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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

#441

Post by travisb »

caskstrength wrote: post #423
travisb wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, the web of subsidy is wide and complex, but not all subsidies are for the same reason.

For example, the fructose corn syrup subsidies exist, as far as I can tell, in order to on-shore agricultural profits and ensure sufficient slack in the domestic agricultural system to ensure that restrictions on imports of food, such as in the case of war, would not seriously affect the USA. That is, it's a subsidy towards food security.

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

#442

Post by jjav »

mikebenfield wrote: post #390
jjav wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be honest this is one of those Internet comments where I feel like the commenter is in a different reality than me. Same, but that's why I say the US is a big place. There isn't a standard US suburb. > They definitely don't walk to the grocery store, to a restaurant, to a bar, to the gym, to work, etc. That is alien to my experience. I can walk to all of those, with multiple instances of each one, from a suburba…

So there's a pretty big push for urbanism the last few years. There's lots of YouTube channels and other social media stuff dedicated to the idea that the US needs more walkable neighborhoods, more bike infrastructure, less car dependence, etc. In your view then... what in the world is this about? If suburbs are perfectly walkable, why does anyone care about urbanism? Why does this channel https://www.youtube.com/c/n…

> In your view then... what in the world is this about?

I don't entirely know, that's why I ask questions and links to concrete places.

> If suburbs are perfectly walkable, why does anyone care about urbanism?

I think there are different reasons for wanting to live in a dense downtown.

20-something me wanted to live in Manhattan so I could walk to hundreds of bars and clubs. For young people looking for this scene, an ultra-dense downtown is the only way to go.

So that is one reason, and for this one I completely understand and agree that no suburb ever will be able to offer the same experience.

But I feel other reasons are based on misconceptions. I see it repeated in every housing thread on HN, that it is impossible to walk anywhere when living in a suburb. Just on this article discussion you can find multiple people making variants of that claim. Sometimes people here on HN go even more outlandish and claim that people in suburbs must drive 30 minutes to get to a supermarket.

Those are misconceptions, so I think it's worth pointing that out. I'm sure there are occasional suburbs (not rural) where you truly can't walk anywhere, but that seems like a rare exception.

In my very suburban neighborhood, we can easily walk to 3 supermarkets, many restaurants, two bars, misc services (haircuts, locksmiths, etc), assorted other stores, hardware store, movies, library, theater, post office, bike shops, car repair, multiple playgrounds, sports fields, friends houses (for adults and kids) and I can go on.

> I've definitely met plenty of people who are very pro-suburb, but it's because they consider it natural and acceptable to need a car for any trip, not because they think they can get places without a car.

I don't think I can go places without a car in my suburb, I can and I do. See list above. Unless it's freezing and raining (not so common here in NorCal), I mostly walk or bike to all of the above. I prefer to bike but the lack of secure bike parking makes me walk more often than bike. My pre-teen kid can bike or scooter or walk to these places as well, mostly friends houses. I'm not imagining this, this is how we live out here in the suburbs.

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

#443

Post by redeeman »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #433
redeeman wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i never said it was the only desire

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

#444

Post by Vinnl »

user_7832 wrote: post #95
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.

From what I’ve seen while cycling between cities in the Netherlands, the “rural” areas still have houses frequently (and even more in “urban” areas - for example between The Hague and Rotterdam you probably won’t be able to go 500m without finding a house/building). However, the density of most cities isn’t that high (most/median residential buildings are probably 4-5 floors or less, except Rotterdam). For comparison…

Yeah, I think often the Netherlands makes more sense if you just think of the Randstad -or even the entirety of the Netherlands- as a big city. Population-wise, that's not a crazy idea either. Then obviously it will be denser than an entire country like Spain, while it can still be less dense than actual cities within Spain.

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

#445

Post by jjav »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #435
jjav wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hu…

Thank you, the EPA doc and interactive map is interesting and I had not seen that one before.

The blocks are a bit weird. For example zooming into my neighborhood there is a house with a score of 93 but the house next door (no more than 50ft away) has a score of 70 just because it falls in a different map block. Although in reality people from both houses can walk to the same things with same ease.

Found an even more extreme case in Mountain View. Houses on one side of Shoreline Blvd have a score of 90 and houses on the other side a score of 10! Shoreline has pedestrian crossings, so houses on each side should logically have the same score.

