Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people • Hacker News Board

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#251

Post by agumonkey » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC

swah wrote: post #162

madsbuch wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pro-urban/pro-density/anti-car people I would want to meet this person. I am a huge proponent of walkable cities, and I definitely see a city that is urban, high density and with a lot of nature. Heck Copenhagen, where I live, do it quite well -- within 20 minutes from the absolute center of the city (eg. Noerreport), I can be with grassing Alpacas ( https://goo.gl/maps/jcA6VFMPHC5qmYCp6 ) or I can be with large he…

Nature is also against walkability when it puts frigging hills on my way! Also the weather is way too agressive near the equator... I can endure it with sports clothes but not before work. Seriously: walking/cycling on Amsterdam, Lisbon or Paris when the weather is 15 °C, mostly on flat ways, is a pleasure. You arrive at the office just a little heated up, I imagine.

Walking hills is the best walk.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#252

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, May 04, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

wbsss4412 wrote: post #247

baby-yoda wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree re: European examples but my argument there is many of these cities developed over long time periods with stable growth in population, stable industry etc, whereas now it seems like the idea is to simply explode urban housing capacity asap, which leads to the block style or high rise glass and steel. and of course we can't forget that many places are at an inflection point in population growth so all of this…

The issue is that people want to explode housing capacity ASAP in relatively limited geographic areas within cities. If mid rise was actually broadly incentivized, it wouldn’t be that challenging to rapidly increase that stock. Strong towns [0] advocates a more bottom up approach to development, and is a good resource for anyone interested in how to add density in a sane manner. [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/

How do you properly forecast housing need so your development curve (and the foundational urban planning necessary) aligns with the housing demand curve while keeping said housing affordable?

The CCP seems to have been very successful with their "build an entire city and move people into it model" (seeing the cities have filled), but I'm unsure how it works in a more capitalistic model.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#253

Post by Loughla » Wed, May 04, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

germinalphrase wrote: post #248

throwaway894345 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure "we built too much of it" as much as we failed to anticipate or account for trends such as urbanization. Anyway, it's probably more productive and less prone to chauvinism to frame it as prioritizing high value/cost infrastructure rather than morally upright urbanites subsidizing lazy, freeloading rural people (I'm exaggerating here for effect, but that's often the tone that this framing conveys whether…

Does the argument require all this bellyaching when it seems as simple as “only urban residents should pay for urban services” and “only rural residents should pay for rural services”?

Yes. Because it's just not that simple. Society requires interplay among individuals. That's the entire idea behind a society. We work together for the greatest good for the greatest number of people. We don't splinter and ignore the needs of others.

In theory, urban pays for theirs and rural pays for theirs is fine. But how do goods get between urban centers? Is it magicked there, or is it brought via rail and road that goes through rural areas?

And then what is my incentive, as a rural resident, to listen to the voices of the individuals in the urban areas when it comes to matters like state laws? Why not get rid of those, because the impact of people who have zero input into my life is wildly disproportionate because there are so many of them? They don't pay for anything out here, so why should they get to tell me who is in charge?

Again, there isn't a clean way to do this, because we are all connected, and we are acutely aware of it. I would argue that's what separates us from animals.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#254

Post by mpfundstein » Wed, May 04, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

theK wrote: post #161

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And make it bicycle friendly. People like nature but they also like and need exercise. even better, make them walkable.

This! I love going mountain biking but commuting on a bike does not fit well with my person. And I t’s not missing bike lanes that are the problem with commuting, it is the numerous other issues a bike commute introduces to your life that are so often overseen. Cities must become walkable first again to succeed, making them bike friendly only pushes traffic problems a few years away… 5min walking through a park + 5-1…

Hi,

what do you mean it doesnt fit your person? i am curious because it feels like such a weird statement.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#255

Post by evancox100 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 4:18 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #34

evancox100 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more you let people build up, the more ground can be left as green space. No one is against park. Land area/space in general is not scarce. What is scarce is land area near job centers (or more broadly, near where people want to spend their time outside the home.) The more you spread people out, the more car dependent the city, necessitating more roads and parking lots.

I don’t have any problems with people building up, but I’m very skeptical that the space between tall buildings will be made into parks, and anyway a city park is not what I would consider “nature”. For folks who want density and can content themselves with urban green spaces, I wish you well on your quest to build taller and denser, just please don’t impose that on everyone! :)

Yes, urban nature/parks is not exactly the same as being in a forest, or climbing a mountain. But neither is suburban green space! And again, unlike dense urban cores, suburban sprawl requires more destruction of natural environments, not less.

What exactly is it you are advocating for/against? If you want to live in “real” nature, like in a cabin in a forest, or on a ranch in the country, then go do that. Nobody is stopping you.

Edit: Just to put a concrete point on it, it now takes approximately an hour to get out of the suburbs from urban / downtown Dallas. Nature is further away than ever.

Edit 2: Of course you will find people on Twitter or whatever who want to “ban all cars”, but this is not a serious movement or position held by the vast majority of YIMBY/urbanism people. I think most of us would like exactly what you’re talking about: the freedom to let people do what they want on the land they own, and make their own choices as to what living arrangements best for them and their customers. Currently, this option is only denied to people wanting to build up, while suburban sprawl is allowed virtually everywhere. Where I live, Austin, TX, there are parts of our downtown central business district that are zoned for SFH only! It is absurd, we wouldn’t inflict this level of economic destruction on our worst enemies.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#256

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 4:30 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #249

throwaway894345 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suburbs are just one of many alternatives to dense urban life--it's not a dichotomy (that's a popular misconception in this thread). Moreover, there's no law that suburbs have to be a desert of unwalkable strip malls and stroads--indeed, there's a lot of variety among suburbs. I completely favor improving our suburbs and cities--that's not incompatible with wanting to be closer to nature. :)

Suburbs are what actually trades off against pro-urban/pro—density though. No one builds a dense city in a rural area. They do build suburbs there, and then those suburbs face pressure to become denser. I will push back a little on your claim that suburbs are different: postwar sprawl is a remarkably homogeneous product, the codes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction are very consistent, the home builders largely nation…

> Suburbs are what actually trades off against pro-urban/pro—density though. No one builds a dense city in a rural area. They do build suburbs there, and then those suburbs face pressure to become denser.

