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This is very interesting. It would certainly helps with housing costs if the city was more dense. Denser cities can also be more ecological (less travel needed,

by bvrlt 11y ago

This is very interesting. It would certainly helps with housing costs if the city was more dense. Denser cities can also be more ecological (less travel needed, less cost for heating etc.) and it's not sustainable to have everyone live in suburbs. However, I think it makes two subjective assumptions: - Empty space is useless. "Useless greenery (not a park, but landscaping where nobody goes), Areas around buildings which are not “destinations,” and often have no real purpose". As in web design, I think that empty space is important. It allows a city and its inhabitant to breathe. It gives buffer space to avoid living with your neighbors (eg. seeing, hearing everything that happens in their apartment). It reduces noise reverberation. - Narrower streets are nicer. Granted, the pictures there look good. I have lived in the US for a while and I'm now in Paris, France. I can tell you that if narrower streets can be cute, they also let less light go in the building, and can be stressful when too crowded. Also I don't think that SF is a good example of a city that doesn't look good. A lot of Europeans would want to live there because it looks amazing.

restalis 11y ago
"It gives buffer space to avoid living with your neighbors (eg. seeing, hearing everything that happens in their apartment). It reduces noise reverberation." This can be solved by technical means (employing the needed construction materials). "I can tell you that if narrower streets can be cute, they also let less light go in the building, and can be stressful when too crowded." If by "crowded" you're not referring to the actual amount of people on the streets but rather to the ambient feeling, then this is solved by requirements on the building architecture level. On narrow streets each floor higher then the 2nd should take a little bit less space than the one underneath it. This allows more light and gives a spacious feeling on the street level, even if the space there stays the same.
wahsd 11y ago
It would absolutely not help with housing costs. What do you think will happen, all the sudden because some new building can be jammed into the space where a street used to be the prices will somehow come down? That never happens. In the bubbles that were insulated from the recession all kinds of condos and apartment building were built, none of which were ever cheaper or pushed the price down. That's simply not how it works. Until you can somehow trigger a massive spurt of apartment and condo construction that creates a glut for a sustained period, you will NEVER have anything that is even remotely close to "help with housing costs". Any new building will always ask at the very least a little more than a comparable older building. Am I wrong? I don't know, look at the dense cities. Paris, NYC, London, etc. are any of those the expected cheap meccas you would have predicted? Look at Austin, TX the more is built the more people are attracted and the more people drive into town and drive every single price up up up. Humans are kind of stupid and make nothing even remotely close to rational decisions that economics would like you to believe we make, otherwise the market would function and companies would not be starting in cities, people would not be moving to cities. Hell, we wouldn't really be co-locating in offices in specific cities and limiting our talent pool by geographic location.
- marssaxman 11y ago
  It is true that housing prices are sticky, because property owners are generally content to simply wait until prices rise rather than selling. There's little you can do to push housing prices down once they've risen, though you can get the same effect through inflation and through economic growth causing salaries to rise. What you can do, however, is help create and sustain conditions where prices don't rise, thus giving inflation a chance to do its work while property owners hold and wait. You do this by upzoning, which makes formerly unattractive properties become possibilities for profitable development, and by loosening restrictions on the kinds of properties that may be developed. (Dropping parking minimums, FAR limits, setback requirements, etc.) When new houses are popping up all over the place, owners of older houses will have difficulty competing if they raise prices, so prices of existing buildings will tend to stagnate. This is about as close as you can get to dropping housing costs.

by bvrlt 11y ago

restalis 11y ago

"It gives buffer space to avoid living with your neighbors (eg. seeing, hearing everything that happens in their apartment). It reduces noise reverberation." This can be solved by technical means (employing the needed construction materials). "I can tell you that if narrower streets can be cute, they also let less light go in the building, and can be stressful when too crowded." If by "crowded" you're not referring to the actual amount of people on the streets but rather to the ambient feeling, then this is solved by requirements on the building architecture level. On narrow streets each floor higher then the 2nd should take a little bit less space than the one underneath it. This allows more light and gives a spacious feeling on the street level, even if the space there stays the same.

wahsd 11y ago

It would absolutely not help with housing costs. What do you think will happen, all the sudden because some new building can be jammed into the space where a street used to be the prices will somehow come down? That never happens. In the bubbles that were insulated from the recession all kinds of condos and apartment building were built, none of which were ever cheaper or pushed the price down. That's simply not how it works. Until you can somehow trigger a massive spurt of apartment and condo construction that creates a glut for a sustained period, you will NEVER have anything that is even remotely close to "help with housing costs". Any new building will always ask at the very least a little more than a comparable older building. Am I wrong? I don't know, look at the dense cities. Paris, NYC, London, etc. are any of those the expected cheap meccas you would have predicted? Look at Austin, TX the more is built the more people are attracted and the more people drive into town and drive every single price up up up. Humans are kind of stupid and make nothing even remotely close to rational decisions that economics would like you to believe we make, otherwise the market would function and companies would not be starting in cities, people would not be moving to cities. Hell, we wouldn't really be co-locating in offices in specific cities and limiting our talent pool by geographic location.

marssaxman 11y ago
It is true that housing prices are sticky, because property owners are generally content to simply wait until prices rise rather than selling. There's little you can do to push housing prices down once they've risen, though you can get the same effect through inflation and through economic growth causing salaries to rise. What you can do, however, is help create and sustain conditions where prices don't rise, thus giving inflation a chance to do its work while property owners hold and wait. You do this by upzoning, which makes formerly unattractive properties become possibilities for profitable development, and by loosening restrictions on the kinds of properties that may be developed. (Dropping parking minimums, FAR limits, setback requirements, etc.) When new houses are popping up all over the place, owners of older houses will have difficulty competing if they raise prices, so prices of existing buildings will tend to stagnate. This is about as close as you can get to dropping housing costs.