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Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

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Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#251

Post by nuerow »

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…

> The walkability comes at the cost of tiny housing though.

You might have your correlation/causation things mixed up. Walkability means higher quality of life, which means higher demand thus higher prices. In turn, as real estate prices go up, real estate developers are pressured to provide more houses from a limited construction area, thus this means shrinking apartment sizes.

Offering smaller apartments also has the advantage of increasing price per unit of area, while keeping selling prices within reach of the market segment you're targeting, i.e., you might not afford 1M for a house with 200m² but you might afford 500m for a house with 100m².

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#252

Post by uberswe »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #207
fsloth wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit" Ouch, a bit harsh, that. I did not intend to claim Europe does not have unwalkable areas, but that walkable areas are not considered as such novelties. I should have used a more cautious tone. Never the less, using Helsinki as an example, you can plan to purchase an apartment within one hours of c…

Yes, Helsinki. A capital city. Which is where most of these comparisons end. In most European countries, people have trouble even affording a place close to a larger or capital city unless they inherited money or already live there, at which point the quality of transport rapidly diminishes (same goes for a place in that city with good connections). That includes young professionals working in tech. When you have to…

I live in a smaller city called Västerås in Sweden and although you will always find problems if you look hard enough. Don’t compare Europe vs US. Compare cities instead and see what they do differently.

In Västerås i lived in the rural outskirts when I was younger and missing the 2am bus meant I had to wait until 6am but I think it only happened once to me.

I also lived in Houston, Texas. I never took the bus because it would take 45 min to walk to the nearest stop. Biking was fun though because I lived near a large reserve but there was always the fear of getting hit by a boar or bit by something poisonous.

In Västerås walking or biking was always easy and felt integrated to the planning of the city. In Houston you had to seek out special areas where it would be nice to walk or ride your bike.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#253

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

scandox wrote: post #72
bambax wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only reason I have a car is that it makes grocery shopping much, much easier How large is your family?? We are five (2 adults and 3 kids) and we do most grocery shopping by bike.

Think the double question mark is a tad disingenuous there. Everyone will have their own peculiar circumstances. We, for example, are a family of 4 and our shop for ten days is I would guess 30/40 kilograms. The grocery is 2.5 kilometers away and the journey includes one very dangerous roundabout. So I think a car is reasonable.

Well, that's $10 Uber ride, three times a month.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#254

Post by [deleted] »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #38
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…

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.…

[deleted]

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#255

Post by swiley »

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…

China and India emit far more CO2 than we do.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#256

Post by bogwog »

jbjbjbjb wrote: post #242
Kaibeezy wrote: post #57

It’s not just scarcity. People “need” a place to park three or four huge (subsidized) vehicles. Also, people like to brag. N -thousand square feet and an n -car garage provide an objective measure. It’s harder to one-up by saying you have a really nice trattoria three blocks over.

My impression was the whole article is basically just “why don’t people like what I like”. These houses are scarce but that doesn’t necessarily mean the mainstream market wants that. It’s a niche.

That's not what the article argued at all. It said that the reason these places are expensive is because they're rare (so demand > supply) and the reason they're rare is because people doing construction just assume that nice houses == expensive, so the average person won't be able to afford it. Except, if there were more of them, the prices would go down (supply >= demand), and more people would be able to afford them.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#257

Post by Kaibeezy »

jbjbjbjb wrote: post #242
Kaibeezy wrote: post #57

It’s not just scarcity. People “need” a place to park three or four huge (subsidized) vehicles. Also, people like to brag. N -thousand square feet and an n -car garage provide an objective measure. It’s harder to one-up by saying you have a really nice trattoria three blocks over.

My impression was the whole article is basically just “why don’t people like what I like”. These houses are scarce but that doesn’t necessarily mean the mainstream market wants that. It’s a niche.

Concur. There's a good argument in the article, and a useless one. The useless one is the one you perceived.

The good argument is that there are an array of characteristics that tend -- in various combinations and degrees -- to correspond to places people like. The correlation can be anecdotal, empirical, whatever, that's up to the writer, who should have made a case, not a whinge.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#258

Post by Ma8ee »

jseban wrote: post #208
Ma8ee wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not walkability that makes apartments in central Stockholm expensive. There's just not much more space there for more houses. For decades car traffic was what was prioritised. Just look at old Slussen which was just a couple of big traffic circles, with narrow tunnels for pedestrians. Or Sergel's torg, arguably the most central square in Sweden, which is dominated by a big traffic circle and with shops and p…

Car traffic is still prioritised, the new slussen is still an 8 lane highway right through the middle of the city, and the biggest reason it's downsized is that the ring road is now finished. And the biggest reason why Stockholm is managing to be so "car free" is because the highways are in tunnels underground.

I do think it is an improvement that they nowadays put cars in tunnels and people above ground.

But it would of course be much better if they had spent all that money they used for car tunnels on public transport and more bicycle lanes and highways.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#259

Post by KptMarchewa »

cageface wrote: post #196
nivenkos wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>They're not cheap.

They are.

Pizza Margarita in Naples cost 4 Euro when I was there in 2019.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#260

Post by mrctte »

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…

If that is true, why are there so many international tourists in U.S. cities every Summer?

Furthermore I've both vacationed to - and lived in - SF at different stages of my life.

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