Our self imposed scarcity of nice places • Hacker News Board

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#561

Post by Damogran6 » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #63

jseban wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but it's an incredibly strenuous and unnecessarily hard way of life, if that's what you want, fine, but society at large has as a core value to eliminate unnecessary, hard, repetitive tasks so that's not going to be a good way to structure neighborhoods.

I don't think we'll ever agree, because there seems to be a fundamental difference here. You speak as if I'm toiling in the mines all day, whereas I don't even think of it as particularly hard or annoying.

I'm also noticing the absence of any 'average American' experiences in this thread...although COVID has disrupted average a little.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#562

Post by engineeringwoke » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #497

xyzelement wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Very much this. There is no cabal of homeowners opposed to lower prices despite it being often repeated.

Then let's raise interest rates to 5% again. It's some coincidence that we "need" zero-interest rate policy and quantitative easing when the boomers are in control... even worse in Japan, which is even more boomer dominated. Sure... just lots of coincidences.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#563

Post by engineeringwoke » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

jbjbjbjb wrote: post #484

pja wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t about “quaint shops”. This is being able to walk or cycle to your GP, or to the local shops to grab some milk, or to the nearest park to play with your kids. In the most sought after places, it’s about being able to take regular, fast public transport to your place of work, because it’s obviously quicker & less hassle than driving. In most of the US, you can’t build like this, because of zoning & planning…

The author didn’t really talk about those practical concerns, the focus seemed to be about aesthetics. If you have a look at Milwaukee avenue it’s much lower density than anything in Europe. I live in a much denser town and I couldn’t walk to the GP, school or train station. They’re all 30-40 minutes walk in different directions. And we don’t tend to just choose the closest services to where we live.

There's plenty more content to watch from Strong Towns if you want to convince yourself that you aren't being attacked

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#564

Post by yarky » Tue, Nov 09, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #492

yarky wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The question is how will a group of people decide their own key performance measures. Different groups have different KPIs either intrinsically or some statistic, e.g. PDG, ESG indicators, Real return, etc.

If your only or main KPI ignores the social consequences , then you're doing it

> Despite de social consequences.

But I get your point, it's a well known school of thought based on selfishness, I'd guess.