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Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

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Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#271

Post by TedShiller »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #142
TedShiller wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anyone who's "anti housing". Housing is an essential need for everyone. But putting more housing into an area that is already dense is not the answer, and it never has been. You should study induced demand. Has building more highways in LA improved traffic? No, it has only made it worse. Ever notice how every airport in the world is always under construction, and still always overcrowded? Yep, induced de…

"Induced demand" is not inherently bad. It means that people are doing more of something because they can. Induced demand also only occurs because demand is elastic. It is the natural result of supply increasing. It is often considered bad in the case of cars by people who are opposed to expanding roads specifically because if reducing traffic on roads or total miles driven is the goal then induced demand will not be…

Induced demand doesn't say what "should" or "shouldn't" happen. It doesn't have morality, it's a pattern. It says that building more housing in an area with expensive housing won't bring housing prices down.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#272

Post by ryukafalz »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #262
ryukafalz wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there’s plenty of space out in the middle of nowhere. But can you imagine the scale of the infrastructure that would be required to turn so much of that into living space? Think streets, water, sewer, power, food distribution, etc. Anyway, I’m not saying everyone should live in concrete jungles either. Think more like the Netherlands than New York City.

> Sure, there’s plenty of space out in the middle of nowhere. But can you imagine the scale of the infrastructure that would be required to turn so much of that into living space? Think streets, water, sewer, power, food distribution, etc. My position is "we don't need to move everyone into cities or expand public transit infrastructure to every corner of the country". It is not "we should move everyone out of the ci…

Okay, because we haven’t actually touched on many of the reasons us pro-density folks think it’s a good thing: how do you suggest we reduce our emissions as much as we need to in the coming decades? Keeping in mind that a large proportion of emissions are from light-duty vehicles and heating/cooling buildings, both of which increase with lower densities.

In any case, I don’t think everyone needs to live an urban life, I just think suburbia should get quite a lot more urban, and both cities and suburbs should be easier to get around without a car. That’s where the vast majority of people live anyway.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#273

Post by themeiguoren »

radu_floricica wrote: post #52

Funny thing is, making cities more green isn't even _that_ difficult. I see above conversations on living closer to nature, or mountains vs parks - but the vast majority of time spent is walking and driving in the cities. So it seems a no-brainer that before everything else, before thinking about taking a 2 hour drive to hike, or making the time for a weekly visit to the park, we should first make sure the places peo…

This is great as long as you aren’t fighting your local environment. So much green has no place in desert cities where water tables are plummeting. (Looking at you, Vegas and Phoenix)

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#274

Post by throwaway894345 »

ehnto wrote: post #265
throwaway894345 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly didn't frame anything as a dichotomy between suburbs and urban area. I did generalize cities as not having easy access to nature, which is strictly true even if there are exceptions that prove the rule. Generalization doesn't imply dichotomy.

Perhaps we're not gaining much from this clarification except resetting the stage, but the dichotomy I was seeing was anti-car vs pro-car, which for America I feel is synonymous with urban density vs suburbia due to the way zoning laws pretty much mandate suburbia be pro-car. The bit I was specifically rebutting was that anti-car is somehow anti-nature, which was what I felt you were implying. My hope would be that a…

> The dichotomy I was seeing was anti-car vs pro-car, which for America I feel is synonymous with urban density vs suburbia due to the way zoning laws pretty much mandate suburbia be pro-car. The bit I was specifically rebutting was that anti-car is somehow anti-nature, which was what I felt you were implying.

I'm glad we're clearing up the confusion. I certainly don't think that suburban zoning laws are the pinnacle of city planning or anything like that, and I'm optimistic that we can have walkable spaces without density. And even where there's density, I think there's a lot that can be improved.

I also think the anti-car message would go over better if there was less spite. For example, in Chicago anti-car activists want to remove Lake Shore Drive: the only major N/S thoroughfare--I90 runs NW/SE--it doesn't segregate the city, it isn't useful to commuters to/from the suburbs, and its removal will only push traffic onto the side streets making the city less pedestrian-friendly. But it spites drivers, so it's worthwhile. Instead, I wish these people would focus more on making our existing public transit more appealing: advocate for cleaner buses and train cars, advocate for the enforcement of laws and rules regarding (for example) stabbing, smoking, urinating, blasting music, panhandling, etc., advocate for punctuality. Once we have a good handle on our existing public transit infrastructure, we can then start thinking about smaller improvements--increasing capacity (especially during rush hour) so people don't have to be packed into cars like sardines, and then expand the network. Once you've made public transit attractive and practical for more people, then you can start working on deprecating car transit.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#275

Post by peoplefromibiza »

zoover2020 wrote: post #169
theK wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why not both?! Cycling and walking aren't mutually exclusive

IMO they do not compete, but they are almost orthogonal problems.

