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Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

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Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#31

Post by GingerMidas »

CalRobert wrote: post #21

The planet boils because Americans are afraid of living in places as beautiful as the ones they vacation in. If you're an American who'd like to escape, check out the Dutch American Friendship Treaty, or Portugal's new visa for remote work. PT's NHR tax program makes it very popular for FIRE too. It's not Amsterdam but moving to Dublin from LA did wonders for my happiness. The next goal is living somewhere my kid can…

Did the change in weather not upset you? LA's winters are mild at worst, I think that'd be the biggest hurdle for me.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#32

Post by fsloth »

nivenkos wrote: post #14
fsloth wrote: post #8

Fantastic cultural divide. This is one of the reasons why I read HN. Most of Europe is more or less walkable - one reason is that the largest urban centers predate cars, but intentional design AF (anno ford) is also a factor. I can bike or walk everywhere, and the only reason I have a car is that it makes grocery shopping much, much easier. I am not very green or anything, I just like to keep things simple. You can c…

The walkability comes at the cost of tiny housing though. Like here in Stockholm even 60m2 is getting very pricy (~350-450k USD). The main issue is that there is just nowhere near enough housing to keep up with population increases, seemingly anywhere in the Western world. And housing has become a "store of value" against inflation for investors, driving up prices and becoming a retirement fund for landlords and home…

'And housing has become a "store of value"'

'Not become' but 'has been' for decades. You only now start to notice it as inflation and wages have not kept up.

This is by design in most post-WW 2 western economies as an economic policy to "increase national wealth". That's why housing loans are subsidized and whatnot.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#33

Post by stavros »

rekado wrote: post #22
jseban wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can bike or walk everywhere, and the only reason I have a car is that it makes grocery shopping much, much easier. Yes, you still want a car for such things, sure it's quaint and nice to have a "walkable" neighborhood, if you're a tourist, but if you live there and have to schlep around by foot with your groceries every day, in all weathers, it's just annoying. I want my neighborhood to be functional and efficien…

I've never owned a car in my life, never got a drivers license. I live in a walkable city (Berlin, close to the border). When I need to haul things around the city I take the cargo bike. For decades I simply carried groceries in a big backpack and walked to the markets on foot (they are all within a 10 minute radius from where I live). I'd call the layout of my neighborhood functional and efficient. Adverse weather h…

Same here, the supermarket is 3' away by foot and I've never even thought "oh man, I should take the car and go to the larger supermarket that's 15' away".

It's just not inconvenient at all. I wonder if the difference in opinion is from a lack of exercise? I don't mind carrying 20kg of stuff back home in bags, I'm used to it and it's good to get at least some exercise.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#34

Post by jseban »

toto444 wrote: post #25
jseban wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can bike or walk everywhere, and the only reason I have a car is that it makes grocery shopping much, much easier. Yes, you still want a car for such things, sure it's quaint and nice to have a "walkable" neighborhood, if you're a tourist, but if you live there and have to schlep around by foot with your groceries every day, in all weathers, it's just annoying. I want my neighborhood to be functional and efficien…

You can get delivered in most cities now.

Yeah this is what I do, and I think it's great! But it relies on there being a driveable street outside of the house, and not a stupid walk path.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#35

Post by Kaibeezy »

timthorn wrote: post #4

The UK Government set up a commission to look at how to improve the quality of places, which reported last year: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/building-better-buildin...

The UK has an amazing abundance of models for excellent dense walkable villages and neighborhoods... and then builds endless swaths of American-style car-based single-family houses, with not a grocer, chemist, cafe or pub within walking distance.

Only one motivation is powerful enough to propel such wave of single-use disposable crap over this green and pleasant land: shortest possible timeframe profit for landowners, developers and builders, ably aided and abetted by jobsworth planning departments and clueless in-their-pocket Councils. Bleh.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#36

Post by stavros »

crooked-v wrote: post #18
jseban wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can bike or walk everywhere, and the only reason I have a car is that it makes grocery shopping much, much easier. Yes, you still want a car for such things, sure it's quaint and nice to have a "walkable" neighborhood, if you're a tourist, but if you live there and have to schlep around by foot with your groceries every day, in all weathers, it's just annoying. I want my neighborhood to be functional and efficien…

If you're living somewhere urban that's built out properly (e.g. not a residential-only section of suburbia pretending to be a proper neighborhood) your schlepping shouldn't be any longer than a 15-minute walk either way, at which point instead of doing the periodic bulk shopping that cars incentivize, you just pick up a limited amount of stuff as you need it every day or every other day. A lot of U.S. cities have go…

That's a good point, we walk to the supermarket (or the farmer's market) multiple times a week, get one or two bags and go home. That way we don't have to have a huge space/fridge/kitchen to store everything in, either.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#37

