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Make More Land

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Re: Make More Land

#61

Post by asdfman123 »

choeger wrote: post #2

The more pressing question: Can we actually still do such projects in western democracies? How long would it take until the last judge has dismissed the plea to save the nearly extinct Californian Pink Stink Beetle that by circumstance breeds in that area? How much more expensive would the project become over its ever longer runtime? What will happen when the seemingly inevitable corruption scandals are brought to da…

That attitude drives me crazy. Each new high rise built in San Francisco prevents a few several blocks of nature being paved over for suburbs somewhere else.

I had this debate with an environmentalist who supported urban farming. Sure, urban farming is cool and a nice hobby, but it would be far more environmentally friendly to build a high rise. New high rises drive down the costs of urban living, more people move to the city, and whole tracts of nature are saved from destruction.

Re: Make More Land

#62

Post by bluGill »

Udik wrote: post #28
bluGill wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better mass transit needs straight lines to run on more than density. When the bus has to go down every long cul-de-sac nobody will ride because the bus takes so long, when it doesn't few people ride because of the long walk to the bus. If developments has more long straight streets down the middle there wouldn't be a long walk to a bus that runs a reasonable route. As you said, closer isn't a measure of only distanc…

It's hard when American culture seems obsessed with houses rather than flats. You can build in straight lines, but if each 4 people dwelling takes up 400 square metres of horizontal space, there is no way distances will ever be walkable- often not even those between two bus or tram stops.

That just limits how many people can get on in a given distance. If the transit is useful enough people will walk. There are farms in Europe with better bus service than Suburbs in the US, even though farms are much less dense.

You won't be running a bus every 5 minutes through the suburbs, but you can support one 30 minutes, which is the minimum frequency to be useful, and allows 1/6th the destiny to have the same riders.

There are areas of the US nearly as dense as Paris, but because the geometry is so transit hostile there will never be transit despite the density seeming to support it. Los Vagas for example has inward facing apartments that make getting to any through street from the door hard.

Re: Make More Land

#63

Post by rhacker »

> You do need to take fill into account to build in an earthquake-safe way, but modern engineering is well up to the task.

That's pretty hand-wavy. I'm sure the guys in 1970 said the same argument. The word modern has been around for thousands of years.

Re: Make More Land

#64

Post by flareback »

zackbloom wrote: post #18

> This part of the Bay is primarily industrial salt ponds. For the record, the industrial salt ponds are actually very beautiful. The fact that they are salt ponds is not actually a refutation to the 'but you're destroying beauty' argument.

I don't know much about these, but doesn't it mean that if we remove these salt ponds we'll have to relocate the industry or at least the salt ponds somewhere else?

Re: Make More Land

#66

Post by beerandt »

derefr wrote: post #19
choeger wrote: post #2

The more pressing question: Can we actually still do such projects in western democracies? How long would it take until the last judge has dismissed the plea to save the nearly extinct Californian Pink Stink Beetle that by circumstance breeds in that area? How much more expensive would the project become over its ever longer runtime? What will happen when the seemingly inevitable corruption scandals are brought to da…

I think we still do these projects all the time, in cities of a certain development level, for the same reason we always did them: industry lobbying. This land was, almost always, reclaimed by heavy industry, for industrial use ; and only later, once that industry no longer had need of it (and was being gentrified out of the area entirely) was the land re-zoned for other uses and “finished off” as a public works proj…

New Orleans lakefront and parts of New Orleans East were massive land building projects, specifically for neighborhoods. Lakefront Airport (KNEW) was also included in these projects. The land was sold to finance the levees before federal law put the Army Corps of Engineers in charge of levee building, ~1965.

http://richcampanella.com/assets/pdf/Picayune_Cityscapes_201...

https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/603

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakeshore/Lake_Vista,_New_Or...

Edit: I can't find the source, but the levee board still has title and standing permission from the state to fill-in something like an additional 2 miles out into Lake Pontchartrain.

Re: Make More Land

#67

Post by mlyle »

lazyjones wrote: post #26
dougweltman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your general point, but it's worth mentioning 2 points on the Empire State Building example: 1) Depending on where you draw the line for starting the ESB, it was 16 months. 2) Look at building sites in NYC today (which can still build skyscrapers effectively), and compare them with pictures from the 30s. MUCH better health and safety, both for workers and nearby pedestrians. At least 5, and as many as 14…

Is the situation actually much better today? > 21% / 991 of 4693 Work Deaths In The US Were In Construction (2016) http://www.imectechnologies.com/2018/07/30/construction-safe...

Yes. Tens of thousands of people died per year in construction and industrial deaths in the 1910s, 20s, and 30s, with a much smaller population. Yes, construction is still disproportionately risky, but...

Two deaths to build 1 WTC, vs 60 deaths to build the Twin Towers (4x the square footage), vs 5-14 deaths to build the Empire State Building (80% the square footage). Most ordinary skyscrapers have zero, which wasn't the case 100 years ago.

Re: Make More Land

#68

Post by thorwasdfasdf »

asdfman123 wrote: post #61
choeger wrote: post #2

The more pressing question: Can we actually still do such projects in western democracies? How long would it take until the last judge has dismissed the plea to save the nearly extinct Californian Pink Stink Beetle that by circumstance breeds in that area? How much more expensive would the project become over its ever longer runtime? What will happen when the seemingly inevitable corruption scandals are brought to da…

That attitude drives me crazy. Each new high rise built in San Francisco prevents a few several blocks of nature being paved over for suburbs somewhere else. I had this debate with an environmentalist who supported urban farming. Sure, urban farming is cool and a nice hobby, but it would be far more environmentally friendly to build a high rise. New high rises drive down the costs of urban living, more people move to…

> but it would be far more environmentally friendly to build a high rise.

Absolutely Right! And, it would decrease pollution and global warming because people's commutes would be much much shorter, as they wouldn't be forced to commute from 80 miles away, like it currently is in the Bay Area.

Re: Make More Land

#69

Post by ummonk »

I was once with a map of areas that, in the absence of dikes, would get flooded by rising sea levels. Outside places in Florida / Louisiana / Southeast Texas, the only major city I saw that would experience significant flooding was Boston. Now I know why. Of course, as the author mentions, dikes work perfectly fine (especially in an area like the Bay Area that isn't prone to hurricanes).

Re: Make More Land

#70

Post by thorwasdfasdf »

nck4222 wrote: post #51
choeger wrote: post #2

The more pressing question: Can we actually still do such projects in western democracies? How long would it take until the last judge has dismissed the plea to save the nearly extinct Californian Pink Stink Beetle that by circumstance breeds in that area? How much more expensive would the project become over its ever longer runtime? What will happen when the seemingly inevitable corruption scandals are brought to da…

>The more pressing question: Can we actually still do such projects in western democracies? I sure hope not. Two sentences by the author dismissing environmental concerns isn't sufficient. They also list Boston as an example, but Boston's land creation projects ran over cost back in the 1800's, which most people seem to think is only a modern day issue for some reason. The Back Bay was filled-in because the city had…

how do you have a transit system to get people 80 miles to work? The imbalance of where work and residential areas are in the bay area is so horrendous, there's 1 residential place to live for every 4 jobs on the peninsula. The only way to balance it out is either get rid of the jobs or build lots lots more residential
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