861–870 of 1001 posts
It's worth noting the overlap of the people mocking San Francisco for having a homelessness crisis and those decrying upzoning for density and providing affordable housing.
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This has little to do with the existence of zoning laws themselves, but the specific zones that they define. Japan has zones, so does Spain. But there's just nothing anywhere near as Restrictive as most US cities' R1 zone. Many places have R2s and R3s that are still more restrictive than the least dense thing than a Spanish city has. Remove zones alone, and HOAs will get areas into legally binding covenants that are…
When I visited Palo Alto I found it a very strange experience, my ‘terrain reading’ skills that would lead me to a convenience store and similar affordances in most developed and developing countries did not work at all. It seemed to me that you could double the population density of that kind of neighborhood by replacing a single family lot with a 8 story tower every other block and filling in an occasional duplex,…
And you could probably maintain or even increase the amount of ground-level "yard" space per capita even while increasing population density. Of course it would need to be parks that you share.
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This is absolutely incorrect, and sound dampening is easy to solve, and to write into code if cities actually cared about it.
it is easy to solve but never is solved somehow (judging this based on living in several European cities)
So of course it's one of the first things to go. Everyone always chooses to pinch pennies instead of do the right thing.
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I dont like noise, light pollution, or crowds. I'd like nighttime to be silent and pitch dark, and the daytime to be mostly silent as well. I go on trips and need to be able to load lots of stuff in and out of "my" or "a" car without living in terror of all of my stuff getting stolen while I'm inside. Where should I live? Note: I lived in three different boroughs of NYC for 25 years
Sounds like the country is the place for you, I experienced all of that in a suburb. The "living in terror" part sounds like you could use some work on mindfulness though.
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> Isn't it possible that people who live in beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards, and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around, want to keep them that way for primarily those reasons? Yes that is absolutely something people want. You can get that in cities if you give up on yard and instead share with parks. That said, some of the reasons people want it are uncomfortable. Some pe…
Parks cannot replace yards as long as the homeless camps exist across every existing park in my city.
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Fair enough. But honestly I wouldn't be happy if my area (which has big properties, lots of space between each house) was de-zoned into an anarchy where developers could build 10 story "luxury housing", increasing traffic and noise. I guess the intention is good, but it won't work everywhere.
> I wouldn't be happy if my area (which has big properties, lots of space between each house) was de-zoned into an anarchy... It would work, you just wouldn't be happy with it happening In Your BackYard.
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many others have pointed out how tunnel-vision you are being, but just wanted to add: Low traffic → Less cars driving How do you get less cars driving? People need realistic options. How do you get those options? Density to support transit and Density to support having businesses close to everyone's homes so they can just walk or bike. Car-dependent suburbia IS the problem, and the more of it you have in the city the…
This is a very simplistic view. Less people per unit land also means less cars per unit land. Depending on how the roads are designed, you can get a spread out neighborhood with no traffic on your street. I grew up on a cul-de-sac. There were 8 houses on the street. The only time there was a car on the street is when someone from one of those 8 houses went somewhere. There was zero traffic and the street was safe for…
Only if you arbitrarily cherry-pick the unit of analysis to support your argument.
The only way to actually reduce cars per unit of land across all available land is to increase housing density so that sensible transportation alternatives like bicycle and metro become viable for the lazier marginal population.
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Many of the big trees are on public right of ways. Nothing is happening to them. The center of many city residential blocks are still quiet green oasis. Busy streets will still stay busy, quiet side streets tend to stay that way. Go look at any european city, or any city outside of the US really
> Many of the big trees are on public right of ways. Nothing is happening to them. *Until the city decides they want to change it That's why people want to ensrine in law that those trees don't change. They don't trust the city to maintain homeostasis for the duration of their residency. What happens when people want to build a new apartment building but those trees are too big to safely build next to?
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By "high-rise", you must mean 5-over-1, right? I doubt anyone's going to build an actual high rise in the suburbs.
The original plan from the developer included multiple 8 story towers. But the property is right off of a major freeway and just a few minutes from 20+ story towers in San Jose, so I see no reason to hold back.
I doubt many will see this comment now but... In my local community (rural area) the county changed zoning laws on people's residential properties. It's a damned nightmare. You can't rebuild a home or get approval for anything. According to the wording of the law, the county can sell the trees on your property (and you have to allow any heavy equipment on premise to allow this to happen) and they can supercede any wa…