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Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

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Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#451

Post by dang »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #449
dang wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A provocative [...] mass shootings? Please don't take HN threads on flamewar tangents. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29104807 .

Judging from the subsequent posts nobody took it as a flamewar, but as an announced provocative answer aimed at exposing the hyperbole contained in the message I was replying to.

The problem is that in the general case it would with high likelihood lead to a flamewar.

Dropping a lit match in a dry forest is a bad idea even when that particular match doesn't happen to catch fire.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#452

Post by JeremyNT »

rekado wrote: post #28
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?

I love living in a walkable city and a tiny-ass apartment (3 people, 75 square meters). When the neighborhood is attractive it becomes part of "your space". I don't need my whole world to be within the confines of these walls.

This is a key, I think. If you live somewhere that has no common space and nowhere to walk (which is most of US housing) you "need" the larger space of your own because you have nothing of any value available to you (unless you are willing to get in a car and navigate the hellscape of suburban sprawl that isolates these types of housing developments from each other and from any amenities).

It's a "tragedy of the commons" kind of scenario, since the more of this kind of living there is the worse the traffic gets and the more isolated everything gets from each other by stroads and walls of traffic.

Despite the article's suggestion that there's money to be made here I am doubtful that developers are going to be taking the risk. They have a formula that works and they are glad to keep running it. I guess at some point commutes get so bad that something has to give somewhere, but if anything the "remote first" revolution seems to just encourage more sprawl, since you don't need to live near where you work.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#453

Post by bart_spoon »

Sharlin wrote: post #46
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?

The US is not a good comparison because the house sizes are just ridiculous – and those huge houses are just as out of reach for most "common" people and are rapidly getting even more out of reach because they never were sustainable at all! But there’s a spectrum between 40m2 highrise flats and 800m2 single-family McMansions.

800m2 is 8600 square feet. Thats easily less than 1% of houses in the US. The average house in the US probably less than 2500 sqft (232 m2).

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#454

Post by thex10 »

refurb wrote: post #328
Sharlin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not a good comparison because the house sizes are just ridiculous – and those huge houses are just as out of reach for most "common" people and are rapidly getting even more out of reach because they never were sustainable at all! But there’s a spectrum between 40m2 highrise flats and 800m2 single-family McMansions.

Not at all. Get outside the big cities and houses are very affordable. We’re talking 120m^2 homes for under $200k.

Yeah, but then I'd have to buy a car and drive it to get simple basic tasks done.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#456

Post by dionidium »

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?

There's a whole world of difference between Manhattan and 2500-sqft single-family homes with large setbacks, street-facing garages, loads of surface parking, and vast backyards, set on culs-de-sac in exurban environments reachable only by car.

And it's not hypothetical. Every pre-war U.S. city has districts full of duplexes, tri-plexes, and other kinds of modest density -- with limited setbacks, small yards, spaced fairly close together, mixed in with commercial uses. Historically, many of these buildings would be owner-occupied.

These are medium-density neighborhoods. They look nothing like NYC, but they look nothing like the typical U.S. exurban development, either.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#457

Post by nradov »

secabeen wrote: post #439
nradov wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People prefer to buy all of their weekly groceries at a single store instead of chasing all over town, and they want to spend as little as possible. This is totally rational. You can't expect them to shop at nearby stores if the selection is poor, prices are high, and parking is limited.

> People prefer to buy all of their weekly groceries at a single store instead of chasing all over town Right. The change only works when you switch to a model of buying your daily groceries, because the market is close, and smaller, and quick to get in and out of. You may still make a weekly or bi-weekly trip to the big market in a car to get bulk stuff, but each day's meals are based around the perishables that you…

I sure don't want to waste time going to the grocery store every day. There are about a hundred other things I'd rather be doing.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#459

Post by davidw »

pja wrote: post #47
pronlover723 wrote: post #15

I'm pretty addicted to "Not Just Bikes" youtube channel which seems to be either directly or indirectly related to stongtowns https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes It's frustrating. Even though I'm currently in SF, SF still doesn't feel remotely as nice as many other places outside the US. Public transportation is slow and although the muni is okay the busses are kinda gross compared to good non-US cities. There are…

Does zoning prevent the walkable neighbourhoods from acquiring a full range of amenities? Or maybe the planning restrictions prevent the kind of organic infill development that leads to these places acquiring their own local character?

Absolutely:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/heatherknight/article/S-F-...

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#460

Post by bradlys »

spodek wrote: post #226

The article applies to farmers markets too. By any measure, farmers markets are better than supermarkets and takeout. Cheaper, faster, more convenient (if there's one nearby), more friendly, cleaner, healthier, but talk about their benefits and prepare to be called privileged and lectured on single moms in food deserts who only have time for McDonald's. Do they think people at farmers markets want to wall them off an…

This isn’t my personal experience. Farmers markets are always more expensive than going to a grocery store. Substantially so as well.

Otherwise I would spend more time at them.

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