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Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

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Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#281

Post by pharmakom »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #263
pharmakom wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot more factors to the equation than farming space. And what do you think was there before the farms?

> There are a lot more factors to the equation than farming space Yes, but agricultural footprint is the dominating factor. > And what do you think was there before the farms? Nature, to my point. Recall that you're the one arguing that suburbs rather than agriculture is threatening nature: > The enemy of wilderness is not urbanists, it’s suburban sprawl.

> Yes, but agricultural footprint is the dominating factor.

Perhaps, but you also need to consider:

- transport to work / school / hospitals / entertainment

- food distribution

- sewage

- electricity

- emergency services coverage

- etc…

I don’t have any hard stats for you but my background reading has suggested these are significant.

> Nature, to my point. Recall that you're the one arguing that suburbs rather than agriculture is threatening nature

Yes, because we could be rewilding, creating new national parks etc. but instead are building suburbs. We can also replace existing suburbs on longer time-scales.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#282

Post by brailsafe »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #227
throwaway894345 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for the imprecision. My city is “park laden”. I live next to a 1200 acre park. City parks aren’t nature; however, and having seen the real deal there’s only so much one can do to convince one’s subconscious otherwise. But yes, I find daily life in an urban environment (however park laden!) to be depleting. Cities are still tons of fun to visit and explore, I’m glad they exist, etc. This might be different if I…

I should also note that I'm glad that there is a movement to make cities more walkable, but I duck out when that sentiment pours over into a sort of religious zeal against more nature-ful ways of life.

So on a more frequent basis, what would you hope to be doing in nature, assuming you also work?

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#283

Post by joshgev »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #224
joshgev wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attitudes vary from person to person, but I don't really think being 20 minutes from nature really counts. I lived in Paris until recently and had a really rough time for a few reasons, but the biggest one is was the lack of green places to walk. Whenever I brought it up to anyone, people would say "oh, what about Bois de Boulogne or Bois de Vincennes?" Both were inaccessible by foot from where I lived due to distanc…

I love Paris and would love to hear about some good Paris-adjacent nature opportunities if you're up for sharing.

My favorite place to bike is Parc naturel régional de la Haute Vallée de Chevreuse (French people aren't into the whole brevity thing). I can't speak to hiking but I have to assume there are nice walks to be had in the area because I frequently see people with hiking gear on. You can get there from Paris on the RER B: just take it all the way south to Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse. Île-de-France is, by and large, quite flat, but Chevreuse is a nice valley so you can get some really pretty scenery.

EDIT: I'll add that last fall I was biking around there with my wife and we found some most righteous porcini mushrooms growing on the side of the road. It really is nice out there.

I should also add that nearer Paris is Forêt domaniale de Meudon, which is in the direction of Versailles. Nice forested area. I can't speak to the walking/hiking but I assume it is not bad (I've only been out that way on bike).

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#284

Post by naikrovek »

well maybe if nature would stop trying to asphyxiate me, and stop sending bugs which bite me and suck my blood preferentially over others, I would visit more. as of right now, i've learned that i am persona-non-grata anywhere there is not air conditioning.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#285

Post by odessacubbage »

closeparen wrote: post #244
throwaway894345 wrote: post #6

This is the sort of thing I think about when the pro-urban/pro-density/anti-car people talk about their vision for the world. I live in a city now, and the lack of substantial nature is suffocating to the extent that I plan to move. The idea that we should all live this way to conserve space—a resource which is only scarce in these urban places—seems excessive to put it mildly. EDIT: A lot of urban folks are rebuttin…

My experience actually living in suburbs is that when you’re not in your house, you’re driving: either on a highway or a stroad. Now I will admit that driving on a highway with pristine nature on both sides is pretty nice (love 280) but most of the time when you go places you’re in 4-6 lane road strip mall land, which is a much worse environment than either a proper urban neighborhood or proper nature. If I could hav…

why does always seemed to be assumed in these discussions that alternative to cities must be suburbs? you can live in a town.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#286

Post by closeparen »

odessacubbage wrote: post #285
closeparen wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience actually living in suburbs is that when you’re not in your house, you’re driving: either on a highway or a stroad. Now I will admit that driving on a highway with pristine nature on both sides is pretty nice (love 280) but most of the time when you go places you’re in 4-6 lane road strip mall land, which is a much worse environment than either a proper urban neighborhood or proper nature. If I could hav…

why does always seemed to be assumed in these discussions that alternative to cities must be suburbs? you can live in a town.

An old-school town is walkable/urban in the same way we would advocate for cities: grid layout, main street with buildings pulled up to the sidewalk, pedestrian life, apartments over the stores, duplexes and small apartment buildings giving way to to larger single family homes as you walk out towards the fringes, schools that children can walk to, etc. Good towns have a lot in common with good urban neighborhoods. Probably the main difference is they don't need transit since the whole thing is small enough to traverse under your own power.

