Verdichtung • Hacker News Board

Re: Verdichtung

#21

Post by kgeist » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 2:39 PM UTC

Zak wrote: post #11

> Zersiedlung is the Swiss-German term for urban sprawl That is perhaps a more interesting word than Verdichtung. Zer is a prefix that gives a destructive meaning to the base word. Teil is piece. Teilen is to share. Zerteilen is to break into pieces. Druck is pressure. Drücken is to push. Zerdrücken is to crush. Siedlung means settlement.

Interesting, zer- seems to be similar to Slavic raz- somewhat.

In Russian: davit - press, razdavit - to crush.

Siedlung corresponds to Russian selenie "settlement". Zersiedlung appears to correspond to "rasselenie" (morphologically) and it means more like settlement as a dispersion, movement from a single point in different outward directions.

So I suspect zer- doesn't mean destruction per se, it's just that destruction often involves this movement of parts in outward directions from an original center, which explains the frequent association of zer- with destruction.

Re: Verdichtung

#22

Post by Zak » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

kgeist wrote: post #21

Zak wrote: post #11

> Zersiedlung is the Swiss-German term for urban sprawl That is perhaps a more interesting word than Verdichtung. Zer is a prefix that gives a destructive meaning to the base word. Teil is piece. Teilen is to share. Zerteilen is to break into pieces. Druck is pressure. Drücken is to push. Zerdrücken is to crush. Siedlung means settlement.

Interesting, zer- seems to be similar to Slavic raz- somewhat. In Russian: davit - press, razdavit - to crush. Siedlung corresponds to Russian selenie "settlement". Zersiedlung appears to correspond to "rasselenie" (morphologically) and it means more like settlement as a dispersion, movement from a single point in different outward directions. So I suspect zer- doesn't mean destruction per se, it's just that destruct…

My impression is that German prefixes don't have such well-defined meanings that a new word created with one automatically has an unambiguous definition relative to the base word. There seem to be parallels with raz- but I'm not sure if they have a common root.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/o...

Re: Verdichtung

#23

Post by xtiansimon » Mon, Dec 29, 2025, 2:02 PM UTC

kenty wrote: post #18

xtiansimon wrote: post #2

I suppose here’s the type of story where it’s all sounds good and you say show me the data. And then, if you’re inclined, run a notebook and look for comparable metrics from other cities. https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/about/open-data.page This was particularly interesting: “Neither cooperatives nor the city typically sell flats. Mostly because …they really love recurring revenue and absolutely would hate to deal with…

Will remember it for the next article to run some more empirical number crunching, thank you! This was more of a rationalist view on things and focussing on Zurich only.

> "...to run some more empirical number crunching..."

Don't get me wrong, more number crunching when an article is above survey is always appreciated.

My idea was simply when non-profits come into the game, I feel there's an opportunity to find data. And finding it, why not share it?

Re: Verdichtung

#24

Post by xtiansimon » Mon, Dec 29, 2025, 2:15 PM UTC

tonfa wrote: post #9

xtiansimon wrote: post #2

I suppose here’s the type of story where it’s all sounds good and you say show me the data. And then, if you’re inclined, run a notebook and look for comparable metrics from other cities. https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/about/open-data.page This was particularly interesting: “Neither cooperatives nor the city typically sell flats. Mostly because …they really love recurring revenue and absolutely would hate to deal with…

> “Neither cooperatives nor the city typically sell flats. Mostly because …they really love recurring revenue and absolutely would hate to deal with short-term income as they are generally non-profit institutions .” (My emphasis) FWIW that was a bit misleading, the goal of the city or the non profits (Genossenschaften) is to provide housing, not selling flat. (There's a goal that 1/3 of all housing in the city has to…

> "...the goal of the city or the non profits (Genossenschaften) is to provide housing, not selling flat."

I can only speak for NYC and the efforts here. We have a dog's breakfast of different efforts--housing lotteries, Section 8, and programs for down-payment assistance to buy a home for first time home buyers. I made use of the last program, having had no success in the first for the past 13 years (I've received probably 3-4 letters from different lottery programs saying I was moving up in the program, but they always fizzled out).

> "There's a goal that 1/3 of all housing in the city has to be non-profit by 2050, this was voted back in 2011"

This sounds like a remarkable program. I wonder about these non-profits. Who runs them, how are they governed, what is their measure of success (since it's not monetary), and how do they measure it.

https://housingconnect.nyc.gov/PublicWeb/search-lotteries

https://www.nyc.gov/site/nycha/section-8/about-section-8.pag...

https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/services-and-information/homefi...