Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost • Hacker News Board

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#51

Post by mc32 » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 7:53 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #48

dankohn1 wrote: post #41

I may live in the densest neighborhood of any HN participant: North Battery Park City [1] in Lower Manhattan. As an example, my son's 500 kid elementary school serves 9 buildings. And I'm here to tell you, the future feels great. Specifically, living vertically has all sorts of wonderful aspects in terms of community (the kids can trick-or-treat without leaving the building), access to resources (my kids can ride the…

What's odd is that Manhattan's population density has on a long timescale been declining rather than growing, despite quite a bit of construction. In the 1900 census the population was 1.85 million (density ~80,000/sq mi), and it reached its peak of 2.33 million (~100,000/sq mi) in the 1910 census. Since then it's on the way down, with some bumps here and there: 1.96 million (~85,000/sq mi) in 1950, and all the way d…

That and overcrowded tenement buildings full of fire hazards going away helps push down density, but in this case for the better.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#52

Post by krschultz » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 7:56 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #18

rhino369 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also the entire cause of the "gentrification" problem many are so pissed off about. Nobody wants to move into a poor area, they are forced into it because you can't build skyscraper high rises in the good areas.

Woah there nelly. "Lifting the barriers" to development doesn't mean that a 50 story residential tower will be built in Central Park West. You are the barrier. Lifting them means that as a citizen, you lose control of your surroundings. So when a big company, say Pfizer, works with the city to raze your neighborhood through an eminent domain process, you're fucked. ( http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New…

Somewhat OT, but I worked in the building constructed due to that eminent domain process, it was really nice.

Pfizer later sold the whole thing for pennies on the dollar to a defense contractor after pulling out of that town, all that after never actually building on all of the land that was leveled.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#53

Post by omegaworks » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 7:58 PM UTC

jes wrote: post #49

j_baker wrote: post #33

> Land taxes are efficient. They are difficult to dodge; you cannot stuff land into a bank-vault in Luxembourg. Whereas a high tax on property can discourage investment, a high tax on land creates an incentive to develop unused sites. Land-value taxes can also help cater for newcomers. New infrastructure raises the value of nearby land, automatically feeding through into revenues—which helps to pay for the improvemen…

I don't wish to be confrontational, but in my view, taking other people's property without their voluntary consent is wrong. As I understand the last paragraph of your comment, you wish to see the owner of the vacant lot forced into a situation where he had to act in some way other than how he currently chooses to act. In other words, you want to substitute your judgment for his, when it comes to the use of his prope…

>taking other people's property without their voluntary consent is wrong.

Knock! knock! Oh Hi Mexico...

Toc! Toc! Hola Ohlone Native Americans...

Possession is nine-tenths of the law. The law is man-made.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#54

Post by krschultz » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 8:00 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #28

Something that annoys me about these articles is that they're basically saying "the world's densest cities should make themselves denser" Maybe we should just copy what those cities did. Imagine what america's GDP would be like if it had ten cities like the current NYC. I live in one of the densest neighborhoods in north America, the plateau in Montreal. It achieves this density with low rise buildings, and it's a ve…

I think if you expand a low-rise city you end up with Washington DC or LA, meaning debilitating traffic. The density is not high enough to support mass transit effectively, but it's too high for effective roads.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#55

Post by omegaworks » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 8:01 PM UTC

Frozenlock wrote: post #44

j_baker wrote: post #33

> Land taxes are efficient. They are difficult to dodge; you cannot stuff land into a bank-vault in Luxembourg. Whereas a high tax on property can discourage investment, a high tax on land creates an incentive to develop unused sites. Land-value taxes can also help cater for newcomers. New infrastructure raises the value of nearby land, automatically feeding through into revenues—which helps to pay for the improvemen…

The harm for the owner in leaving the lot vacant for a decade is opportunity cost. If he is in a valuable spot , it would be advantageous to sell and just do something else with the money. Imagine high land taxes in the middle of the desert. Is it an incentive to build? Quite the contrary.

>Imagine high land taxes in the middle of the desert.

Can't build something more profitable then the land taxes? Then sell it, or give it back to the state.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#56

Post by philwelch » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #20

jchrisa wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also too much paved surface area.

I keep wondering when building over roads will become common. Traffic only needs a couple stories of vertical space; everything above that should be profitably/affordably usable (once ventilation is addressed).

