Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?
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Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?
#2I wonder why 4b apartments are so rarely seen in the US. In Asia they are quite common.
Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?
#3I thought it was about the CD-ROMs lol.
I had no idea it was a town also.
Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?
#4“Human driven cars are going to be around for about 5 years” is one of the most out of touch quotes I’ve seen this month.
Also, all of this is about NIMBYism, which is about house prices being inflated to make up most of households’ wealth, which is not fixable without triggering a massive wealth redistribution. Most western societies are stuck in a very non-ideal Nash equilibrium and it is not going to be solved any time soon.
Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?
#5I wonder why 4b apartments are so rarely seen in the US. In Asia they are quite common.
In the US the nuclear family is usually two parents and two children. The parents share one bedroom and each child gets one.
In Asia I would guess families make room for their older relatives which would mean an extra bedroom is needed. Immigrants to the US typically do that but I think it's uncommon among the rank and file Americans.
Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?
#6I wonder why 4b apartments are so rarely seen in the US. In Asia they are quite common.
The article mentions a lot of the reasons. Our building codes, especially the double stairway requirement, eliminate a lot of reasonable layouts and have downstream effects on the economics of apartment buildings. Another reason that isn't mentioned in the article is that there are different ideals for family housing, especially in suburban areas like Walnut Creek. Family apartments just aren't as desirable.
Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?
#7This is why we can't have nice things. Huge additional costs and design constraints because of
* 2-exit-stairwell requirement
* elevator laws
* parking laws
Article contrasts with an apartment building in Denmark to show what could be possible.
Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?
#8“Human driven cars are going to be around for about 5 years” is one of the most out of touch quotes I’ve seen this month. Also, all of this is about NIMBYism, which is about house prices being inflated to make up most of households’ wealth, which is not fixable without triggering a massive wealth redistribution. Most western societies are stuck in a very non-ideal Nash equilibrium and it is not going to be solved any…
pretty sure I saw this quote from Elon in like 2015.
Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?
#9I wonder why 4b apartments are so rarely seen in the US. In Asia they are quite common.
Smaller units rent for more per square foot in general, so if the building project is limited by gross-floor-area ratios, developing it into more, smaller units produces more rent than fewer, larger units.
There’s also a pretty strong effect in the US that selects towards raising 4+ person families in a house (whether rented or owner-occupied) if at all possible, so a 4 BR apartment is likely to be occupied by the (relatively) rare tenant who prefers to live in an apartment, but more likely one who is forced to by lack of option. I suspect this effect is much smaller in Asia.
Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?
#10Definitely a tech entrepreneur's take.
It's a juxtaposition of optimistic futurism (in 5-10 years, most people will just rely on robocars and robotaxis) and anti-regulatory sentiment (critical of the requirement that elevators accommodate stretchers).
Some of the more difficult problems are hand-waved away as, "We could solve this if we just put our engineering hats on."
That said, I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's true that other countries and cultures have very different approaches to residential development. But a big part of that is cultural differences in how people live and what they want. Cultures that are more family-oriented are naturally going to have housing that is more family-oriented.