Automobile era towns have the same forms as the suburban sprawls attached to cities: stroads, strip malls, parking lots, subdivisions containing homogeneous uses and interfacing at few points with fast arterial roads. They're just disembodied suburbs. The disembodiment if anything makes them worse.

I visit lot of auto-oriented towns on cross-country roadtrips. They're vile places. I wouldn't want to be there any longer than necessary to get gas, food, use the restroom, etc. Sometimes when I take a wrong turn I catch a glimpse of the pre-car main street rotting away, behind the gleaming cloverleaf-adjacent McDonalds. It's sad.

I visit urban towns on vacation, on the way to and from hiking, etc. Sometimes I look up the real estate listings. They're even more expensive than the big city, but without any kind of local industry to pay those prices. They're for second homes or retirement, I guess. Also sad.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#287

Post by resoluteteeth »

TedShiller wrote: post #271
resoluteteeth wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Induced demand" is not inherently bad. It means that people are doing more of something because they can. Induced demand also only occurs because demand is elastic. It is the natural result of supply increasing. It is often considered bad in the case of cars by people who are opposed to expanding roads specifically because if reducing traffic on roads or total miles driven is the goal then induced demand will not be…

Induced demand doesn't say what "should" or "shouldn't" happen. It doesn't have morality, it's a pattern. It says that building more housing in an area with expensive housing won't bring housing prices down.

> Induced demand doesn't say what "should" or "shouldn't" happen. It doesn't have morality, it's a pattern. It says that building more housing in an area with expensive housing won't bring housing prices down.

Here is the definition of induced demand from wikipedia:

> Induced demand – related to latent demand and generated demand[1] – is the phenomenon that supply increases result in price declines and increased consumption.

Notice that it says "price declines" right there.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#288

Post by spencerflem »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #279
ryukafalz wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, because we haven’t actually touched on many of the reasons us pro-density folks think it’s a good thing: how do you suggest we reduce our emissions as much as we need to in the coming decades? Keeping in mind that a large proportion of emissions are from light-duty vehicles and heating/cooling buildings, both of which increase with lower densities. In any case, I don’t think everyone needs to live an urban life…

> Okay, because we haven’t actually touched on many of the reasons us pro-density folks think it’s a good thing: how do you suggest we reduce our emissions as much as we need to in the coming decades? Keeping in mind that a large proportion of emissions are from light-duty vehicles and heating/cooling buildings, both of which increase with lower densities. Massive projects to resettle people in urban areas or dramati…

I don't think anyone wants to force you to live an urban lifestyle. I personally wish there were places I could move that was walkable, bikeable, and without having to cross 4 lanes of loud polluting traffic.

Those places don't really exist, since most major US cities have been built to accommodate cars first. And even those are way less affordable (because people want to live in cities and theres not enough housing to cover it) forcing people who would rather live in cities to move to suburbs instead. That's what people are lamenting.

Re: Nature has enormous emotional and cognitive benefits on people

#289

Post by ryukafalz »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #279
ryukafalz wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, because we haven’t actually touched on many of the reasons us pro-density folks think it’s a good thing: how do you suggest we reduce our emissions as much as we need to in the coming decades? Keeping in mind that a large proportion of emissions are from light-duty vehicles and heating/cooling buildings, both of which increase with lower densities. In any case, I don’t think everyone needs to live an urban life…

> Okay, because we haven’t actually touched on many of the reasons us pro-density folks think it’s a good thing: how do you suggest we reduce our emissions as much as we need to in the coming decades? Keeping in mind that a large proportion of emissions are from light-duty vehicles and heating/cooling buildings, both of which increase with lower densities. Massive projects to resettle people in urban areas or dramati…

> It's much faster (and far more politically tenable) to electrify as much transportation (e.g., EVs) and heating/cooling as possible while moving our grid to clean energy.

Vehicle turnover is very slow, so I don’t expect this to happen as quickly as you might be thinking: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/10/climate/elect...

Improving public transit doesn’t have to mean huge rail projects though, it can just mean running buses more frequently and giving them their own lanes to skip traffic. And we don’t have to massively resettle people, we can let (and encourage) towns to densify and build more bike/ped/transit infrastructure.

This also isn’t necessarily fast, no. But I don’t think it’s either/or; I think we need both.

> although I think we can decouple density and walkability.

I don’t think we can. The two are directly opposed to each other. The less dense a place is, the further apart everything is, which inherently makes it less walkable. Certainly you can (and should) build sidewalks anywhere if they don’t already exist, but past a low enough density nobody is going to walk anyway unless they’re forced to.

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