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

especiales.eldiario.es

361–370 of 457 posts

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

#361
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You omit the masses of working poor immigrants that do a lot of the manual labour North Americans do not want to do -- predominantly in agriculture, construction, small manufacturing, and healthcare. They're the de-facto essential workers. Europe's struggles seem to be caused more by a culture clash. Immigrants will always bring their way of life with them, and group together - it's a constant of human nature, this i…

The idea that immigrants are a good idea because they do labour your existing population won't do is quite socially destructive and the cause of technological stagnation. It separates people into a de facto caste system where unpleasant jobs are also underpaid, prevents automation from becoming cost effective, and can block a country from reaping the benefits of skilled migration.

I didn't mean to assign a value judgement to this -- maybe I can phrase it better. It's not that the "local" people don't want to do certain jobs, it's that the capital owners are not willing to pay fair wages for labour, and then only people who are desperate enough (poor immigrants) end up doing do these jobs.

I'd love to hear some examples where this has caused technological stagnation and blocked skilled migration -- US and Canada provide solid counter-examples to these claims. Both countries take in immigrants at both ends of the economic spectrum, from coveted H1B high-paying tech jobs, to seasonal farm workers who exist in slavery-like circumstances. Both countries show significant, sustained technological innovation.

I agree this is destructive to the social fabric, and it separates us into strata. But I have a hard time believing that immigration is the cause; a simpler explanation would interpret it as one of the symptoms, with the underlying causes being closely related to the relentless transfer of wealth to an ever-shrinking "elite".

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

#362
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.

Is 100m^2 really considered cramp for a 3 bedroom? Admittedly I'm from the uk which is famed for our small home sizes. But I've been looking at 2 or 3 beds recently and anything over 80m^2 felt huge.

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

#363
post #229

Outstanding—compelling presentation loaded with data. Perhaps the conclusion should be that the world should move to efficient 75% or so apartment living. UK at 15% is a huge outlier for a top 10 economy.

Much more efficient to bomb also (2023 was a real eye opener).

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

#364
post #352

maybe off topic but home ownership is one good and common way to build generational wealth (opinions/citations below) but renting or lease-holding does not realize as an asset which retains its value to be passed to children. (leases can be traded, i suppose, but have a landlord and possibility of termination). But how is generational wealth and social mobility improved or hindered by multi occupancy, high-rise livin…

Condos are an option to have high(er)-density and own. That said, I question if things we need for our fundamental needs are the vehicle we should chose to build inter-generational wealth. Getting prices of things we must have down, rather than up seems healthier.

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

#365
I wonder how many of these building types would be legal in the US just due to fire codes that were created for a different area. In most of the US apartment buildings units must have access to two stairwells which in essence limits everything to a double-loaded hallway layout. That makes it harder to build units for families and makes it impossible to have more windows and a cross-breeze. More complete discussion: https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-to-build-more-family-size...

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

#366
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in northern ireland in an actual house and the walls are thin enough I could dip my bread into my neighbours' soup. It is the number one reason I could never see myself living in an apartment, I'm very sensitive to noise and I get disproportionately angry at even low levels of unwanted noise. I'd be too worried about noise from neighbours.

> I get disproportionately angry at even low levels of unwanted noise. I also suffer from this problem. Is there a name for this?

"partypooper"

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

#367

I find the ideal building height to be up to 6 floors at most - anything more makes the streets start to feel a bit too claustrophobic and the area less "neighborly".

Building comfort is really a function of height divided by roadway width and surrounding open space. What makes a single lane road claustrophobic might be light and airy on a six or eight lane road. Central Park is surrounded by skyscrapers but is plenty airy. There are also strategies, like setbacks, to make the building massing less imposing and obvious to the person at street level, who at the end of the day is wa…

Yeah, places like Pudong, Shanghai really drive this home. Pudong felt very open and airy to me when I was there last in 2009 because there is so much space between the buildings. That said, it of course felt somewhat sterile and didn't have the awesome qualities you by contrast get from the cool parts of Tokyo that have much lower buildings, but right next to each other and allow every building to be different, have businesses on random floors etc.

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

#368
post #5

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.

Always interesting to me that the Spanish get a special demonym. I am American and also an American, but a Spanish person is a Spaniard.

No need to feel left out, in Spanish you're a Estadounidense.

https://www.quora.com/What-does-estadounidense-mean-in-Spani...

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

#369
post #97

Spain also has the lowest fertility rate in Europe at 1.28. Not sure how much apartment living is cause or effect on that but it's a grim number. Every generation is only 60% the size of the one that came before it.

Not sure if you are from the US, but apartments in the US will give you a very different idea of apartment living than you can get in other countries. Due to restrictive fire cods, US apartment either are terrible or terribly expensive. https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-to-build-more-family-size...

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

#370

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…

This concern over fertility vs immigration seems REALLY misplaced to me. The goal is not to maximise the tax revenue of an abstract entity called “country”. It’s about people, their values, their desires and their abilities to achieve them.

and the desires of a great many people is to vote themselves to a greater cut of other peoples money. So then it IS about maximizing "tax revenue"
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