause change.
- mnky9800n 2y ago