Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

lax-skyline.parcelscope.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 192 posts

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#151

Post by enopod_ »

slg wrote: post #86
epistasis wrote: post #28

It's amazing how little has changed in recent years in LA. The massive downzoning of the 1980s had its effect: prevent efficient land use, and channel money into the hands of landlords and homeowners from all newcomers. LA is a ridiculously unaffordable place to live, not because it's nice, but because of an artificial shortage of built space, due to a monopoly on the permission to build.

>The massive downzoning of the 1980s... To put numbers to this for those who aren't aware, LA was zoned for roughly 10 million people in the 1960s and by the 1980s it was zoned for roughly 4 million. It's part of the reason the city has had population growth slow to a crawl. It was decided some 40 plus years ago that LA should stay under 4 million people, so it has even til today. But the number of people who want to…

Interesting, I did not know that. Sure helped create the massive urban sprawl that LA is today, I mean it's basically one city all the way to San Bernardino, almost 100 km to the east.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#152

Post by fc417fc802 »

Schiendelman wrote: post #117
MarkusQ wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes it sound like the increase was due to some inexorable natural force. California's per capita budget is over twice Arizona's, and they're running a huge deficit on top of that. If taxes are too high, cut taxes. If that means you need to cut spending, cut spending. But don't play "hey, let's tax the other guy!" games and expect that to work.

A lot of this also comes down to prohibiting growth. In Seattle, every time we build a new building, everyone else's property tax payments decrease. High growth years lead to lower bills. The same would work in California, they just don't build much of anything because they've made it nearly impossible to.

You're not wrong, but the irony of positioning Seattle as having good zoning policies is almost unbearable.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#154

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

epistasis wrote: post #28

It's amazing how little has changed in recent years in LA. The massive downzoning of the 1980s had its effect: prevent efficient land use, and channel money into the hands of landlords and homeowners from all newcomers. LA is a ridiculously unaffordable place to live, not because it's nice, but because of an artificial shortage of built space, due to a monopoly on the permission to build.

There must be a incredible incentive to build "pod-housing" basically take a overpriced suburban home, excavate out into the depths and build sleeper-coffin like homes, then in the morning, its 3 minivan of shuttleb-busses going "to schools" - and in the evening back.

Basically build affordable housing illegally

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#155

Post by thomasfl »

This shows not only how highly inefficient the land use is in LA, it also shows when it started happening. Towns that were planned before cars were introduced, have a much more efficient use of land. I.e. less space used for roads, but more greenery and the same amount of people and businesses. Barcelona and Paris was planned and built around 70 years before cars become commonplace. The city of the future is built around peoples quality of life and what is good for the economy, except the car industry. US car industry is slowly dying anyway, so the US should start making the country just as attractive to live in as Europe. Disclaimer: I am the founder of the architectural uprising in Norway.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#156

Post by cucumber3732842 »

thrance wrote: post #97
wdr1 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived on the westside of LA for ~20 years, so one secret I like to let people in on: there's no water shortage. There's a literal ocean of it. I can see it right out my window. And all that it takes to turn seawater into potable freshwater is energy. We don't have a water problem. We have an energy problem. For all of LA County, it would take 500–750 MW each year to use seawater for all our freshwater needs. Or…

You don't have an energy problem, you have a political problem. Fresh water is wasted on thirsty plants destined for agriculture (like alfalfa), by rich farmers who inherited water rights put into law ages ago. It's very simple to solve water usage in California, it just requires a governor that has a tiny amount of grit and cuts into their water rights. It's crazy how to some, building a whole nuclear reactor and do…

Your comment is a great example of the sort of zero sum ignorance that gets us where we are.

Yeah, you can always use state violence to take from one group and give to another but that's less than zero sum because it costs you use of state violence which isn't cheap and must be expensively maintained.

You might make things fairer doing that but you won't make them better overall. At some point for things to actually get better overall, for the pie to get bigger, you must actually build something for someone. If not a nuclear powered desalination plant then it will be something else.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#158

Post by thrance »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #156
thrance wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have an energy problem, you have a political problem. Fresh water is wasted on thirsty plants destined for agriculture (like alfalfa), by rich farmers who inherited water rights put into law ages ago. It's very simple to solve water usage in California, it just requires a governor that has a tiny amount of grit and cuts into their water rights. It's crazy how to some, building a whole nuclear reactor and do…

Your comment is a great example of the sort of zero sum ignorance that gets us where we are. Yeah, you can always use state violence to take from one group and give to another but that's less than zero sum because it costs you use of state violence which isn't cheap and must be expensively maintained. You might make things fairer doing that but you won't make them better overall. At some point for things to actually…

> You might make things fairer doing that but you won't make them better overall.

Huh, yes it will? You don't need state violence to reduce wealthy farmers' water rights from 10B gallons per year to 8B, which will instantly free up water for others, more important uses. Their quality of life won't decrease if they have to switch a few plots from alfalfa to wheat, if that's what you're afraid of.

> for the pie to get bigger, you must actually build something for someone

I dislike how you just assumed that because I prefer a simple political solution over an over-engineered decades-long project on this one issue, I must be opposed to all new infrastructure. In this case, there's plenty of water to go around.

> state violence which isn't cheap and must be expensively maintained.

1, you don't need much (or any) state violence to keep a few rich families from stealing water, and 2, how is that more expensive that a fucking nuclear plant??? And what about the ecological cost? Nuclear is cleaner that most energies, but it's not free. And nuclear capacity could be put to much better use than offsetting inefficient use of the commons.

> Yeah, you can always use state violence to take from one group and give to another

Yeah, that's exactly what those problematic water rights are achieving: they take most of the available fresh water and give it to a tiny minority that benefits immensely from it. I'm suggesting we improve on that.

> Your comment is a great example of the sort of zero sum ignorance that gets us where we are.

I just can't get over how arrogant and mean this line is. The pie is continually growing, the only thing preventing people from getting a slice is that capital owners keep it all to themselves. We didn't get to this situation because the people is too greedy and impairing oligarchs from building stuff. It's quite the opposite.

We have bloated contractors receiving billions for very little in exchange, and in this situation, people like you are suggesting we don't solve this very simple resource allocation problem and instead shovel a few more billions of public money to the private sector for completely superfluous infrastructure we won't catch a glimpse of before 2048.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#159

Post by skywhopper »

syspec wrote: post #60
kfarr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don’t forget prop 13, there’s negative incentive for property to change hands and develop.

Do you own your home? Here in Ca? You know that property tax is 1.4ish % and goes up by 2% a year, pretty much no matter what? On a 1.5M house, that's starting at 17K a year and each year it goes up 2%, so it compounds. That's 17k a year Just to stay in your own home. People who don't pay property taxes here in ca, act like prop 13 means zero property taxes

You realize government services that support that home cost money, right? You act like if you own your home that your living there doesn’t impose any costs on your neighbors.

Re: Watch Los Angeles get built, one building at a time (1880–2026)

#160

Post by bean469 »

davidw wrote: post #70
rustywasm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom (who is 97) has a vivid memory of seeing FDR in 1935 -- the whole extended family took the the Red Car from Compton to downtown to see his motorcade. She remembered the electric trams worked really well, especially for folks without much money.

> worked really well, especially for folks without much money That's probably part of the reason they got rid of them. You still see that argument used against transit: "it will bring _____ to our part of town".

The main reason as far as I'm aware was due to intense lobbying from car companies. It makes absolute sense from the perspective of Ford, etc. to have alternative modes of transport be removed from the streets
Post reply on HN