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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

#431

Post by mlrtime »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #144

I live in a high rise condo now, love that basically everything I need is one elevator trip away. Grocery delivers in under 15 minutes, like a charm. Maintenance takes me one hour a month, mostly changing various filters. Building is of higher quality so no noise issues. No steps to climb. But I'm a lazy retiree. For young people with children and dogs math is different.

Counter point: (I lived in apartments/condos for 20+ years)

I live in a SFH now, love that I can simply walk 5 feet from my kitchen to the back yard and have no noise and fresh air.

No noisy neighbors above me constantly dropping things on the floor, no smelly hallways, or people leaving garbage in common areas.

I don't have to wait for an elevator, or hope that it doesn't have maintenance issues.

Maintenance takes no hours a month other than a call to a handyman to fix various issues in the house.

I could go on, but to each their own, pursuit what makes you happy!

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

#432

Post by mlrtime »

dijit wrote: post #140
astronads wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s evidence that constant unwanted noise can negatively impact our health: https://archive.ph/5mvYQ (nytimes) I don’t mind visiting cities, but I certainly would never live in one.

Cities aren't loud. Cars are loud.[0] I live in Malmö on the southern edge of Sweden opposite Copenhagen, it's quieter here (pop: 350,000~) than my friends home village in Northamptonshire (Thrapston; pop: 6,239 as of 2011). This was largely because of the sheer volume of cars on the road, because you essentially have to drive to get anywhere. London is similar, despite not everyone needing a car there is traffic eve…

Cities are loud, cars are one (major) reason, but not the only one.

I lived in a downtown area in a high-rise. 2am in the morning, no cars running but the hummming of all the equipment necessary to operate a city is noise pollution.

Next, light pollution.

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

#433

Post by LudwigNagasena »

redeeman wrote: post #370
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

I don’t think it’s so simple. Many people have other values beyond material wants.

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

#434

Post by pja »

prmoustache wrote: post #407
pja wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was midweek in the autumn after the bars had all shut & everyone had gone home. It might even have been a bit later! Either way, my point is that it was the worst possible time to be upending bins full of glassware in a residential area. That noise was far louder than the people in the bars had been an hour earlier.

The actual truck that collect those glasses pass between 2 to 4am. What does it do? It lift the glass collection tank and let the glass fall into the truck bed. So yes I don't think anyone cares that someone if binning some glassware one hour before the truck will do that same noise at much higher scale.

I was referring to the truck here, not the individual bars putting their bins out. They closed relatively early for Spain, as it was mid-week & not high-summer.

The truck then came crashing down the street a little later...

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

#435

Post by manuelabeledo »

jjav wrote: post #371
manuelabeledo wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in a suburb and I walk to one of three nearby ( That is an outlier, though. Not only are suburbs less dense and, obviously, services are not as close, but county and/or city regulations across the US are notoriously anti mixed use developments, which make things even worse.

> That is an outlier, though. Can you point me at data? This is always stated as truth but I always question it and have not seen anything conclusive yet. Personally I've never lived in a suburb where I couldn't walk to supermarkets and other stores (and I've nearly always lived in suburbs). I think the outlier is the suburb from where one can't walk anywhere. Would love to see comprehensive data on this.

> Can you point me at data?

The National walkability index guide [0] gives suburbs a "below average" walkability score.

Informally, there's also a website called Walkscore [1], where users rate walkability in many cities and towns across the US. Even most cities rank lower than 60 out of 100, and suburbs, given the almost nation-wide aversion to mixed use buildings, do not rank higher.

Coming from Europe, it was a huge shock when I knew that I would have to walk 15 minutes to reach the closest grocery store. That, and the fact that in the US, sidewalks seem to disappear at random intervals for whatever reason.

[0] https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-06/documents/na...

[1] https://www.walkscore.com

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

#436

Post by davidw »

refurb wrote: post #430
prmoustache wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The 2 extra bedrooms are for kids, usually. They don't need big mattresses.

Having 3 smaller bedrooms is way better for a family than US style apartments where it's almost impossible to find 3 bedrooms at all.

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

#437

Post by treis »

Lord-Jobo wrote: post #129
treis wrote: 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.

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…

> 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 focus on replacing or phasing out?

It's way way easier to deal with neutral/slight growth than shrinking. Like take teachers as an example. In an ideal world the demand for them is the same year in year out. Every year X of them will retire and Y new graduates will be hired. In a declining world you need 3% fewer teachers every year so when 3% retire you don't hire new ones. Multiply that across every industry and you have a youth unemployment crisis.

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

#438

Post by pvaldes »

huytersd wrote: post #380
causality0 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What would the standard demonym be here? Spainian? Spainese? Seems like the British, French and Polish also get unique ones.

Spanish

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

#439

Post by BeetleB »

anthk wrote: post #426
BeetleB wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And until we do, we need more people, as bad as it may be for the environment.

It's not as if no one thought of what you're saying. I think you don't appreciate how unfeasible it is currently. First off you have economics. Can we make it cheaply enough so that it's available to everyone, and not just white collar folks?

Even putting aside the economics of it, once you start itemizing all the possible ways one would need help, you'll realize you're effectively asking for the equivalent of an intelligent android.

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

#440

Post by cowboysauce »

balfirevic wrote: post #376

It's funny how everyone complains about other people being loud when living in flats. Does no one here like to bang on electric guitar or blast karaoke with friends until 3AM?

No? I think it's rude to be excessively loud so I don't, especially not at night. I don't see this as really any different than "Does no one here cut in line?".
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