Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

especiales.eldiario.es

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 457 posts

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

#282

Post by wing-_-nuts »

0xffff2 wrote: post #271
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a tip for anyone dealing with noise in a multi-tenant situation. Get yourself a white noise machine. It's a life changer. I thought I was going to murder my neighbor with his own leaf blower until I got it.

I envy anyone this works for. For me, white noise is just even more noise.

The most important thing is that it be 'non looping'. I hated white noise until I ponied up for a machine that generated non looping white noise. My mind would automatically latch on to any repetition.

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

#286

Post by jjav »

j_heffe wrote: post #99
whalesalad wrote: post #3

Different strokes for different folks. I’m a very happy single family home dweller. Living in a dense city feels claustrophobic.

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.

> The problem in the U.S. is that it's illegal to build anything _but_ single family homes in the majority of suburbs.

This is always repeated, but could you point to studies documenting in which cities it is illegal? All around I see townhouses, apartment buildings, 2/4/6-plexes and other variants being built, none of which are single family homes. Maybe it takes a bunch of paperwork (I don't know) but clearly it isn't illegal.

> 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?

This is a false dichotomy. One can also live in a SFH and walk/bike to all of these things and more. I do, and I do, so does my kid.

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

#287

Post by rewmie »

prmoustache wrote: post #267
rewmie wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are basically shouting all the time instead of talking for example. That's my experience as well. Sometimes it's hard to tell apart if there's a bar brawl happening on the pub down the road or if it's a grou having a good time. It also doesn't help that in both cases Spaniards curse like crazy.

>Spaniards curse de puta madre corrected for you :)

Touché

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

#288

Post by bombcar »

kleton wrote: post #284

Isn't there an optimum of about 8-12 stories for any sort of building, before the cross section of plumbing and elevator shafts make it less economical?

The optimum is based on land value, clearly, because in places where the land is effectively free or incredibly low cost, buildings don't seem to naturally get above 2 or 3 stories.

So somewhere between 3 and 12 stories is a local optimum, and it's probably about where you need additional "machine floors".

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

#289

Post by Toutouxc »

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…

> That means there is no bottom to the population decline.

The only reason I still don't have a kid is expensive housing (i.e. too many people for too little space). My partner is more or less tied to the capital because of her job and our apartment literally (and I mean literally) can't fit one more desk, much less one more person.

A population decline (with the society kept running by more automation) should make things a bit easier, shouldn't it?

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

#290

Post by epolanski »

balfirevic wrote: post #253
davidw wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It really comes down to your wallet.

There's plenty of 150/200/250 m^2 flats in Italy (Rome and Milan especially), but they are very expensive.

Here's a non comprehensive list of actual apartments above 250m (I didn't filter by flat, but you can see plenty are) and this is only the core center of Rome (what would you call downtown), not the entire city.

https://www.immobiliare.it/vendita-case/roma/?criterio=rilev...

Post reply on HN