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

511–520 of 564 posts

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#511

Post by AlotOfReading »

stackedinserter wrote: post #489
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…

The biggest problem with NJB is that he completely ignores important fact: there are many people that don't want to live in apartments or even close to other people. Surprise surprise, we really want to live on 10 acres of land in our 3500 sqft house, with our motorcycles, garage workshops, dogs et cetera. We don't need "sense of community", we just want to have quiet space for ourselves.

That's fine, 99% of the US has been built to accommodate exactly this style of living.

Where's the space for the people who want density and public transit though? The comment you're responding to is lamenting the fact that even SF, one of densest urban areas in the US, is mostly vast tracts of suburban housing overlaid with a slow, barely acceptable transit system. Surely we can do better than that.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#512

Post by hasbot »

ryeights wrote: post #500
stackedinserter wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Exercise. I have a bike trainer and a rower. Plus I need stretching space. Add barbells and other equipment and one needs at least 144sq ft. That's bigger than most bedrooms.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#513

Post by gkop »

xyzelement wrote: post #504
gkop wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply! I can empathize. Have you experienced a neighborhood with a mix of half SFH, and the other half a smattering of 2, 3, 4 and occasional 10+? I currently rent in such a neighborhood and it’s fairly awesome. It supports a fabulous small business district, and the families playing and riding their bikes to school seem very happy too. If you are familiar with a neighborhood such as mine, can you desc…

I guess my town sounds just like what you describe, especially since my town does have some low-rise apartment buildings, though not exactly in my area. I guess the difference would be - the greater density becomes, the fewer of your neighbors you know, etc. Also, because of how our town is, everyone who lives here is either a young family who moved here for the space and community, or people who have lived here a lo…

That’s so interesting. In my case, other nearby neighborhoods are slightly more trendy and attract the single etc vibe, so our vibe is very safe. Hm

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#514

Post by erik_seaberg »

crooked-v wrote: post #112
jseban wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you argue against the reality that it's better to use a car or delivery for 20 kg, than to carry it when walking. And since it's already delivered by a truck, why walk the last bit it's pointless. It's just a middle class virtue signalling competition oh look who can be the most neo-amish and eschew modern conveniences. I churn my own butter, because that's better for the environment! Everyone should make the…

> How can you argue against the reality that it's better to use a car or delivery for 20 kg, than to carry it when walking. If you're really going to have trouble carrying 20 kg on your back for a couple of city blocks, you can use a folding rolling cart instead to do the same at the same speed and with negligible effort. > And since it's already delivered by a truck, why walk the last bit it's pointless. One truck c…

Half a bag of concrete? A cart is definitely the way to go. 51 lbs (23 kg) under ideal conditions is where National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health says manual laborers should take precautions against back injuries. Being able to deadlift it doesn’t make schlepping it all the way home a good plan.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#515

Post by White_Wolf »

eaxix wrote: post #333
White_Wolf wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 decis…

"and leads to increased pricing. " ==> I can see the effects efficient capital allocation and no limits on properties owned had on the price of properties in the past 20 years.

Don't take this the wrong way mate but this is exactly the sort of mentality that led to this situation in the first place.

Keep in mind this comes from someone that owns 8 fully paid off flats (going 9 next year) and a good sized house(enough for a family of 6-7) in the country side with 50HA of arable land+forest. I am not complaining about the current laws or that it bothered me in any way. I'm saying that current laws+ speculation are keeping youngsters away from owning a property in a reasonable ammount of time. The way I see it, they live with a chain around their neck for 1 lousy house with cardboard walls.

"The market pays investors" ---> Stakeholders pay investors for sucessful speculation(in other words - investment)

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#516

Post by dvdkon »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #284
dvdkon wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall housing prices being mostly reasonable 15-20 years ago, I don't think our current woes are the result of any "design".

>I recall housing prices being mostly reasonable 15-20 years ago And bitcoin was a fraction of a dollar just 10 years ago. Unfortunately, we don't have a time machine and the housing prices of today have far outpaced the earning increases that the working class saw in that time. 15-20 years ago, housing was seen mostly as a place you'd buy to live yourself, not an investment vehicle you'd buy to get grand returns fro…

Our opinions on the cause aside, we had reasonably priced housing before, we can have it again, without fundamentally changing the way our cities are built (that's not to discount any other reasons to do so).

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#517

Post by ghaff »

bigthymer wrote: post #440
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?

How big are the homes that most people raise families in?

For houses? Probably about 2000 to 2500 sq. ft.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#518

Post by nickthemagicman »

cageface wrote: post #334
nickthemagicman wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

'loads and loads' is kind of not quantitative enough imo.

Not saying you're wrong.

I've just read that Europeans make objectively WAYYYY less than American's in tech jobs to a staggering depressing amount for the same amount of work...

So just rustles my jimmies to see unscientific hearsay rumours about them to make their situation worse.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#519

Post by little_endorian »

stackedinserter wrote: post #489
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…

The biggest problem with NJB is that he completely ignores important fact: there are many people that don't want to live in apartments or even close to other people. Surprise surprise, we really want to live on 10 acres of land in our 3500 sqft house, with our motorcycles, garage workshops, dogs et cetera. We don't need "sense of community", we just want to have quiet space for ourselves.

He literally has a video praising a suburb with detached houses, while attacking a suburb with 40-storey condo buildings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0

Sure, we'd all love to live in spacious mansions with robot butlers. But in the real world, most people live in crappy suburbs, where much of the land is dedicated to useless front lawns and excessive parking requirements that make walking a major PITA.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#520

Post by seoulmetro »

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…

That channel is pretty terrible for giving good information and more made to cloud people's judgement and appeal to emotional sides. There are reasons places are different and comparing the two is usually quite bad.

The channel, to anyone who has no emotional skin in the game, and has lived in both environments.... is sadly very shallow.

Post reply on HN