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The end of sprawl

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The end of sprawl

#71

Post by Johnny555 »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #62
Johnny555 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you overestimate the ability of self driving cars to make a long commute tolerable, since driving in a car for an hour (or more) each way is no fun even if someone else is driving. Getting quality work done is tough if you're at all prone to motion sickness while working on a computer in a moving vehicle, and it's hard to get in quality sleep even in a fully reclining seat. My wife and I commuted together (45…

Not true, when I uber into work (my commute is over 1 hr), it's like a dream come true. I can work, I can relax, I can get my life-admin tasks done with, etc. Right now it's completely wasted. When you commute with other people, it's also annoying because you need to socialize when most times I would rather do the above. If I could get a self-driving car that worked competently, it would certainly make my commute so…

It's funny how people have different dreams - I changed jobs to one that's a 10 minute bike ride (or 25 minute walk) from home, and that was my dream come true, not being stuck in a car for 2 or 3 hours/day, worrying about whether or not traffic is going to make me late for my morning meeting, or add another hour to my commute home.

Do you really get enough benefit to living 1+ hour from work to make it worth spending 500+ hours in a car (~60 8 hour days)?

Re: The end of sprawl

#72

Post by nmcfarl »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #43
matt_morgan wrote: post #34

Where does the idea that you should spend 30% of your money on rent come from? I see it everywhere. Not that I'm questioning it in general, but does it ever change?

Ten to fifteen percent is vastly better. It's doable but it's not that easy. You need a middling-good job in flyover country. That's the part that's not that easy - it's harder to justify a gig in flyover country by sheer ability. Companies on the downward slide towards Schumpeterian irrelevance just don't care and so don't bother them with the facts... IMO, this was what my ( Silent Generation ) parents used as a he…

Some reason I found it hard to Google GeoTax - eventually I found this paper which has a description under the name georent- https://econjwatch.org/file_download/66/2005-04-foldvary-tyr...

Re: The end of sprawl

#73

Post by tamana »

golergka wrote: post #67
greggman wrote: post #16

I'm curious how certain things fit into city living. Examples: Rockband the Game. You can't play that game in an apartment in the city without being a total dick to your neighbors. You can play it in a house in suburbia. Arguably the same is true for the home version of Dance Dance Revolution Another is room scale VR which pretty seems to demand owning a large enough place to have your VR room. Maybe some people can…

> You can't play that game in an apartment in the city without being a total dick to your neighbors. What? Why? Just put on good soundproofing in your apartment. If you're living in the center, there's a good chance you already have old-school half a meter brick walls anyway.

USA has shoddy construction and it isn't practical to upgrade it.

Brick is a tiny fraction of buildings, surviving very old buildings.

Re: The end of sprawl

#74

Post by tamana »

Houshalter wrote: post #26
hiphipjorge wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the move from the suburbs to the city is a technology issue. There are certainly trade-offs to both of them. The reason a lot of people (especially young people) have been flocking to walkable cities has a lot more to do with self-identity and lifestyle choices than with just merely commuting time. No self-driving card will change that. Keep in mind that the opposite is also true. Self-driving cars make…

People flock to cities now for the same reason they've always flocked to cities - jobs. If you don't need to live in a city to work there, that may make many people move. And yes young people might prefer to live in denser cities. But when they grow older and have a family, they prefer to move out into a town or suburb. And beyond that, it's just economics. Cities are expensive. They are inefficient economically. Ren…

Cities are expensive because city dwellers pay the taxes and fees that build the suburbs.

Re: The end of sprawl

#75

Post by tamana »

Johnny555 wrote: post #57
alkonaut wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relaxing during a commute seems only marginally better than driving. What makes a difference is if you can work during the commute, so an entire 8h workday will be 2h commute and 6h work. In large metropolitan areas most people will end up spending what they can afford on housing, the choice is just between a 1h commute and large back yard and forest/beach within walking distance, versus the city with short commutes…

If your company is ok with you working for an hour or two on the way in to the office, then why not just work at home for an extra 90 minutes until after peak commute hours and zip into the office when traffic is light? Or better, just stay home entirely. Many companies still don't embrace full-time telecommuting (including tech companies like Apple and Google that have unlimited technology resources to make it work)…

Doing email isn't more productive just because you do it in the same place you do "real work" .

