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The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

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Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#161

Post by tlavoie »

nerdponx wrote: post #41
pj_mukh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a real problem in California and is some how ingrained into the political structure and hard to shake. The Governor last year: "“There’s something that is truly Californian about the wilderness and the wild and pioneering spirit,” Newsom said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m not advocating for no (building).” [1] AFAIK, lawmakers are actually considering subsidizing insurance costs for exurbs i…

This sounds very similar to issues around houses built in known historical flood zones.

Where this has been found to be a very expensive mistake, you are now seeing communities buy out homeowners, demolish, and leave the areas empty. Other efforts can be very expensive, but worthwhile if they're protecting enough.

For example of the latter, the Winnipeg floodway is a huge ditch around Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Built in the late '50s, it diverts the Red River around the city, reconnecting further north. It was seen as a huge boondoggle when being built, but has saved much of the city repeatedly since.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#162

Post by mythrwy »

legitster wrote: post #44

I'll be a resident contrarian and argue that building more houses in the SW is a good thing. - The desert is probably the best place to build sprawling metropolises with the lowest ecological impact (overall) - Cooling is more energy efficient than heating. - Houses in places like AZ are implicitly less wasteful (no lawns, better insulated, etc). - People like it But the question is how to get water to these places?…

These desert ecosystems are much more sensitive though.

If you disturb prairie it comes back after a couple of years of rain. Not so the desert.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#163

Post by eesmith »

knappe wrote: post #28
citizenpaul wrote: post #8

I can't find it anymore but I read a long form article like this probably 10 years ago on the problem of suburbs public infrastructure. Basically they ran the numbers and figured out that more than 50% of cities simply cannot afford to maintain the suburb infrastructure no matter what they do with the budget. Even if they did something crazy like tripled taxes tomorrow they still could not afford it. The called them…

I too want to find this article (I'm certain it was linked from HN). It isn't a strong towns article, but it had some great diagrams showing how the city centers are the only economically viable places for utilities because of density. The suburbs were just not cost effective and thus were going to go bankrupt because of the lack of efficiency. I've tried to find this article in the past and it has been long enough t…

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborh... ?

> What is obvious here is that the poor neighborhoods are profitable while the affluent neighborhoods are not. Throughout the poor neighborhoods, the city is -- TODAY -- bringing in more revenue than they will spend to maintain the neighborhood, and that's assuming they actually invest the money to maintain the neighborhood (which they have not been). If they fail to maintain the neighborhood, the profit margins will be even higher.

> This might strike some of you as surprising, yet it is important to understand that it is a consistent feature we see revealed in city after city after city all over North America. Poor neighborhoods subsidize the affluent; it is a ubiquitous condition of the American development pattern.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#164

Post by everybodyknows »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #12
mooreds wrote: post #2

The final quote is chilling: “We got two great offers in, and neither of them cared about the water situation. They believe that the county is not going to let five hundred homes next to one of the wealthiest cities go without water.” We'll see what happens in 2023, when Scottsdale no longer sells water to the water haulers. The Water Knife feels more and more prophetic.

Eh, it's the same logic when people move to coastal areas that will be impacted by sea level rise. No one can imagine they'll be the ones who get screwed over, and certainly not if they're wealthy. As such, I'm not sure I would call it chilling so much as entirely predictable. The real failure is in the states and municipalities that are approving the building in the first place.

The way it works, or doesn't work, here in California is a combination of endless litigation against the Coastal Commission:

https://www.delmartimes.net/news/story/2021-06-11/seawall-ap...

Or outright defiance, apparently based on contempt for the CC's ability to enforce the law:

https://sandiego.surfrider.org/jack-the-riprapper-followup/

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#165

Post by eesmith »

caramelcustard wrote: post #32
crooked-v wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this particular situation, that's a lot of money to spend just to serve already-well-off people willingly choosing to live in the desert in a drought.

Almost any significant technological innovation was expensive to provide to the public in its infancy but as the time went on, it became more accessible to the public. Right off the bat, i could name airplane transportation as a fine example.

