The end of sprawl • Hacker News Board

Re: The end of sprawl

#51

Post by nine_k » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

sotojuan wrote: post #11

nine_k wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long commute in a self-driving car, even more than in a comfortable train, can be a part of your work day, or even your leisure. Commute while driving is manual labor, preventing any meaningful concentration, be it watching a movie or writing code.

I wonder how long it'll take for people to be comfortable enough with self driving cars that they stop paying attention to the road.

I think that the whole point of a self-driving car is that the passenger can pay no attention to the road. Else it's not self-driving.

Re: The end of sprawl

#52

Post by nine_k » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 10:13 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #18

nine_k wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long commute in a self-driving car, even more than in a comfortable train, can be a part of your work day, or even your leisure. Commute while driving is manual labor, preventing any meaningful concentration, be it watching a movie or writing code.

It is a sad state of affairs when labor is convinced that spending more of their time in a little box (regardless of pilot) in order to show up to work is somehow any sort of leisure at all. Why is all this tech being used to solve the goal of self-driving cars, and yet remote work is still somehow in the realm of fantasy to most people?

Working remotely can be great; I worked this way for several years.

But not all jobs are like programmer's. Think of e.g. medical personnel, overworked as they usually are, being able to sleep for an extra hour while being taken to / from a hospital. Think of a teacher who could spend an hour of commute preparing to the lessons instead of holding the steering wheel. Think of a plumber who can settle some business affairs while on the road, and spend an extra hour with his kids instead.

Re: The end of sprawl

#53

Post by sotojuan » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 10:37 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #51

sotojuan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how long it'll take for people to be comfortable enough with self driving cars that they stop paying attention to the road.

I think that the whole point of a self-driving car is that the passenger can pay no attention to the road. Else it's not self-driving.

Of course, but if you take some random people and put them on the road in a self driving car, most will pay attention out of nervousness/habit.

Re: The end of sprawl

#54

Post by danking00 » Sun, Jul 31, 2016, 4:23 AM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #29

danking00 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what type of cities you've lived in. I've lived in various parts of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville and we've previously had rock band and currently have room scale VR (it is, in fact, in use as I write this). Neither had dedicated rooms but the setup and tear down is manageable. Neighbors never complains about the noise, but we also don't set the bass to room-shaking levels. Perhaps the most significant d…

> By pooling four incomes (two six figure tech salaries and two low five figure academia/architecture) we can afford places with enough living space to be comfortable. I'm surprised people with six-figure salaries are sharing. Is that common?

A little background: we're a pair of couples, each couple having one of the two higher salaries.

Others have noted the high rent/mortgage prices in the Cambridge/Somerville area. However, each couple could afford the rent on a one or two bedroom. We're privileged to be able to do so; however we choose not to.

Two of the four of us have experienced solitary (i.e. One bedroom, no roommates) living. We all prefer coming home to an occupied house with a pseudo-family.

For my partner and I, children are about a decade away due to the constraints of grad school, early career, and general desire to spend time together before adding a third or fourth person to the mix! Similar feelings lie with the other couple. As such, a traditional family is quite some time away for any of us.

Neither do any of us want to live with our parents for obvious reasons.

And living with just our partner feels, in both cases, a bit too isolated at this point in our life.

I suppose it comes down to the desire for family, togetherness, community. We each have three people on whom we can rely and with whom we live. It's comforting and enjoyable.

Of course we can also save significant money because we split one Internet bill, one rent, and one utility bill. Closer quarters living seems to be a bit more cost-efficient on the heating front. This compounds with the money saved by not owning a car and the economic benefits of easy access to the city's job market.

EDIT: I realize I didn't answer your question! I'm sorry.

It's common among my group of 24-28 year olds who are a mix of grad students and professionals. Most people have at least one non-partner roommate. I cannot think of one person who lives alone in the city.

I do have friends and relatives with apartments in the suburbs who live alone. They tend to have similar feelings to sibling posts here about "being an adult", a very strong desire to own property, and/or cannot stand the cleanliness issues that arise with roommates.

Re: The end of sprawl

#55

Post by Johnny555 » Sun, Jul 31, 2016, 5:44 AM UTC

atom-morgan wrote: post #22

greggman wrote: post #16

I'm curious how certain things fit into city living. Examples: Rockband the Game. You can't play that game in an apartment in the city without being a total dick to your neighbors. You can play it in a house in suburbia. Arguably the same is true for the home version of Dance Dance Revolution Another is room scale VR which pretty seems to demand owning a large enough place to have your VR room. Maybe some people can…

To provide a better example, I used to play drums. As much as I'd like to continue practicing, I can't in an apartment complex even if I were to buy an electric kit. The tapping on the pedal would be too much for the people who live below me. This problem, combined with the insane amount of people moving to Atlanta, has me thinking about moving.

Of course, that can be a problem in suburban life too, I remember complaints from our neighbors (well, one particular neighbor) about my brother's drum playing in our house.

I have a friend in SF that just pitched in with his buddies to rent a jam space where they can play as loud as they want without neighbors complaining.

Though you might be surprised at how little sound will travel through a well constructed building (i.e. not wood framed) if you take a little care. I lived in a concrete & steel apartment building for a while, and the upstairs neighbors came down to ask if I could hear them running on their new treadmill, I could not. They had it perched on some thick 6" foam isolating pads and I literally could not hear them running on it at all.