And techie work is mostly laptop work anyway, the bus is like the proverbial coffee shop.

Re: The end of sprawl

#76

Post by pfarnsworth »

Johnny555 wrote: post #71
pfarnsworth wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true, when I uber into work (my commute is over 1 hr), it's like a dream come true. I can work, I can relax, I can get my life-admin tasks done with, etc. Right now it's completely wasted. When you commute with other people, it's also annoying because you need to socialize when most times I would rather do the above. If I could get a self-driving car that worked competently, it would certainly make my commute so…

It's funny how people have different dreams - I changed jobs to one that's a 10 minute bike ride (or 25 minute walk) from home, and that was my dream come true, not being stuck in a car for 2 or 3 hours/day, worrying about whether or not traffic is going to make me late for my morning meeting, or add another hour to my commute home. Do you really get enough benefit to living 1+ hour from work to make it worth spendin…

I get what you're saying, I had a job that was 15 mins away regardless of traffic, and it made my home life so much easier. But the job sucked and my boss and his boss were both assholes.

Now, I love my job, because the work I have is challenging and a lot of fun. And I love where I live, I have an amazing view and I have no backyard neighbors, it goes off into acres of wilderness, and that's hard to come by in the Bay Area.

I just hate the commute. Being wealthy enough to uber to work everyday would make things perfect, but since I'm not that rich, a self-driving car would come close.

Re: The end of sprawl

#77

Post by Camillo »

Symbiote wrote: post #29
danking00 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what type of cities you've lived in. I've lived in various parts of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville and we've previously had rock band and currently have room scale VR (it is, in fact, in use as I write this). Neither had dedicated rooms but the setup and tear down is manageable. Neighbors never complains about the noise, but we also don't set the bass to room-shaking levels. Perhaps the most significant d…

> By pooling four incomes (two six figure tech salaries and two low five figure academia/architecture) we can afford places with enough living space to be comfortable. I'm surprised people with six-figure salaries are sharing. Is that common?

Six-figure is really not that many figures in the Bay Area, for instance. I have a friend who makes six figures in SF and just rents a room.

Re: The end of sprawl

#78

Post by ArkyBeagle »

eru wrote: post #65
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten to fifteen percent is vastly better. It's doable but it's not that easy. You need a middling-good job in flyover country. That's the part that's not that easy - it's harder to justify a gig in flyover country by sheer ability. Companies on the downward slide towards Schumpeterian irrelevance just don't care and so don't bother them with the facts... IMO, this was what my ( Silent Generation ) parents used as a he…

Funny enough, if tax burdens are shifted from labour and capital to land, land rents will actually increase. (But that's because people will have more net income left to bid up land rents.)

I believe that right now, people perceive that land rents are (relatively) subsidized. So people chase that subsidy.

Re: The end of sprawl

#79

Post by wcummings »

Symbiote wrote: post #29
danking00 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what type of cities you've lived in. I've lived in various parts of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville and we've previously had rock band and currently have room scale VR (it is, in fact, in use as I write this). Neither had dedicated rooms but the setup and tear down is manageable. Neighbors never complains about the noise, but we also don't set the bass to room-shaking levels. Perhaps the most significant d…

> By pooling four incomes (two six figure tech salaries and two low five figure academia/architecture) we can afford places with enough living space to be comfortable. I'm surprised people with six-figure salaries are sharing. Is that common?

In Somerville, yeah.

Re: The end of sprawl

#80

Post by Houshalter »

eru wrote: post #60
Houshalter wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People flock to cities now for the same reason they've always flocked to cities - jobs. If you don't need to live in a city to work there, that may make many people move. And yes young people might prefer to live in denser cities. But when they grow older and have a family, they prefer to move out into a town or suburb. And beyond that, it's just economics. Cities are expensive. They are inefficient economically. Ren…

Cities are crazy efficient economically. Provision of infrastructure and goods is much cheaper in cities. Commuting sucks (and is one of the few clear drags on happiness that persist, unlike becoming a quadriplegic). Cities are also more productive. But: cities are financed wrong in most countries. They could easily finance themselves from land value taxes.

Cities are more efficient in theory. In practice, for whatever reason, they tend to have higher costs of living, taxes, and more congested infrastructure/traffic. Until that changes people may be better off economically living away from them.
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