America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#351

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

pmart123 wrote: post #211

tempsy wrote: post #200

Such a bad take. The actual "elite" in urban centers are the ones walking around with strollers. Have a kid in the big city is the ultimate flex. No one else has kids because they can barely afford to live there themselves, let alone support a kid in it. Edit: Also, it's not as if the author failed to mention that it's expensive to raise families in the city. It's that he says "yes it's really expensive to raise kids…

“violent downtowns typified by the ‘mean streets’ of the 1970s became clean and safe in the 1990s” While I’m not trying to be overly critical, he is also off base with his violent crime statistics as the nineties had the highest aggregate number of murders up until the end of the decade.

[deleted]

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#352

Post by Symmetry » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 1:26 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #316

A city has 100 homes. Local homeowners vote against any new construction to preserve taxpayer-funded parking welfare (aka neighborhood character) This means that house prices are a race to the top so to speak. You're always competing with your neighbors. The first thing you do is have both of them work (this happened ~4 decades ago). Even if you don't want to, you have to, because your neighbors are doing it and they…

I don't doubt that increasing their own home values is part of it, but here in the North East where I live when I hear co-workers making the case for restricting housing development they're concerned about one of two things. Either that if their town was more affordable the wrong sort of person would move in, they'd go to school with their kids, and either harm their kids or teach them bad habits. Or that more people would mean more cars and more congested streets.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#353

Post by ssully » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #301

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, good point, but you should be more precise: strollers with HUMAN KIDS in them. I swear that at least one in two, perhaps even more, of these strollers today tend to have dogs in them. At least in San Francisco.

Seriously? Is there some actual sane reason, ie protecting dog from scorching sun, or people are just bonkers?

I've seen one person do it in my neighborhood (a suburb outside of Chicago) and I believe it's because it was an older dog. I am guessing it either had trouble walking, or because of the heat.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#354

Post by asveikau » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

eitally wrote: post #228

asveikau wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure what part of town you are in. Can you open google maps and tell me how much "green space" you see? More than I grew up with. Hint, there is a rather large rectangular one on the west side of town. But I have noticed (and been criticized on HN for claiming) that the parenting cultural bubble in SF seems completely unknown to many other subcultures. It is indeed a very good community, though.

Sure, but good luck easily getting to Golden Gate Park if you're, say, coming from Mission Bay. And if you can afford to live in the hillier parts of town the odds are good you probably have decent (albeit small) neighborhood parks. The problem with SF is that the public schools suck, the streets in a lot of the "urban" parts are rife with squalor, and the city is a lot bigger than it looks when you're trying to get…

> Sure, but good luck easily getting to Golden Gate Park if you're, say, coming from Mission Bay

That doesn't take very long on the N Judah.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#355

Post by AvocadoPanic » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 1:39 PM UTC

Symmetry wrote: post #352

CalRobert wrote: post #316

A city has 100 homes. Local homeowners vote against any new construction to preserve taxpayer-funded parking welfare (aka neighborhood character) This means that house prices are a race to the top so to speak. You're always competing with your neighbors. The first thing you do is have both of them work (this happened ~4 decades ago). Even if you don't want to, you have to, because your neighbors are doing it and they…

I don't doubt that increasing their own home values is part of it, but here in the North East where I live when I hear co-workers making the case for restricting housing development they're concerned about one of two things. Either that if their town was more affordable the wrong sort of person would move in, they'd go to school with their kids, and either harm their kids or teach them bad habits. Or that more people…

We're also concerned that there may be too many kids for the existing school, especially higher density residential construction, and then existing homeowners will be asked to pay for the expansion / new school.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#356

Post by projektfu » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #108

vidanay wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And eliminate US style separate zoning. European mixed use zoning is much more "social" allowing shorter commutes to work and shorter trips to retail.

I prefer to call it "respecting people's property rights", "mixed use" and "European style zoning" are too vague leave way too much room for curtailment of freedom which when they run their course bring us basically back to the status quo.

I'm not sure what it can mean to respect people's property rights with respect to residential-only zoning. A zoning decision is not written into the original deed and can be changed with an exception by the zoning board or a general change in the city/county code. However, the residential-only zoning makes it difficult for one person to use their property as they see fit, for example, building a duplex or rentable apartment onto their house, or opening a small store or tiny school.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#357

Post by pattrn » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #223

madhadron wrote: post #14

I look at it a little differently. The urban cores in the USA are actively hostile places for anyone to be. You step outside your door...into an empty hallway of doors. You take an elevator or stairs down to a place with a few mailboxes, then step outside. Outside, you have a narrow strip of concrete, possibly with a few trees, that you are allowed to inhabit. Beyond it is as asphalt with two ton steel contraptions w…

I'm sorry, but... have you actually lived in a city? Actually spent time in a public park? Dined at an urban restaurant? Actually been (???!?) unable to reach a public library? This sounds just crazy to me. Literally everything you do in the suburbs, absent long hikes and home gardening, is more conveniently available in an urban center. You don't have to like it, but... that list of complaints just reads as nonsense…

This mirrors my sentiment prior to moving to Boston. It turned out to be the opposite. It took more time to get to most places in the city than it took to get to equivalent places when I lived in New Hampshire. You name it: grocery stores, restaurants, pubs, cafes, shopping, parks, markets, etc. My wife and I moved back to NH after a year due to our quality of life dropping so drastically. Two of my childhood friends recently moved back from San Diego and Los Angeles for exactly the same reason.

Now I can get to all of the aforementioned places via car in under 5 minutes. There's Uber and Lyft for when I want to go to a bar. DoorDash serves more than 50 local restaurants. Traffic adds at most 5 minutes to any drive, and only during a small window around 5pm.

The city offers convenience in theory, but from my admittedly anecdotal experience it doesn't hold up in practice. And I'm not sure that matters. At the end of the day, it's just a preference.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#358

Post by chronotis » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 1:44 PM UTC

This entire thread is a perfect example of confirmation bias.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#359

Post by asveikau » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 1:45 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #346

asveikau wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> driving downtown This is your problem. In a city you don't need to put yourself and your family in a deadly metallic stress machine to get places. And as a result you will feel happier and more connected. Even in a city I am sometimes very shocked at what we put ourselves through to use a car. People constantly honking and flicking each other off with various insults and me on the sidewalk wishing they'd all calm d…

His comment generalizes to other forms of transit. The point isn't that he/she's driving downtown, it's that it's not convenient enough to go on a whim but that's not a problem for his/her use pattern. The fact that he/she chose to use a car is immaterial to the point being made. I don't want to use the word virtue signaling because it's become a politically loaded term and I don't want to use it that way but your co…

Fine sir or madam, I don't care what you think of my virtue or lack thereof. But the health affects are real. Example: I was obese. I largely quit driving, or drastically reduced it. I am no longer obese or overweight; my BMI is 21, down from 33. If you want to live worse because you decided that is "virtue signalling", go ahead and ignore the suggestion. But the benefit will exist whether you believe in it or not.

Re: America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

#360

Post by leetcrew » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 1:47 PM UTC

snickerbockers wrote: post #156

raducu wrote: post #16

Unpopular opinion I've held since before I became a parent: childless people should pay more taxes.

That's a regressive tax that punishes people who are unable to have children due to health problems, sexual identity, living conditions, or even failure to get laid. People who do have children should be taxed more instead because they're more successful, and they're the ones who benefit from higher taxes anyways due to publicly-funded education and social programs.

it's probably a bad idea for a lot of reasons, but it's not a "regressive" tax. lower income families tend to have more children, so this tax setup would shift tax burden higher up the income ladder. it would hurt some low income individuals, but it would help low income families as a group.