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Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

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Re: Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

#171

Post by xapata »

ido wrote: post #76
xapata wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find worst about modern city life is not having a relationship with my neighbors. I'd much prefer a neighborhood where everything I want is within a 5-minute walk.

Being in a modern city doesn't prevent you from having relationships with your neighbours. We live in a dense mixed-used neighbourhood in Berlin, in a 4 stories apartment building and have good contact with most of our neighbours.

The key is mixed-use. If you're in a large block of apartment buildings, people go elsewhere for everyday things, only coming back to the neighborhood when they want to be alone.

Re: Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

#172

Post by [deleted] »

kbart wrote: post #80
xapata wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find worst about modern city life is not having a relationship with my neighbors. I'd much prefer a neighborhood where everything I want is within a 5-minute walk.

"What I find worst about modern city life is not having a relationship with my neighbors" To each its own I guess. I used to live in a small town where everybody knew everybody and absolutely hated it. Now I live in a city where I don't know even my closest neighbors, there's no pressure to interact with them and I love it this way. Though it's a personal choice, I see some neighbors socializing in a yard all the tim…

[deleted]

Re: Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

#173

Post by closeparen »

epistasis wrote: post #134
closeparen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And NOBODY is plopping down density in the middle of single family homes, or even proposing that. There is a fair amount of rumbling about upzoning single-family lots to permit mid-rise apartment buildings, i.e. SB827.

Those are along transit corridors, so it would be along busy routes, not in the middle of single family homes. Along rail and the very busiest bus routes is exactly where we need and want apartments that have 3-4 stories. It would make no sense to put them in the middle of single family housing because those are deserts unless you have a car, and most people that would appreciate density would love to be able to do m…

Take a look at the map. Most of what’s covered is exclusively or predominantly single family housing today. In SF the houses are much closer to each other than in postwar suburbia, but all along our transit corridors, it’s mostly houses. The only neighborhoods this avoid are those which don’t even have bus service.

Upzoning is needed and transit is the right place to start, but we have to acknowledge that this would certainly have a massive effect on many single family neighborhoods.

Re: Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

#174

Post by closeparen »

jonursenbach wrote: post #126
andys627 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building roads/auto-dependence will exacerbate said nightmare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand It's time for a serious change to building around transit, walking, and biking.

The peninsula isn't really walkable.

For it to become walkable, we would have to build buildings close together.

Re: Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

#175

Post by closeparen »

jartelt wrote: post #160
briandear wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply and demand. If you increase supply, prices overall will go down. “Affordable” or other non-market schemes simply raise the prices for everyone else — including the non rich that don’t win the “affordable” lottery. More market housing everywhere solves the affordability crisis.

Yes, more housing of any type will help! But, it seems like developers are only building high end housing, which means only units priced at the very top of the market are added. It would be great if developers built normal apartments that do not include every single possible amenity. Not every renter wants to pay a premium for granite countertops, a fancy gym, a pool, bathrooms for every bedroom, etc. I just want a w…

Look at the price differential between apartments in similar geography that do and don’t have these things. I have not found “luxury” to command a significant premium, particularly since “luxury” buildings are sometimes the only ones offering small units where the older stock is all large. The crappiest old buildings are still exorbitant. The amenities and countertops are practically free next to the cost of the fixed costs of a “well built” building of any kind.

Re: Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

#176

Post by mjevans »

ac29 wrote: post #144
nkoren wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I grew up in Los Gatos, but now live in London. Virtually anywhere in the city there are decent shops within a 5-10 minute walk; this fact alone makes London vastly more liveable than 95% of Silicon Valley. This is only viable with mixed-use zoning and a certain minimum density. This in turn makes public transport more viable, further increasing the quality of life. Done right -- and it really isn't that hard t…

Major European cities have had centuries to develop, and were built in large part before automobiles existed, which necessitated density and walkability. Silicon Valley, by contrast, was largely agricultural or undeveloped even 50-60 years ago, and development of suburban housing represented a significant increase in density (and automobile transportation was cheap and fast then, so relatively low density housing mad…

That is exactly why urban planning needs to be from the top down, at least for high level activities. Arranging for an entire area to be re-developed at once is a top down planning activity.