Only some airplane transportation. Supersonic commercial air travel is less accessible now than it was 50 years ago. Inter-city rail travel is much less accessible now than 80 years ago.

More to the point, you've assuming the conclusion. If we could distill and pump water from the Pacific Ocean to Arizona at cost-effective rates then yes, it would be a significant technological innovation.

But knowing that it would be a significant technological innovation doesn't make it happen. We don't have many flying cars, even though the technology has been around for decades. Yet cheap flying cars would be a significant technological innovation, yes?

We already have the ability to transport Pacific water from the Carlsbad Desalination Plant in San Diego to Arizona, via the road system. If your argument has merit, then we should be seeing the existing price getting lower, right?

What isn't the price going down fast enough to meet the obvious demand?

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#166

Post by coryrc »

clairity wrote: post #143
coryrc wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically no common A/C is 30% efficient in any sense of the word. There's a scenario where you can argue it can get as low as 50%, but no common A/C I have ever heard of is using moving less than 2x heat power as electricity power used. 30% is wrong no matter how you cut it. And, "efficiency" doesn't matter. COP does. COP is what is reflected on your electrical bills.

it's basic thermodynamics. you mixed the two, as i explained previously, and now you're leaning into the misconception, rather than acknowledging the difference.

In no way is anything you said in either post of use to anyone.

If I am in my house, use 1000 W of electricity, get 3000 W of heating, that is what is important. No shit the extra heat comes from the environment. It doesn't matter unless you live within a house completely located inside an artificial climate-controlled area, which applies to... none. No houses.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#167

Post by imtringued »

sbf501 wrote: post #19
juve1996 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meaning they are used to living in the "Land of plenty" never thinking that one day, it could end. This was my thought as well. The music is about to stop. Many don't realize it. Some don't believe it. Some actively deny it. But it's happening, and faster than we're ready for.

Many of us do realize it and are just sitting here staring at the screen at work realizing what a horrible mistake it all was, and hoping the fall won't as bad as the movies lead us to believe.

I am sitting here, thinking that it would be an easily solvable problem if people actually cared about the sustainability of their communities.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#168

Post by imtringued »

anigbrowl wrote: post #120
jeffbee wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many are actively working to bring the disaster into the present! In the book Running Out the author interviews Kansas farmers who are explicitly managing the aquifer so that it runs out within their lifetimes. Not too soon, but not too far into the future, either.

What's the logic here - is it just agribusiness maximizing profit in the short-medium term with the expectation of writing it off and moving production elsewhere once the point of collapse arrives?

You can't just take the planet with you when you die hence you need to consume it in its entirety to minimize "waste" aka earth left for other humans.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#169

Post by phpisthebest »

legitster wrote: post #122
phpisthebest wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Cooling is more energy efficient than heating. How is that? First thing ofcourse is everything we do as human, including our body is generating heat, for my cooling my home is FAR FAR FAR more expensive (thus i would assume more energy intensive) than heating my home. >>Houses in places like AZ are implicitly less wasteful (no lawns, better insulated, etc). This is largely government zoning or HOA's here, people o…

Houses in AZ use less energy on average than other states: https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/reports/2009/sta... And in aggregate, cities in warm climates are more sustainable than in cold: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/014... >> This would require a cultural shift. Agreed. Or people can move to places like AZ or NV where lawns are the exception. >> I would never in a million year…

>Houses in AZ use less energy on average than other states

hmm, looks like energy expenditures are the same, they note that energy costs are higher in AZ

So the question would be is the reduction due to budgets, meaning given the option the people in AZ would set their AC lower, and be more comfortable if they could afford too and the high cost prevents that

Or is it actually more efficient as the claim was?

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#170

Post by imtringued »

nostromo wrote: post #39
csnover wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are probably thinking of The Growth Ponzi Scheme[0], which was adapted into a video series by Not Just Bikes[1]. [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6...

Strong Towns starts with the conclusion and then creates arguments to support it. It's interesting writing, but I wouldn't take it too seriously.

The current implementation of market economy i.e. capitalism is growth dependent. It is entirely plausible that cities follow the same growth dependence strategy the rest of the economy follows.
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