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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

#521

Post by mlsu »

majormajor wrote: post #306
novok wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't sit on the train for an hour. In properly designed large cities the metro beats the car by a huge time margin unless they made cars so expensive by policy that nobody has a car and there is no traffic at that city as a result. Americans often think the shitty experience they have in their country applies universally. Ex: The bus & light rail is bad and slow, so therefore it will always be bad everywhere. Am…

> You don't sit on the train for an hour. In properly designed large cities the metro beats the car by a huge time margin unless they made cars so expensive by policy that nobody has a car and there is no traffic at that city as a result. You should meet some of my old coworkers in large cities in Asia... (you don't SIT on the train at all in rush hour!) In a smaller city it can work great! But in a small NA city, ev…

We only have 2 cities in the United States that even approach a "medium sized" Asian metro in population. Los Angeles and NYC. Only NYC has a usable public transit system.

This is actually an argument for transit systems. Los Angeles, San Francisco/San Jose, Dallas, Phoenix -- could be (and should be) a global metropolises, with a populations and cultural relevance rivaling Tokyo or Hong Kong. They would be, if not for the car. There are people who commute daily from the suburbs of Stockton to the SF bay area.

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

#522

Post by bluGill »

comte7092 wrote: post #295
stronglikedan wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> suburbia is massively subsidized That's a common argument that no one has been able to sufficiently prove.

It’s a fairly intuitive thing to understand, the suburbs require significantly more infrastructure per capita. More roads, power lines, sewer/water lines, etc. Just look at something as simple as trash pickup. In the burbs you have to travel a significantly greater distance per household.

But most of the cost isn't distance it is time to empty the cans once there.

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

#523

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

scoofy wrote: post #401
philwelch wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not the reason we have a housing crisis. If you look at cities like Houston, where housing is relatively affordable, the vast majority of people still have single family homes. The reason we have a housing crisis is because regulations make it too hard to build housing.

I grew up in Texas, people are have been building in literal floodplains because there is no more room to build. https://abc13.com/floodplain-housing-building-houston-flood/... Houston is just second-to-last in line in Texas to face the affordability crisis (followed by San Antonio) because they have the highest capacity automobile infrastructure, but it's already regularly ranked with the worst traffic in the United…

Considering that Houston is significantly bigger than Austin--metro area of 6.6 million vs 2.2 million--one could argue it _is_ handling a significant influx of people better than Austin.

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

#524

Post by foxyv »

huytersd wrote: post #486
foxyv wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A LOT of people want to live in such places. However, most of the problems you mention are a result of car dependency and not dense housing itself. Kids have nowhere to play because cars make it unsafe for them to roam. You have no hobbies because you have no places to go to do them. You have no backyard because the roads prevent you from going to the park. Instead we have to build our houses into huge compounds to d…

Shared spaces and parks are not a replacement for your own land. I’ve done that while I lived in Manhattan and never enjoyed it.

That's great! But we need places for people to live too. Not everyone wants to own acreage. Some people just want a place to lay their head that's close to where they work and a nice school for their kids. It also doesn't have to be Manhattan density either. It can even just be as simple as building houses closer together and allowing for corner markets in residential areas.

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

#525

Post by stouset »

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…

> Do you have any examples in mind of 6-10M cities with stress-free comfortable commuting and affordable housing for all?

“Do you have examples of cities that are literally utopia? No? Checkmate, urbanists!”

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

#526

Post by Aloisius »

bombcar wrote: post #503
Aloisius wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. The humanitarian parole program was created to allow 30,000 Cuban/Haitian/Nicaraguan/Venezuelan nationals in per month on a two year work visa as long as they have a US sponsor that will financially support them and pass background checks. In return, Mexico is allowing the US to expel 30,000 illegal migrants per month from those countries to Mexico rather than their home countries.

It doesn't matter if they're only here for two years; they still need housing during that time. That's 30,000 unhoused individuals per month being added, and unless the expelled offsets it, they still need housing.

It reduced illegal border crossings by people from those countries by more than were admitted through the program, so housing requirements should be reduced overall.

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

#527

Post by typewithrhythm »

foxyv wrote: post #443
typewithrhythm wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Density spoils many of these examples, being in close proximity to a random collection of people has downsides. Why would I go to a theatre with people who cough and talk, when I can spend a couple of months wage to have a better experience? Why would I go to a crowded expensive bar when I could have the space to host at home? People pay for the better experience, there are very few places where the apartment experie…

I'm not saying that no one would build their own home theatre or restaurant sized kitchen. But a lot of people honestly wouldn't bother if they had other options in their community. It moves the cost/benefit curve over by a standard deviation or two.

I think you are advocating for trying to make the experience of apartment living less shit, based on some idea that density is inherently good. However there is no example where this is the case, as less density always allows individuals more control over their immediate environment. I don't believe people choose community options deliberately, people who use them simply have no alternative. There is no positive evaluation being done, or cost/benifit it's simply the only affordable option.

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

#528

Post by foxyv »

trgn wrote: post #332
qwertyuiop_ wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a multi housing building and its a NIGHTMARE. A drug dealer moved in next door and he smokes all kinds of synthetic drugs 24/7 the shared walls and gaps are so thin the drugs leak in to my home. The person above me has some sort of mental condition, he wakes up at 12:45 am and starts drumming the floor with his hands, runs around and moves the furniture all night everyday. There isnt a damn thing i can do a…

Nothing kills the vibe of apartment living like trash neighbors. Same with houses, but it's just so much more pronounced in a multi-unit house. Construction plays a large part. Apartment buildings in the US are flimsy (usually). In other cities, they're often built like vaults.

I have had problems with bad neighbors in my old apartment as well as out on county land. It's just a universal problem honestly. You are definitely right about American apartments sucking. But they have to get the money for parking from somewhere and it's usually building quality that suffers.

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

#529

Post by eks391 »

throwitaway222 wrote: post #36
spankalee wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owners holding vacant units is not a significant cause of the housing shortage. Overly restrictive zoning and subjective reviews exploited by NIMBYs explains almost all of it.

There are studies - there are more vacation units than homeless people in the United States - like double.

That stat is so impressive that I'm struggling to believe it. Is there a source you can point me to?

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

#530

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #458
singleshot_ wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure the implication that those of us who don’t enjoy sharing walls are immoral racists is particularly justified.

It's a historical fact. I'm not saying you're a racist. Those zoning ordinances though definitely are.

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