Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#51

Post by pottertheotter » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:00 PM UTC

jmathai wrote: post #40

kansface wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d strongly disagree about people caring about interiors - houses are built and sold as a list of checkboxes as if they were enterprise software. They have the commensurate problems of enterprise software. Also, I’ll note that maybe only 10% of US houses are designed by an architect in the first place. Developers think in dollars, first, second, and third. They may upgrade your countertop to granite, but that’s the…

If only 10% of homes are designed by architects then it's probably 1% who have an interior designer involved. We are in the middle of a remodel and involving an interior designer as early in the process as the architect resulted in a much different layout and floor plan than if we only worked with an architect. The architect helped us make sure the house was structurally sound and the interior designer helped us make…

There seems to be a lot of variability in what architects do and care about. In your last sentence, I feel like you could often replace architect with structural engineer and interior designer with architect in other situations and end up with the same outcome.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#52

Post by carapace » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:01 PM UTC

jason-phillips wrote: post #17

From "A City is not a Tree" by Christopher Alexander: > It is more and more widely recognized today that there is some essential ingredient missing from artificial cities. When compared with ancient cities that have acquired the patina of life, our modern attempts to create cities artificially are, from a human point of view, entirely unsuccessful. > Architects themselves admit more and more freely that they really l…

Christopher Alexander has a whole website dedicated to the idea of designing "Living Neighborhoods": https://www.livingneighborhoods.org/

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#53

Post by diordiderot » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:02 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #49

diordiderot wrote: post #25

I imagine the lifestyle in many planned Soviet housing blocks was more pleasant than a low income American Edit: I just mean the physical environment, not political / social / economic

> Yeltsin, then 58, "roamed the aisles of Randall's nodding his head in amazement," wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution." … > About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin's next destination,…

Sorry I didn't explain well! I only meant navigating the built environment! Nothing economic or political

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#54

Post by diordiderot » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:06 PM UTC

rendall wrote: post #42

diordiderot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need for cars + greenery and public parks? Weren't there LeCorbusier style.

I dunno. East Berlin is pretty soul-crushing, with its block upon block upon block of blocky blocks. Warehouses for humans.

Sad, I thought the whole idea was apartments with parks with 15 minute walk to doctor, school, etc and taking the bus to work

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#55

Post by lapsed_pacifist » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #3

> That is why the increasing cost of craftsmanship, while real, cannot account for the decline of neighborhood beauty. It's not the cost, it's the availability. I'm currently in the process of a home renovation. If you want a master craftsman to build you say, kitchen cabinets, you may have to wait years for them to be available. Or you can go to the store and buy custom built cabinets from a factory and have them in…

Baumels' Cost Disease.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#56

Post by brailsafe » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #41

zwieback wrote: post #15

Buried in the article is an important point: people care a lot about interior and not much about exterior appearance. Typical cookie-cutter suburban neighborhoods are built assuming nobody walks around in them anyway. On the inside these houses are pretty deluxe, though. Also, in the US it's very difficult to build a house out of solid wood like my house from 40s. New materials might not look as nice but are less was…

Quality of interior is so overlooked in these sorts of threads. Yes - from orbit it might look trashy. From the pov where people actually exist, it's got 13' ceilings, plantation shutters, induction cooktop, tesla power wall, gigabit symmetric connection to the goddammit internet, dedicated home office with bookshelves and brick facade, and a monstrous 5 ton air conditioner to keep it all comfy. Oh and the sprinkler…

Wouldn't it actually make things like fiber, road construction, and every other piece of infrastructure predictably non-economical because of how sprawling suburbs can't pay for themselves?

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#57

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:10 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#58

Post by bobulous » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

> For one thing, there are autos all over Paris, so at least in principle it ought to be possible to build in ways that are both highly attractive and allow for cars.

The presence of cars does not mean it was built for cars. The most important difference between pre-war and post-war neighborhoods is that one was built FOR cars

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#59

Post by chmod775 » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:20 PM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #41

zwieback wrote: post #15

Buried in the article is an important point: people care a lot about interior and not much about exterior appearance. Typical cookie-cutter suburban neighborhoods are built assuming nobody walks around in them anyway. On the inside these houses are pretty deluxe, though. Also, in the US it's very difficult to build a house out of solid wood like my house from 40s. New materials might not look as nice but are less was…

Quality of interior is so overlooked in these sorts of threads. Yes - from orbit it might look trashy. From the pov where people actually exist, it's got 13' ceilings, plantation shutters, induction cooktop, tesla power wall, gigabit symmetric connection to the goddammit internet, dedicated home office with bookshelves and brick facade, and a monstrous 5 ton air conditioner to keep it all comfy. Oh and the sprinkler…

> From the pov where people actually exist

You think if the outside would actually offer something instead of depressing scenery: stores and cafes within walking distance, parks and playgrounds, would people prefer to exist outside a lot more?

I could not exist at all in those suburbs. A cafe, various stores, and a supermarket within a 5 minute walking distance is as integral to my lifestyle as owning a fridge. Also having some forest around to go for walks is nice. The only thing walking for 10 minutes in an American suburb will get you is probably more suburb. If you're lucky a McDonalds and 20 acres of concrete parking lot will provide a change of scenery.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#60

Post by OJFord » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #4

jedberg wrote: post #3

> That is why the increasing cost of craftsmanship, while real, cannot account for the decline of neighborhood beauty. It's not the cost, it's the availability. I'm currently in the process of a home renovation. If you want a master craftsman to build you say, kitchen cabinets, you may have to wait years for them to be available. Or you can go to the store and buy custom built cabinets from a factory and have them in…

If demand so significantly exceeds supply, why aren't folks with these skills raising prices?

Not to discount the answer you've had, but to offer another factor:

100 * £10 > 50 * £19

It plays into the other really: you have to multiply your fee by more than the reduction in volume to make more money; if you break even on the trade, in a way that's great, less work same money, but now you're not practicing.

So there's a trade-off there, and for it to be obviously worth it, there really has to be a significantly outsized boost to fee compared to reduction in number of people prepared to pay it, that just isn't going to happen unless you had it really wrong to begin with.

(Maybe if you're already on the very high designer end you can suddenly go 10x or more as a result of being 'discovered' or going 'viral'? But not lower on the ladder, like the difference between DIY shop 'it works' vs. bespoke; carpenter vs. joiner; as discussed above.)