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Remote work’s toll on cities

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Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#101

Post by scythe »

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…

>where there are (approximately) two orthogonal sets of assumptions/preferences

>I don't mind seeing my neighbors but I don't want to hear them and I don't really want to interact with them.

Nobody wants to hear their neighbors. The biggest complaint you have about cities is shared by most of the people who like them. It's just that buildings are often not built to manage noise properly, for a variety of reasons (age / imperfect information / deregulation / …).

Of course, if it offers you no upside, don't live there. But I suspect that perspective is rare.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#102

Post by talideon »

Then cities need to become places where people live again. That'll be easier to do with fewer silly restrictions on what qualifies as valid as a residential area, but also can't be used as an excuse for developers to create tiny box apartments.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#103

Post by sokoloff »

mavelikara wrote: post #70
chemerson wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could. Lots of people do things like that. You could also live near public transportation that might change the definition of "near" for some workers. I personally have never gotten a new job in the same city as my last.

> I personally have never gotten a new job in the same city as my last. If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?

Not GP, but I'm 51, been working in tech since I was 21 and, though all my jobs have been within about 50 miles of each other, none has been in the same city as the previous either. The closest sequential pairing of jobs was 3.5 miles apart.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#104

Post by andybak »

ahoy wrote: post #41
andybak wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Extensively, yes. Having housing & non-housing in the same area is rare in much of the US.

But... What happens if you've had a beer and suddenly remember you need a pint of milk for the morning?

To pick an entirely not uncommon example from my own life...

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#105

Post by nemo44x »

yodsanklai wrote: post #31

Many people want to live in cities, including remote workers. They like being in a lively place. If anything, they leave big cities because rents are incredibly high.

Or because they no longer like being in a lively place. It gets old and the quality of life is very low for the prices you pay because space is limited and there's enough people that are willing to pay anything to be in a lively place.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#106

Post by bobthepanda »

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…

You need some kind of long distance transportation with enough capacity in cities still, because people just don’t stay in their little neighborhoods, they want to try the new restaurant in neighborhood A, catch up with a friend in neighborhood B, go to the sale in neighborhood C and before you know it all these little trips add up really fast. This wouldn’t happen if our neighborhoods were clones, but that would be terrible.

Tokyo is a carpet of self-sufficient, dense neighborhoods, and yet people still travel all over the place in large numbers.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#107

Post by talideon »

nemo44x wrote: post #86
Swizec wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I’ve been traveling Europe this month and visited several towns and cities both large and small. From tiny villages of a few hundred to 4,000,000+ people monsters. One thing that struck me as vastly…

If you travel or stay long enough you'll find there's plenty of bedroom communities in Europe - you just didn't go to them because why would a tourist go to them? The typical layout is town->multi-family housing surrounding the town that is walkable->larger housing (mix of multi/attached and detached ) that is not walkable. Older parts of the USA (pre-war) are very similar in that there's lots of mixed zoned areas wh…

Even those bedroom communities are a lot more livable than their US equivalents, because they have local amenities, meaning you're not forced to go to some big-box store or strip mall for stuff like you do in the US. They function as small towns, not just vast swathes of houses, which makes them more sustainable.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#108

Post by ricksunny »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #94
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).

That makes sense - cool hobbies! =)

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#109

Post by yieldcrv »

nemo44x wrote: post #96
yieldcrv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gener…

you might have a point, there is a lot of identical suburban sprawl throughout the east coast but is also that older setting

I would need some specific examples to look at for inspiration though, and see whats wrong with them

> 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.

You're right, I want the rich person's classic large Parisian apartment facing the main thoroughfare, with alleys of winding shops and cafe's in the back.

Re: Remote work’s toll on cities

#110

Post by sokoloff »

ricksunny wrote: post #79
wonderwonder wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prior to getting married and having kids, absolutely. After, not at all unfortunately

Thank you for that feedback, helpful to understand that segmentation :) I'm guessing that traveling with family / setting kids up in local schools or remote learning is a non-starter?

I cannot imagine moving weekly or monthly with kids in school. I think that's not going to be fair to the vast, vast majority of kids and their need to develop friendships over a multi-month to multi-year timeframe.
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