Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

construction-physics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

761–770 of 799 posts

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

#761

Post by [deleted] »

dionidium wrote: post #760
lispisok wrote: post #651

People debating about what kind of housing to build are getting ahead of themselves. The housing crisis is intentional. Homeowners demand the value of their home keep going up and they vote. They way to do that is to keep supply lower than demand. The first step to fixing the housing crisis isnt to figure out what kind of housing to build, it's to convince enough of the voting population there is a housing crisis tha…

This is sort of true, but confused, because it's land that has value, not housing, and the value of land increases when it's upzoned. [0] [0] It's of course not increased when government unilaterally constructs low-income housing without reference to market conditions, which is why it's important to assure homeowners that this is not what upzoning entails.

[deleted]

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

#762

Post by bobthepanda »

danking00 wrote: post #360
dragonwriter wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted] No more fever posting

I was surprised by the last clause in your last sentence, but you’re absolutely right. https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/reference/ua/ua_list_all.tx... LA edges out NYC: 7000 to 5300. Presumably in individuals per square mile.

The Census has recently started adopting population-weighted density because census areas are defined at the county level, so can be misleading due to differences in county definition by state. https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollecti...

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

#763

Post by rickydroll »

lelanthran wrote: post #736
m_fayer wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our priors are different. We need to not cover all decently accessible land on the planet with either sprawl or agriculture. That's bad for the environment. People need to have affordable access to medium-to-high density housing for reasons of physical and mental and cultural health. Concentrating people in medium-to-high density housing makes it easier to achieve our decarbonization goals. We need to work backwards…

> People need to have affordable access to medium-to-high density housing for reasons of physical and mental and cultural health. Physical and mental health is better out of the city than in it. And cultural health is purely subjective: what on earth makes you think that what you consider good for culture is the same as what everyone else considers good culture. This is what I meant by attempting to enforce your mora…

> Physical and mental health is better out of the city than in it.

For some people.

I'm one of those out-of-the-city-is-better people. However, I would never try to force it on anyone as it would make them miserable and ruin the country for people who want to be there. Sadly, it is difficult to keep city lights in the city.

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

#764

Post by bobthepanda »

bombcar wrote: post #373
zdragnar wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people find the Midwest winters unpleasant, and many Midwest states lack variety in outdoor terrain. On top of that, finding a job can be quite a bit more work if it is a career that can't work from home and you don't want a long commut., Many types of jobs are much easier to come by in urban areas, even in the Midwest. That said, there's plenty of great places to live here, and significantly lower costs of livi…

Or to factor it out, the incentive should be (perhaps) for businesses to allow "state agnostic" remote work, or give incentives to move to lower cost of living areas. The problem with those things is the main decision is made by people who are not affected by the high cost of living; Musk doesn't notice the difference in housing cost between Texas and California, even if his employees would.

the problem is also that a lot of tax and insurance and whatnot are defined by the state you live in. supporting remote work means having to be compliant in every single jurisdiction an employee could possibly live in.

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

#765

Post by simonklitj »

GorsyGentle wrote: post #681
simonklitj wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or look into building with earth, as used to be the practice: https://www.calearth.org/ and https://www.rael-sanfratello.com/made/mud-frontiers

Rammed earth is the one that I find fascinating. But I've not seen or heard much about it's use in the Midwest where winters tend to wet.

Understandable, I’m in the desert southwest, so not a concern here.

I did recently attend a workshop by Dr. Ronald Rael (Professor of Architecture @ Berkeley), and he mentioned that as concerns building with adobe bricks, with proper roofing, rain is a minimal to non-existent issue. I am not entirely convinced, however, and have also heard of solutions such as using “plasticure” on the outside of the walls.

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

#766

Post by m_fayer »

rickydroll wrote: post #763
lelanthran wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People need to have affordable access to medium-to-high density housing for reasons of physical and mental and cultural health. Physical and mental health is better out of the city than in it. And cultural health is purely subjective: what on earth makes you think that what you consider good for culture is the same as what everyone else considers good culture. This is what I meant by attempting to enforce your mora…

> Physical and mental health is better out of the city than in it. For some people. I'm one of those out-of-the-city-is-better people. However, I would never try to force it on anyone as it would make them miserable and ruin the country for people who want to be there. Sadly, it is difficult to keep city lights in the city.

I wrote medium-to-high density, which means anything between city and "walkable town with a core". This doesn't preclude detached homes. It does preclude sprawling car-centric suburbia, which is similar to rural isolation in terms of the effects it has on the most people's mental health.

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

#767

Post by MrMan »

lelanthran wrote: post #705
lispisok wrote: post #651

People debating about what kind of housing to build are getting ahead of themselves. The housing crisis is intentional. Homeowners demand the value of their home keep going up and they vote. They way to do that is to keep supply lower than demand. The first step to fixing the housing crisis isnt to figure out what kind of housing to build, it's to convince enough of the voting population there is a housing crisis tha…

Doesn't matter what you do, some places are more desirable than others to live in, and the end up attracting a premium. > Homeowners demand the value of their home keep going up and they vote. Bypassing the will of the voters is ... difficult. It's not impossible to force your moral mores onto voters who don't want it, but it sure ain't easy, and it ain't easy for good reason! > The first step to fixing the housing c…

[dead]

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

#768

Post by MrMan »

lelanthran wrote: post #712
shiroiushi wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Another problem is a vast majority of people want to / have to live in a very few select places. It's been like this since the dawn of civilization, and it isn't going to change. There's no substitute for physical proximity, unless you can invent the teleporter. >We could alleviate housing costs by changing that as well; back to supply and demand. No, you can't. You can't force people to want to live in the sticks.…

> No, you can't. You can't force people to want to live in the sticks. "You can't force people to want"? What are you trying to say? That sentence does not parse for me. Of course you can convince people to happily move elsewhere: "Look, you can keep your current job, work remote, and instead of crammed into a 1-bedroom flat in a high-density block of multiple loud families, you can raise your kids here in Sleepyvill…

[dead]

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

#769

Post by NewJazz »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #456
NewJazz wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You end up sitting in traffic for an hour instead of standing on a bus or train for an hour for your commute Why are you acting like driving a vehicle and being a passenger in a vehicle are the same experience? One is clearly more demanding and inhibiting than the other. On a train you can work, read, listen to a podcast, sometimes eat... Lots of things you can't do while in a car. Unless your job is driving. Which,…

> On a train you can work, read, listen to a podcast, sometimes eat I do all of those things in my car while driving too. Maybe not read but I’ve listened to audiobooks. I also sit in Teams meetings, read and respond to emails and IMs on my phone as well when I’m at a stop light. Maybe some people can’t do these things while driving but plenty of us do.

How many emails are you sending at stop lights? When I communicated I'd be lucky to queue some music at a stop light.
Post reply on HN