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Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

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Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#231

Post by timthorn »

lbriner wrote: post #113
Kaibeezy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And let's not forget the elephant in the room. Money. How much would it cost to add, say, a cycle lane to an existing road 1km long if it required more than just painting the pavement? £100K? More? How many Kms would be required to change even a small town over to be more pedestrian friendly? I just don't think the money is there. Also, you have many places in the UK that to pedestrianise the centre would create genu…

The Cambridge City Deal assigned £8M to install 5 new off road cycle lanes around the city, IIRC. I don't have the actual costs and delivered distances to hand (the data is online to be found somewhere), but we're talking about a few miles.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#232

Post by null_object »

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,…

>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.

But this is a matter of chosen-lifestyle.

This was really brought home to me talking to my mother-in-law (who lives in Nyköping). She is a keen walker and owns a bike - but when I ranted about the incredible scale of traffic in what is a small and should be an eminently walkable town, she said "How else can people buy their weekly groceries?"

The point of walkable towns (which these small and quite intimate towns in central Sweden could be), is that the center of town would be full of flourishing small and specialized grocery and other stores, and people would buy food from their nearby store, and keep the center of the town alive and busy.

Instead of this, people prefer to sit alone in their car and drive at a snail's pace in a polluting traffic-jam, to a stadium-sized parking-lot where anonymous super-grocery chains are located out of reach of the 'poors' who have no car, and therefore no means of getting there.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#233

Post by bluedino »

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?

>> would you want to live in a city like NYC? Would you like to raise a family in those conditions?

A good example of this is San Francisco. Only 13% of the population is under 18. NYC is 21.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#234

Post by zachkatz »

MisterTea wrote: post #219

> Every advocate for making urban design more [pick one: walkable, bikeable, beautiful, lovable, inviting, human-scale] has at some point or another faced the charge of elitism. No. That's not how that works. You're not an elitist just because you want a nice neighborhood. You're faced with charges of elitism when you advocate for this type of stuff after you've moved into a space once inhabited by low income people…

> artificially beautified

What's the difference between artificially beautifying and genuinely beautifying?

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#235

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

twelvechairs wrote: post #217
sokoloff wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basic needs really shouldn't be investment material. Companies providing and selling food, energy, and consumer staples are investment materials. I don’t get why housing should be a special carve-out and don’t see a workable answer to how to provide food for everyone while banning all investment in companies that grow or sell food. These companies are invested in precisely because these are basic needs. The company…

The real difference (surprisingly not mentioned yet) is land for housing in cities is incredibly finite. Food, energy and consumer staples can be produced endlessly

Metaverse to the rescue! Soon everyone will lay in their capsules with oculus on and walk the endless green pastures!

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#236

Post by globular-toast »

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…

Motorised traffic, and cars in particular, are prioritised over non-motorised traffic everywhere I've been in the world, including Stockholm. The problem is cultural. You see, motorised traffic wins by default, unless there are strict rules to stop that happening. If you think about a street full of pedestrians, some will be quicker and stronger than others, but it's not OK for them to use their might to take priority and get in front. In fact, we tend to do the opposite and prioritise people who are less able when we can.

But that's not true on the roads. We teach children to literally fear for their lives around cars. Right now a child is being taught to give way to cars because if they don't the car will kill them. Vehicles with enclosed cabs like cars are the worst because the drivers are completely removed from the road. Their experience is not human. They can't express themselves, which leads to anger and road rage. They can't feel the speed they are travelling at or the effort it is taking. And we just let them assume priority. They've taken the roads for themselves and they are not going to give them back.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#237

Post by jseban »

llampx wrote: post #224
CapitainEvident wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not in Amsterdam, but my mate works in Amsterdam and lives on a single engineer Dutch salary in a beautiful 2 bed with a separate dinning/kitchen/lounge near Sarphatipark, 10 minutes walk from Museumplein, walking distance from the Rembrandt Museum and to work.

Did he buy or rent the apartment recently and from his own savings+income? Many such stories involve an old rental contract, a family-owned apartment or sizeable inheritance.

Yep, and commonly also a loan from parents for downpayment to buy.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#238

Post by citizenkeen »

sokoloff wrote: post #212
jelly wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Companies providing and selling food, energy, and consumer staples are investment materials. >companies that grow or sell food. House builders would be the analogous party to that. The parent comment is describing landlords, specifically part-time landlords who buy up family homes and turn them into rental properties. Your analogy doesn't apply to those landlords.

A supermarket is in the business of buying food in bulk and then offering portions of food suitable for a shorter time period. A gas station buys 8000 gallons of gas from a tanker and offers it by the gallon at retail. Target/Walmart buy pallets of jeans and offer them individually to consumers. The supermarket didn’t grow the food, gas station refine the fuel, nor did Target manufacture the jeans. A landlord is in t…

No, a grocery store is like a sub-developer, buying in bulk and splitting it up.

There is no other physical necessity sold on a time dimension. I cannot rent you water, or rent you food. Once the grocery store has sold a certain amount of food, they have to re-enter the market and buy more. Once a gas station has sold a certain amount of gas, they have to re-enter the market and buy more. Once a sub-developer has sold a certain number of homes, they have to re-enter the market and buy more.

A landlord does not. A landlord is not the same thing.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#239

Post by nemo44x »

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…

There’s many towns in the USA where kids can walk to school and shops are walkable, etc. especially on the east coast there are numerous pre-war towns like this.

But your experience is in California, a place notorious for being designed around the highway.

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