The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs • Hacker News Board

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#181

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:12 AM UTC

danaris wrote: post #35

sbf501 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 frequently reminded these days of a particular New Yorker cartoon [0]. We can still avert most of the predicted catastrophes, but we need to stop letting the people with the money just dictate policy to the rest of us to favor themselves. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

[deleted]

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#182

Post by patrick451 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:43 AM UTC

time_to_smile wrote: post #127

bradfa wrote: post #5

I can feel for the people who have been living there for a long time and now have to deal with the water situation. But I can't understand the attitudes of people who are choosing to move to such a place where access to water is such a risk. I have no information about this, but I would expect that homeowner's insurance should get much more expensive for these locations as without access to water it's quite hard to h…

> But I can't understand the attitudes of people who are choosing to move to such a place where access to water is such a risk. Denial is incredibly powerful. Most people can't really comprehend that there isn't enough water in that region (even though it should be obvious). We've lived in a time of plenty for so long the idea that something as fundamental as water could be limited just seems impossible. You see this…

That may all be true. But we've also had chicken littles screaming about the falling sky since the beginning of time.

Y2k comes to mind. I was in high school at the time, and still remember all the breathless articles. The trains would stop, the water treatment plants would fail, the traffic lights would go haywire. Somewhere within each semi truck, grid sub-station and bank mainframe was a tiny ticking time bomb that would rollover in a few short months to 00 and implode into chaos. For the want of a few bits, the implements of modern life would become useless hunks of scrap. The crusty cobol programmers were working round the clock to stop it but there simply weren't enough of them or the source code was missing or nobody had a compiler anymore. We were doomed.

Turns out, the damned lights didn't even flicker at midnight.

And with rise of click-driven journalism, it's even worse.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#183

Post by bcbrown » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:57 AM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #73

pengaru wrote: post #29

This was an interesting read for me. I have a cabin on some land near Joshua Tree. There's water in the ground (300-400ft down) but I haven't bothered to put in a well, instead just hauling what little I need from the nearby town's bulk water dispenser. Unlike AZ apparently, CA doesn't allow any new construction without a secure and sufficient water supply. Installing new cisterns for receiving hauled water is no lon…

Yeah, it's dumb: people on cisterns will be far more conscious of their consumption (and possible reuses) than someone on a well or municipal connection. And hauled water will have better quality assurance than what comes out of a well. But I have similar experience at a cabin without winterized plumbing and an iffy cistern, so over winter we haul in water too and melt more as needed. Probably going to install an inc…

> Probably going to install an incinerating toilet

That reminds me of one of my favorite sentences: "Yes, while some of you may think nothing of pooping into a mechanical box of fire, the prospect is a rather new idea for yours truly."

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#184

Post by RhysU » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:27 AM UTC

knappe wrote: post #31

joshuaheard wrote: post #14

On a planet that is 2/3 water, I think we can find a solution. Desalination comes to mind. We built an interstate highway system. We can build an interstate water distribution system for desalinated Pacific Ocean water.

Okay, I'll bite. So the proposition is to truck water 364 miles (from the next largest city center I could find, San Diego). I think you might be suggesting a pipeline, but let's be real, there won't be water in Scottsdale in 5 years (and a pipeline won't be done anytime before that). People already find water brought in from _Phoenix_ which is _13_ miles away to be too expensive. So what exactly is the solution?

> People already find water brought in from _Phoenix_ which is _13_ miles away to be too expensive.

Too expensive for what? Too expensive is a continuum.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#185

Post by RhysU » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:28 AM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #152

lbrito wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We can build an interstate water distribution system Canals are a well-known technology. Humanity has several thousand years of experience with them. Desalination is the real problem.

It isn’t magically flat between ocean across the US. You’d need extreme amounts of energy to get it over the mountains.

But not through the mountains. See also the Pennsylvania turnpike.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#186

Post by emptyparadise » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:48 AM UTC

patrick451 wrote: post #182

time_to_smile wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I can't understand the attitudes of people who are choosing to move to such a place where access to water is such a risk. Denial is incredibly powerful. Most people can't really comprehend that there isn't enough water in that region (even though it should be obvious). We've lived in a time of plenty for so long the idea that something as fundamental as water could be limited just seems impossible. You see this…

That may all be true. But we've also had chicken littles screaming about the falling sky since the beginning of time. Y2k comes to mind. I was in high school at the time, and still remember all the breathless articles. The trains would stop, the water treatment plants would fail, the traffic lights would go haywire. Somewhere within each semi truck, grid sub-station and bank mainframe was a tiny ticking time bomb tha…

Do you think Y2K fixed itself?

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#187

Post by throwaway193948 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:49 AM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #138

caramelcustard wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The flaw in this reasoning is that it requires corresponding demand among the non-wealthy. It was true for airlines (everybody likes to go on vacation); is there a particular reason to believe that the average American wants to live in a desert, particularly as the resource limitations become more obvious?

take a look at arizona real estate prices over the past couple years

people want to live where it’s sunny and warm

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#188

Post by woodruffw » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 3:47 AM UTC

throwaway193948 wrote: post #187

woodruffw wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flaw in this reasoning is that it requires corresponding demand among the non-wealthy. It was true for airlines (everybody likes to go on vacation); is there a particular reason to believe that the average American wants to live in a desert, particularly as the resource limitations become more obvious?

take a look at arizona real estate prices over the past couple years people want to live where it’s sunny and warm

I'm not denying that there are people who want to live there. It's obvious there are (and that there are growth trends, particularly as snowbirds seem to be discarding Florida as their first choice).

The dispute is about scale: a couple of million retirees equal a lot of speculative housing value, but they don't justify a megaproject to deliver water to the middle of the desert. That would require population migration on a scale not seen in over a century in the US.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#189

Post by xyzzyz » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 7:02 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #172

xyzzyz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is true, but you’ve missed the biggest issue with the above argument, which is implying that we cannot afford to replace what our much poorer ancestors afforded to build.

Those poorer ancestors built denser housing and commercial real estate. What they built back in the day is often illegal today and has been grandfathered in while outperforming modern real estate in property taxes. Old "blighted" buildings can pay more taxes than fancy new commercial real estate that is designed for car dependency and suburbia.

No, I mean the suburbia. The entire shtick of Strongtowns is that suburbia is unsustainable, because it requires infrastructure that we cannot now afford to replace, despite being able to afford to build it in the first place.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#190

Post by bradfa » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 11:07 AM UTC

Enginerrrd wrote: post #131

bradfa wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but even with a volunteer fire department, at least there's normally water that they can use to save the neighbor houses once they arrive on-scene. If there's no water then there's no way to save anything from a fire.

>Right, but even with a volunteer fire department, at least there's normally water that they can use to save the neighbor houses once they arrive on-scene. Lol... no. There are so many flawed assumptions here I'm not sure where to start. Basically everything you said was wrong. First, the "neighbor house" would typically be hundreds of yards away at the absolute closest. Second, the availability of water for fire fig…

That's fair, I don't know how to fight fires. But it sounds like a lot of these newer houses in the article are not the normal spread-out rural type spacing but much more like suburb size lots. The article says: “Not only are they building as dense as they can build, they’re scraping everything to the ground,”

If they really are building on multi-acre lots then you're probably right. But if it's more like a suburban style where houses are on 0.25 acre lots and there's only maybe 15-20 feet between houses then I feel my concerns are legit.