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How dense is your city?

citydensity.com

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Re: How dense is your city?

#31

Post by ars »

kdmccormick wrote: post #23
UnFleshedOne wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car traffic might be reduced per capita in higher density areas, but all of it is concentrated and is right near all the people. Multiply by the sirens of ambulance and police that are constantly going somewhere. Compare to a dead-end suburb street which only 5-10 cars have any reason for driving at all.

Sprawling suburbs are the opposite of nature. A single large park inside a dense city is far more nature-rich than acres upon acres of suburban lawns are.

You've apparently never actually been in a suburb. They typically have random unkempt forests behind each row of houses, and not just a little bit. Like you need a serious walk between houses on different roads, and all of that is a long unbroken piece of nature.

The front of the house near the road has the lawn, but there's a LOT more to suburbs than that.

2 minute walk from where I lived in a suburb was a "forest" as I called it as a child, so large you could get lost. In the suburbs where my relatives live there's more forest with bears, and a there's a creek behind their house.

Yet from the front it's a road with lawns. There's a lot more to suburbs than that road.

Not to mention kids love playing in that road since there's barely any cars. All those car-free threads, about how cars ruin things? Suburban kids already have that: They have barely any cars to contend with.

Re: How dense is your city?

#32

Post by timeagain »

ars wrote: post #29
fragmede wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawns are a Veblen good, like Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior handbags. That we don't see them as ostentatious the same way is a matter of culture. By all means, people should live where they want to live; urban, suburban, rural. But let's be honest about things.

Lawns are a place where I play, or my kids play. Or where I go to just sit and enjoy nature. They are also decoration (flower bed for example) to make my surroundings more pleasant which helps my mental state. If your lawn is a Veblen good you are doing it wrong.

Yeah my Rolex helps my mental state. I can read the time with it and it is useful for deep sea diving.

Re: How dense is your city?

#33

Post by ars »

timeagain wrote: post #32
ars wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawns are a place where I play, or my kids play. Or where I go to just sit and enjoy nature. They are also decoration (flower bed for example) to make my surroundings more pleasant which helps my mental state. If your lawn is a Veblen good you are doing it wrong.

Yeah my Rolex helps my mental state. I can read the time with it and it is useful for deep sea diving.

And you can do that with a cheaper watch also. That makes in a Veblen, but a more expensive lawn is not a better lawn. So a lawn is not a Veblen.

Re: How dense is your city?

#34

Post by ars »

fragmede wrote: post #30
ars wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawns are a place where I play, or my kids play. Or where I go to just sit and enjoy nature. They are also decoration (flower bed for example) to make my surroundings more pleasant which helps my mental state. If your lawn is a Veblen good you are doing it wrong.

People enjoy their Louis Vuitton handbags, also improving their mental state. So the fact that you enjoy your lawn doesn't make it any less of a luxury good. Not faulting you for having one, we humans like our luxuries. Let's just understand that's what they are. Like BMWs and Rolexes.

> doesn't make it any less of a luxury good

That's not what Veblen is. A Veblen is better the higher the price, and that is not correct for lawns. A lawn doesn't get better if the cost of the lawn is higher.

A lawn is better simply for existing, which makes it a standard good.

Re: How dense is your city?

#35

Post by wolverine876 »

Note that the default graph is 'weighted density', to show you "how dense an area feels for the typical person who lives there." I didn't see where it says how it's calculated.

You can change it to other measurements, including straight density.

Re: How dense is your city?

#36

Post by ajoseps »

ars wrote: post #31
kdmccormick wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sprawling suburbs are the opposite of nature. A single large park inside a dense city is far more nature-rich than acres upon acres of suburban lawns are.

You've apparently never actually been in a suburb. They typically have random unkempt forests behind each row of houses, and not just a little bit. Like you need a serious walk between houses on different roads, and all of that is a long unbroken piece of nature. The front of the house near the road has the lawn, but there's a LOT more to suburbs than that. 2 minute walk from where I lived in a suburb was a "forest"…

man I’m curious what state or country this suburb is in? The suburb I grew up in was nothing like that. If anything you’re describing something more on the rural side of things.

Re: How dense is your city?

#37

Post by BenFranklin100 »

ars wrote: post #24
nerdbert wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better for the planet, better food and cultural options, shorter travel times for typical daily activities... in my book it definitely is.

And worse for the people who live there. I get anxiety just thinking of living in a dense city. Everyone I know who left a dense city never wants to go back - they talk like people who suffered from Stockholm syndrome and were now freed. And that doesn't even touch the economics: For the most part cities make money by services and not by physical items. Services are very lucrative, so on paper cities make tons of mon…

First, no one can force you or anyone else to live in a dense urban area. In fact, the denser the urban core the more less dense options right outside the city core for people such as yourself. Second, you are in the minority. Dense cities are dense for a reason: far from being anxiety-provoking, many people find urban areas very desirable place to live.

Re: How dense is your city?

#38

Post by wpm »

ars wrote: post #29
fragmede wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawns are a Veblen good, like Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior handbags. That we don't see them as ostentatious the same way is a matter of culture. By all means, people should live where they want to live; urban, suburban, rural. But let's be honest about things.

Lawns are a place where I play, or my kids play. Or where I go to just sit and enjoy nature. They are also decoration (flower bed for example) to make my surroundings more pleasant which helps my mental state. If your lawn is a Veblen good you are doing it wrong.

Sounds like an urban park.

Re: How dense is your city?

#39

Post by whalabi »

djrobstep wrote: post #21
hitonakawi wrote: post #7

[flagged]

Low density doesn’t = nature, it equals car-dominant sprawl, which is what creates the pollution and noise you mention. Cities aren’t loud, cars are loud.

Note: having lived in Melbourne CBD, cities can indeed be loud, e.g. at 1 am on a Saturday (bass from clubs, and apparently drunk people really enjoy going Woooo!!! really loudly all the time)

Also, construction sites, and road works.

Nearly constant noise.

Re: How dense is your city?

#40

Post by delecti »

ars wrote: post #24
nerdbert wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better for the planet, better food and cultural options, shorter travel times for typical daily activities... in my book it definitely is.

And worse for the people who live there. I get anxiety just thinking of living in a dense city. Everyone I know who left a dense city never wants to go back - they talk like people who suffered from Stockholm syndrome and were now freed. And that doesn't even touch the economics: For the most part cities make money by services and not by physical items. Services are very lucrative, so on paper cities make tons of mon…

My wife and I bought a house a in the suburbs and both of us badly want to move back. So now know someone who left a dense city and wants to go back. Being able to walk places is a luxury we won't overlook again.
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