It's good to note the changes that can happen but I don't care if downtown caves in because I'm not there and work remote in a nice quite small home an hour outside of it.
Remote work’s toll on cities
201–210 of 250 posts
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#202Cities take a huge toll on the environment. in Los Angeles the week we had basically total lockdown we had the best air quality ever here.
Wouldn't this be primarily due to lack of car travel, rather than the city generally? As I understand it, urban dwellings and populations are per-capita more environmentally efficient, because density enables economies of scale.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#203I was stuck in the Portland airport during the snowstorm. I had several illuminating conversations with people in the five hours I waited to reschedule my flight there at the airport. For context, my family recently relocated to a medium sized Florida town (~100k) from a Portland suburb. It was really interesting to hear the 20 and 30 somethings in line with me talk about Portland. They seemed to prefer it to Florida…
I live in a high-crime area. I hear gunshots every now and then. In two years there's been one shooting on my block. I treat others with respect and mind my own business. My neighbors reciprocate, and don't bother me. For various reasons it was convenient for me to go for regularly long walks late at night, and I never ran into any issues with that. There was one homeless guy who was grumpy I woke him up, so I learne…
I got really triggered by the crime reporting about Portland because I feel like it is motivated with a political bias.
So, I went and looked at the crime reports (which are from the police, and come with their own filters, of course) from Twitter.
Almost all the homicides are in areas where significant homeless populations exist. And, very late at night.
My takeaway is that it is currently very dangerous to live on the streets. You call them criminals, and I think that is the inevitable consequence of living on the streets, especially when more and more cities are outlawing homelessness, but that's probably more a perspective, and I still have a lot of fear of people living on the streets.
Is that the message we see in the media? No, we see that it is more dangerous for the "common person living in a blue city."
Random violence is not the root cause of the increase in the homicide rate.
This makes me frustrated because the police could easily target those areas from midnight to 6 am and solve 80%+ of the homicides. Or, they could, if you believe that police can stop that kind of violence. Maybe they can, maybe they cannot. They should not be in the business of solving homelessness.
The story that homicides in a liberal city were due to BLM protests is a much more bombastic and clicktastic story than that.
Sound to me that what I found aligns with your experiences in many ways.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
When big box retail came around, we weren’t forced to go there, we chose their selection, prices, and hours over the smaller stores that couldn’t successfully compete. They’re worse job creators but better at distributing stuff to the region.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
The other responses are reasonable but disingenuous. The truth is you drive anyway. We have a fantastic drunk driving culture in America. It's really disappointing.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#206Cities 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…
I'm a life-long New Yorker, born and raised. Even I gave up on the city and moved out, despite all the desire to live with low carbon-impact and live a moderate lifestyle w/o cars. At some point, the pain factor becomes too much. I'll give you some examples - Approximately 5-6yrs ago the transit quality in the outer-boroughs (not Manhattan) became so bad that you could spend 2hrs hours switching multiple trains if yo…
This is a very accurate description of trying to live in San Francisco with kids. My family moved to a town outside of SF and all of those issues vanished.
The few people I know who stayed behind are fighting are fighting fiercely to fix some of these issues. I madly respect and admire them for it, but holy cow does it take a toll.
At some level I’ve accepted that cities in the US are really optimized for people who don’t have kids. There are definitely things I miss about living in a city, but overall I think the trade offs are worth it to get out of dodge.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
I managed to find a suburban area with restaurants, groceries, and shops within walking distance in the US and it is an amazing, life-changing thing. I am never ever ever ever ever leaving. US zoning laws need to change.
Under the existing framework of zoning, you were able to find a place that well met your preferences and you never ever*4 plan to leave. From that place of extreme contentment, you conclude that zoning laws in other places need to change (emphasis yours). Interesting.
Yes, because this type of area is so rare. I’ve never lived in another place like it (in the US). But it was built in the 70s, before zoning in the region got fucked. It’s a walkable oasis in a desert of stroads and strip-malls.
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#208Remote work has the potential to make neighborhoods more dynamic. With more people at home, there's more demand for nearby coffee shops, entertainment, food options. I prefer the decentralized neighborhood approach to the hub and spoke model where you commute to a big city from the boring suburbs.
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.
Houston has incredibly relaxed zoning rules
https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/houston-doesnt-have-zoning...
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You could own a home but not be guaranteed a seat at your local public school. You had to use "connections" just to make it on the list, or your child would end up half way across the Borough at a different public school. I suspect this is an attempt to distribute students between schools so you don't end up with one school made up of students all from a rich neighborhood and another with students all from a poorer…
In my experience this was multi-fold (and nothing to do with helping the poor) - Housing would be built w/o appropriate ratios of schools being built in the same zone (poor city planning, and over reliance on connections vs rule of law) - You could use connections to get to a well-rated public school w/o living in the zone, but at the expense of a local student being pushed out of zone. Note, this usually favors the…
I'll never understand why kids have to be brought to school. I went by myself, on foot, bicycle, or bus/subway.
Nothing bad happened. Why does it seem to be mandatory in large parts of the US?
Re: Remote work’s toll on cities
#210Cities 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…
> 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…
Hrm. Try downtown Hamburg sometime. By that I mean the parts within the former city walls. Feels rather dead to me in the late evenings and nights. And not many people live there. Almost all commercial and office space.