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Remote work’s toll on cities

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Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#91

Post by SkipperCat »

avalys wrote: post #53

These conversations are kind of like the airplane on the treadmill problem, where there are (approximately) two orthogonal sets of assumptions/preferences that lead to obvious but incompatible conclusions, and people end up yelling at each other over the conclusions without realizing the difference is just the underlying assumptions. Personally - I don't want to live in a city, or a town, or even a neighborhood. I do…

Everyone should be able to live the way they want to, but the cost of people living far away from each other is a large amount of carbon being burned and going into our atmosphere. There is a reason suburbs and exurbs only came about when cheap fuel became available.

I hope a day comes when renewable energy sources fix this issue.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#92

Post by sokoloff »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #88
sokoloff wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have different preferences, so it's unsurprising that what you want and what others want will sometimes be different. I'm perfectly happy to, even prefer to, interact with strangers on a daily basis when I'm out doing things. When I come back home though, I want to be able to shut all that (literal and figurative) noise out and just be with my family or invited guests.

That's not inherent to rural/urban, that's just good soundproofing. A badly soundproofed house won't help anymore with a neighbor's shitty leafblower than a badly soundproofed apartment will help with a car's backfire in the street.

It just so happens that 25-200' of spacing and trees is remarkably effective soundproofing, which is a lot easier to come by (as in is often the default) in a rural setting.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#93

Post by ido »

synu wrote: post #71
danielrpa wrote: post #18

Cities exist to serve people's needs. The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past: suburbia with long car commutes to downtown, and dense cities built around facilitating mass daily movement to the office through subway/public transportation. Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods catering to different lifestyles and needs (some higher density and walkable, others still car-centric but encourag…

Where are you referring to where there are only two city types? I live in the Netherlands, neither of the two existing models you describe sound familiar in any countries around here, although our cities were certainly designed in a low tech past.

A lot of the Ruhrpott[0] resembles that example and is considered a kinda shitty place to live in by a lot of Germans. A friend of mine who came here (Berlin) from there summed it up as “you spend a lot of time in your car”.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr an area in Germany close to the Dutch border

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#94

Post by PuppyTailWags »

ricksunny wrote: post #64

poor-man's market research: Would you (not your belief about others) be interested in co-working / co-living locales, in different countries (think Costa Rica, Tenerife, Zanzibar) with excellent maintained QoS connectivity, and (higher tier offering) where your right to work (local work visa) for your home-country employer / clients was looked after by the company hosting the network of sites? Goal: to liberate you t…

Me personally, no. Nomadic lifestyles prevent one from pursuing the kind of hobbies I would like to pursue (exotic pets and plants).

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#95

Post by kulahan »

synu wrote: post #71
danielrpa wrote: post #18

Cities exist to serve people's needs. The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past: suburbia with long car commutes to downtown, and dense cities built around facilitating mass daily movement to the office through subway/public transportation. Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods catering to different lifestyles and needs (some higher density and walkable, others still car-centric but encourag…

Where are you referring to where there are only two city types? I live in the Netherlands, neither of the two existing models you describe sound familiar in any countries around here, although our cities were certainly designed in a low tech past.

Are context clues no longer a thing? This is a story about American cities. Why would you assume he is also referring to all non-American cities?

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#96

Post by nemo44x »

yieldcrv wrote: post #8
DevX101 wrote: post #2

Remote work has the potential to make neighborhoods more dynamic. With more people at home, there's more demand for nearby coffee shops, entertainment, food options. I prefer the decentralized neighborhood approach to the hub and spoke model where you commute to a big city from the boring suburbs.

I would love more concentrated neighborhoods like I’ve seen in many places across Europe many other places across Europe dont have this or most people arent conveniently located but my point is that this doesn't seem to be an option at all in the US, unless you are in a nice development within one or two cities. not an option in the suburbs anywhere to my knowledge.

> but my point is that this doesn't seem to be an option at all in the US

There's quite a bit of this on the East Coast as it tends to be older. Pre-war towns in particular. Some rather affluent places too with trains to the local major city, etc. It's nice to have large single family homes and yards and be able to walk to the butcher, coffee shop, bookstore, or restaurants and the train. However, in Europe you generally won't find large, single family homes in this type of setting. Mainly multi-family and very small by American standards. Especially the UK.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#97

Post by euroderf »

andybak wrote: post #39
twiddling wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you run into local zoning. I for one would love more mixed zoning in neighborhoods on city boundaries, but too many entrenched interests at the moment

I live in the UK and local shops, restaurants are ubuiquitous. Is that really something that is actively legislated against in the US?

The HOA (Homeowners' Association) might state, for example, no corner shops. So, you want a quart of milk or a loaf of bread ? Get in the car!

