Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy • Hacker News Board

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#411

Post by jxramos » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 12:40 AM UTC

wmeredith wrote: post #327

redm wrote: post #319

As someone who lives in Houston, the simple reason there is sprawl is because its flat and land is cheap. This makes it easy to live on large lots or on small average. It's also hot, so people spend more time indoors and drive everywhere.

I'm glad someone said this. The size of the interchange vs a small town in Italy is an odd comparison. Land and gas are cheap in one place and they're not in another. That's basically the end of the story.

(still working to articulate this all precisely)

I think a lot of these country to country comparisons bank off the fact that people presume they're dealing with an oranges to oranges comparison like two sporting teams or something equally sized. Evaluating two comparands on some single concept they both happen share in common without looking to the specifics is grossly inadequate.

Concepts like city, country, state, hospital system, etc, can indeed both be shared between two countries at a conceptual level. However those concepts can take drastically different forms with their reality on the ground. The two comparands' actualizations of these concepts can be huge simply looking at scale alone. As far as I can tell the US dwarfs pretty much any EU country in terms of population, land mass/area, and a bunch of other stuff too I'd imagine.

I'm awakening more to the fact that without highlighting from the outset any known differences in scale one can be lead to strange conclusions in the results of comparison. There's that common software architecture analogy regarding the techniques to build a single family detached house being woefully inadequate at building a skyscraper.

It would be nice to have some normalized terminology of city and country etc that speaks more directly to the population scale at hand.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#412

Post by xg15 » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 12:41 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #379

xg15 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that we have the ability to decouple most administrative work from location thanks to remote working, I wonder how long it will take for the first fully decentralised authoritarian government to appear. Can't have protests in the capital if you don't have a capital.

Decentralized authoritarianism is an inherently weird concept. Sounds more like a vicious type of mob rule to me.

I meant physically decentralized - as in, no grand palaces or other government buildings that can be stormed, because the whole administration is working from home.

Imagine a 100% remote company, except, it's not a company.

The power structures are of course not decentralized at all.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#413

Post by mmm_grayons » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:00 AM UTC

volkadav wrote: post #397

fair, but try driving 85mph through the italian city in a giant cadillac with cow horns on the front bumper while blaring your favorite tunes and drinking something from a drive-through liquor store. ;)

You mean swangas aren't well-suited to european streets?

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#414

Post by sbierwagen » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

js2 wrote: post #385

jcrawfordor wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a decidedly amateur historian with interest in this area, I think that claim is true on its own but also does not tell the entire story. It is true that decentralization was viewed as a major component of nuclear survivability, particularly in the earlier part of the cold war. This was the time period during which the FEMA (today's name) crisis relocation program was being devised, for example, and the high cost a…

> crisis relocation (which, in an earlier form, was a major motivation for the Eisenhower freeway system, to the extent that it's probably fair to say that it was the main motivation with materiel movement as a second) I've heard that before, but the DOT claims evacuation was a minor factor. From https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/interstatemyths.cfm#ques... President Eisenhower supported the Interstate System becau…

I mean, you can just read the original text. Section 108(a):

>It is hereby declared to be essential to the national interest to provide for the early completion of the "National System of Interstate Highways", as authorized and designated in accordance with section 7 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944. It is the intent of the Congress that the Interstate System be completed as nearly as practicable over a thirteen-year period and that the entire System in all the States be brought to simultaneous completion. Because of its primary importance to the national defense, the name of such system is hereby changed to the "National System of Interstate and Defense Highways". Such National System of Interstate and Defense Highways is hereinafter in this Act referred to as the "Interstate System".

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-70/pdf/STATUTE-7...

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#415

Post by dylan604 » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:08 AM UTC

hehebbssjj wrote: post #410

reddog wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought it was funny how whites moving from the city to the suburbs is bad (white flight) and whites moving from the suburbs to the city is also bad (gentrification).

Part of the problem is that Black people never had the opportunity to buy the properties they occupied, even at depressed prices when those properties were undesireable. So when gentrification occurs, rents go up and they're shut out. If there wasn't a massive wealth gap to begin with you'd see more Black homeowners in gentrifying areas making bank on their massively appreciated houses.

In some cases, it's worse. Some families that were able to buy properties have had them for so long they only owe taxes each year. Then some developers petition the city that those properties are vital, and they are granted eminent domain. Even if they are paid the amount of the suppressed values of their property, there's no way they can afford to do anything with that money. Plus, they are now forced out of the property that has been in their family for a long time.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#416

Post by rdiddly » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #310

rdiddly wrote: post #213

So Houstonians have to live every single day (probability of occurrence of "a day": 100%) with an infrastructure optimized for a nuclear attack that happens effectively never. Well, it was somebody's best guess at the right thing to do 65 years ago. But that's the sticky issue with large-scale infrastructure like this. If you get it wrong, or if you get it right but conditions later change, the costs associated with…

If they are right and there are a nuclear attack they survive, will your city? You fall for the same falicy as those who are saying covid isn't dangerous. (not that I disagree with you, but you haven't made a good argument)

As far as I know, I haven't made any argument.

Regardless, the odds of COVID-19 transmission between two people standing together without masks must be at least 1000X higher than the odds that a nuclear attack will happen while they're standing there. That's enough for me to consider the two risks "different" shall we say, and guess which one I'm more likely to prepare for.

Nobody prepares for every contingency. Most people look for some value of risk reduction divided by cost. If I decide to protect my house from school-bus-sized meteorites, the chance I will bankrupt myself trying to construct an adequate shield is near 100%, whereas the chance of such a meteorite hitting the house is pretty small. Given how much more likely plain old thievery is, and how cheap locks are, I should probably prioritize just buying a lock for the front door and remembering to lock it. Just like people prone to die from heart disease or just slowly waste their lives away in traffic should probably prioritize a simpler lifestyle above nuclear war prep.