Re: The end of sprawl

#56

Post by Johnny555 » Sun, Jul 31, 2016, 5:53 AM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #2

I think sprawl will increase when self driving cars become a thing. Long commutes will be a lot more tolerable, parking a non issue, and the cost of owning a car could be reduced with self driving taxis or busses.

I think you overestimate the ability of self driving cars to make a long commute tolerable, since driving in a car for an hour (or more) each way is no fun even if someone else is driving.

Getting quality work done is tough if you're at all prone to motion sickness while working on a computer in a moving vehicle, and it's hard to get in quality sleep even in a fully reclining seat.

My wife and I commuted together (45 - 60 minutes) for almost a year and while I could get some work done while she drove, it was not nearly the same as when I'm working from home. Likewise, sleep was not an option, the timing wasn't right (it's hard to wake up, get ready for work, then catch a short on the way to work).

While parking may be less of an issue if your car can go park itself, traffic will become a much bigger issue because all of those cars driving around looking for parking (or another passenger) after dropping off their passengers are going to double downtown congestion (i.e. instead of you driving to your parking garage and leaving your car there, your car is going to stay on the roads until it finds a place to park, perhaps outside of the city)

Re: The end of sprawl

#57

Post by Johnny555 » Sun, Jul 31, 2016, 5:57 AM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #27

Houshalter wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten more than one response saying that, but I don't understand it. I would find it very enjoyable to read, play games, or sleep during a commute. There's not that much I can't do in a car, that I can do on my couch. Much more enjoyable than spending hours focusing on the road. If you move further out of the city, you have much cheaper rent and taxes. Saving that much money would make it totally worth it to sp…

Relaxing during a commute seems only marginally better than driving. What makes a difference is if you can work during the commute, so an entire 8h workday will be 2h commute and 6h work. In large metropolitan areas most people will end up spending what they can afford on housing, the choice is just between a 1h commute and large back yard and forest/beach within walking distance, versus the city with short commutes…

If your company is ok with you working for an hour or two on the way in to the office, then why not just work at home for an extra 90 minutes until after peak commute hours and zip into the office when traffic is light? Or better, just stay home entirely.

Many companies still don't embrace full-time telecommuting (including tech companies like Apple and Google that have unlimited technology resources to make it work), so it's going to take a big paradigm shift for those companies to accept that workers driving in are actually "working" before they get to the office.

My company doesn't offer shuttle buses, but of the people I do know that ride tech shuttles, while they do tend to work on the shuttle, it's usually just catching up on emails before they get to the office to do the "real work", and 2 hours on the bus is not equivalent to 2 hours in the office.

Re: The end of sprawl

#58

Post by mattnewton » Sun, Jul 31, 2016, 6:11 AM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #56

Houshalter wrote: post #2

I think sprawl will increase when self driving cars become a thing. Long commutes will be a lot more tolerable, parking a non issue, and the cost of owning a car could be reduced with self driving taxis or busses.

I think you overestimate the ability of self driving cars to make a long commute tolerable, since driving in a car for an hour (or more) each way is no fun even if someone else is driving. Getting quality work done is tough if you're at all prone to motion sickness while working on a computer in a moving vehicle, and it's hard to get in quality sleep even in a fully reclining seat. My wife and I commuted together (45…

I have it pretty close to a self driving car now, with a company bus that picks me up. It has wifi and bathrooms, so I really don't mind the 1hr commute into the valley every day. It's a good time to get some email done or quietly reflect. I think that I gladly pay this price to shave 1k a month off living expenses, and probably would for even as low as a few hundred, since it's not really a big cost. The real downside is in being further away from things that are not work, if you are commuting in for pleasure on the weekends. But based on my experience, I agree with the grandparent and think once more people have drivers, sprawl will increase.

Re: The end of sprawl

#59

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Jul 31, 2016, 7:06 AM UTC

greggman wrote: post #16

I'm curious how certain things fit into city living. Examples: Rockband the Game. You can't play that game in an apartment in the city without being a total dick to your neighbors. You can play it in a house in suburbia. Arguably the same is true for the home version of Dance Dance Revolution Another is room scale VR which pretty seems to demand owning a large enough place to have your VR room. Maybe some people can…

As long as I have my engineering hobbies, I need a house. Trying to do anything non-trivial to a car without a garage is impossible, as is having more tools than a toolbox.

Even so, finding a house that is amenable to my activities is hard :-(

Re: The end of sprawl

#60

Post by eru » Sun, Jul 31, 2016, 7:09 AM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #26

hiphipjorge wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the move from the suburbs to the city is a technology issue. There are certainly trade-offs to both of them. The reason a lot of people (especially young people) have been flocking to walkable cities has a lot more to do with self-identity and lifestyle choices than with just merely commuting time. No self-driving card will change that. Keep in mind that the opposite is also true. Self-driving cars make…

People flock to cities now for the same reason they've always flocked to cities - jobs. If you don't need to live in a city to work there, that may make many people move. And yes young people might prefer to live in denser cities. But when they grow older and have a family, they prefer to move out into a town or suburb. And beyond that, it's just economics. Cities are expensive. They are inefficient economically. Ren…

Cities are crazy efficient economically. Provision of infrastructure and goods is much cheaper in cities. Commuting sucks (and is one of the few clear drags on happiness that persist, unlike becoming a quadriplegic).

Cities are also more productive.

But: cities are financed wrong in most countries. They could easily finance themselves from land value taxes.