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New Cities

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: New Cities

#691

Post by [deleted] »

arkades wrote: post #500
cylinder wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Also, the people who can afford it and have been in Manhattan their whole lives often have a car or two parked in garages. Brooklyn and Queens are still very car heavy as well. Also, after a while, those who can afford it (or those who can't but still spend) use Uber / Lyft / Gett / Juno / etc liberally. I haven't been in the subway for at least two months because I can't stand it anymore, and it's especia…

> "I feel trapped here." Precisely. My wife was rabidly anti-car (living in the northeast) until one summer a friend went out of the country and left their car with us. The precise word she used was "free" - we were free to get groceries on the fly, we were free to go out of town. We just had an enormous number of options open up to us, as our travel overhead / travel radius improved so dramatically. It was freeing.…

[deleted]

Re: New Cities

#692

Post by jonathankoren »

cbr wrote: post #555
jonathankoren wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, convert farmland. What does farms do anyway?

A new city would be much denser than the suburban and exurban sprawl that currently fills our demand for new housing, and so would end up in taking much less farmland than continuing along the current path. (And the amount of farmland we're talking about, both for new cities and for sprawl, is small as a fraction of total farmland.)

Or you could infill the existing urban and suburban areas, and not lose any food production.

This idea of building a brand new city is just stupid.

Re: New Cities

#693

Post by thaumasiotes »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #635
thaumasiotes wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we're not talking about a 10-minute walk. You responded to my comment 'It solves the "the store is far away" problem, but it does nothing for the "I need more food than I can personally carry" problem.' A cart is not actually responsive to that, because it reintroduces the other problem.

> There's a bigger issue here. Suppose the grocery store was 10 minutes away. You'd still need to drive there, because how are you going to get the food back to your house?

If you want to respond to that comment, respond to that comment.

Re: New Cities

#694

Post by rsync »

eslaught wrote: post #197

Perhaps this is just me, but I just don't like cities. I agree that the things listed in this article need fixing, but I also feel like they're missing the point. I grew up in a small college town (in a house), but have spent most of my adult life living in cities (in appartments). Somehow, those cities have never felt like home to me. I've always felt like I was missing something. Privacy is not quite the right word…

"So I can't exactly say I'm eager for even more population density. Some of the problems above could possibly be mitigated (e.g. better sound isolation), but the broader issues of how much personal space is really necessary just seems like it's not on people's radars. Is this just not an issue for other people? Am I crazy?"

A village is a different thing than a city. A village solves different problems and provides different things.

You're not crazy for preferring a village.

VIHKAL: Aspen, Colorado ... Coronado Island, California ... Calistoga, California ... Davos, CH ... Salares, Andalucia ...

Re: New Cities

#695

Post by MajorLOL »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #290
MajorLOL wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you have a narrow street, less people drive, and thus there is no issue getting an ambulance through. Huh? If you limit supply, demand goes down? Your logic would say that the solution to Los Angles traffic problems is to close half the lanes and wait for people to sell off their cars?

Yes. To decrease demand, you limit supply so that the price goes up. This can work dramatically if you increase price high enough that alternatives are cheaper. In the case of transportation, price is measured in time and convenience as well as dollars.

So we want to shrink our road infrastructure to drive the cost up in terms of pollution, fuel costs, time and convenience? This way less people will drive. I would propose that you are forgetting that you are going to price transport into the hands of the wealthy and business who will effectively rent-seek to loan cars or taxi people who cant afford a car around.

The idea of shrinking our roadways to discourage use of vehicles is challenging in a practical sense and it just cleaves off another aspect of life for business and the wealthy to enjoy without plebs interfering with the roadways they paid & still pay for.

Re: New Cities

#696

Post by malyk »

syrrim wrote: post #633
malyk wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Jeff Speck ( https://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/d... ) 1 way streets have a negative economic impact for the business that line those streets. Which I think makes intuitive sense. Anyway, that doesn't matter in C:S, but it probably matters in the real world.

Is this assuming all streets are one-way? If they are, than I wouldn't expect an economic impact on businesses. Since the amount of products people buy - and the money they are willing to spend - should stay the same, than the total money influx would remain constant. Therefore, the only change would be how this money is distributed. Since all stores would lie on one-way streets, none would be more impacted than the…

It's definitely about the specific businesses that are on the one way street. And I might recall (been awhile since I read the book), that he specifically used the example of changing from two way to one way and that the result is businesses on the affected street lost revenue.

It makes intuitive sense. When a street is two way cars pass by both directions each day increasing the likelihood of stopping at a store on that street. When streets are one way, then stores only get people driving by once a day, and so they lose revenue.

Re: New Cities

#697

Post by aerovistae »

gammarator wrote: post #559
aerovistae wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people wouldn't invest their money in productive assets. Given more spare money, they buy bigger televisions and shinier cars. Financial ignorance and materialism are some of the most basic woes underpinning society. Their thought process is well-illustrated by a recent exchange I had with some children from a background of poverty: Me: Maybe you should save that money instead of spending it. Them: Good point, th…

Here's an article which might expand your empathy for the "irrational" purchasing decisions of the poor: https://tressiemc.com/2013/10/29/the-logic-of-stupid-poor-pe...

I got four paragraphs in and the author still hadn't said anything interesting, informative, or useful, so I dropped it. Thanks though.

Re: New Cities

#698

Post by prawn »

sliverstorm wrote: post #298
nostrademons wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Graham had an essay once where he suggested the critical element was a university: http://paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html Build a top-notch research university and convince a dozen of the smartest professors and a few independently-wealthy angel investors to move there, and you'll soon have a city. Because where top professors go, students will go. Where you have smart & ambitious students and adventurous mone…

He's saying a university is a key step for a tech hub, not for every city.

But it could probably apply to other cities. I've read that Bordeaux was somewhat transformed via university. Other lively and attractive towns are often considered college/uni towns.

They attract nightlife and breakfast spots. And businesses that support those (accountants, cleaners, etc). I think interesting and lively socialising/dining would be a key consideration for me if I were to move to a smaller city.

Re: New Cities

#699

Post by prawn »

greggman wrote: post #597

I'm sure people have different opinions on this but one thing I like is variety and grunge. I don't really know how to explain it. I want more SF's Valencia between 16th and 18th and less Westfield foodcourt's. I want more Golden Gai in Tokyo and less Roppongi Hills. I used to want the Jetson's or Disney's Epcot. Now I want 150 tiny bars and restaurants each one holding no more than 20-30 people at best (generally).…

YC for novel bars and eateries...

Re: New Cities

#700

Post by rlucas »

mikerichards wrote: post #557
robotresearcher wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that will never happen in America. It happens a lot in New York City, and other dense urban areas in the US.

Where besides NYC? Nowhere. Americans like their cars. They like to drive. America is not the collectivist/statists that represent modern HN...which is pretty sick. Hackers are anti-establishment! Hackers are not conformists that defer to government minders!

The insanity in your comment is the idea that urban density is the statist / authoritarian / corrupt central planning piece.

Try reading Louis Hyman's "Debtor Nation," particularly the bits on FHA and the creation of a national (and heavily subsidized) mortgage market.

The sub/exurbs, the essential symbiotes of car culture, are the dirigiste statist artifacts.

(yes, also a lot of the people who want to have you sell your Nissan Armada are also like that, and it's fair of you to call out statist authoritarian where you see them. But it's lunacy to suggest that suburbs and car culture just represent an organic Choice of the Free Market™)

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