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Do you mean like capsule hotels in Tokyo?
How about just regular apartments in Tokyo/Seoul/HK? Much much smaller than USA apartments.... Also much much cheaper, at least than NYC/SF/LA.
Only speaking from my personal travel experiences, not any hard data, but: I feel like this issue is nearly non-existent in places with mixed use zoning. If the office values go down in a place with equal amounts of housing, they are repurposed as new apartments. The problem is when the office architecture isn’t interchangeable with apartment architecture, which usually happens because certain areas are zoned as offi…
Some local councils around here want to make it a condition of approval that the first floor of mixed-use must remain commercial. Developers want it to be flexible because they can't predict future need. Constraints cost! Euclidean zoning is an unspeakably expensive economic blunder.
- Ground floor: Shops,
- 1st and sometimes 2nd floor: Offices, lawyers, doctors, companies,
- 3-6th: Housing.
It was environmentally friendly because the density allows people to drop the car and go shopping and work with 15 minutes of their home.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you mean like capsule hotels in Tokyo?
It would be really interesting if capsule-style apartments were available in NYC/SF/etc. I would absolutely pay $300-$400 a month for a permanent (not nightly, like they are in Japan) capsule in Lower Manhattan.
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There might be many issues with the gap in construction standards for offices and housings. A very dumb one: windows are required for houses, where offices can get away with huge open spaces holding a central hub of indoor areas. It's still possible to convert to houses, but that makes for ridiculously small liveable areas compared to the whole floor surface. Then plumbing, evacuation paths etc. can all be solved by…
Charlie Munger enters the room (with no windows)..
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It would be really interesting if capsule-style apartments were available in NYC/SF/etc. I would absolutely pay $300-$400 a month for a permanent (not nightly, like they are in Japan) capsule in Lower Manhattan.
Can you show me where you can get a capsule hotel for $10-13 per night? I have not seen this rate, you’d probably be looking as $25 per night minimum probably more. Most actually nice capsule hotels are a tourist attraction and are nearly as expensive as normal hotels.
And monthly prices are always lower than hotel-style nightly rates, so that isn’t really relevant either.
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How about just regular apartments in Tokyo/Seoul/HK? Much much smaller than USA apartments.... Also much much cheaper, at least than NYC/SF/LA.
I think having the option of really small low quality accommodation in big cities is good, but let’s not pretend Tokyo/Seoul/HK aren’t just as expensive per sqft as NYC/SF/LA.
Hong Kong also isn’t comparable to Tokyo, and is much more expensive.
I can’t comment on Seoul.
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Some local councils around here want to make it a condition of approval that the first floor of mixed-use must remain commercial. Developers want it to be flexible because they can't predict future need. Constraints cost! Euclidean zoning is an unspeakably expensive economic blunder.
That’s a good point; An urban ecologist once told me the most environmental-friendly city is made of 6-floor buildings (like Paris): - Ground floor: Shops, - 1st and sometimes 2nd floor: Offices, lawyers, doctors, companies, - 3-6th: Housing. It was environmentally friendly because the density allows people to drop the car and go shopping and work with 15 minutes of their home.
Only the street facing side. A lot of the buildings in Paris have an inner yard where the ground floor has apartments.
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There have been many articles in the last few months about conversions. The regulations make it extremely expensive to turn in office into a home. There was an article last fall where someone backed out of doing that for a tower in San Francisco because in addition to the standard regulations there was also requirement that some of the units be set aside for low rent and that made the conversion economically unfeasib…
Is San Francisco not a special case though?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There might be many issues with the gap in construction standards for offices and housings. A very dumb one: windows are required for houses, where offices can get away with huge open spaces holding a central hub of indoor areas. It's still possible to convert to houses, but that makes for ridiculously small liveable areas compared to the whole floor surface. Then plumbing, evacuation paths etc. can all be solved by…
> It's still possible to convert to houses, but that makes for ridiculously small liveable areas compared to the whole floor surface. This is only a problem if it's prohibited by zoning. Otherwise it just gets reflected in the price. Houses in the suburbs often contain a large amount of space with no windows, i.e. a basement the size of the entire first floor, and no one objects because it can be used for storage or…
This is one of my nightmares. What if we allowed people to live in basically confinment cells and they have no choice as they're broke af or the gov or their companies assigns them one in a relocation program.
My gut feeling is that the social consequences would be subtle and easily overlooked by officials but widespread and long lasting.
> Houses in the suburbs often contain a large amount of space with no windows
Yes, it's on top of the wide livable areas though.
Only speaking from my personal travel experiences, not any hard data, but: I feel like this issue is nearly non-existent in places with mixed use zoning. If the office values go down in a place with equal amounts of housing, they are repurposed as new apartments. The problem is when the office architecture isn’t interchangeable with apartment architecture, which usually happens because certain areas are zoned as offi…