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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

#251

Post by hadlock »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #235
J_Shelby_J wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a modern mid-rise in Dallas. Same experience. Most noise comes from people in the hallways because a solid wood door does not insulate sound. Traffic noise could be improved with triple pane windows, but really it's just un-restricted mufflers that penetrate, and that should be handled by the city.

Anecdotally, I've heard the opposite about a lot of the new 5-over-1's going up in the bay area. Several people I know that have moved into recently-built units have complained that they can hear far more neighbor noise than they used to in their old units. This also seems to track with my experience -- I live in an older unit and can only hear my adjacent neighbors when they slam their front door, or when they're ha…

A lot of units use 1/2 inch or in many cases less. Upgrading to 5/8" makes a big difference, and installing another 1/2" on top of that gives impressive noise dampening via additional mass. As does fiberglass insulation, and filling gaps around the edges. If you don't have to meet firewall code for certain walls, you can go a lot thinner and noise reduction goes down dramatically. We had an apartment that was converted from condos and noise dampening was significant. Noise was a major consideration (closely after neighborhood) when doing selection.

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

#252

Post by mikebenfield »

bluGill wrote: post #126
j_heffe wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single family homes are fine. The problem in the U.S. is that it's illegal to build anything _but_ single family homes in the majority of suburbs. Wouldn't it be better if people had access to a walkable grocery store, coffee shop or park? Or if kids could safely walk or bike to school? Many communities have absolutely zero options and are completely reliant on cars in order to go about daily life.

Most suburbs also have higher density zones where you can have apartments. The single family homes get the majority of the land space, but there are also apartments and townhouses which are more dense.

There are sometimes apartments spotted around in a suburby area, but due to the nature of US suburbs they don't really get many of the advantages density should bring - everything you might want to go to is still at least a moderate car ride away, there's no people out and about because there's no reason for them to be there, etc. Any time you leave your apartment you go straight to the parking lot and get in your car. It's pathetic really.

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

#253

Post by balfirevic »

davidw wrote: post #145
bluGill wrote: post #136

I don't have a large enough sample to make a statement, but my impression is apartments in Spain are larger than in the US. Even if you want to live in an apartment, if you want more space you are forced to buy a house. You can't get a 4 bedroom apartment (3 kids? separate office? hobby room?...) You can't get an apartment with two "living rooms" (music room, tv room, rec room...). You don't need any of that, but if…

Not sure about Spain, but in Italy, you definitely find a lot of 'family size' flats. We had a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom flat in a 6-plex, and that is a pretty common sort of living arrangement.

What's the area of those flats? Where I live there are plenty of 3 bedroom flats, but they are usually under 100 m^2 (often smaller) and almost always under 150 m^2.

3 bedrooms in 100 m^2 is pretty cramped.

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

#254

Post by Karrot_Kream »

J_Shelby_J wrote: post #98
matsemann wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a modern apartment in Norway (2019). I guess some of our heat insulation demands make it so that we get extra thick walls and floors, but I've never heard any noise from neighbors. No tv sounds, no stamping feet etc. Maybe twice a year someone drills a hole to mount something on the walls and I hear that for a few minutes. Even have a train passing by outside I can't hear with the windows closed. Point bein…

I live in a modern mid-rise in Dallas. Same experience. Most noise comes from people in the hallways because a solid wood door does not insulate sound. Traffic noise could be improved with triple pane windows, but really it's just un-restricted mufflers that penetrate, and that should be handled by the city.

The problem is that while the shape of single-family home suburbs are meticulously controlled (e.g. minimum width between each house, minimum width from the street to your home), the world of apartments are conversely very lightly regulated. California building codes added an optional appendix for noiseproofing standards for multi-family units that cities can opt-into and yet the cities with some of the strictest/most expansive SFH zoning in the Bay Area refuse to opt into this standard. I live in a multi-family unit where the HOA meticulously controls R-value of the units and puts up a huge process/review phase when changing any flooring material, but the end result is that unless kids are screaming at the top of their lungs we hear nothing. We've held karaoke parties past midnight and our neighbors have heard nothing (we've asked.)

