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Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

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Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#171

Post by CalRobert »

the__alchemist wrote: post #126
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…

Related: Most European cities are comparably beautiful compared to North American ones. Pick a random European city, and it's probably more aesthetically interesting than any in NA. I'm curious why this is the case (Older / less centrally-planned? A subjective difference in tastes?)

North American cities were destroyed, and we did it to ourselves. I can't find the link atm but NotJustBikes did a video on youtube showing how current car-dependent sprawling London, Ontario used to actually have a nice downtown. Or for a graphic example check out

https://citymonitor.ai/transport/parking/what-bombs-did-rott...

Just acres and acres and acres of asphalt hellscape where there was once life.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#172

Post by cousin_it »

brabel wrote: post #20
makeitdouble wrote: post #2

> Places like this are expensive because places like this are scarce, and scarce things almost always become expensive. > The answer to this isn't to lower our standards for design or to be dismissive of the things that are really lovable about these places. The answer is simply to allow a lot more Milwaukee Avenues to exist. And the same goes for the likes of all of today's beloved, "charming" historic districts. It…

I don't think that's as simple as the article tries to make it out to be. As poorer people start moving into a neighborhood, the richer people will flee away en masse. It seems to me that rich people will pay any amount of money just to make sure they're living where other rich people are, even if that means moving somewhere less convenient. As the poorer people start taking over a hood due to prices going down for w…

> higher tendency of the youngsters in getting involved in gangs and crime (simply because many of them have far fewer opportunities in life, and they become aware of that very early)

They have no opportunities, so they make the most opportunity-reducing choice imaginable? Yeah right. This reminds me of the drunk from Little Prince who drinks to forget his shame of being a drunk.

Luckily this explanation isn't true. Crime doesn't come from desperation. Crime comes from crime, it's a contagious social disease. Hang around with criminals enough and you'll soften to the idea yourself, even if you're from a rich family. Hang around with people who shun the idea of crime, and you'll shun it too, even if you're dirt poor.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#173

Post by jseban »

kharak wrote: post #156
jseban wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We bike rather than just walk everywhere, and generally people do more frequent small shops rather than big weekly shop. It takes some imagination and a lot of urban planning work, but quality of life improves dramatically, it’s life-changing. Yeah which means that you spend a lot more time and energy on grocery shopping. That is for me directly inverse to quality of life. The more time I spend in traffic (cycling…

It is not automatically inefficient. In Zurich, I have around 5 supermarkets near by, walkable in about 5-10 minutes. Don't even need a bike. Taking the car would increase my travel time, not decrease it. So my walkable city is more time efficient and has health benefits for using your own body instead of a machine to do the traveling. It's better if we measure for time efficiency and health. And it shows. Looking ar…

No because you only have to take the car once a week, and you have to walk 3 times per week. If you want to force physical exercise by inefficiency like that, what exactly are the machines that should be forbidden and which should be allowed? You can do a million things from scratch which gives you physical exercise, we all rely on using machines that saves us from this poor life, why put the walking/cycling on a pedestal?

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#174

Post by nivenkos »

quantumofalpha wrote: post #162
nivenkos wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The main issue is that there is just nowhere near enough housing to keep up with population increases, seemingly anywhere in the Western world. With falling fertility rates, natural population growth in the west is about zero today. If not even (going to be) negative.

Yeah, but the neoliberal governments have opted for mass immigration to suppress wages and maintain property prices.

Here in Sweden the population has increased by almost 30% in the last 15 years.

Similar story in the UK (but a smaller proportion by %, as the base population is higher).

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#176

Post by FriedrichN »

jseban wrote: post #129
FriedrichN wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be a controversial opinion, but not everything is about efficiency, especially when it comes to social interactions. But even if your life's aim is to impose rigorous efficiency on every aspect of your life, I doubt you'll be more time efficient if you do your groceries by car compared to living in walking distance of a supermarket.

Society is about efficiency. Social interactions are voluntarily and can be organised around any random activity such as games, sports, hobbies etc. It's really inflexible and incredibly limiting to force inefficiency of transport, because that increases social interactions. People had the same argument when banks went online, all the retired people want to still go and pay their bills at the bank, because they get t…

I can tell that we're very different people. Society to me is not about efficiency at all. I like a bit of randomness to my life and not live an absolutely regimented and organised existence. But I guess that's not for everyone.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#177

Post by stavros »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #170
stavros wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not every time, but when we need water I get two sixpacks (for balance) and those are 18kg alone. Not that there's anything wrong with tap water, but eeeh.

Tap water plus SodaStream is the life for me.

Oh wow, that's a great idea! I don't much like carbonated water, but if you do, this'll make your life amazing.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#178

Post by sandos »

null_object wrote: post #101
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…

Walkability isn't uniform across Europe, Scandinavia or even within a single country: other people have mentioned Stockholm - which is still a walkable town, even though car-traffic is prioritized over cycles and pedestrians[0] - but other towns in Sweden are definitely not modelled for pedestrians. Nyköping is a town I need to visit regularly, and there pretty much all of the grocery and larger stores have been plac…

I live in Västerås which is sometimes touted as one of the, at least, top 10 cycling cities in Sweden with 390 kilometers of cycle/walking paths.

And still we have expansive shopping malls outside of town which is heavily in favor or cars. We still have the downtown shopping but it can barely hang by, and parking is very expensive. It would not really have been possible to build all this shopping in the city center, so there is the physical limitations. I think this is the main problem, that the cities outgrow themselves, and it is just so much cheaper and economical to build mega-malls instead of smaller centres for shopping and amenities. They do exist here, but are very small. So you can often get by with walking of bicycling but the "big" shopping is done using a car, the local shops are 99% food-related or restaurants.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#179

Post by rini17 »

nivenkos wrote: post #174
quantumofalpha wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main issue is that there is just nowhere near enough housing to keep up with population increases, seemingly anywhere in the Western world. With falling fertility rates, natural population growth in the west is about zero today. If not even (going to be) negative.

Yeah, but the neoliberal governments have opted for mass immigration to suppress wages and maintain property prices. Here in Sweden the population has increased by almost 30% in the last 15 years. Similar story in the UK (but a smaller proportion by %, as the base population is higher).

How comes in eastern Europe where fertility is low, immigration is practically non-existent and wages much lower than Sweden, the property prices keep rising too?

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#180

Post by herbst »

jseban wrote: post #67
sammorrowdrums wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Netherlands. We bike rather than just walk everywhere, and generally people do more frequent small shops rather than big weekly shop. It takes some imagination and a lot of urban planning work, but quality of life improves dramatically, it’s life-changing. Much Urban planning was involved in making it better for cycling though, and it wasn’t always great for it. Off-road cycle paths being a mainstay for…

> We bike rather than just walk everywhere, and generally people do more frequent small shops rather than big weekly shop. It takes some imagination and a lot of urban planning work, but quality of life improves dramatically, it’s life-changing. Yeah which means that you spend a lot more time and energy on grocery shopping. That is for me directly inverse to quality of life. The more time I spend in traffic (cycling…

I live really remote, as in driving 25 minutes up a mountain on a one way street remote. I still don't have a driving license. I can get everywhere by public transport, I have no stress.

Also I am talking about me, I guess most people still do their daily grocery runs.

However I buy 90% of our food online. 9% in nearby farmer shops. The relatively high population density makes next day delivery a normal thing even in the most remote places. There is literally no reason to waste time for grocery shopping these days.

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