Post by crooked-v »

jseban wrote: post #26
crooked-v wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're living somewhere urban that's built out properly (e.g. not a residential-only section of suburbia pretending to be a proper neighborhood) your schlepping shouldn't be any longer than a 15-minute walk either way, at which point instead of doing the periodic bulk shopping that cars incentivize, you just pick up a limited amount of stuff as you need it every day or every other day. A lot of U.S. cities have go…

I grew up in such a properly built out environment, and I just think it's a complete waste of time and effort to insist on such inefficient and inconvenient modes of transportation, and I hate wasting time and effort on recurring daily chores, I just want it to be as efficient as possible. You rely on cars/trucks indirectly anyway, that bring the groceries to your closest store, and deliver your packages so what's th…

> inefficient and inconvenient

Just the other day I was about to start cooking but realized I was out of butter, so I walked about 5 minutes to a nearby store, got some, and walked back. It would have literally taken me more time and effort to drive to a store nearby with parking than just walking. The same holds for most household basics (paper towels, garbage bags, etc), for which I have about a dozen options within 15 minutes of my home, ranging from cramped bodega-type stores to large grocery stores.

> You rely on cars/trucks indirectly anyway, that bring the groceries to your closest store, and deliver your packages so what's the different

First, basic efficiency of scale when it comes to general impact on the environment; second, as I mention above, it would literally take me longer to do it all with a car than just walk.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#38

Post by dr_dshiv »

nivenkos wrote: post #14
fsloth wrote: post #8

Fantastic cultural divide. This is one of the reasons why I read HN. Most of Europe is more or less walkable - one reason is that the largest urban centers predate cars, but intentional design AF (anno ford) is also a factor. I can bike or walk everywhere, and the only reason I have a car is that it makes grocery shopping much, much easier. I am not very green or anything, I just like to keep things simple. You can c…

The walkability comes at the cost of tiny housing though. Like here in Stockholm even 60m2 is getting very pricy (~350-450k USD). The main issue is that there is just nowhere near enough housing to keep up with population increases, seemingly anywhere in the Western world. And housing has become a "store of value" against inflation for investors, driving up prices and becoming a retirement fund for landlords and home…

If you use price per square meter to compare European housing to American housing, Europe seems super expensive. But, if you compare by the functional space (# bedrooms), Europe is cheap.

I moved from San Diego to Amsterdam and was very happy to find 3-4 bedroom apartments to buy (the bank accepted my self employment income and gave a 1.6% interest rate). Apartments are well designed so you don’t need as much space.

I live half a block from a grocery store and still get a lot of groceries delivered. We have 3 kids and no cars. Cheap and easy to rent if we want one for the day. I love this life style where the kids can walk and bike everywhere themself.

Son: “Dad, I have to go to guitar, but it is raining”

Dad: “Here are your rain pants. Hurry, but be careful biking in the rain”

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#39

Post by pja »

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #13

Everybody wants walkable cities, but nobody wants to live in tiny-ass flats. I'm a European and if you look at the size of housing here (perhaps excluding the few cities that have low population density) it's tiny in comparison to most of the USA (except for NYC). So as always there are pro's and con's - would you want to live in a city like NYC? Would you like to raise a family in those conditions?

This is kind of a weird response to an article which is explicitly talking about high density family housing. The streets depicted are a lot like the one I live in - in our case a terrace of three bed houses (many extended into the roofspace to make a fourth room) in a residential area that has every amenity you could wish for within a ten minutes walk. The housing values are high because many people want to live here - they’re very happy to trade off the small gardens & relatively smaller houses against the obvious advantages (for them) of living in this area.

The choices are not between “tiny-ass flats” & “exurbia” - there’s a whole range of housing density in between those extremes.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#40

Post by jseban »

stavros wrote: post #33
rekado wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never owned a car in my life, never got a drivers license. I live in a walkable city (Berlin, close to the border). When I need to haul things around the city I take the cargo bike. For decades I simply carried groceries in a big backpack and walked to the markets on foot (they are all within a 10 minute radius from where I live). I'd call the layout of my neighborhood functional and efficient. Adverse weather h…

Same here, the supermarket is 3' away by foot and I've never even thought "oh man, I should take the car and go to the larger supermarket that's 15' away". It's just not inconvenient at all. I wonder if the difference in opinion is from a lack of exercise? I don't mind carrying 20kg of stuff back home in bags, I'm used to it and it's good to get at least some exercise.

Haha carrying 20kg of stuff back home in bags, that's ridiculous! Yeah do that after a long day of work, and also you can forget ever having any energy left for doing any sport because now your only sport ever is carrying groceries. What a poor life
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