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Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

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Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#331

Post by UncleMeat »

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?

Yes, but you can make the US far more walkable without crushing home size by changing setback rules for homes and businesses and having mixed zoning. A major problem now is just the amount of space between things. Want to walk from one store to the other? Better cross two massive parking lots. Want to walk past six houses? Better cross some huge lawns. Want to walk between residential and business zoned locations? Fat chance.

Yes, a city constructed this way won't be as walkable as a European city. But it'd be a hell of a lot more walkable than existing suburban sprawl.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#332

Post by [deleted] »

fsloth wrote: post #186
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…

"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…

[deleted]

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#333

Post by eaxix »

White_Wolf wrote: post #220
eaxix wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The role of investors in the economy is ultimately to finance new development. ===> False. The role of investors is to make money. If you build more, rents will go down. ===> In theory True. In practice self builds lower the pricing. The barriers set by bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy are the problem and they cause property prices to go up. EDIT: Restrictions set by bureaucracy is what creates artificial scar…

> The role of investors in the economy is ultimately to finance new development. ===> False. The role of investors is to make money.

No. The market pays investors if they managed to allocate capital well, and takes away their money if they happened to misallocate it. The investors take on a risk of loosing their money if their investment goes bad. This is how capitalism is so successful. Investors who make good decisions grow richer and that allows them make more good decisions on how to allocate capital, creating a positive feedback loop. Investors who make bad decisions go broke and that prevents them from misallocating any more capital.

> If you build more, rents will go down. ===> In theory True. In practice self builds lower the pricing. The barriers set by bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy are the problem and they cause property prices to go up. EDIT: Restrictions set by bureaucracy is what creates artificial scarcity(think diamonds market)

I'm all for small government and cutting down on bureaucracy.

> As a sidenote(IMHO): Ideally, property ownership should be limited to 1/+18 year old to prevent/reduce speculations. Maybe 2 if we're talking about adding a holiday home(yeah. I know it's a strech). Companies should not be alowed to own residential properties unless they are a developer. In that case, they can own the newly developed properties for up to ?5? years.

That's exactly the kind of regulation that prevents efficient capital allocation and leads to increased pricing.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#334

Post by cageface »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #274
cageface wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m not assuming they’re being frivolous I’m just trying to figure out the economics. There are loads and loads of restaurants everywhere.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#335

Post by throw0101a »

pornel wrote: post #167
matkoniecz wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The walkability comes at the cost of tiny housing though. Is it really obligatory? I know that it is often correlated, but it is possible to build apartment tower with decently sized apartments, in a walkable neighbourhood. Maybe it tends to be more profitable to split apartments into smaller one? While splitting house plots into smaller being less profitable and resulting in this effect?

Walkability is highly correlated with population density. Dense walkable neighborhoods are more attractive. These two together make housing small and expensive. Walkable neighborhoods need destinations you can walk to. Businesses need a minimum number of customers to be viable, so the denser the neighborhood the more variety of destinations it will have. To avoid cars taking up the space, it's necessary to have high-…

> These two together make housing small and expensive.

Nothing small about these houses in the walkable neighbourhood of Roncesvalles:

* https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+...

* https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Westminster+Ave,+Toron...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roncesvalles,_Toronto

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb

You still have a (back)yard and can have a garage attached to a laneway. Just up the street there are more modestly sized houses (3 bedrooms usually):

* https://www.google.com/maps/place/50+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+O...

Video on the concept by the Not Just Bikes channel, "Suburbs that don't Suck - Streetcar Suburbs (Riverdale, Toronto)":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#336

Post by nemo44x »

CalRobert wrote: post #298
nemo44x wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The walkable bit I see, but proper, fully segregated cycle infra is very rare.

Yeah, if you want to ride a bike then you ride on the street and try and stay to the side. Kids can ride on the sidewalks.

It works for me because I can walk to my butcher, coffee shop, various restaurants, book store, etc and if I need to do more then I can drive my car. Sometimes we'll bike for fun when going to places not too far away. I only end up driving a couple times a week generally. I think it's a great balance and I wish more towns were like mine since the typical home near me is around $1M and out of reach for many people.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#337

Post by wayoutthere »

xyzelement wrote: post #310

Really enjoyable article. There's a thread that's running through it - that places that are rare and desireable are expensive. While this article talks about a specific kind of place, the pattern is true on general. It's another way to say "supply and demand" Whenever we talk on HN about high rents or house prices, we need to keep this in mind - what makes a place "affordable" is that either not that many other peopl…

Existing homeowners don’t want more “nice” places because it reduces the value of their own homes. When you have more options and less of a perception of scarcity, prices adjust.

We really erred in allowing homes to become a vehicle of generational wealth. It creates perverse incentives that prevent cities from growing in ways that serve their populations, and instead only serve people wealthy enough to own property in desirable areas.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#338

Post by vidarh »

jseban wrote: post #303
dr_dshiv wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is unbelievable competition in Amsterdam right now for grocery delivery. The big markets all offer it, then there are specialized delivery apps like Picnic (cheap), Crisp (quality) and Peter Pot (all reusable packaging). Then, in the past year, the VC funded fast delivery apps showed up: Gorrilas, Flink, Zapp and Getir. Driving to buy groceries may be necessary today, but maybe not tomorrow.

Yeah same in other big cities, it just shows how incredibly impractical it is to do grocery shopping without a car, and what big demand there is to get rid of this annoying chore. I think it's great! The solution is not walking and cycling, that's for sure.

For me it's not been that it's inconvenient to do it without a car, but that it's inconvenient to do it at all. I used to do my shopping on the way home from work, and the stores were on my way so they added nothing to my travel time, yet they added time spent in shops, and I had no desire to keep doing that when delivery options appeared.

I'm in London, and use Ocado, which means if I can't even be bothered to open the app to decide what to order they'll populate the order for me based on my favourites and my past shops. I know I'll get something that's generally "close enough". When I can be bothered to open the app, I have a starting point that's ~90% right. My weekly shop takes me ~5 minutes.

I can't possibly imagine going back to doing grocery shopping - or pretty much any shopping - myself again. Ever. The exception is the very occasional urge, usually if I'm going for a walk anyway, or want something extra. But even most sudden urges is so much more convenient to handle via Deliveroo or similar.

The big out-of-town supermarkets will die soon enough, and be replaced by warehouses. The shift to deliveries has been steady in the UK at least. Small town centre grocery stores might survive to some extent for that occasionally extra shop.

One less reason to want to own a car for me at least.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#339

Post by JohnWhigham »

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?)

I'd guarantee it is. Every American city is slowly homogenizing to a soulless mash of 5 story apartment buildings separated by strip malls of Chipotles and Jamba Juices. Local businesses are virtually extinct.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#340

Post by Ensorceled »

orangeoxidation wrote: post #9
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.

Regulation, education, inertia. All of those tell specialist things like "streets have to be at least this wide in residential areas". Zoning can make it impossible for the requirements of daily life to be in walkable distance. There is also some scale issues. A walkable city is great. A walkable neighborhood might not be, not if it is too small and everyone has to drive to work, to the grocer and to the doctor. Publ…

> A walkable neighborhood might not be, not if it is too small and everyone has to drive to work, to the grocer and to the doctor.

If a "walkable neighborhood" has none of those things, it's really a neighborhood with sidewalks.

There are doctors, dentists, grocers, a theatre, bars, restaurants, hardware store, ... all within walking distance in my neighborhood. Neighborhoods can be like that.

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