A Dutch city testing the future of urban life • Hacker News Board

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#131

Post by jacquesm » Tue, May 10, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #75

FooBarWidget wrote: post #18

Unfortunately it is now uncertain whether any of this matters 100 years from now. It is expected that sea levels will rise by more than 2 meters, and that dykes will no longer work beyond an extra 2 meter extension, not because they can't be extended but because Dutch soil is too soft and seawater will just go under the dyke. Almere will probably be amongst the first to go. It seems nobody has proposed a solution, bu…

Not sure what the downvotes are for. I live here and I worry about what happens if I buy a new house (which is ridiculously expensive nowadays — like 3x-4x more expensive than just 5 years ago) — will I be able to sell it in 30 years when people start worrying about 30% of the country flooding in another 30 years? It's not some nutjob idea that only I have, the newspapers have written about how the market currently c…

If you're nervous about this go visit the Delta works and the various storm barriers, then look at them when there is a really bad storm and check the margins. You'll be fine, unless you will live to be 300 or so, on those timescales anything could happen. But the next 100 years are definitely covered.

I would not buy anything in Venice though, they will likely be done for and we'll remember it like we remember Atlantis. Money + engineering are a pretty good combination, similar to how Japan manages to do quite well in spite of very bad and regular earthquakes.

I think the way the Dutch deal with water is probably best described as symbiotic, we don't force it but we guide it and when we really can't do it any other way we'll bring out the pumps.

Oh, that's another one for your list of stuff to visit: the pump cassettes next to IJmuiden's Northern most locks, those things are straight from a SF movie, 260 cubic meters per second.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#132

Post by bmitc » Tue, May 10, 2022, 3:49 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #36

>> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by potab…

> An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm.

They're also not as efficient at destroying the environment.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#133

Post by rdevsrex » Tue, May 10, 2022, 3:51 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #36

>> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by potab…

It's not all about efficiency. More greenspace is healthier, and more people taking part in community gardens is also a good thing.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#134

Post by j16sdiz » Tue, May 10, 2022, 4:07 AM UTC

calt wrote: post #82

imilk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been there and was just making a quick assessment by Google Maps. It is nice that you can bike anywhere, but I'm mostly seeing residential neighborhoods (~10 blocks wide of identical row homes) pretty spaced out around a town center without amenities in their area. So in terms of meeting someone for a coffee/meal/beer/event it looks like you'll have to hop on a bicycle unless you want to go on a 20-30 minu…

> you'll have to hop on a bicycle But that's exactly what you're missing. Hopping on a Dutch bicycle in a dutch city is like walking, but better. No helmet required. No hassle of dealing with cars trying to kill you. No pain from hunched over road bike posture. Just unlock your bike and go.

Walking with friends can be an important part of social life. You can talk when walk, but you can't do the same on bike.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#135

Post by asiachick » Tue, May 10, 2022, 4:27 AM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #64

Almere is painful. The lack of history makes everything so sterile. Everything is hypermodern, clean and new. You won't have that cute old bar, infrastructural imperfection, clash of cultures, hybrid of old and new, it's entirely without soul. It feels like a VR game. Maybe I just hate modern architecture.

I've always wondering why can't some architects build small, twisted, imperfect, or maybe just small.

In particular, in Japan here are lots of older buildings or collections of buildings with tiny businesses. At some point developers come in, bulldoze the place, put up a high-rise building. The bottom 1-3 floors of the building have shops, but they are all 4x larger than the shops they displaced. The result is those shops end up being 90% chain stores such that there's now nothing drawing anyone to the new building (well, there are tenants).

My wish is that some architect would break with convention, build the bottom 1-3 floors with tiny spaces and then be hailed as the new fashion in architecture and see it spread.

Sure it's not the old imperfection, but I'd hope given smaller spaces you'd get the variety that was there before.

As an example here's a spot in Shibuya in 2009

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.6628366,139.7024402,3a,75y,1...

You should be able to move the timeline to 2022 and see it now.

Before there were 10 tiny indie businesses. Now there is 2 chain restaurants, 1 chain supermarket, one chain clothing store. (though at least they have 3 varying food trucks for lunch)

OTOH, I personally love much modern architecture.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#136

Post by adrianN » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #132

sandworm101 wrote: post #36

>> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by potab…

> An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They're also not as efficient at destroying the environment.

In farming, being less efficient has an almost 1:1 correspondence to being worse for the environment. Less efficient farms need more space and more energy input to produce the same amount of calories. (Some exceptions to this simplification of course apply)

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#137

Post by lIIIllllIIII » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:21 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #36

>> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by potab…

I'm not super knowledgeable about this however NL is a powerhouse of agricultural technology, they're a tiny country that's the 2nd largest food exporter in the world. There is a lot of really really interesting technology implemented there that will possibly make them a superpower once food crises become more frequent with climate change.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#138

Post by ragebol » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:55 AM UTC

lIIIllllIIII wrote: post #137

sandworm101 wrote: post #36

>> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by potab…

I'm not super knowledgeable about this however NL is a powerhouse of agricultural technology, they're a tiny country that's the 2nd largest food exporter in the world. There is a lot of really really interesting technology implemented there that will possibly make them a superpower once food crises become more frequent with climate change.

Being Dutch, seeing this perspective is quite interesting. See, we have a nitrogen crisis in NL: there is too much being deposited in the soil, ruining the local environment. Farming a is a big source of that nitrogen. Can't build many new houses, because building those will also emit too much nitrogen. Speed limit has been reduced for the same reason (with a very small effect).

A popular view in NL is that the Dutch farmers mostly work for export and that we shouldn't do that anymore.

There's also a counter-movement of farmers and their supporters stating they're proud of the farmers, for providing our food, and reducing resource usage per unit food significantly over the years. The suggestion by a politician to half the amount of livestock caused riots with tractors.

I'm kinda torn: importing more food is bad for the environment as a (global) whole as our farms are very efficient. But should we sacrifice our local environment for it?

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#139

Post by fold3 » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:56 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #36

>> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by potab…

Permaculture is an example of farming on a small scale that is extremely complex but efficient and sustainable.

The Netherlands soil is of very low quality in terms of nutrients (soil depletion). There is an ecological debt because of intensive farming: if we would take that into account in the final price, it would lose it's appeal.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#140

Post by caymanjim » Tue, May 10, 2022, 5:57 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #36

>> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by potab…

It helps by being exactly the kind of nonsense that attracts votes and money from well-meaning but ignorant people. Virtue signaling is always more powerful than actual virtue.