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We could but it’s not always just “good” to make things dense. My hometown has had a huge push to add more housing to make things more affordable. What happene

We could but it’s not always just “good” to make things dense. My hometown has had a huge push to add more housing to make things more affordable. What happened? Rents went down for a couple years then right back up. Except now the city has a bunch of more soulless condos and is horribly congested. Sometimes preserving things and keeping them nice and simple even if it’s costs a bit of a premium is better.

orangecat 7mo ago
Rents went down for a couple years then right back up. Except now the city has a bunch of more soulless condos and is horribly congested. So there were a bunch of people who wanted to live there and now can.
- triceratops 7mo ago
  Nobody lives there anymore, it's too expensive. /s
  - hunterpayne 7mo ago
    Note to the mods, /s is Reddit for sarcasm and this post is a good example of the psychology that leads to people support policies that increase housing costs even though they are designed to decrease housing costs.
- mountainriver 7mo ago
  Yes there is a cost to things like a bunch of congestion, decrease of natural spaces and generally soulessness. To paint this as only good is an insane position
ajross 7mo ago
> now the city has a bunch of more soulless condos and is horribly congested The first bit is a taste thing; obviously lots of people view modern sprawl as "soulless" too. But the latter point is just plain wrong. Dense housing IMPROVES traffic congestion and shortens commutes, always, everywhere, markedly. And it's for a bleedingly obvious reason: pack people in closer together and they don't have to travel as far to get where they're going. QED. What you're imagining is some kind of fantasy hometown, which never increased in population and whose economy never developed. I mean, it's true. Forgotten ghost towns have very little traffic and quirky soulful architecture, c.f. Detroit. Everyone agrees that's a bad thing, though.
- mountainriver 7mo ago
  >But the latter point is just plain wrong. Dense housing IMPROVES traffic congestion and shortens commutes, always, everywhere, markedly. And it's for a bleedingly obvious reason: pack people in closer together and they don't have to travel as far to get where they're going. QED. You are conflating things, adding more people to an area increases congestion, period. Having dense housing vs not dense housing is better for congestion IF the people are already there. >What you're imagining is some kind of fantasy hometown, which never increased in population and whose economy never developed. I mean, it's true. Forgotten ghost towns have very little traffic and quirky soulful architecture, It is a highly desirable area, there is no issue with the economy, it will continue to be desirable if we don't destroy it. The "growth always good" crowd is pretty nuts in their views
  - ajross 7mo ago
    > adding more people to an area increases congestion, period Yes, but so what? That's tautological. "Adding more people" isn't an independent variable, it's the economic ground truth over which we're trying to optimize. The point is that if you need to build N units of housing to match your M added economic activity, building them denser leads to less congestion. I mean, duh. This really isn't a complicated idea. Again, you're imagining a single community divorced from inconvenient ideas like "population growth" or "economic development" (and even going so far as to conflate those with "destruction"). Well, sorry. It's desirable because it's developing. You don't get to change the minds of all the people that want to live there, all you can do is help them decide where to live.
    - mountainriver 7mo ago
      >Well, sorry. It's desirable because it's developing no.... it's not... what an incredibly naive take. Why don't you just leave out every nice small town in a beautiful location. "Who cares about keeping thing beautiful amiright??"
CyberDildonics 7mo ago
more soulless condos If you want soul move to New Orleans. Meanwhile people need comfortable places to live that don't make them indentured servants for the rest of their lives. I'll take a neighborhood with walkability and density over an old drafty brick building with no grocery stores any day.
- mountainriver 7mo ago
  "There is no downside to endless growth" ... lol
  - CyberDildonics 7mo ago
    Is this supposed to be a reply to me? Who are you quoting? No one ever said "no downsides", no one said "infinite growth" and the comment I replied to was just talking about standard apartments being "souless".
    - mountainriver 7mo ago
      That is quite literally what you are implying
      - CyberDildonics 7mo ago
        There is no universe where there is even a slight connection between what I wrote and your fake quote.

orangecat 7mo ago

Rents went down for a couple years then right back up. Except now the city has a bunch of more soulless condos and is horribly congested. So there were a bunch of people who wanted to live there and now can.

triceratops 7mo ago
Nobody lives there anymore, it's too expensive. /s
- hunterpayne 7mo ago
  Note to the mods, /s is Reddit for sarcasm and this post is a good example of the psychology that leads to people support policies that increase housing costs even though they are designed to decrease housing costs.
mountainriver 7mo ago
Yes there is a cost to things like a bunch of congestion, decrease of natural spaces and generally soulessness. To paint this as only good is an insane position

ajross 7mo ago

> now the city has a bunch of more soulless condos and is horribly congested The first bit is a taste thing; obviously lots of people view modern sprawl as "soulless" too. But the latter point is just plain wrong. Dense housing IMPROVES traffic congestion and shortens commutes, always, everywhere, markedly. And it's for a bleedingly obvious reason: pack people in closer together and they don't have to travel as far to get where they're going. QED. What you're imagining is some kind of fantasy hometown, which never increased in population and whose economy never developed. I mean, it's true. Forgotten ghost towns have very little traffic and quirky soulful architecture, c.f. Detroit. Everyone agrees that's a bad thing, though.

mountainriver 7mo ago
>But the latter point is just plain wrong. Dense housing IMPROVES traffic congestion and shortens commutes, always, everywhere, markedly. And it's for a bleedingly obvious reason: pack people in closer together and they don't have to travel as far to get where they're going. QED. You are conflating things, adding more people to an area increases congestion, period. Having dense housing vs not dense housing is better for congestion IF the people are already there. >What you're imagining is some kind of fantasy hometown, which never increased in population and whose economy never developed. I mean, it's true. Forgotten ghost towns have very little traffic and quirky soulful architecture, It is a highly desirable area, there is no issue with the economy, it will continue to be desirable if we don't destroy it. The "growth always good" crowd is pretty nuts in their views
- ajross 7mo ago
  > adding more people to an area increases congestion, period Yes, but so what? That's tautological. "Adding more people" isn't an independent variable, it's the economic ground truth over which we're trying to optimize. The point is that if you need to build N units of housing to match your M added economic activity, building them denser leads to less congestion. I mean, duh. This really isn't a complicated idea. Again, you're imagining a single community divorced from inconvenient ideas like "population growth" or "economic development" (and even going so far as to conflate those with "destruction"). Well, sorry. It's desirable because it's developing. You don't get to change the minds of all the people that want to live there, all you can do is help them decide where to live.
  - mountainriver 7mo ago
    >Well, sorry. It's desirable because it's developing no.... it's not... what an incredibly naive take. Why don't you just leave out every nice small town in a beautiful location. "Who cares about keeping thing beautiful amiright??"

CyberDildonics 7mo ago

more soulless condos If you want soul move to New Orleans. Meanwhile people need comfortable places to live that don't make them indentured servants for the rest of their lives. I'll take a neighborhood with walkability and density over an old drafty brick building with no grocery stores any day.

mountainriver 7mo ago
"There is no downside to endless growth" ... lol
- CyberDildonics 7mo ago
  Is this supposed to be a reply to me? Who are you quoting? No one ever said "no downsides", no one said "infinite growth" and the comment I replied to was just talking about standard apartments being "souless".
  - mountainriver 7mo ago
    That is quite literally what you are implying
    - CyberDildonics 7mo ago
      There is no universe where there is even a slight connection between what I wrote and your fake quote.