Plans for a new city in the American desert • Hacker News Board

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#201

Post by QuarterReptile » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 3:07 AM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #196

jimmaswell wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jaywalking as a negative concept was pushed in newspapers by the auto industry and it worked.

I don’t think it was universally successful on the cultural front (in the US). There are many places where no one will give a shit if you jaywalk or think any less of you, though maybe the effect has waned over the years. Legislatively, yes it was pretty universally successful.

Jaywalking is a bizarre example. The criminalization of normal human movement through automotive lobbies and a derogatory slur is hardly a thing we should aspire to.

A more worthwhile thing to discuss is the prevalence of people ducking their heads or rushing across streets when cars approach, with a level of embarrassment that would better accompany being caught defecating in the street (well, maybe not in SF.) Our culture has so utterly failed around mobility that people are ashamed to be caught walking.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#202

Post by deltasixeight » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 3:09 AM UTC

myrandomcomment wrote: post #157

dragonwriter wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cleanliness of Tokyo is 100% because of cultural issues, not because the government did anything special Social disapproval over time, including that expressed through government policy, has effect on culture. So, while it may not result particularly from the government doing something immediate to cause the cleanliness, I would be hesitant to assert it is independent of government action merely because it is c…

Government policy reflects the culture. I have spent 30% of the last 20 years of my life in Japan, on and off again. One of the highest compliments paid to me by a group of Japanese friends was, “you must not do X again, you are Japanese and know better now.” I.E. as a foreigner I would get a pass, but my understanding of the culture reached a point where they expected better. I was both very highly embarrassed and a…

> Government policy reflects the culture.

The rest of the paragraph doesn't support your main point. How do your Japanese friends scolding you on the cultural nuances of japan prove or help support your point of government policy reflecting culture?

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#203

Post by Anjin » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 3:13 AM UTC

myrandomcomment wrote: post #147

The cleanliness of Tokyo is 100% because of cultural issues, not because the government did anything special. Durning the major 2011 earthquake everything shutdown and you had to walk home. When you went into the “Konbini” (7/11, FamilyMart, Lawsons) in Tokyo there was always a bottle of water left. Why? Because culturally no Japanese would ever buy the last bottle.

Enryo no katamari

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#204

Post by chmod775 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

The cleanliness of Tokyo, the diversity of New York and the social services of Stockholm... in the fucking desert of the US and with an American demographic.

Well. Good luck. Should be able to nail at least one out of those three.

Not that building this project virtually anywhere else might've made it easier.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#205

Post by asdff » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 3:26 AM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #102

yourapostasy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deserts can be great for living in once you manage the heat through shading and wind management. Desert sand is very amenable to conversion into rich loamy soil through taking in lots of organic matter in surprisingly few years. Living in such a climate can be made attractive. The challenge is clean, potable water, which is really embodied energy. The evaporation of such water happens at a ferocious rate out in the o…

> There are also daunting challenges around long-term high-density human impacts upon the desert ecosystem, which serve important functions that are still not well-understood [1]. That's a rather odd way of framing it. For one thing, having higher density seems like a rather obvious environmental good, since it means less total natural area disrupted. If you refuse high density in some area, the people who would've l…

more of the desert is unscarred by existing development and is in a more natural state than the endless farmland east of the rockies.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#206

Post by nbzso » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

I am a regular guy with a regular dream.

Imagine small villages with self-sustained planning, energy efficiency and agriculture.

Imagine living as a human being close to nature but with all benefits of civilization. We will have hyper-connectivity available soon.

This pandemic situation has given me something valuable after all. I can live away from the big city and be happy, productive and healthy. This grandiose futuristic dream is not exiting anymore for me. Behind all the beautiful picture I can fell dystopian reality. But hey, I am a regular guy with a regular dream:)

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#207

Post by postingawayonhn » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 3:37 AM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #112

kiba wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this work as this is just rent controlled housing. Better to cut the unnecessary red tape and let developers build more housing. Also, I think penalizing vacant properties would also be a good idea.

In practice I don’t think this works for an green field city. Filtering takes decades to occur. In the meantime new housing will always be more expensive than a low-income worker can afford. If the city wants service workers they’re going to have to subsidize their initial housing.

I don't think that's necessarily true.

Raw cost of housing is essentially the cost of the land + the cost of the building.

In established cites the cost of land is high and developers tend to build expensive buildings on that land. Low-income workers than move to older buildings as they're cheaper (expensive land, cheap building).

In a new greenfield city the land will be very cheap (for whoever established the city) so that can keep the cost of housing down (cheap land, expensive building).

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#208

Post by bpodgursky » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 3:47 AM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #204

The cleanliness of Tokyo, the diversity of New York and the social services of Stockholm... in the fucking desert of the US and with an American demographic. Well. Good luck. Should be able to nail at least one out of those three. Not that building this project virtually anywhere else might've made it easier.

fwiw, the article says desert, but they're considering a lot of options including West Virginia (decidedly not desert).

Going to depend a lot on the local politics and where they can find the land.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#209

Post by myrandomcomment » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 4:05 AM UTC

deltasixeight wrote: post #202

myrandomcomment wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government policy reflects the culture. I have spent 30% of the last 20 years of my life in Japan, on and off again. One of the highest compliments paid to me by a group of Japanese friends was, “you must not do X again, you are Japanese and know better now.” I.E. as a foreigner I would get a pass, but my understanding of the culture reached a point where they expected better. I was both very highly embarrassed and a…

> Government policy reflects the culture. The rest of the paragraph doesn't support your main point. How do your Japanese friends scolding you on the cultural nuances of japan prove or help support your point of government policy reflecting culture?

I was not trying to support the argument about government but hopefully trying to support to the idea that I might understand enough about the country to argue that behavior is about the culture and not about government policy influence. I apologize if that was not clear. To be honest I have not read many published papers on Japanese government policy and its effect on the behavior of the public so I could be completely wrong. I will say the removal of the trash cans change nothing as far as the need to maintain cleanliness.

There a huge number of examples about the influence of commercial advertising on the effect of the behavior of the Japanese consumer. Just spend sometime asking why the Japanese order KFC for Christmas or why beer is poured with a head targeted at 70/30.

I think that in some cases an outsider looking in that learns the culture might see things that the people on the inside miss as they where not born into the group think of the culture. I know my Japanese friends have at times asked my questions about the American cultural where I did a bit of a double take, forcing me to see things I just sort of went with in the past.

For anyone that has interest in seeing how Japan got where it is this book is really good...but 800+ pages and you better like history and details.

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674009912

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#210

Post by counternotions » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 4:10 AM UTC

Sounds like the desert arcologies from the book Water Knife: self-sustaining biospheres where the rich and privileged bubble themselves off, breathing clean air and enjoying long, hot showers.