I agree with this, but I don’t see what that has to do with our conversation.

> I will push back a little on your claim that suburbs are different: postwar sprawl is a remarkably homogeneous product, the codes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction are very consistent, the home builders largely national chains, the businesses in the strip malls also largely national chains. I’m sure there are exceptions but really for such a big country with so many ostensibly different places and identities, it makes very little difference which sprawl-agglomeration you live in. “Local character” and distinctive building styles mostly belong to the historic walkable core districts. The suburbs could be anywhere.

My claim wasn’t that suburbs are diverse, but rather that there are exceptions which suffice to prove that suburbs can be done differently. If we can rethink our cities then why can’t we also reimagine our suburbs (or at least more creatively than “make them dense and urban”)?

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#257

Post by captainbland » Wed, May 04, 2022, 4:47 PM UTC

supergarfield wrote: post #217

baby-yoda wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The hardest part, still fully unsolved, is operating with current legislation and outdated city planning rules. Those normatives revolve around high density and cheap development. Nature takes space and efficient buildings are expensive so housing constructors will have a hard time buying into the green zone. where i live there is constant discussion of "we need high density housing" and this is exactly what comes…

You can do high density without block housing! Many European cities are good examples of this. Paris, for instance, has very high density because it's packed with mid-rise (~7-8 floors) buildings[1]. Another good example is the section of Manhattan between Midtown and Lower Manhattan, which is also primarily mid-rise and very dense. Apart from that I do think it's true that block housing separated by large parks (as…

Even mid-rise is kind of bad. You tend to share walls with a few neighbours still and there's no opportunity for any private garden space. It's not great for pet ownership, either. I'm not convinced it's a lot better than high rise/block housing as a space to actually live in. I say this presently living in a mid-rise in the UK. Edit: I should probably add that the leasehold system in the UK makes them a particularly bad proposition if you want to actually own your home as well.

Terraced housing has kind of okay density, at least it's not a total land crime like US suburban detached housing but affords many of the freedoms associated with it.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#258

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

germinalphrase wrote: post #248

throwaway894345 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure "we built too much of it" as much as we failed to anticipate or account for trends such as urbanization. Anyway, it's probably more productive and less prone to chauvinism to frame it as prioritizing high value/cost infrastructure rather than morally upright urbanites subsidizing lazy, freeloading rural people (I'm exaggerating here for effect, but that's often the tone that this framing conveys whether…

Does the argument require all this bellyaching when it seems as simple as “only urban residents should pay for urban services” and “only rural residents should pay for rural services”?

I assume you don't actually think our taxes should be binned into distinct "urban" and "rural" pots, but are rather advocating for moving the burden for services away from the federal level and towards the local level? If so, that sounds like a fine idea but you might have a hard time getting Democrats on board.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#259

Post by pharmakom » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #238

pharmakom wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people have to live somewhere.

To my point they don't have to live exclusively in suburbs or cities . Exurbs, towns, villages, acreages, boonies, entirely off-grid, etc are all options. There's a whole world out there--it's pretty mind-blowing if you've never ventured beyond suburbs before.

There is of course scope for a wide variety of living situations, but aside from cities and suburbs, there is no way to accommodate a large percentage of the population. Yes, I have ventured outside of the suburbs.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#260

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, May 04, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

ryukafalz wrote: post #203

throwaway894345 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is only because the suburbs are often sprawled in between the city and any nature that might have been nearby. Agreed, but I don’t think there’s a realistic world where you have dense urban cores immediately juxtaposed with forest, especially considering how m any people are advocating for accelerated urbanization (moving people from suburbs and rural areas). Sure, that park looks pretty legit. I think that’s…

> Agreed, but I don’t think there’s a realistic world where you have dense urban cores immediately juxtaposed with forest, especially considering how m any people are advocating for accelerated urbanization (moving people from suburbs and rural areas). At this point, maybe, because we’ve leveled any forests immediately around cities for suburban sprawl. But in the general case, if you’re starting fresh, urbanization…

> At this point, maybe, because we’ve leveled any forests immediately around cities for suburban sprawl.

In the general case, we've leveled forests for food production--originally Native American tribes cleared forest to help them harvest bison en masse and then the descendants of Europeans cleared forest for agriculture. Cities and suburbs eventually came to displace land that was previously used for agriculture.

But in the general case, if you’re starting fresh, urbanization makes it easier to leave the forest intact than if you sprawl out with low-density housing.

> But in the general case, if you’re starting fresh, urbanization makes it easier to leave the forest intact than if you sprawl out with low-density housing.

I mean, this is true in a contrived sense--if you plan your city from its initial settlement and create strict nature preserves then yeah, you can probably have your urban/natural juxtaposition, but that's pretty hard to achieve in a democratic context (good luck keeping this a popular priority over the decades and centuries). Your best bet is starting next to a federally-protected forest so residents of your city can't easily decide they want to expand into it. In whatever case, "starting fresh" is the least realistic option.