In other words, the problem is politics. Cities need to want to make multi-family development appealing to encourage their residents to live there. There's a bit of deliberate neglect going on for multi-family housing specifically to encourage single-family living.

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

#255

Post by strken »

btbuildem wrote: post #238
ShrigmaMale wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're acting as though an immigrant from any of the dense population centers has the same impact as a native-born child on the culture and economy. that is false. sometimes it's for the better (in America, we have many well-educated immigrants from India and China). sometimes it's for the worse (see Europe's struggles with uneducated muslim immigrants from north Africa and the Middle East). importing large groups of…

You omit the masses of working poor immigrants that do a lot of the manual labour North Americans do not want to do -- predominantly in agriculture, construction, small manufacturing, and healthcare. They're the de-facto essential workers. Europe's struggles seem to be caused more by a culture clash. Immigrants will always bring their way of life with them, and group together - it's a constant of human nature, this i…

The idea that immigrants are a good idea because they do labour your existing population won't do is quite socially destructive and the cause of technological stagnation. It separates people into a de facto caste system where unpleasant jobs are also underpaid, prevents automation from becoming cost effective, and can block a country from reaping the benefits of skilled migration.

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

#256

Post by strken »

Joeri wrote: post #155
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 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 th…

I suspect a return to the family home values of the 90s and before, somewhere around 3x the average income, would be more effective than family values in the abstract.

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

#257

Post by gosub100 »

xyzelement wrote: post #61
browningstreet wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in northern Nevada in an exurb. I go for a walk everyday that requires me to go on a road for half a mile before I get to the dirt path. On that half mile road the traffic is so constant and so loud (from my small gated community) I can’t hear whatever I’m listening to on my headphones. The clamor is so aggravating I’m usually a bit angry by the time I hit the dirt path. My exurb neighbors (multiple) have loud…

I am just curious- why did you opt for a place that is so out of sync w what matters to you ?

If he's from reno he probably works at tesla. NV has no state income tax which lures a lot of people. The AC-at-night gripe seems off to me, you only need AC in northern nevada about 3 months of the year (they could be heat pumps for the 50F overnight lows). Reno changed a lot in the last 8 years, mostly for the worse. A lot of people who bring their big-city aggression and driving style to a medium-size town that has no infrastructure to support it. A lot of people ended up there against their will due to all the crazy covid-era migrations.

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

#258

Post by 3seashells »

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…

Worked for Beirut, herzigovinah etc.

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

#259

Post by LudwigNagasena »

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…

This concern over fertility vs immigration seems REALLY misplaced to me. The goal is not to maximise the tax revenue of an abstract entity called “country”. It’s about people, their values, their desires and their abilities to achieve them.

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

#260

Post by analognoise »

caskstrength wrote: post #190
analognoise wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“We made it terrible for our own people to make families, but don’t worry! We can keep the party going by importing loads of people due to economic forces!” Sounds so incredibly shitty. If an economic system works so poorly for people they have to be imported (I.e. locals who want to form families can’t) it should be dismantled. I care about “global capital” far less than I care about my compatriots ability to form s…

> If an economic system works so poorly for people they have to be imported (I.e. locals who want to form families can’t) it should be dismantled. Most of developed countries have bad fertility rate, some developing and/or poor countries have good fertility rate. People in rich countries don't have children not because they can't afford to, but because they don't want to.

You’re right, it’s not that a standard wage can’t even get you an apartment, medical care is astronomical, and the capitalists are ruining everything.

It’s that people stopped wanting kids. How silly of me. We undid all the evolutionary programming of our species to play XBox and rent.

…or it’s that the system is broken and we should cease importing people because the only people that “win” in that situation are those connected to global capital.

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