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Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

construction-physics.com

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Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#491

Post by pojzon »

currydove wrote: post #404
pojzon wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no crisis. Its all artifical to keep ppl poor. Infrastructure is centralized, if it was more spread out everyone could afford a nice house with own big garden and vegetables field. Stop making it sound like its the ppl issue they want to live near nature and have own land. Too high density of ppl per square meter has huge disadventages in well being of those ppl and their overall health. There is so much unu…

I don't even know where to begin here. Of course we have the land to spread people out, but it's insanely expensive on everyone (especially those who are spread out) over time to sustain it. [1] If you don't have time to read - here's a video I could quickly find about the same topic from the same source - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3kkk2JdoI You have a lot of straw man arguments that but the one that I'll focus…

> prove it

Infrastructure work is supervised and licensed by the goverment. You cant start building a city in the middle of nowhere even if its your own land. You have to follow standards and regulations enforced on you.

Last time I checked it looks similar in every 1st world country. Ppl are slowly losing means of production and being moved to subscription plan to even live.

"You wont own anything and be happy"

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#492

Post by foxyv »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #477
foxyv wrote: post #177

It takes significantly less materials to build a multi-dwelling apartment/condo/townhouse structure than a single family home. In addition, the required square footage per person drops by huge amounts when people can walk to nearby community centers, restaurants, kitchens, theaters, and bars. We are building massive 3-4k sq. ft. homes for families of four because all of their food, entertainment, and social needs are…

Those amenities are rarely used in North America. The problem is zoning, fire, and building codes make it impractical to build a bunch of 2.2k square foot units instead of the current mix of 500, 700 and 900 square foot units. Double stairway requirements are a big onerous regulation, especially when we already mandate sprinklers. What we need for families are more developments like the interwar upper west side in NY…

Double stairways and building code requirements don't seem terribly onerous to me. However, the parking minimums and traffic flow requirements do. In Dallas, each 500 square feet of a unit is required to have a parking space... A parking space takes up 300 square feet on average. This means your apartments are at LEAST 3/5 parking.

This means you get complexes like this one where it's more parking lot than housing and that land is VERY expensive.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bridgeport+Apartments/@32....

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#493

Post by kiba »

majormajor wrote: post #341
yitianjian wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The traffic in a medium sized NA city like Atlanta or Dallas can be a lot better than it is now, and it's definitely not comparable to Shanghai, London or Tokyo.

Do you have any examples in mind of 6-10M cities with stress-free comfortable commuting and affordable housing for all? Off the top of my head, but without a lot of first- or second-hand experience, Rome seems like the commute is probably a lot better than the larger cities, but my perception is that the affordability is pretty poor? Otherwise most of my experience is in larger or much smaller places. Something that…

If you want stress free comfortable commuting, you're going to need to build an efficient way to move people.

Cars are not really an option when it comes to moving people en mass. It's just too low capacity.

Rome's metro system in particular is stymied by buried Roman artifacts and laws for archaeology. That's not really the worst thing, given that NYC subway construction cost are some of the highest in the world.

That said, I saw what Atlanta looks like. Aside from down Atlanta, a lot of Atlanta is literally just low rise, even downright suburban sometime. It's a smaller city than people thought, given that only half a million people lives within its border proper, but nonetheless traffic is somehow a nightmare.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#494

Post by scoofy »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #456
NewJazz wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You end up sitting in traffic for an hour instead of standing on a bus or train for an hour for your commute Why are you acting like driving a vehicle and being a passenger in a vehicle are the same experience? One is clearly more demanding and inhibiting than the other. On a train you can work, read, listen to a podcast, sometimes eat... Lots of things you can't do while in a car. Unless your job is driving. Which,…

> On a train you can work, read, listen to a podcast, sometimes eat I do all of those things in my car while driving too. Maybe not read but I’ve listened to audiobooks. I also sit in Teams meetings, read and respond to emails and IMs on my phone as well when I’m at a stop light. Maybe some people can’t do these things while driving but plenty of us do.