Unless the road was built in a tunnel in the first place, there are structural issues as well. You can't just put some concrete structure over the top of a road and have it support multiple stories of building on top of it. Plus, streets work better as open-air outdoor spaces, especially for pedestrians.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#57

Post by Jacqued » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

dankohn1 wrote: post #41

I may live in the densest neighborhood of any HN participant: North Battery Park City [1] in Lower Manhattan. As an example, my son's 500 kid elementary school serves 9 buildings. And I'm here to tell you, the future feels great. Specifically, living vertically has all sorts of wonderful aspects in terms of community (the kids can trick-or-treat without leaving the building), access to resources (my kids can ride the…

You don't even need to live in the future to have a very high density. Paris proper has a density of 50000/sqmi yet has simply and literally banned high rise buildings. There are 2 districts with a number of these (although low by manhattan standards, culminating at 100m) but they are relics of the 70s and none has been built since then.

What is probably the greatest advantage of very dense cities is that you can have a really great public transportation network. While the farther suburbs cruelly lack transportation, Paris proper is tightly covered, with the great majority of residents having less than 500m to walk to get to the subway (and some lines have stops every 200m).

In these conditions a post-car society truly is possible and we're slowly but steadily getting there, with streets being closed to cars one by one, and parking spots being removed by the hundreds month after month.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#58

Post by bradleyjg » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #48

dankohn1 wrote: post #41

I may live in the densest neighborhood of any HN participant: North Battery Park City [1] in Lower Manhattan. As an example, my son's 500 kid elementary school serves 9 buildings. And I'm here to tell you, the future feels great. Specifically, living vertically has all sorts of wonderful aspects in terms of community (the kids can trick-or-treat without leaving the building), access to resources (my kids can ride the…

What's odd is that Manhattan's population density has on a long timescale been declining rather than growing, despite quite a bit of construction. In the 1900 census the population was 1.85 million (density ~80,000/sq mi), and it reached its peak of 2.33 million (~100,000/sq mi) in the 1910 census. Since then it's on the way down, with some bumps here and there: 1.96 million (~85,000/sq mi) in 1950, and all the way d…

I don't know that Manhattan, either in the geographic sense or real estate broker sense, is a great unit of measure for urban planning / comparison purposes.

There are parts of even Manhattan south of 14th street that have longer commutes to Wall Street than parts of Brooklyn or Jersey City.

Yes, Manhattan doesn't contain very many high density lower-middle-class immigrant neighborhoods anymore, but NYC still very much does. I'm not sure which side of the river they are on matters much.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#59

Post by krschultz » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 8:03 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #48

dankohn1 wrote: post #41

I may live in the densest neighborhood of any HN participant: North Battery Park City [1] in Lower Manhattan. As an example, my son's 500 kid elementary school serves 9 buildings. And I'm here to tell you, the future feels great. Specifically, living vertically has all sorts of wonderful aspects in terms of community (the kids can trick-or-treat without leaving the building), access to resources (my kids can ride the…

What's odd is that Manhattan's population density has on a long timescale been declining rather than growing, despite quite a bit of construction. In the 1900 census the population was 1.85 million (density ~80,000/sq mi), and it reached its peak of 2.33 million (~100,000/sq mi) in the 1910 census. Since then it's on the way down, with some bumps here and there: 1.96 million (~85,000/sq mi) in 1950, and all the way d…

In terms of #3, anywhere developers can build residential, they will. Rents & prices on residential are much higher. Unfortunately Manhattan zoning prevents residential in large parts of the city. I believe that is why there are so many hotels going up in the 20s/30s on the west side, when that is someday rezoned it will be easier to convert to residential than offices would have been.

Re: Poor land use in the world’s greatest cities carries a huge cost

#60

Post by hullo » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 8:04 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #42

nerfhammer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In NYC, for instance, subways could be built to NJ. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_%28rail_system%29

Yes? That's about 100 years old and not part of the NYC subway. It also requires you to leave and pay again on the NYC Subway. It's a great system, and about a 12 minute walk from my apartment, but not what I meant. Not sure where you're going with this? Anyway, I was thinking more along the lines of extending the 7 to NJ. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2015/03/could_the_new_port_... Enter the train at Secaucus, fo…

Sounds like you would have liked the new tunnel that Christie single-handedly killed in 2010

"ARC would have cut passenger transfers by 97 percent and taken an average 23 minutes off each trip, according to the GAO. It also would have been financed at historically low rates."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-06/christie-e...