Conversely, the precise details of what goes in to an area should be 'bottom up', but within zoning policies similar to how Japan does it.

http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540845

Re: Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

#177

Post by asteli »

narrator wrote: post #157
ghaff wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mountain View proper has a pretty nice downtown area but it sounds as if you were trying to traverse 101 from the Caltrain station to Shoreline Drive or something like that. Yeah, that's not going to work very well. 101 is an extremely busy multi-lane highway. But, yeah, in general Silicon Valley is pretty much a sprawl. There are some nice small downtowns scattered around but you mostly need a car to get from place…

A lot of those barriers are there for a reason. In the 90s East Palo Alto had the highest per capita murder rate in the country. Meanwhile, just across the 101, Palo Alto was the land of million dollar homes. Like the cold war, the suburbanites chose the containment strategy.

The more I dig into this, the less I realize I know.

I asked, "did the slums exist before the highways and freeways that divide them from the wealthy whites?" The best I've come up with is "Sort of."

Apparently, in the 50's and 60s, city officials throughout the US thought of urban freeways as "a good opportunity to get rid of the local 'niggertown.'"[1] But that attempt at clearing the local slums ended up further disrupting and distressing them, deepening the problem.

[1] Google Books: Downtown, Inc: How America Rebuilds Cities https://goo.gl/mdgYXE

Re: Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

#178

Post by mywittyname »

ryandrake wrote: post #23
epistasis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz have anti-housing factions similar to everywhere else in the Bay Area, and the pro-housing faction is in earlier stages of organization than in the Bay Area. Scotts Valley City Council actually had a member say in open meeting that they don't want "those type of people" living there, in reference to renters and presumably others without the means to buy a home. Santa Cruz is…

I would stand up and oppose dense urban housing plopped down in the middle my suburban single-family home neighborhood, too. I guess that makes me an evil, dirty NIMBY, but oh well, I'll live with the label. When your message is "dense urban is the only acceptable way to live" don't be surprised when people who don't want their neighborhoods to turn into apartment complexes push back.

Honestly, you live in the wrong place if you want to be in a cheap suburban, single-family home. There's just too much demand for housing, and something is going to give. The markets will drive housing density up, whether though building of multi-family units, or just having multiple families living in SF homes.

There are tons of American cities where the suburban dream can be maintained, but the Bay area is not one of them.

Re: Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

#179

Post by hypersoar »

ac29 wrote: post #144
nkoren wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I grew up in Los Gatos, but now live in London. Virtually anywhere in the city there are decent shops within a 5-10 minute walk; this fact alone makes London vastly more liveable than 95% of Silicon Valley. This is only viable with mixed-use zoning and a certain minimum density. This in turn makes public transport more viable, further increasing the quality of life. Done right -- and it really isn't that hard t…

Major European cities have had centuries to develop, and were built in large part before automobiles existed, which necessitated density and walkability. Silicon Valley, by contrast, was largely agricultural or undeveloped even 50-60 years ago, and development of suburban housing represented a significant increase in density (and automobile transportation was cheap and fast then, so relatively low density housing mad…

This has been causing me more and more despair the more I think about it. I feel like the US had one chance to decide how most of it's cities were, fundamentally, going to be, and that chance ended about 50 years ago. The choice made was "design everything around cars". This now looks like a disaster on a near cosmic scale. Even worse, it's almost impossible to reverse.

Re: Mountain View approves 10,000 homes by Google's North Bayshore project (2017)

#180

Post by bluGill »

mjevans wrote: post #176
ac29 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Major European cities have had centuries to develop, and were built in large part before automobiles existed, which necessitated density and walkability. Silicon Valley, by contrast, was largely agricultural or undeveloped even 50-60 years ago, and development of suburban housing represented a significant increase in density (and automobile transportation was cheap and fast then, so relatively low density housing mad…

That is exactly why urban planning needs to be from the top down, at least for high level activities. Arranging for an entire area to be re-developed at once is a top down planning activity. Conversely, the precise details of what goes in to an area should be 'bottom up', but within zoning policies similar to how Japan does it. http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html https://news.ycombinator.com/…

Top down is how were got where we are. Even now most zoning single use.
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