Lol... yea, let's not discuss the 100 deaths a day are caused by automobile collisions. It's not going to help your argument.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#495

Post by pojzon »

foxyv wrote: post #425
pojzon wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no crisis. Its all artifical to keep ppl poor. Infrastructure is centralized, if it was more spread out everyone could afford a nice house with own big garden and vegetables field. Stop making it sound like its the ppl issue they want to live near nature and have own land. Too high density of ppl per square meter has huge disadventages in well being of those ppl and their overall health. There is so much unu…

Anyone who has lived in a rural area that hasn't been subsidized can tell you why spreading out kinda sucks. The power company charges you $100k to run a line to your house. The phone company charges you $20k to run a copper line to give you 100kb DSL. Water has to be pumped from a well which costs $30-50k to drill. We don't really need to cram people in elbow to elbow like New York City though. We just need walkable…

All you listed is exactly what I said "lack of infrastructure"... thank you for confirming my point.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#496

Post by J_Shelby_J »

nico_h wrote: post #336
majormajor wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily get housing affordability crises even without single family homes, as is plainly evident right now in non-North-American cities. It's a bit of a red herring. You end up sitting in traffic for an hour instead of standing on a bus or train for an hour for your commute, and other knock-on differences like that, which can be debated for various other reasons like ecological impact, but you still end up run…

Uninhabited land is empty of people for a reason: - it’s protected - it’s undesirable (too hot/ dry/wet/far/steep/close to a pollution source) - it’s agricultural land If it’s not any of these it’s owned and thus controlled by someone.

> Uninhabited land is empty of people for a reason: - it’s protected

Almost the entirety of coastal California (and Oregon and WA as well.) It's insane. It's the best climate on the planet and the most protected from climate change.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#497

Post by bombcar »

KaiserPro wrote: post #38

I would argue that the mateiral is not the pinchpoint of the housing crisis. Its the lack of land, or permits to build on said land. Edit I should say _affordable_ land. Or land that isn't blocked by nimbys

There's plenty of land, it's just not where people want to be.

Around here houses are going up, land is being subdivided, everything is moving.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#498

Post by dogman144 »

foxyv wrote: post #225
stronglikedan wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone likes to share a wall. I'm glad there are options, since I'm one of them. I can walk from my single family home to nearby community centers, restaurants, kitchens, theaters, and bars in 15 minutes. Not everyone likes to be that close to that stuff, and that's okay. I'm glad we have options, since I'm not one of them. There's plenty of space to build new homes of all types. It's an entitlement crisis.

> There's plenty of space to build new homes of all types. Unfortunately this is not the case in North America. Very little land is zoned to allow such communities. Those areas that are have become so insanely expensive only the extremely wealthy can afford to live in them.

Very little land...in all... of North America. That's a big place for such a tight summary lol.

The communities,, space, and zoning are out there, but often many facing the housing issues just aren't willing to move. There's more to it than this obviously, but for every person slamming their lifestyle and expenses against the wall in a trendy area, there are others picking up and moving to Philly, St. Louis, Lexington, etc.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#499

Post by joshlemer »

ejb999 wrote: post #345
eikenberry wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious one is residential only zoning. How are you supposed to be able to walk to local businesses if there are no local businesses as zoning prohibits them?

zoning laws are usually locally voted on and approved - if the locals in any given area want to allow business, they can - but lots of people don't want to live close to businesses - so they vote accordingly. People that want to live near businesses and don't, should move to places that have it - there are lots of places in the country like that. People that want to live in an entirely residential area, but don't, sh…

> zoning laws are usually locally voted on and approved - if the locals in any given area want to allow business, they can - but lots of people don't want to live close to businesses - so they vote accordingly.

By this logic, it would seem impossible to critique really anything that any democratically elected government does.

Re: Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage

#500

Post by foxyv »

sombrero_john wrote: post #380
akira2501 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I see a giant timber framed apartment building being constructed I'm exceptionally glad that I don't have to consider living inside of it. It's fine for your early 30s, but if you hope to be part of the "professional class" then that form of living takes it's toll exceptionally quickly.

What kind of toll are you talking about?

I don't think they have ever lived in such a structure. They are probably talking about living in a two story light timber frame apartment from the 70s/80s. The walls are paper thin and you can wake up your neighbor walking in slippers to get a drink of water.

These mass timber buildings are SO much better.

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