6 ms·
> One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see. Ever wonder
by cbeach 2y ago
> One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see.
Ever wondered if it’s desirable BECAUSE it’s not a dense urban jungle?
- dangoodmanUT 2y ago[flagged]
- kaonwarb 2y agoYes... but the climate and geography alone would make it highly desirable at, say, 10x density.
- gcapu 2y agoMaybe you're right, but we'll never know. It would be great if they allowed some sections to develop so we can test it out. To me it is a desirable location because of the companies, not the lifestyle.
- mhh__ 2y agoThere's a difference between urban jungle and (say) nice 5 story European city buildings. Londons problem for example is that they tried to be clever and cheap at the same time in the 60s and now we're stuck with it.
- scoofy 2y agoThis is why incrementalism is always the best method of development. Spread out the pain so everyone only suffers a little. Spread out the development across different architectural eras. Spread out density to the point where you have diminishing returns. The city shouldn't be changed overnight, but the city should be allowed to change an a consistent rate that slowly accelerates. A good example is to allow each building to only double the square footage of the median building within, say, a quarter-mile radius of the property being redeveloped. This means that SFH's can only become duplexes until duplexes are the norm. After that, quad-plexes can be built, and then when that's normal, you start building large, eight-unit, european-style flats. This allows different areas to grow at different rates, while allowing density to remain generally uniform across neighborhoods. This incentivizes people who very much want low density to have a reasonably, predictably low-density neighborhood to invest in, while giving up the ghost when a piece of land is just to valuable to reasonably keep low density. It would work, and would work quickly in areas where lots of development is needed.
- hex4def6 2y agoUnless I'm misunderstanding, this solves for the problem in which someone wants to put a skyscraper in the middle of suburbia. In other words, based on the assumption that developers will always want to build bigger, but the locals don't want that. Interesting to imagine what this city would look like. If it spread out evenly, you'd get a strange "bowl", with the original SFHs in the center, and high-rises on the periphery. I guess in reality you wouldn't have such even growth; high rises would still potentially want to clump together for business districts, etc. As buildings get torn down, you could do the recalculation; each new building can be x% above or below the local building density "slope". So over time, even the SFH areas could grow upwards, just at a slow pace.
- scoofy 2y agoThere are various ways to do it, but I genuinely think uniform is better. Low density residential likely prefers, and naturally supports, low density retail.
- dragonwriter 2y ago> A good example is to allow each building to only double the square footage of the median building within, say, a quarter-mile radius of the property being redeveloped. This means that SFH's can only become duplexes until duplexes are the norm. No, it doesn't; existing SFHs can, and have when allowed to, become duplexes, triplexes, and sometimes even quadruplexes without changing square footage at all, with doubling, you can go even further. All it takes is remodeling so that each subdivided unit meets minimum habitability standards (separate access, its own restroom, whatever other facilities are mininally required.)
- scoofy 2y agoThis is a general argument assuming units being arbitrary. Units should be effectively arbitrary, but every town will have different rules.
- 2y ago
- xvedejas 2y agoWell, I desired and moved to SF exactly because it's the closest thing to a dense urban jungle that I could find in California. I even dream of moving to a denser part of the city one day, once I can reasonably afford it, but those parts are so in demand to be pricier.
- neom 2y agosidentoe: If you wanna live out a super dense dream/experience on the cheap, go spend 6 months in Seoul, I lived in Manhattan for 10+ years and still found Seoul pretty intense.
- tshaddox 2y agoThere are lots of places that are not dense urban jungles and are not desirable, so I'm certain your explanation is insufficient.
- nomel 2y agoYou're assuming some linear/symmetric relationship, by trying to relate an inverted sign! The more direct question is, are there dense urban jungles that are desirable? A good way to measure that might be comparing where wealthy people live, with the assumption that desire and price are related, locally. Do they live more inner-city, or do they live more in the suburbs at the outskirts?
- skyyler 2y agoNo. It is the good weather capital of the country. Mild winters, mild summers. Not too much rain. No serious threat from tornadoes or hurricanes. That’s a very big draw and it wouldn’t go away by making more dense housing, even if the rest of the peninsula was developed like Manhattan.
- twolf910616 2y agoYeah...it's so close to other beautiful nature. not to mention two world class university near by.
- yieldcrv 2y agoAnd it should be, given that they built the CBD on landfill which has the specific instructions of “do not shake”, since a seemingly solid foundation turns to liquid during an earthquake The buildings should go somewhere else, on bedrock
- swayvil 2y agoMy first thought, sitting by the bay : Beautiful. Perfect. Now they just need to get rid of all these damn people.
- xipho 2y agoAnd it lives on a series of incredibly active fault lines. During my undergrad I had multiple geology profs adamantly mention that when not if aspect of this, and on time-scales of 100s of years, not 1000s. YRMV.
- xvedejas 2y agoMy friends in the geological sciences have told me there will be a big earthquake, but it will be capped at around magnitude 8.0; the faults here are not capable of a 9.0. Buildings in SF have been constructed or retrofit for modern earthquake safety by law.
- 20after4 2y agoAn 8.0 would still cause massive devastation. Even if structures mostly survive there is the threat of fire and tsunami. This antenna tower looks like it is likely to survive though.
- legitster 2y agoSF is kind of neither though. If you spend any time in the city, it definitely feels overstuffed. The houses may be cute and small but they are stuffed with roommates. The city is stuck in nostalgia and ignoring that it's bursting at the seams. It's like wearing clothes that are too small and pretending you are still skinny.
- Two4 2y agoKinda makes you wish there was a massive earthquake while everyone was safely tucked away at a Beyonce concert in an earthquake-proof stadium.
- mindwork 2y agoCould it be not desirable because of single-family homes, but rather because all lucrative and high paying jobs are located here? And it's proximity to the Valley? Also there is much more events and gatherings happen than in the Valley.
- screye 2y agoNo? Paris, NYC, Tokyo, Singapore, Shanghai, London are all dense urban jungles. Doesn't stop them from being desirable.
- rz2k 2y agoIt is easy to argue that Manhattan is far more livable than San Francisco due to the layout and highly convenient zoning, even before taking the obvious transportation advantages into account. San Francisco's advantage is the climate and beautiful natural setting. Considering the advances in seismic technology made over the past fifty years, it is a shame that much faster upgrades to the real estate have not been encouraged.
- Hammershaft 2y agoBullshit. It's desirable because it's the tech capital of the planet. Is New York undesirable because it's developed density?
- throwaway2037 2y agoI would not say that SF is tech capital of the planet; I would give that label to Silicon Valley. There is a big difference in my mind.
- renewiltord 2y agoHaha, no, it’s desirable because of geography and things to do. This is proven by the fact that large numbers of people are moving into expensive Mission Bay housing which has no single family homes by it.