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Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

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Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#191

Post by Maarten88 »

ivanhoe wrote: post #136
rekado wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you misunderstand. Involving a car would most definitely not make it a better solution. I have no interest whatsoever to involve cars in my life. Having to share the roads with them is bad enough. (The arrogance of space is ridiculous.) Deliveries: these cost little because people aren't paid properly. If I wanted to pay them properly, I wouldn't be able to use their services much. So instead of normalizing explo…

> and with different supermarkets in almost every direction, within 10mins on foot they most definitely can be avoided. You do realize that this is just your privilege? Most of people don't have everything in the walking reach, some would have to bike up a hill for a few kilometers to get to a shop, etc? Don't get me wrong, it's great that you can, but it's just a lucky consequence of where you live, not something th…

> You do realize that this is just your privilege?

This is exactly what TFA is about. It should not be a privilege, but it is, because we made it scarce. Not because it is more expensive to create, it is not.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#192

Post by jvvw »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #79

> Would you like to raise a family in those conditions? apparently hundreds of millions of people already do it... A provocative answer to your comment: would you like to raise your family where your kids can walk to school and play with other kids in a nearby park at walking distance and never be afraid of mass shootings? I get the impression that huge houses are a symptom of a bigger issue: people in US feel they n…

Walkability isn't a binary thing I guess. I'm in a pleasant but unexciting town (population 12K) in the UK and everybody is in walking distance of the schools, the supermarket, parks and leisure centre. Most houses here are 3 or 4 bedroom (but probably small compared to US family houses and gardens aren't huge), but you do really need to drive to say get to many types of shops, a cinema or any restaurant that isn't an Indian or Chinese for example. I get the impression that most people drive to work (most jobs are in larger towns nearby, some come be reached by train but not all). I suppose there is a balance between house prices, space and the level of walkability and like many families here, this is the compromise we've gone for.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#193

Post by jseban »

sandos wrote: post #178
null_object wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Yeah it's just transport and travel that naturally outgrows the pace of walking and cycling, it's just technological progress.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#194

Post by zachrip »

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…

I'm in the process of DAFT right now. I got lucky and found a decent place at a decent rate in the center of Amsterdam (this rate is only really affordable because I work in tech, though). I've taken exactly one taxi ride so far (airport to airbnb with lots of luggage). Every other time I've walked, cycled, or taken public transit (OV Chipkaart is really great). It feels great to just...be around people.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#195

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

rini17 wrote: post #179
nivenkos wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because of internal immigration. Due to povery, lack of investments and lack of opportunities, the countryside there is becoming empty fast as everyone moves from the villages/small cities to the 3-5 big metro areas in the country with top universities and cushy skilled desk-jobs instead of bumming around in rural areas begging for low paying manual labor type jobs.

In western europe, rural areas and small towns, although boring AF, usually have some trade schools or small collages and local industries of their own that still keep locals there and sometimes attract foreigners so not everyone has to scram to the big cities, although big cities there have major housing issues too.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#196

Post by cageface »

nivenkos wrote: post #92
ascar wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like here in Stockholm even 60m2 is getting very pricy (~350-450k USD). Isn't that still really cheap compared to NY or Silicon Valley? Rising housing prices has more to do with pressure to move to a select few cities rather than walkability or rising population. E.g. in Germany housing in Munich, Hamburg or Frankfurt costs multiples of housing in smaller eastern German cities.

Yeah, but the salaries are much, much lower. SF: ~$167k USD p.a. - https://www.builtinsf.com/salaries/dev-engineer/software-eng... Stockholm: 45k SEK per month = ~$63k USD p.a. - https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/stockholm-software-engine... Taxes are also much higher (especially if your employer has good health insurance coverage in the US, so the added benefits are less). Like I pay an average 40% rate on income p…

I was just in Italy and it seemed like all the restaurants were packed every night. They're not cheap. How are people able to eat out so much in EU on these salaries?

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#197

Post by Maarten88 »

jseban wrote: post #93
rekado wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you misunderstand. Involving a car would most definitely not make it a better solution. I have no interest whatsoever to involve cars in my life. Having to share the roads with them is bad enough. (The arrogance of space is ridiculous.) Deliveries: these cost little because people aren't paid properly. If I wanted to pay them properly, I wouldn't be able to use their services much. So instead of normalizing explo…

Yeah so you do it because of political reasons and virtue signalling, this is a core leftist value that efficiency and productivity should suffer in the name of "equality".

That reasoning illustrates the problem exactly. You should have read the article until the last line, I'll quote it here for you:

> That is our failure, and it's a failure brought about to a large extent by bad policy that tells us we can't have nice things, because nice things are for the rich

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#198

Post by lexapro »

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…

>I moved from LA to Dublin then back to San Diego for a year (bad idea, that!) then back to Dublin and recently to a dirt cheap place an hour away from Dublin

I'm sure all those long distance flights help the planet a great deal.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#200

Post by jowsie »

eaxix wrote: post #182
torben-friis wrote: post #85

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. Not sure about Sweden but at least here (Spain) housing being bought for investment is much more of a problem than physical unavailability. And I don't mean it as a store of value: People (and companies) buy houses to rent them and have the rent payments pay for the mortgage…

The role of investors in the economy is ultimately to finance new development. It's easy to see how this works when an investor is the first owner. If it weren't for the initial investor with the required capital and/or credit to make the purchase, the housing likely wouldn't have been built in the first place. Now you may ask, what is the role of investors who buy up older properties? They provide valuable liquidity…

This simply isn't true in the UK. You can't drive 5 miles without seeing some giant new sprawl of new build housing, yet rent is increasing year on year.
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