291–300 of 457 posts
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?
What's interesting is that the Netherlands is pretty low on the list of countries with the highest percentage of people in collective dwellings (at 21% vs Spain's 65%, only the UK is lower), even though it's one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. I suppose that's the result of the mentioned "mushroom neighbourhoods"? Great visuals btw.
Excellent storytelling, fluidly integrating geospatial data and other visual elements and statistics in a smooth flow. Who knows, maybe one day such a "visual space" inside a browser would be interactive, a Google Earth type of thing as far as navigation goes, but with data queries that allow on the fly to populate various widgets. An expert could livestream a story or "save" it for later publication.
Today I assume a web browser and/or the device it is on could kill me and eat my lunch given the proper input.
I just want to read an article with illustrations, a format that will never cease to be effective.
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Animation is smooth as butter for me (M1 Mac, Chrome)
Linux, Chrome. I can't even read the website, feels like it watching animated GIF loading on dialup modem in 1994. It jumps from one area to another randomly
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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 ca…
The US is a big place. Lots of different suburbs.
> 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
Can you point at specific places like this? Google street view links?
Every suburb I've lived in the US I can walk to just about everything I need, kids walk to playground and parks, friends houses, etc.
I'm curious to see these suburbs where one can't walk anywhere.
Different strokes for different folks. I’m a very happy single family home dweller. Living in a dense city feels claustrophobic.
Different strokes indeed. As a very happy apartment/flat/condo dweller, the suburban home life feels to me like being trapped in a tiny deserted island (the cartoon ones, with a single coconut tree), just a tiny personal plot surrounded by endless nothingness, with nowhere to go within reach. When in the suburbs I end up just staying in the couch all the time, because I can't be bothered to face the big journey neces…
This sounds like a cartoon version of suburbs! Can you point at actual suburbs (google map links) where you might be surrounded by endless nothingness and can't walk anywhere?
I've lived most of my life in suburbs in the US and have never experienced this. The only time I lived in a place I couldn't walk to any destination was when I lived in a quite rural area. But that was rural, not suburban.
Different strokes for different folks. I’m a very happy single family home dweller. Living in a dense city feels claustrophobic.
More dense construction in urban areas will probably help make single family homes affordable for those who want them. I imagine people who own single family homes in nice suburbs are pretty happy about it, especially if they bought it when prices were half of what they are currently and are paying <3% interest.
That seems highly unlikely. Let's look at how SFH have become very affordable in the densest area in the US, Manhattan. Or the second densest, SF.
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?
Above 3 floors you need elevators for the disabled, while shorter buildings often cant get by without. (check with a lawyer for what your local law says - I've been told that the 3 floor isn't what the ADA doesn't actually say the highest is, just what most consider it to say). Even without disability laws, people generally want elevators to go higher.
Conventional wood framing is the cheapest, but 5 is about the max floors you can get. Brick framing can apparently get you to about 10 floors. There are lots of other construction methods - check with a proper civil engineer for what the limits and costs of each are.
Somewhere around 6-15 floors your city water will no longer have enough pressure and so your building will need booster pumps. Similarly, drain water needs special care to ensure the falling water doesn't burst the plumbing.
You local fire may code allow for less strict standards if the fire department ladder trucks can just drive up to each window and rescue someone in a burning building. If that cannot happen people need to get down the stairs in case of fire (I've always wondering how the disabled will do this) so you need to ensure those stairs can be used in case of fire.
Floor space per person is also a factor. Richer people tend to be willing to pay for more space than poor people, and poor people tend to have more kids. Thus if you make larger apartments you don't need as much elevator space. This one is tricky though as rich people tend to prefer newer buildings so you might discover that when the building gets old you can't rent some apartments because of the building max occupancy. Still, office buildings tend to have a lot more people per area, and they are more likely to leave at the same time, so I don't think space per person can be a big factor. (but school dorms need to consider all students going to class at the same time)
As the person paying for a building you get to optimize those factors (generally for profit, but you can pick other considerations). Good luck.
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Everyone on the receiving end of a tacit subsidy is pretty happy about it.
not sure what this means
Spaniard here, I expected to see an infographic basically based around Madrid and Barcelona but it seems that special care has been taken to cover the whole country, kudos to El Diario team.
... and I think I'm about to throw up, but that's a smaller issue, I take one for the team to encourage creative web development.