4 ms·

According to the last US census, the tract I live in in Chicago is one of the densest places in the city outside of central districts with high-rises. I live i

by wpm 1y ago

According to the last US census, the tract I live in in Chicago is one of the densest places in the city outside of central districts with high-rises. I live in a two flat. When I go outside, I am greeted by squirrels and the honey bees from next door (the lady keeps them to help her garden, which is beautiful). Large, lush trees line the block from and back. The only smells that waft over are the smells from other people's cooking. The loudest nuisances are leaf blowers, loud cars, car horns, and dirt bikes. All things that occured at the same rate, if not more, in the single-family-home-only suburb I grew up in. The most danger in my day to day life is caused by people in cars: driving too fast, not stopping and yielding when proper and required, and generally just being shit at piloting a vehicle. This was far more pronounced in the same suburb I grew up in, to the point of being so oppressive I couldn't really go anywhere without one. Literally nothing about my "dense" living is loud (to an unreasonable degree), smelly (unless like, other people grilling chicken is offensive to you), or dangerous (vs the baseline rates at least). No one should be forcing you to live in a "prison" like mine (where I can walk 5 minutes to an excellent grocery store or 10 minutes to a larger supermarket, god, the horror!), but you shouldn't be forcing me to live in a "prison" like a sprawled out SFH only suburb by encoding your preferences into zoning code and law. The simple fact is that more people prefer to live like I do, given what houses are going for around here, exacerbated all the more by the fact that if my neighborhood burned down, it would be *illegal* to build it back the way it exists now.

chickenzzzzu 1y ago
Ok, let me try to take your post point by point. I am happy for you that you are living in a community that sounds like it is more or less to your liking. I am not saying your lifestyle should be illegal or prohibitively expensive, which I think you are saying certain pro-SFH people with zoning/lobbying power are trying to do. I am definitely against those types of people. I do agree as well that cars are a nuissance and a danger. My ideal view of the world involves SFH with acreage, and the banning of noisy gas cars and leafblowers. I don't even like electric cars all that much, I would prefer most people bike, and that heavy delivery trucks deliver to centralized locations instead of everywhere. I will not excuse the actions of fellow car drivers at all. What I will vehemently defend, however, is the rational pricing and legality of single family housing with acreage. There is no possible way that I will live with people surrounding me on 6 sides, banging their feet on the ground, blasting music, cooking all their different cuisines going into a shared AC system, screaming. There is no possible way I will put myself in proximity to those, thanks to the way our world is architected, choose violent crime on random bystanders. You cannot take that right away from me, and if you do, I will go somewhere where I still have that right. And if there is nowhere left to go, then you know what happens next, and only history can give you examples from then on, such as what happened to the Ukrainian Kulaks in the 1930s.
- Ericson2314 1y ago
  Ideally what I would like is a land value tax. This would result in a lot of current suburbs being redeveloped into something denser. It would still be possible to live fairly far out in a single family home (where basically multi-unit buildings wouldn't "outbid" SFHers for the land / land rent obligation), but I suspect only the "true believers" would take this option. To the extent one believes in markets acting fairly, this should be very fair. If people really do greatly prefer by and large SFHs, the value of land as apartments should be lower than expected: more people per land, getting value from the land, but getting less value because of the unpleasant nature of apartments.

by wpm 1y ago

chickenzzzzu 1y ago

Ok, let me try to take your post point by point. I am happy for you that you are living in a community that sounds like it is more or less to your liking. I am not saying your lifestyle should be illegal or prohibitively expensive, which I think you are saying certain pro-SFH people with zoning/lobbying power are trying to do. I am definitely against those types of people. I do agree as well that cars are a nuissance and a danger. My ideal view of the world involves SFH with acreage, and the banning of noisy gas cars and leafblowers. I don't even like electric cars all that much, I would prefer most people bike, and that heavy delivery trucks deliver to centralized locations instead of everywhere. I will not excuse the actions of fellow car drivers at all. What I will vehemently defend, however, is the rational pricing and legality of single family housing with acreage. There is no possible way that I will live with people surrounding me on 6 sides, banging their feet on the ground, blasting music, cooking all their different cuisines going into a shared AC system, screaming. There is no possible way I will put myself in proximity to those, thanks to the way our world is architected, choose violent crime on random bystanders. You cannot take that right away from me, and if you do, I will go somewhere where I still have that right. And if there is nowhere left to go, then you know what happens next, and only history can give you examples from then on, such as what happened to the Ukrainian Kulaks in the 1930s.

Ericson2314 1y ago
Ideally what I would like is a land value tax. This would result in a lot of current suburbs being redeveloped into something denser. It would still be possible to live fairly far out in a single family home (where basically multi-unit buildings wouldn't "outbid" SFHers for the land / land rent obligation), but I suspect only the "true believers" would take this option. To the extent one believes in markets acting fairly, this should be very fair. If people really do greatly prefer by and large SFHs, the value of land as apartments should be lower than expected: more people per land, getting value from the land, but getting less value because of the unpleasant nature of apartments.