So while interesting at a big scale view, the data is flawed.

The walkscore site I was familiar with and I think it's quite bad, does not reflect reality.

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

#446

Post by mikebenfield »

jjav wrote: post #442
mikebenfield wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there's a pretty big push for urbanism the last few years. There's lots of YouTube channels and other social media stuff dedicated to the idea that the US needs more walkable neighborhoods, more bike infrastructure, less car dependence, etc. In your view then... what in the world is this about? If suburbs are perfectly walkable, why does anyone care about urbanism? Why does this channel https://www.youtube.com/c/n…

> In your view then... what in the world is this about? I don't entirely know, that's why I ask questions and links to concrete places. > If suburbs are perfectly walkable, why does anyone care about urbanism? I think there are different reasons for wanting to live in a dense downtown. 20-something me wanted to live in Manhattan so I could walk to hundreds of bars and clubs. For young people looking for this scene, a…

The only additional point I’ll make is that places like Stallings (the first link I posted) are absolutely considered suburbs. For instance the Wikipedia article on Stallings calls it a “suburban town” ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stallings,_North_Carolina ).

That’s another thing I found a bit odd - it would never have occurred to me that anyone would not have considered that area a suburb.

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

#447

Post by jjav »

mikebenfield wrote: post #446
jjav wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In your view then... what in the world is this about? I don't entirely know, that's why I ask questions and links to concrete places. > If suburbs are perfectly walkable, why does anyone care about urbanism? I think there are different reasons for wanting to live in a dense downtown. 20-something me wanted to live in Manhattan so I could walk to hundreds of bars and clubs. For young people looking for this scene, a…

The only additional point I’ll make is that places like Stallings (the first link I posted) are absolutely considered suburbs. For instance the Wikipedia article on Stallings calls it a “suburban town” ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stallings,_North_Carolina ). That’s another thing I found a bit odd - it would never have occurred to me that anyone would not have considered that area a suburb.

> That’s another thing I found a bit odd - it would never have occurred to me that anyone would not have considered that area a suburb.

It's true that there is no agreed definition to "suburb" which confuses these discussions.

Suburbs comes from sub (under, although here basically means around) urbs (city).

To me a suburb must be connected to its city. The city center has dense tall buildings and as you move away from the center the height and density decrease and then you are in the sub-urbs but it's all still built-up area. Once you move even further away and move into forested areas, you're out of the suburbs and into the rural surroundings.

If you have 30 minutes of highway driving through mostly forested areas (very green on google satellite view) between a house and the "urbs" (Charlotte, here) I think that's quite a stretch to call that a suburb.

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

#448

Post by balfirevic »

cowboysauce wrote: post #440
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?".

That's not what I meant.

I'm saying that many people dislike flats because their neighbours make noise, but not many people are saying they dislike flats because they themselves wish to make noise (which they can only politely do in a house).

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

#449

Post by refurb »

davidw wrote: post #436
refurb wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it really even a bedroom if you can't fit a queen sized mattress? That's an incredibly small room.

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

#450

Post by willio58 »

jjav wrote: post #445
manuelabeledo wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hu…

Thank you, the EPA doc and interactive map is interesting and I had not seen that one before. The blocks are a bit weird. For example zooming into my neighborhood there is a house with a score of 93 but the house next door (no more than 50ft away) has a score of 70 just because it falls in a different map block. Although in reality people from both houses can walk to the same things with same ease. Found an even more…

Are we talking about the same thing when we talk about suburbs?

Here's the Oxford dictionary's definition: an outlying district of a city, especially a residential one.

There are always outliers and exceptions to the rule but modern suburbs are a pretty simple yet flawed idea. They allow residential single-family zoned lots with very few exceptions and they look like clusters of anywhere from 1 to hundreds of housing development projects connected together by roads.

Can you physically walk from your suburb to a grocery store? Absolutely! But for hundreds of millions of Americans, almost none of which would ever take on that task by choice, this looks like walking a few miles at least round trip and crossing at least a couple of highly-dangerous multi-lane roads around the stores they are heading to. This is just how things work in suburbs, everything is so spread out that cars turn out to be the only feasible transportation method. If cars are the only way to get around, roads need to be made wider and faster especially around those areas people are trying to get to--like stores.

This is all part of why there's growing concern around building practices that promote suburb-like development.

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