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Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

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Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#271

Post by KptMarchewa »

mrctte wrote: post #260
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.

Any stats about tourists in Houston or Phoenix?

I'm pretty sure that international tourism is more of a thing in more "walkable" cities like New York.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#272

Post by deadpannini »

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…

The article isn't trying to engage problems at the lowest end of the housing market, it's concerned with the strange dynamics of the middle 60% of the market.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#273

Post by nuerow »

jdblair wrote: post #16
YmiYugy wrote: post #3

I don’t get why there are so few walkable places. The demand is there and willing to pay a premium, and the small lots and narrow streets should make it fairly inexpensive to build.

Zoning is the biggest impediment. Most US cities have parking requirements, rules for setbacks, and limits on number units in a building. There is a strong incentive against changing the rules to allow more construction because scarcity increases the value of existing units.

> Zoning is the biggest impediment. Most US cities have parking requirements, rules for setbacks, and limits on number units in a building.

Surely that's not it, because zoning in general and urban planning in particular is what determines walkability, and that is determined by design. Even if you have the most stringent requirements for parking, plans are already produced with that in mind.

Therefore, either a urban area is designed with walkability in mind, or it is not.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#274

Post by nickthemagicman »

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?

If 5 people go out 5 nights a weeks there will be the same crowd as if 10 people go out 2 nights a week.

Maybe there's just a ton of people and not a lot of restaurants and people like to eat out occasionally.

The immediate conclusion doesn't have to be that the Italians have a bunch of money that they are being frivolous with. There are other options.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#275

Post by CapitainEvident »

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.

Bought from own savings and income 4 years ago with no help from parents, not a family-owned apartment or sizeable inheritance. Owner is an immigrant from a developing country, the exchange rate alone would be prohibitive for any family assistance.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#276

Post by twobitshifter »

jameshart wrote: post #246
Neil44 wrote: post #199

My cynical view is that if you put not nice people into nice places, you make the places not nice, not the other way around. 99% of the time.

It seems weird to use ‘having a lot of money’ as a proxy measure for how nice someone is likely to be though?

This is covered well in Parasite. There are degrees of “niceness”, some of which are enabled when money is no object and you don’t have someone taking a piss on your house.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#277

Post by ensignavenger »

pornel wrote: post #138
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…

Basic food is subsidized and regulated. Even in the US: corn subsidies, grain reserves, and the Onion Futures Act.

Housing is also subsidized in the US, the FHA, USDA and VA all have housing subsidy programs. States and local governments also operate housing subsidy programs.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#278

Post by Pxtl »

nuerow wrote: post #251
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 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 t…

Walkability demands density, and density intrinsically is encouraged by smaller units. Now, obviously the economic factor you describe can exacerbate this, but fundamentally dense walkable neighborhoods can't have the kind of sprawly mcmansions some people have grown comfortable with in suburbia.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#279

Post by twobitshifter »

Great article. I’d like to see a follow up addressing how to get from A to B without causing displacement due to gentrification. The article treats it as a false scare but it is real and can’t be overlooked. Millions of houses can’t be built over night so there will be gentrification. Sucessful development needs to maintain mixed income, and price caps/rent control need to exist in order to avoid that IMO. Property developers will not do that without a helping hand from the government.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#280

Post by 542354234235 »

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…

> So any characterization of USA vs Europe positing Europe as some sort of walkable-heaven is really just idealized bullshit.

Or that is just a strawman of what is clearly true, but not literally universal in every single individual location. Biking/walking is utilized at least twice as much in Western European countries as in the US, and often 3 times or more [1]. European cities are, in general, more walkable and bikeable than US cities. If you want to read an in depth article about the many factors that led to US urban sprawl vs European cities, I’d recommend [2].

[1] http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/trnews/trnews280western...

[2] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/are-europes-cities-better...

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