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Zero energy ready homes are coming

energy.gov

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Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#251

Post by lotsofpulp »

jjav wrote: post #250
lotsofpulp wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to cross a 40ft+ road with vehicles traveling at 50mph (i.e. 40mph speed limit), I consider that not walkable. And 5 lane 40mph arterial roads (two each way and 1 turn lane), seems to be a standard feature of all suburbs all around the country, on which most grocery stores and shopping are located.

> If you have to cross a 40ft+ road with vehicles traveling at 50mph (i.e. 40mph speed limit), I consider that not walkable. Ok, but that's a quite radical limitation to the definition of walkable. What is the reason to put up self-imposed limitations like that? I mean, by that definition even most of Manhattan wouldn't be called walkable even thought it's the most walkable city in the US! In my very suburban neighbo…

> What is the reason to put up self-imposed limitations like that?

Because I have seen how risky it is to cross due to speeding drivers in large vehicles looking at their phones. It is a large distance to cross, and if someone is mobility impaired like an old person or handicapped or child, it can be quite harrowing.

Also, NYC is completely different because the speed cars travel at is actually 25mph. A world of difference in being able to stop or avoid a collision at 50mph.

And this is a best case scenario in many suburbs. I come across 7 to 9 lane wide arterial roads all the time. 3 lanes in each direction, 1 to 2 turn lanes and shoulder. Even as a healthy young guy, I feel intimidated walking across 80ft+ of vehicles that can be traveling at high speeds.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#252

Post by outside1234 »

bkettle wrote: post #200
johnweldon wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, people will always choose to spend money living as close to their ideal as they can, with the resources they are able to give toward it. The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. I.e. the same spending power required to live in a house in the suburbs, or rurally, could usually be used to live in…

"Happy City" by Charles Montgomery brings an interesting angle on the typical urban planning story by focusing largely on how we can plan cities and communities to maximize happiness. In the book, he discusses that people have this "ideal" of moving to the suburbs, owning their own house, etc, but then the long commutes, isolation of living in a car-dependent neighborhood, dangers of living among high-speed cars, etc…

Agreed - this is a really great book

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#253

Post by fastball »

Wildly tangential, but can I sign a petition somewhere for energy capacity to stop being measured in Wh? It's such a dumb unit of measurement. We already have a base unit of energy, which is Joules. Dividing J by seconds to get W and then multiplying that by hours to get franken-joules is so unnecessary and makes the math harder for no reason and it makes me mad every time I deal with it.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#254

Post by 0x53 »

asciimike wrote: post #244
snow_mac wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the hell would I live in an American city? I live in Colorado. Denver is our 'city', there is no parking, no room for my 2 dogs and my kid would not have a giant backyard to play in. Instead, I have a 3400 sq ft house on 10,000 sq ft of land with giant trees everywhere. I'm within 2 miles of lightrail, that I will never use. I work from home, I have a home office with a indoor, led powered garden with fresh fruit…

> Denver banned the scooters and other options from lyft and bird, so I have to lug my giant body from location to location? No thanks, I'll take my 4000 pound car to the restaurant instead. Is there a source for this? I live in Denver and am currently staring at a dozen Lyft scooters and a few bikes parked on the corner next to my apartment. Lime also operates scooters and bikes, which I usually see parked across th…

I was in Denver yesterday and rode two scooters and a Lyft e-bike…

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#255

Post by bluGill »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #236
rr888 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> economically uncompetitive How can you say that? Usually nice suburbs pay huge amount in taxes that subsidize urban cores.

Citation needed. Everything I have seen shows that suburbs are a net drain in contrast to dense urban areas. Infrastructure has very high fixed costs that require more people to net even.

Citation needed on what you have read as well. I too have read the same, but it conflicts with the reality that suburbs have existed for more than 100 years now, and those old ones have added and replaced infrastructure many times over their history.

That nothing i've read acknowledges that fact suggests they are cherry picking evidence instead of giving an unbiased analysis .

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#256

Post by bluGill »

roywiggins wrote: post #143
johnweldon wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, people will always choose to spend money living as close to their ideal as they can, with the resources they are able to give toward it. The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. I.e. the same spending power required to live in a house in the suburbs, or rurally, could usually be used to live in…

Ponzi's are very attractive too, for a while. People get a lot out of Ponzis. "the revenue collected over time does not come near to covering the costs of meeting these long-term obligations. Development spread out over a broad area is very expensive to maintain. Over a life cycle, a city frequently receives just a dime or two of revenue for each dollar of liability... Decades into this experiment, American cities ha…

You need to quit reading strongtowns and start thinking.

Every city has deferred maintenance and unmeetable promises, most of it is maintenance that it is more cost effective to defer. We don't need perfectly smooth streets, so defer minor maintenance makes sense. Most unmeetable promisees are things they never intended to meet.

Suburbs have existed for over 100 years. If there was a problem we would see it all over, not just in a few random ones.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#257

Post by hdhddhshhshd »

tshaddox wrote: post #246
johnweldon wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, people will always choose to spend money living as close to their ideal as they can, with the resources they are able to give toward it. The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. I.e. the same spending power required to live in a house in the suburbs, or rurally, could usually be used to live in…

> The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. The fact that people dump their sewage into the creek instead of paying for proper sewage treatment/disposal suggests that there's something desirable to _them_ to do the easier and cheaper thing. Of course! The problem is externalities.

[dead]

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#258

Post by snerbles »

rootusrootus wrote: post #191
wyre wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you sure your suburb is not getting subsidies from the inner core?

Because the county and city government budgets are public. We get no direct money from the nearest urban core and the only method of transfer would be through the state. We get very little of our yearly revenue through the state general fund, and we pay enough income(and other) tax to completely offset it. We're self-sustaining primarily through property taxes and have been that way for more than a century.

You're not wrong, but your comments fall on deaf ears.

From the tone of other commenters here, I sense a malicious undercurrent intent on extinguishing rural ways of life - any excuse will suffice.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#259

Post by closeparen »

johnweldon wrote: post #140
xyst wrote: post #64

I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is…

Generally speaking, people will always choose to spend money living as close to their ideal as they can, with the resources they are able to give toward it. The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. I.e. the same spending power required to live in a house in the suburbs, or rurally, could usually be used to live in…

> the same spending power required to live in a house in the suburbs, or rurally, could usually be used to live in higher density living, closer to urban centers

Have you seen what condos cost? This is not true. Homeownership in walkable neighborhoods is basically reserved for plutocrats.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#260

Post by hdhddhshhshd »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #236
rr888 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> economically uncompetitive How can you say that? Usually nice suburbs pay huge amount in taxes that subsidize urban cores.

Citation needed. Everything I have seen shows that suburbs are a net drain in contrast to dense urban areas. Infrastructure has very high fixed costs that require more people to net even.

[dead]
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