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#98

Post by kkfx »

cozzyd wrote: post #54
kkfx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even ignoring the effort needed and it's cost: who want to reside in former office buildings if now downtown areas start to be depopulated from local workers and so services built for them?

Plenty of people live in service-devoid suburbs. Services follow density of people.

Ok, good. So what's the purpose of converting former office buildings in residential one? Workers who left them surely do not came back in them to reside, they left and choose new homes more apt to the WFH purposes, something not easy to find in a dense city.

Where you have plenty of space to develop renewables in a dense city? Where the home garage to recharge your car? Where the place to get larger and larger package due to the flourish of on-line retail? Where the place for future flying cars/drone delivery etc?

If middle-class people start to de-urbanize cities would be let full of desperate with much job offers to find work.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#99

Post by darth_avocado »

courgette wrote: post #80
avalys wrote: post #53

These conversations are kind of like the airplane on the treadmill problem, where there are (approximately) two orthogonal sets of assumptions/preferences that lead to obvious but incompatible conclusions, and people end up yelling at each other over the conclusions without realizing the difference is just the underlying assumptions. Personally - I don't want to live in a city, or a town, or even a neighborhood. I do…

I don't find suburbs boring. I find them soul-less. I grew up in rural France. Small village have shops, bars, services like post-office, hair-dresser and whatnot. It's not a dichotomy between things and absence of things. Suburbs would be fine in my own personal book if they were offering basic services and a sense of comunauty.( not in warehouse operated by large chain, but by people living there and earning a live…

The modern suburbs in the US are soulless and boring. I grew up in suburbs outside of US and they were anything but boring. The core of it is density and city planning.

1. The suburbs I grew up in had mixed zoning, you had apartments, multi family homes and single family homes in every 5x5 blocks.

2. There were smaller public spaces reasonably located to where you lived. Instead of massive parks for an entire corner of the suburbs, you had a lot of empty lots developed into smaller gardens bustling with neighborhood kids

3. Streets were narrower and the sidewalks were wider

4. Shops and mom and pop stores were part of the neighborhood. Those apartments that I talked about, had cafes and local stores where the store owners knew you and your parents. I remember walking alone to the store at the age of 7 and bringing back stuff my mom needed, without having a phone on me.

The more you make people spend time in their neighborhoods, the more you have a character. If you have to take your car out for every little thing, you spend more time in your car than walking around and knowing people in your neighborhood.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#100

Post by TuringNYC »

danielrpa wrote: post #18

Cities exist to serve people's needs. The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past: suburbia with long car commutes to downtown, and dense cities built around facilitating mass daily movement to the office through subway/public transportation. Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods catering to different lifestyles and needs (some higher density and walkable, others still car-centric but encourag…

I'm a life-long New Yorker, born and raised. Even I gave up on the city and moved out, despite all the desire to live with low carbon-impact and live a moderate lifestyle w/o cars. At some point, the pain factor becomes too much. I'll give you some examples

- Approximately 5-6yrs ago the transit quality in the outer-boroughs (not Manhattan) became so bad that you could spend 2hrs hours switching multiple trains if you were going into Brooklyn. Trains would mysteriously not arrive, would run express, would claim they have arrived on official apps but the station was closed, etc. Then you think -- in 2hrs I could have commuted into the suburb and lived in a beautiful home for half the price and have a huge garden. And lots of people did exactly that.

- When metros didnt work, you'd Uber, but then punitive fees were added onto Uber rides to discourage that even. It was as if you'd be squeezed from every direction.

- For some minority groups (eg Asian women), crime became a huge problem. There wasnt much care from law enforcement (not to punish, but even just to be present at subway stations and cars). Many of my Asian friends moved out of the city for this reason. You'd see groups of 5-6 cops chatting together at the center of a station rather than be distributed across platforms across a station.

- Numerous metro steps had non-working elevators and non-working escalators, making travel with strollers dangerous or impossible. Good luck of you are on a wheelchair. Ridiculous ideas would be proposed where bicycles were somehow the magical solution to all...as if I could jump on a ride-share bicycle with two kids.

- Schooling was increasing byzantine. You could own a home but not be guaranteed a seat at your local public school. You had to use "connections" just to make it on the list, or your child would end up half way across the Borough at a different public school. You could have two kids zoned to the same public school, but end up in two different public schools, making school drops impossible. Test-driven systems were changed, making things even harder. "Leadership" based public school application systems were proposed, which is a euphemism for "rich people" get accepted.

Ultimately cities are competing against suburbs, and from what I saw in my particular case the city option failed. Even I couldnt stomach the pain anymore and I gave up.

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