Our self imposed scarcity of nice places • Hacker News Board

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#411

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

uberswe wrote: post #252

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 becaus…

How far could you have walked in the four hours instead of waiting? In case of good weather, no rain, or snowstorm, or such?

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#412

Post by vidarh » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

jseban wrote: post #353

vidarh wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ope…

> I can't possibly imagine going back to doing grocery shopping I know, same here, it's so great. I used to have an annoying 30min detour 3 times per week, and now I do my grocery shopping on the phone for 5mins while I'm commuting. The time I save has gone into more cooking, and healthier meals. Delivery is definitely better than using a car. Nobody that already has a full time job should have to put up with such an…

It'll change - there are rapidly growing online grocery delivery companies all across Northern Europe too. I think deliveries are very different in terms of cultural acceptance than things like "kitchen duty" which is often more about showing you care about shared spaces, to the point where doing it is often as you say a way of getting brownie points that is cheaper than actually doing something more meaningful.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#413

Post by stavros » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:44 PM UTC

CapitainEvident wrote: post #390

stavros wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried that but the jug had a weird smell. I don't know if those filters that go on the tap directly are better, I keep meaning to try them. Have you?

Filtering tap water at home has been a solved issue for generations. From ceramic water filters (CWF), ceramic candles to reverse osmosis and etc...c’mon dude.

Haha, I'm sorry my filter question offends you.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#414

Post by hondo77 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #349

542354234235 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>Biking/walking is utilized at least twice as much in Western European countries as in the US, What's it look like when you include eastern Europe in that comparison? I'm sure the rich half of the US bikes a heck of a lot more than the poor half too.

In the US, I'd bet the rich half rides bikes more than the other half but the other half commutes by bike more than the rich half. That likely depends on location, though.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#415

Post by jbjbjbjb » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

trutannus wrote: post #344

jbjbjbjb wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe walkability is great in cities but you usually pay a premium on housing because land is scarce. You can walk in the suburbs but there’s often no where local to go because the shops, schools, and workplaces need a level of scale to be efficient.

You'd be surprised. Housing in Berlin is cheaper by far than housing in the least walkable cities in Canada.

I meant a premium for being central compared to 20km outside the city centre for a similar property.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#416

Post by ghaff » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #338

jseban wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ope…

This seems to be straying from the topic of the article which was making walkable communities more mass market.

Not to pick on you but this sentiment is that sure I can handle groceries without driving to a store. I’ll just have some gig worker deliver it for me.

Personally I prefer shopping in person anyway. It’s not a big deal once a week and usually have multiple errands to run anyway.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#417

Post by quadrangle » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #356

Bizarre article. Calling out working class housing built in 1880 seems to ignore why it’s not longer a working class neighborhood - because it’s now in a prime location.

While that's a good point, the article remains spot-on. People would readily pay 1/2 to 3/4 the price of that neighborhood to live in a place that felt similar in terms of the general neighborhood even in a much less prime location. By contrast, the people who choose to live in this particular prime location would not prefer to live in the same location if the neighborhood were razed and replaced by car-dependent style development but in the same land.

The prime location will always have a premium over other locations, but that is far from the determining factor here. There's *tons* of examples of formerly-prime locations that were razed and made car-centric with tons of parking lots and such, and they aren't so desirable or expensive, they are crap and far less people want to live there.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#418

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

maxsilver wrote: post #388

sokoloff wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you want to move out of your parents house to attend college or to begin your career, you can do so by simply purchasing an entire dwelling in perpetuity and will save money doing so? That seems unlikely to hold true .

I don't know where "in perpetuity" comes from. Nothing stops you from selling your small apartment condo later or whatever. But yeah, generally speaking, adults should be able to own their buy and own their own housing, and be able to reside there as long as they choose to. For the same reasons we expect people to be able to own their own coats and shoes and laptops and such, and hold on to it as long as they are ali…

The “in perpetuity” doesn’t mean you can never sell it, but it does mean that at the moment of purchase you’d have to pay for the discounted cash flow value of consuming that housing for the expected lifetime of the building and for using the land for the expected lifetime of the land, because that’s what you’re buying: the perpetual right to exclude others from that dwelling and land/shared land until you decide to sell it.

That is unlikely to be affordable or practical for 18 year old high-school graduates starting work or starting college away from home.

If instead of requiring people to pay for the perpetual right to occupy and exclude others, you allow them to pay for that right for only one year or one month at a time, well, that’s what renting already is.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#419

Post by nemo44x » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #346

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.

> There’s many towns in the USA where kids can walk to school Especially where there's no bus transport within 2 mi of the school. Kids walk to school inches away from dangerous roads. > many towns in the USA shops are walkable, etc "Many" is doing a lot of lifting here. What's a good estimate of the percent of platted neighborhoods (or Census Designated Places or zip-codes or whatever) that are generally walkable? L…

Not sure, but in the north east many of the old towns have residential and commercial very close to each other. Train lines run through town and the different stops have commercial around it with residential a short walk. Schools are spread across the community and crossing guards exist to help kids cross streets. Otherwise they use the sidewalk.

I think people have a weird perception that everywhere in America is sprawled suburbs. People have choice here. Some people want to live in towns that are walkable and some people don't. I know a lot of people that would hate it and enjoy having their subdivisions un-walkable from just about anything and like getting in their vehicle to drive places.

I know my preferences for lifestyle have changed as I've gotten older and started a family, etc. I loved big city life, small apartments, etc at one time but wouldn't want to live like that today. Now I like being in a town where I can walk places and have parks nearby and commuter trains and decent sized properties. But in the future I could see myself wanting to be more remote. It's nice to have choice.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#420

Post by quadrangle » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

lbriner wrote: post #115

He doesn't talk about who is going to pay for everything. In a road with lots of private ownership, one person can improve their property but they can't force their neighbours to do it as well. The only likely method is the deep pockets of the developer but why would they do this to only sell the properties to low-income families, which might be zero ROI when they might as well do the same in an up-and-coming city an…

You want every topic covered in one article? Strong Towns has done the math on who pays for everything: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme

The Strong Towns vision is pretty holistic and deals with all the interrelated issues and their difficult challenges. It's the exact opposite of naive just "this should be easy" attitude.