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Make More Land

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Re: Make More Land

#101

Post by pyrale »

asdfman123 wrote: post #61
choeger wrote: post #2

The more pressing question: Can we actually still do such projects in western democracies? How long would it take until the last judge has dismissed the plea to save the nearly extinct Californian Pink Stink Beetle that by circumstance breeds in that area? How much more expensive would the project become over its ever longer runtime? What will happen when the seemingly inevitable corruption scandals are brought to da…

That attitude drives me crazy. Each new high rise built in San Francisco prevents a few several blocks of nature being paved over for suburbs somewhere else. I had this debate with an environmentalist who supported urban farming. Sure, urban farming is cool and a nice hobby, but it would be far more environmentally friendly to build a high rise. New high rises drive down the costs of urban living, more people move to…

Dense cities are not envoronmentally friendly. You have to go get food further, you have to use building materials that are a major cause of pollution, etc. Any large city needs tremendous amounts of energy to work, and we have not found clean and efficient sources of energy so far.

Vertical farming could help big cities rely on less energy, but so far I don't see it being scaled to the extent we need.

Re: Make More Land

#102

Post by greggman2 »

beerandt wrote: post #86
rhacker wrote: post #63

> You do need to take fill into account to build in an earthquake-safe way, but modern engineering is well up to the task. That's pretty hand-wavy. I'm sure the guys in 1970 said the same argument. The word modern has been around for thousands of years.

Soil liquefaction is better understood, in the sense that we know better than to use certain soils for fill. A lot of these soils happen to be the ones dredged from water bottoms.

Even Japan doesn't handle earthquakes (according to an NHK special on quakes). They built all these earthquake proof buildings and then the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake came along with new behavior that none of the buildings in Japan are built for. They did come up with new ways to build to handle this new type of quake but of course that's only for buildings since 2016 (probably more like 2018 when they figured out what to do) so slowly new buildings will get build with the new mitigations and we'll cross our fingers the next quake isn't yet another different kind.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/documentary/20180617/4...

Re: Make More Land

#103

Post by eranima »

tengbretson wrote: post #82
hnruss wrote: post #32

”Making more land” requires destruction of relatively rare marine habitats. Sure, there’s a lot of ocean out there, but many species thrive where the land naturally meets the sea. Bays and estuaries are treasures, not just bits of water waiting to be paved.

There seems to be no such thing as a marine habitat that is not rare.

That's simply false. There are many different kinds of marine habitats, and as the above comment points out, this one is rare.

Re: Make More Land

#104

Post by xefer »

bwanab wrote: post #88
dr_dshiv wrote: post #81

America has an attitude problem. It thinks it is already developed. Like, there is nothing left to do. That is the single biggest difference between the America of today and the America of the last century. The Netherlands feels more like India, in that everything is under a state of continual improvement all the time. The Netherlands is fantastically futuristic, though, and super nice (much more developed than most…

I'm looking out my window at Boston's seaport. It has been under heavy development for over 10 years that continues. It's like a new city within a city. You may find that attitude in some places, but here in America's oldest city, it doesn't appear to exist.

On the subjects of Boston, its new-ish Seaport District and "Make more land": was it ever under discussion to simply fill in the Fort Point Channel completely? That could have potentially knitted the Seaport development into the city itself.

If I recall correctly, during the "Big Dig" work they had to jump through all sorts of hoops to run the new harbor tunnel road under the channel and deal with the water, and mud, etc. The entire South Bay has already been almost entirely filled in as can be seen on the map at the top of the linked article. Why not just finish it off entirely? Does it serve any actual purpose at this point?

I always feel like a bit of a wet blanket when it comes to the Seaport. Sure, it's nice to see the development happening, but it still feels very car-centric and cut off from the rest of the city. Just looking at a satellite image shows that there's a lot more roads and parking than actual buildings. It also feels very disconnected from the city center. Getting into town requires a fairly long walk across one of several windy, car-filled bridges.

Re: Make More Land

#105

Post by pyrale »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #68
asdfman123 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That attitude drives me crazy. Each new high rise built in San Francisco prevents a few several blocks of nature being paved over for suburbs somewhere else. I had this debate with an environmentalist who supported urban farming. Sure, urban farming is cool and a nice hobby, but it would be far more environmentally friendly to build a high rise. New high rises drive down the costs of urban living, more people move to…

> but it would be far more environmentally friendly to build a high rise. Absolutely Right! And, it would decrease pollution and global warming because people's commutes would be much much shorter, as they wouldn't be forced to commute from 80 miles away, like it currently is in the Bay Area.

Food and building material would still need to commute, and the amount of energy it represents probably can't be decreased enough to make dense cities a good thing for climate change.

Re: Make More Land

#106

Post by asdfman123 »

pyrale wrote: post #101
asdfman123 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That attitude drives me crazy. Each new high rise built in San Francisco prevents a few several blocks of nature being paved over for suburbs somewhere else. I had this debate with an environmentalist who supported urban farming. Sure, urban farming is cool and a nice hobby, but it would be far more environmentally friendly to build a high rise. New high rises drive down the costs of urban living, more people move to…

Dense cities are not envoronmentally friendly. You have to go get food further, you have to use building materials that are a major cause of pollution, etc. Any large city needs tremendous amounts of energy to work, and we have not found clean and efficient sources of energy so far. Vertical farming could help big cities rely on less energy, but so far I don't see it being scaled to the extent we need.

How much energy does it take to actually transport food into the cities from farmland? I remember reading that the amount of resources it takes is laughably small, especially when your lettuce is coming from the other side of the country anyway.

But if you don't build in the city, you have to build outside of the city. Does it really take more resources to build a large housing complex than it takes to build an entire suburban neighborhood?

Re: Make More Land

#107

Post by eranima »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #33
Kiro wrote: post #25

> Building dikes to keep the water out is very practical. Yeah, good luck with that when sea levels rise 20 meters.

Far easier to raise existing dikes 20m than to build new seawalls to protect all other coastline.

You're ignoring the fact that the water has to go somewhere. Where is it going to go? Are you willing to flood your neighbors? Are your neighbors going to let you?

Re: Make More Land

#108

Post by iguy »

pyrale wrote: post #101
asdfman123 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That attitude drives me crazy. Each new high rise built in San Francisco prevents a few several blocks of nature being paved over for suburbs somewhere else. I had this debate with an environmentalist who supported urban farming. Sure, urban farming is cool and a nice hobby, but it would be far more environmentally friendly to build a high rise. New high rises drive down the costs of urban living, more people move to…

Dense cities are not envoronmentally friendly. You have to go get food further, you have to use building materials that are a major cause of pollution, etc. Any large city needs tremendous amounts of energy to work, and we have not found clean and efficient sources of energy so far. Vertical farming could help big cities rely on less energy, but so far I don't see it being scaled to the extent we need.

Dense cities are energy-dense, for sure. But in energy used per person, they do very well. Apartments touching others on all sides are efficient to heat. Elevators are much more efficient transport than cars.

Re: Make More Land

#110

Post by AnimalMuppet »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #90
bwanab wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm looking out my window at Boston's seaport. It has been under heavy development for over 10 years that continues. It's like a new city within a city. You may find that attitude in some places, but here in America's oldest city, it doesn't appear to exist.

" . . . America's oldest city . . ." Santa Fe, Newport News, Hampton, Albany, and Jersey City would disagree.

And Saint Augustine.
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