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Spain lives in flats: why we have built our cities vertically

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Re: Spain lives in flats: why we have built our cities vertically

#151

Post by pja »

pantulis wrote: post #75
pja wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Spanish just don’t seem to care about noise at the institutional level. I spent a week in a small Spanish city last year & the local rubbish collection went down the street outside the door, pouring bins full of bottles from the local bars in the back at midnight. Midnight! Just when even the Spanish are trying to get to sleep. Co-incidentally, there was an article in the Spanish national press that week detailin…

> Midnight! Just when even the Spanish are trying to get to sleep. I had to chuckle when reading this, although I would point out that not all neighbourhoods are the same. Still, every spaniard knows that trying to call the local police because there is some idiot throwing a party at 1AM is pointless.

This was midweek in the autumn after the bars had all shut & everyone had gone home. It might even have been a bit later! Either way, my point is that it was the worst possible time to be upending bins full of glassware in a residential area. That noise was far louder than the people in the bars had been an hour earlier.

Re: Spain lives in flats: why we have built our cities vertically

#152

Post by rangestransform »

t-3 wrote: post #30
bluescrn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about being 'comfortable with density', it's about having a society where neighbours respect each other, behave decently, and keep noise/mess under control, don't keep setting the fire alarm off, etc. The noise problem isn't limited to loud music and parties, just the noise of kids playing loudly and running around in communal areas can become infuriating to neighbours. Even if you've got good neighbours, th…

Ah, yes, Americans are uncivilized barbarians who fight and are raucous at all times. Great to see that European colonialist spirit alive!

compared to japanese, yes, definitely, 100%

how much piss and shit and trash and grafitti do they have in their public transit system

Re: Spain lives in flats: why we have built our cities vertically

#153

Post by cies »

Unearned5161 wrote: post #135
Lord-Jobo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is slightly aside, but the concerns over fertility rates in the first world really seem REALLY misplaced to me. Population growth concerns are easily mitigated with immigration which will stay in demand until the rest of the worlds fertility rates catch up(40+ years), and the population growth concerns themselves are a reflection of an outdated (or soon to be outdated) economic model that we should probably focu…

I'm curious to hear what sort of economic models you have in mind that works with a non-growing or declining population

We can look at "prosperous" (let's find some happiness index) countries that have seen declining population for a while. Japan comes to mind.

It's not like Japan deteriorated into some extreme poverty because of it, right?

So maybe it's not that bad, "to be in decline" (in population number, or related GDP), as we are meant to believe?

Re: Spain lives in flats: why we have built our cities vertically

#154

Post by SkeuomorphicBee »

whalesalad wrote: post #3

Different strokes for different folks. I’m a very happy single family home dweller. Living in a dense city feels claustrophobic.

Different strokes indeed. As a very happy apartment/flat/condo dweller, the suburban home life feels to me like being trapped in a tiny deserted island (the cartoon ones, with a single coconut tree), just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness, with nowhere to go within reach. When in the suburbs I end up just staying in the couch all the time, because I can't be bothered to face the big journey necessary to go places, feels very isolating.

Re: Spain lives in flats: why we have built our cities vertically

#155

Post by Joeri »

Lord-Jobo wrote: post #129
treis wrote: post #97

Spain also has the lowest fertility rate in Europe at 1.28. Not sure how much apartment living is cause or effect on that but it's a grim number. Every generation is only 60% the size of the one that came before it.

This is slightly aside, but the concerns over fertility rates in the first world really seem REALLY misplaced to me. Population growth concerns are easily mitigated with immigration which will stay in demand until the rest of the worlds fertility rates catch up(40+ years), and the population growth concerns themselves are a reflection of an outdated (or soon to be outdated) economic model that we should probably focu…

I agree that immigration is a quick fix for a low fertility rate. But the people worrying about fertility rates fear cultural displacement by immigrants. They want less immigration, not more, and instead see a return to family values as the answer to the fertility rate problem.

Anyway, the problem is not the current decline in population, it is a fertility rate that remains far below a replacement rate. That means there is no bottom to the population decline. The immigration solution would need to be applied again and again.

Re: Spain lives in flats: why we have built our cities vertically

#156

Post by avgcorrection »

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #142
avgcorrection wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be “grim” due to demographic skew in terms of age over the long term.

you don't like old folks?

Contemporary societal culture is biased against old folks—little respect, not valued for their wisdom and experience—but the problem with more older people is higher costs for retirement, healthcare, and a smaller pool of tax payers.

Re: Spain lives in flats: why we have built our cities vertically

#158

Post by rewmie »

treis wrote: post #97

Spain also has the lowest fertility rate in Europe at 1.28. Not sure how much apartment living is cause or effect on that but it's a grim number. Every generation is only 60% the size of the one that came before it.

> Spain also has the lowest fertility rate in Europe at 1.28. Not sure how much apartment living is cause or effect on that but it's a grim number.

Spain's economy is very screwed up. Unemployment rate tends to hover above 20% and I think it has the highest rate of students dropping out of basic education.

To top things off, cost of living in urban centers is way way above the median income, specially nowadays. Young families have to make do with either sharing apartments/renting rooms or living way outside city centers in small apartments. In some cases the only affordable option is renting rooms way outside the urban centers.

So the average Spanish couple has to make very hard decisions on if/when to start a family. Quite often the decision tends towards "not right now, we can't afford it."

Marketing brochures tend to emphasize Spain's "terraza" lifestyle, as in people hanging out in cafes/bars/restaurants in the afternoon, evening, and even night, and brag about the fantastic social life that sprouts from there, but the ugly truth is that one important factor of that pattern is the fact that housing is very expensive and very low-quality to the point that staying indoors in one of those flats can have a huge detrimental impact on your mental health, and the only way to avoid that is to minimize the amount of time you spend indoors.

Re: Spain lives in flats: why we have built our cities vertically

#160

Post by alphanullmeric »

estebank wrote: post #146
alphanullmeric wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice way of saying your proposed transportation system doesn’t work without forcing people to live in cities.

It doesn't seem like cities need to coerce anyone to live in them. But when visiting cities it is better for the city, it's inhabitants and their visitors if they don't bring their negative externalities along from elsewhere.

They do need to coerce people for funding, which might as well be the same thing. That’s like saying “people aren’t forced to attend public schools” - well yeah, but by forcing them to pay for it anyways you leave many with little other option. Meanwhile a quarter of American roads are private. Private transportation would exist with or without force. And in anything other than a big city, private transportation continues to be superior than even the most well funded public transport.
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