Walkability is an harder problem to solve than biking in modern car centric cities.

Bikes can easily use repurposed space from existing roads, walking lanes solve no problem if things are not at walkable distance.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#276

Post by throwaway894345 »

pharmakom wrote: post #259
throwaway894345 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How did we get from "I want to move out of my city and be closer to nature" to "good luck finding a place that can accommodate a large percentage of the population"?

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#277

Post by throwaway894345 »

yodelshady wrote: post #264
throwaway894345 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has nearly 7 acres of land for every man, woman, and child and yet the average lot size is only .2 acres. Since the average household size is 2.5 people, that’s about 0.08 acres used per person. Moreover, that figure ignores apartment, condo, and other multi-family buildings, so the actual land usage per person is quite a lot lower. Of course, we also need farms to support people, but the US produces much more…

Did you misspell "world" as "US" ? Or are you dishonestly using non-representative figures? The US has a much smaller proportion of the developed world's men, women and children than it does the land, and those men, women and children are extremely carbon-intensive.

> Did you misspell "world" as "US" ?

No, at no point have I been discussing the whole world.

> Or are you dishonestly using non-representative figures?

No, but feel free to correct me if I made a mistake in my calculations.

> The US has a much smaller proportion of the developed world's men, women and children than it does the land

Yes, this is my point. The US has a lot of land per person.

> and those men, women and children are extremely carbon-intensive.

Yes, but that has nothing to do with this conversation.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#278

Post by riversflow »

pif wrote: post #146
QuikAccount wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with making cities green, like the problem with everything else, is terrible city design. There is quite a bit of greenery where I live and it is all anxiety inducing because it is planted near intersections and cutting off line of sight so you can't see pedestrians well or oncoming traffic. There are certain areas that have these wonderful bushes, too bad they opted for those bushes instead of sidewalks…

> it is planted near intersections and cutting off line of sight You've just described a wonderful and very intelligent form of traffic calming.

I guess its wonderful if you like killing people. Reducing visibility around corners is unsafe in the US, far too many people will drive the same and just take a chance that its all clear, I know of a couple people who died that way.

I’ve seen this sort of thing work in London, so my theory is that traffic calming only works if you don’t treat vehicular manslaughter as akin to petty theft or even less as we do in the US. Good luck changing that, way too many people operate a vehicle everyday for them to want to take on that liability. Also young men are going to continue to drive with a devil may care attitude. Traffic calming measures in a motorist society like the US, in my observation, ironically cause much more aggressiveness on the road, and to me are the transportation equivalent of hostile architecture.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#279

Post by throwaway894345 »

ryukafalz wrote: post #272
throwaway894345 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, there’s plenty of space out in the middle of nowhere. But can you imagine the scale of the infrastructure that would be required to turn so much of that into living space? Think streets, water, sewer, power, food distribution, etc. My position is "we don't need to move everyone into cities or expand public transit infrastructure to every corner of the country". It is not "we should move everyone out of the ci…

Okay, because we haven’t actually touched on many of the reasons us pro-density folks think it’s a good thing: how do you suggest we reduce our emissions as much as we need to in the coming decades? Keeping in mind that a large proportion of emissions are from light-duty vehicles and heating/cooling buildings, both of which increase with lower densities. In any case, I don’t think everyone needs to live an urban life…

> Okay, because we haven’t actually touched on many of the reasons us pro-density folks think it’s a good thing: how do you suggest we reduce our emissions as much as we need to in the coming decades? Keeping in mind that a large proportion of emissions are from light-duty vehicles and heating/cooling buildings, both of which increase with lower densities.

Massive projects to resettle people in urban areas or dramatically extend public transit networks will take many decades to break even from a carbon emissions standpoint. It's much faster (and far more politically tenable) to electrify as much transportation (e.g., EVs) and heating/cooling as possible while moving our grid to clean energy.

> In any case, I don’t think everyone needs to live an urban life, I just think suburbia should get quite a lot more urban, and both cities and suburbs should be easier to get around without a car.

I mostly agree with this, although I think we can decouple density and walkability. My grievance was with folks who want to impose an urban lifestyle on everyone.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#280

Post by germinalphrase »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #258
germinalphrase wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In general, I would like to see money and decisions moved as local as possible; however, doing so can have some obvious efficiency and collective action problems. As the other poster refers to, slicing the pie on shared/interdependent resources also is a challenge.
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