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

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

#421

Post by shiroiuma »

Lord-Jobo wrote: post #208
ShrigmaMale wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're acting as though an immigrant from any of the dense population centers has the same impact as a native-born child on the culture and economy. that is false. sometimes it's for the better (in America, we have many well-educated immigrants from India and China). sometimes it's for the worse (see Europe's struggles with uneducated muslim immigrants from north Africa and the Middle East). importing large groups of…

>you're acting as though an immigrant from any of the dense population centers has the same impact as a native-born child on the culture and economy. that is false I am not, i am acting like immigrating literally anybody is going to be massively better than a declining population. If they live in a country, they are paying for housing, food, and services, and almost certainly have a job. taxes on top of all of that.…

This simply isn't true. They're not going to be paying for housing and services and having a job if they commit crimes and go to prison. Certain host countries have found that certain immigrant groups tend to have very high crime rates and cause a lot of social problems. And even if they avoid crime and have a job, extremely low-paid immigrants aren't going to be paying much in taxes under a highly progressive taxation scheme.

High-skill immigrants are almost always a big win for the host country because of the things you cite, and more (they bring innovation, start businesses, etc). Low-skill/low-education ones are a crapshoot. It's better to have an inverted population pyramid than deal with all the social ills that come from immigrants that cause too many problems.

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

#422

Post by gniv »

Vinnl wrote: post #72

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.

That whole graph is surprising. The differences between European countries are astonishing and would warrant a story article. Is it cultural? Or climate-related? Or some statistical quirk? So weird.

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

#423

Post by caskstrength »

travisb wrote: post #326
caskstrength wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to provide link proving your assumptions? Every time I checked stats for that for some particular country it was always cities subsidizing countryside/suburbs, not vice versa.

Care must be taken when evaluating those statistics because all the ones I've seen are done only in dollar terms and entirely discount the economic beneficiaries of the movement of people and goods. For example, consider a paved rural road into farmland. In dollar terms paving that road is a subsidy from the nearest city to the people living in that rural area. However, in part the road is paved rather than gravel on…

That is one way to look at it. Another way is that you are paying (indirectly) for infrastructure and (directly) with subsidies for some people to lace your soda with high fructose corn syrup. Or to dry up the land by siphoning all water to make some stupid almond milk.

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

#424

Post by anthk »

switch007 wrote: post #419
anthk wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spaniard here. No, it depends. The Castilles can be pretty silent/quiet/calm compared to Andalusia and the Eastern coast.

Oh that's interesting. Do you (or: do people usually) exclude Madrid from Castilla? That's the only place in Spain I've lived and would not class the people I knew as quiet and calm. But then again it's a melting pot of people from all over Spain, so who knows! And the calmest and quietest people I met were from the east coast :D Definitely agree about Andalusia though

Well, Madrid it's a melting pot and both a sinking hole where lots of population of Castille end there, and their mentality shifts OFC.

It's not the same having to live in a small town in Castile of <2000 people vs doing that the literal capital of Spain.

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

#425

Post by anthk »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #386
lsllc wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to feel left out, in Spanish you're a Estadounidense. https://www.quora.com/What-does-estadounidense-mean-in-Spani...

I think that the correct english translation of that is "Usonian" (Frank Lloyd Wright's term).

United-statian?

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

#426

Post by anthk »

BeetleB wrote: post #262
Lord-Jobo wrote: post #129

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 is slightly aside, but the concerns over fertility rates in the first world really seem REALLY misplaced to me. Since the early days of humanity, we've relied on children taking care of us in our old age. I haven't seen a solution for that. Nursing homes are not a solution. I listened to some grim statistics from my state recently. In many nursing homes, the ratio of staff to patients is 6:1. It takes 6 full t…

Having children as a solution to wipe your ass in the future sounds selfish as hell...

Maybe we should invent more on robotics and healthcare so elderly people could live as independent as if they were in their 40's.

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

#427

Post by anthk »

csharpminor wrote: post #180
Lord-Jobo wrote: post #129

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…

A government’s source of revenue is working age taxpayers. Its biggest cost is the social safety net for the elderly. It seems natural for them to care about population growth? Where would they get the money for UBI if their tax base is contracting every year? Immigrants (at the scale Spain needs) don’t want to move to a shrinking economy. Spaniards themselves are leaving the country to look for work. As an example,…

Living in Spain it's far easier than in the US. We already speak Spanish, and knowing the jargon from Spain it's just a matter of literal weeks.

Also, the healthcare options, the lack of violence even at night (relatively, every city has its 'bad zones' but even with that it's far safer) and the welfare state makes their lives a paradise compared to, for instance, a hell zone in the Dominican Republic or narcozones in Mexico.

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

#428

Post by fennecfoxy »

I wish that more inner city housing was high rise apartment buildings in the UK.

When I first moved here it was super weird to see "okay in London there are small flats, because it's the big city, they don't build up because they complain it ruins the aesthetic/NIMBY/Grenfell tower fears".

So I go out to a small town here for the first time. Large green fields surrounding this town, plenty of space. It's STILL ALL SMALL FLATS!

I think the core issue is that there's such a long history here, everyone already owned all the land a long time ago. Getting a small slice enough for a flat is the most people can do.

My friend grew up in London in a flat, went to inner city schools and coming from beautiful green NZ I just couldn't imagine what that must be like. His flat all surrounded by concrete and endless streets flat up against flat with no space in between. His schools all built up in the same way, often with a school field "down the road".

I think in the UK it's too late to remedy, but outside of cities houses need more space. Inside cities they need to start building modern high rises.

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

#429

Post by elpol1234 »

pier25 wrote: post #388
wackget wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion but I hate the design of the site. The transitions are too slow and the entire site is inaccessible to anyone with vertigo, visual processing or balance disorders. Needless to say it also doesn't respect the browser's `prefers-reduced-motion` preference. A massive case of style over substance for me.

I agree and I don't have vertigo or any other disorder. This is just bad UX. The charts and graphs are also not very good. You can't search, sort, or filter in any way. Also no light mode which is also terrible UX. People with astigmatism can have a hard time with dark mode. https://medium.com/@h_locke/why-dark-mode-causes-more-access...

[flagged]

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

#430

Post by refurb »

prmoustache wrote: post #406
refurb wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion it is. Those would have to be very small bedrooms. I lived in a 180 m^2 3 bedroom (well 2 bed and 1 office) and it seemed about the right size for a family. I've also lived in a 60 m^2 2 bedroom and it was cramped.

If I have more space I'd rather have an aditionnal room, a bigger kitchen and a second bathroom than bigger bedrooms.

I agree, especially bathrooms considering how often you use it.

But with 3 bedroom places under 1,000 sq ft, the rooms are too small for even a Queen sized mattress, let alone a King.

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