However and nonetheless, note that even with the small purchase of a door lock, I've already agreed to take on a (more than zero) costly and (to some degree) onerous preparation for something that may never happen. Who knows what the chance of a burglary is; you could estimate based on crime rates. But with 100% certainty, locking the door will be a small chore every day and will ruin some number of minutes of my life. Whether it was ultimately worth it would largely be determined by the value I place on certainty.

Speaking of values, they're subjective. Let's say the school-bus-sized meteorite is confirmed to be coming right for my house, with 100% probability. But let's also say that I don't care whatsoever about the house. So I will still not do anything to mitigate. That's how I feel about a nuclear attack. The chance of a nuclear attack is (some number), but the chance of a nuclear attack happening, and my giving a shit about anything whatsoever afterward, is near zero. "Will I survive?" My answer is somewhere between "Who cares" and "I hope not." So obviously I'm not willing to undertake mitigations or live in Houston. But I will wear a mask during the pandemic for example because it's cheap and easy, temporary, and it works to reduce a risk that is pretty high.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#417

Post by bobthepanda » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:21 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #229

yason wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

supermarket has never been more than 2 miles away - certainly not a 20 minute drive and it's even within biking distance I'd consider that far, far away. My walk to the nearest train station is about one mile, takes about 15 minutes to get there on foot, and that's irritatingly far, too, considering the trip is two way and repeats every day. Something like a grocery shop should be accessible within decent walking dis…

> A rule of thumb is that if something is far enough that I have to take the car in the first place I'll be incentivised to drive further away to a big supermarket/other big stores while I'm at it. The grocery store that’s 2 miles away is a big supermarket. The US doesn’t really do small groceries in most places.

And this is mostly because we have designed our zoning and land use policies to favor big, centralized stores over lots of small, little ones.

An interesting parallel is Japan; Japan doesn't require parking with its properties, and to buy a car in Japan you have to produce proof of a parking space that you have (probably by purchasing a spot either with a property or in a lot somewhere), and the market has mostly sorted itself in favor of extremely dense networks of small shops.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#418

Post by desert_boi » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:25 AM UTC

maxsilver wrote: post #124

crispyambulance wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> assumption that _everyone wants to be stacked on top of each other_ It's also an assumption that everyone wants to begin and end every trip, no matter how trivial, with a parking spot. It's an assumption that people will want to drive in traffic for 20 minutes minimum to get to a supermarket, do anything with their kids, or anything outside their property line. The notion of "stacked on top of each other" has unple…

> Would you feel "stacked on top of each other" in a Parisian townhouse with a magnificent shared courtyard, 12 foot ceilings, and everything you could possibly want a short walk or subway ride away? No, I wouldn't feel "stacked on top of each other" if I were a multi-millionaire in Paris. But, in the real world, your talking about putting families into 600sqft (at very best) boxes, with audible neighbors on every si…

As an American having lived in a 380 sq ft. studio in Hamburg, I can say the build quality of concrete walls was lovely. It was the quietest place I've ever lived, 7 stories a block from two parks.

I lived on a two lane street, and no one had air conditioners. You don't know how loud air conditioners and furnaces are until you live in a place without them.

I walked to work, and lived within 1/2 mile of 8 grocery stores. When I went to German class Downtown, I walked 15 minutes to a train. I could get to the airport in 25 minutes via one bus and one S-Bahn leg.

Here in the States, I also don't have a car, but I'm surrounded by highways separating me from a park, and my apartment is much much louder because Boise, the city, doesn't control the roads within it. The state does. Thoroughput is all that matters.

I still live 0.5 mile from multiple grocery stores, but I don't have transit here. Getting to the airport from Downtown is a 40 minute bus ride (with a 15-20 minute schedule variance) for 2.5 miles. The state won't allow the city local taxing power to improve transit, and so the city limps along, unable to expand transit that matches the limited space to expand lanes.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#419

Post by bcrosby95 » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:28 AM UTC

beambot wrote: post #261

bcrosby95 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also an assumption that everyone wants to begin and end every trip, no matter how trivial, with a parking spot. It's an assumption that people will want to drive in traffic for 20 minutes minimum to get to a supermarket, do anything with their kids, or anything outside their property line. I wouldn't be surprised to find some suburbs with some of the traits you mention, but it hasn't been my experience with th…

Do you predominantly walk, bike, or drive to your sub-2mi supermarket?

Before covid we walked more often than we drove, but got most of our stuff from driving.

Driving for the bulk, walking for the random stuff we needed.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#420

Post by desert_boi » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:29 AM UTC

brmgb wrote: post #399

wongarsu wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think majority of people cannot live 25 minutes from their work for any cities that have 1M+ populations I generally agree, though in cities like Paris you can get close. But 1M+ is very big by European standards. There are only 34 cities on the entire continent that fit that description [1], and there are multiple capitals [2] half that size (Dublin and Lisbon each have around half a million inhabitants). Once y…

Reading your comment made me interested into looking into some figures to compare cities in Europe and the USA. If you look at the population of agglomerations (some cities in Europe have ridiculously small limits - Paris is fifteen times smaller than London), you see than London (14,800,000) and Paris (11,400,000) are a bit less populated than the the biggest US cities New York (22,100,000) and Los Angeles (17,700,0…

Metro populations are very different than center city populations. In the US, the center city is often crippled financially and politically by burbs around them that don't pay to use infrastructure. Most large cities (Houston being a notable exception) are unable to annex surrounding municipalities.