Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

strongtowns.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 564 posts

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#491

Post by vineyardmike »

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…

And SF is way better than most other cities in america. The muni is "okay" but worlds ahead of transit in any other west coast city. Most of SF is way more walkable than most other US cities (outide of the North-East).

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#492

Post by Nasrudith »

yarky wrote: post #248
jseban wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's just transport and travel that naturally outgrows the pace of walking and cycling, it's just technological progress.

> just technological progress. Despite the social consequences.

What on earth does that even mean?

Ir seems to imply that it is a demand that technology not change things socially or if they will be bad. Both are flat out impossible as the inventor(s) don't even know what will change ahead of time. It is neither reasonable nor actionable.

If it doesn't imply that it is meaningless as the dumb luddite line "Science never sacrifices, it always murders." How the fuck is a process of discovery supposed to sacrifice anything when it isn't even an entity! Attributing responsibility of murders to it is similiarly daft - why not blame murders on violence instead?

Sure scientests should come out with ethical codes of "what not to do" after infamous incidents like say Harry Harlowe's gratitutousness monkey torture or human experimentation on the vulnerable but moral culpability is on the men responsible, not those who engage in a common different process. It would nonsensic like trying to declare eaters responsible for some depraved cannibal eating an infant!

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#493

Post by Quanttek »

Cd00d wrote: post #406
Quanttek wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely the other way around: most Soviet block cities have not only historic centers equally centered around walking/biking but Soviet city design focused strongly on public transport and walkable neighborhoods because cars were unaffordable to most people.

My experience in ex-Soviet bloc countries is the opposite. Unmaintained sidewalks, parked cars blocking safe walking access, unsafe driving behavior/routing near pedestrians. I often think of a time in Sofia, Bulgaria where I saw an elderly woman trying to get around a car parked on the sidewalk, up against a wall, by walking on the car bumper with her groceries. It was terrifying and precarious.

yeah, my experience is mostly limited to Poland and Czechia. But I would say that issues around the maintenance of public infrastructure apply to more than just sidewalks. And the attitude of drivers towards pedestrians/cyclists isn't great in most European countries (outside of the Netherlands)

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#494

Post by crooked-v »

jseban wrote: post #125
crooked-v wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three days of food ingredients for two people isn't actually a lot, assuming you already have bulk staples (flour, sugar, rice, etc) in your pantry. I'm already including all the other incidentals outside of bulk staples: add occasional toilet paper rolls, paper towels, olive oil and vinegar, minor snacks, etc, and you get the one large grocery bag on average per trip. Maybe two if you're eating things that are bulky…

So you mean it works if you assume that all the heavy stuff you "already have" somehow. Ok, not exactly convinced..

> somehow

"Somehow" being "carrying a 10 pound bag of rice home over my shoulder when I eventually run out". There's no special mystery to it.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#495

Post by zachrip »

CalRobert wrote: post #465
zachrip wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the process of DAFT right now. I got lucky and found a decent place at a decent rate in the center of Amsterdam (this rate is only really affordable because I work in tech, though). I've taken exactly one taxi ride so far (airport to airbnb with lots of luggage). Every other time I've walked, cycled, or taken public transit (OV Chipkaart is really great). It feels great to just...be around people.

That's wonderful! If you care to write about your experience with DAFT I'd love to read it. shawnindutch.com kept a blog about it for years but that appears to be a dead link now :-(

I'm not sure there'd be much to write about to be honest. There are a lot of resources and Facebook groups but we all basically use the same exact process. What are you curious about?

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#496

Post by alexashka »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #42
brabel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is function of house prices, not of natural segregation. When I was growing up in London the streets around me were fairly mixed. You could find public school educated lawyers, minor celebrities, and even a few financial types living close to factory and shop workers. As public housing was sold off and property prices were goosed towards the stratosphere the inevitable result was separation, because the poors we…

> one of the reasons nice neighbourhoods aren't built is because it's so easy to make money...

Neighbourhoods require infrastructure, which require a functioning government. Easy money will always be made one way or another - neighbourhood quality is a political problem.

It's like creating new software vs maintaining software.

Most people can only maintain, sort of. It takes a different breed to create and an exotic, rare breed to create well.

I'm not surprised that most politicians are pouring money from one government program bucket into another. That's all most people can do, is maintain. I'm surprised there hasn't been a single political movement worth a shit within my lifetime.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#497

Post by jjav »

xyzelement wrote: post #352
wayoutthere wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Existing homeowners don’t want more “nice” places because it reduces the value of their own homes. Well - what does that actually mean? I own a home, and I am not interested in a huge apartment building going up next door (for reasons that aren't property values) but I have no objection to the boundary of my town expanding, or a new town being established a little bit down the road. Yes sure those things will creat…

> it's just not something I or any other sane homeowner go around thinking about.

> Nor frankly do I have any influence over that.

Very much this. There is no cabal of homeowners opposed to lower prices despite it being often repeated. People buy a house to live in it, they're not paying attention to who is building what. Also nobody is asking homeowners opinion on what build sites get approved or not. If there ever was a proposition related to housing approval it would be in the ballot open to all citizens. Early in the history of the USA only landowners could vote, but it's been a very long time since that's been the case.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#498

Post by ghaff »

throw0101a wrote: post #485
bart_spoon wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Toronto one of the most expensive cities to live in North America? If you are building large houses in a nice, walkable area, you can't fit enough people there to match demand, and so the cost of the housing spikes. The point is that you can pick 2: walkability, large houses, affordability. * Walkability, large houses = very expensive neighborhoods and gentrification * Large houses, affordable = rural areas whe…

Those houses—actually the land that they're built on—are expensive nowadays because living in the urban city is cool again. Up until ~2000 it was not so, because living in the city was for immigrants and all the WASPs moved into the innter/outer suburbs with their white picket fences. The area of the links is where the Poles concentrated; to the west were the Ukrainians; to the east is Little Portugal (then onto Chin…

Basically over the course of about 20 years, college educated twenty somethings decided they liked living in the city. When I graduated from grad school, aside from those working in Manhattan, almost none of my cohort moved to a city.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#499

Post by jjav »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #462
xyzelement wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Quad plexes by right [0 for example] makes a lot of sense to me. If you’re OK with a quad plex next door, IMO you’re not part of the problem I would actually not be OK with quads next door to my house right now, because that is not the type of life I bought into. That may sound crazy so let me explain. For 39 years, I valued density/walkability/convenience of city life, and lived in NYC for most of that time. Now…

>I would actually not be OK with quads next door to my house right now, because that is not the type of life I bought into. This is, definitionally, NIMBYism. Resisting necessary change in your town because it doesn't jive with what you want is more or less the problem. Now, maybe your town doesn't need quads or apartments or anything of the sort. Maybe the properties and zoning laws that exist are able to meet deman…

> Resisting necessary change in your town because it doesn't jive with what you want is more or less the problem.

Should there be a process to determine what change is necessary? Who should be able to participate in that process?

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#500

Post by ryeights »

stackedinserter wrote: post #487
lmm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the impression Americans buy these huge houses that they then barely use any of most of the time. And a dense neighbourhood can substitute for many rooms - I have a community hall around the corner if I want to host a party, I don't have a home gym/cinema/pool/sauna but I have those things a ten minute bike ride away....

Sure, 1bdrm apartment is more than enough when you live alone and don't have any hobbies aside of hosting parties.

Can you elaborate on this? What sorts of hobbies necessitate having a giant house to engage in them?
Post reply on HN