Low-density sprawl essentially requires cars. Further, cars need a ton of space for roads and parking lots. Denser, more walkable communities don’t need nearly as many cars and don’t need nearly as much roads and parking lots.
I disagree. I live in the suburbs in Europe and there is plenty of single family homes with a garden here. But you’re still always within 500m of a bus stop or tramline. Have been living here without a car for quite while, it’s fine.
I’d be curious what the population density numbers are. There’s a world of difference in density between, say, single-family rowhouses and classic American suburbia.
Ah, there’s your answer. I love rowhouses and think they and other “missing middle” are a great compromise for getting denser, more walkable, more transit-oriented communities while still avoiding being like Manhattan. True low-density sprawl (as seen in so much of the US and Canada) is detached single-family homes with large setback requirements, large parking minimums, and typically large lot size minimums. It’s purposefully designed to essentially enforce car-dependent sprawl.
The style of development you describe is what we call streetcar suburbs, as they were generally developed along streetcar lines in the days of yore.
The style of development you describe is what we call streetcar suburbs, as they were generally developed along streetcar lines in the days of yore.
Yeah, you need to build these, they are great. During the busy hours, mine is like a 150m walk away and there is tram or streetcar every 3.5 minutes. It’s amazing.
I live in a house attached to someone else’s and it’s pretty great
We have big open spaces in front and behind us instead of each house having their own big lawn. We have separate, fenced backyards but behind that is just a big open field with some benches and tables and trees scattered about.
But unlike in an apartment, you have the whole height of the building, so nobody above or below you. And the walls seperating the houses are really thick, so noise is much better than in an appartment block.
I guess you give up mostly garden space. I don’t think people specifically “want” that, but it’s still usually cheaper and much better situated than a proper free-standing house.
But unlike in an apartment, you have the whole height of the building, so nobody above or below you. And the walls seperating the houses are really thick, so noise is much better than in an appartment block.
That entirely depends on the construction. When I lived in a row home the duct work for the master bedrooms on either side shared a space with no sound insulation, so each side could hear just about everything in the other.
And most people don’t use front or side yards for much anyways, just decoration. I’d much rather have backyard than those, especially if it means I get the amenities that come with density, such as transit and walkability.
Plus, rowhouses just look so aesthetically pleasing. I don’t understand how anyone hates rowhouses.
A college of mine owns a rowhouse around here, fully paid for and all. It’s worth like a quarter million … in CHF on the market. Housing prices are just insane. Compared to me he is super rich, even though he earns less than me.
Though, we’re quite far off the topic of cars now. But you are OP and Mod, so what do I know.
But essentially, for the same cost as cars, the lowest density possible before becoming rural 106 households / sq mi (6 acres per household) can have a bus pass every 6 minutes, 24/7/365. You can double frequency by adding a second stop on the way to a transit spine.
The idea that an American city might have a housing area A) without roads and B) with a bus stop and C) one that shows up every 6 minutes instead of once an hour makes me want to cry
Single family housing is a massive contributer to (sub)urban sprawl and car dependency. Increased residential density can reduce the need for cars by reducing the distance between people’s homes and their workplace, shops, etc.
God I hate living in high density housing. Dogs yapping, bass and loud music booming, smelly, loud, animal poop and pee on every green/natural area, higher crime, more traffic, etc.
Ownership. You will not own your apartment, it will be owned by your landlord and you will pay him whatever he demands. You will not own the forest, either. The state will, or some private entity will. No trespassing.
Yeah that’s my main concern. Also less space to store things like my bike.
Then there’s the upstairs neighbors. Like I get that the kids are loud. But also could the kids stop throwing stuff at my bird feeder. And their upstairs neighbors flooded the dang place
There is no such thing as universal right to roam in the US. Likewise, apartment ownership (we call them “condos” when you can own one rather than rent) exists here, but by far is the minority option in multi-family housing. You can claim you want to buy a condo or apartment as much as you want, but that doesn’t do you any good when no one is selling. Units are built to be rented which is a recurring revenue stream, which big capital likes a lot more.
The significant problem is not that nobody is whacking out slabs of apartment housing fast enough. The issue is that our underlying capitalist system is fucked, and a simple anti-car attitude is not going to fix that.
You can still own and buy appartements in most places in the world. Then there are many forms of social housing.
Rent to own is also a possibility but not seen in most countries.
Seems your problem is not ownership but landlords.
Some countries in Europe have the right to roam on any land. State owned and private owned. (Maybe more countries somewhere else have it to but I don’t know)
It does not need to be so terrible. In some places it just is because of profits
Oh, you planted zoysia grass and maintain it well? That’s “inharmonious” , you need to tear that out and plant fescue.
You don’t have a maple tree of at least 8 feet in height in a particular spot in your yard? Inharmonious again, you need to buy a tree, can’t wait for a sapling to grow.
Your driveway has dirt on it? You must get it pressure washed.
You want to park your vehicle in your driveway? It better not have any branding from a company on it, or it better not be an older car or any pickup truck, those are too ugly for our precious neighborhood.
Regulations tend to be “don’t make fire hazards”, or “don’t block streets”, generally you can’t get a regulation on the books without an actual rationale behind it.
Rural neighbors. Even worse. Cowshit, ag runoff ruining our waterways, heavy machinery blocking streets, Trump flags inside every house and old boys racism everywhere the moment you're 'in' with them.
Instead of loud neighbors you have to deal with white trash family fights and drunk driving everywhere. Meanwhile everyone has a chip on their shoulder about city and suburban people ruining their world somehow yet they never participate in any of it lmfao.
I never hear my neighbors in a rural area. This community is so blatantly full of shit it’s laughable. As if you don’t deal with white trash or drunk drivers anywhere else. Instead in an apartment the white trash are banging each other with the windows open and getting arrested at 3 am with 8 cop cars flashing their lights in the parking lot.
No one listens to ideas from fuckcars-type people because they’re gaslighting lies that no one except other niche weirdos sympathizes with. Please do keep trying to tell rural people how much worse their situation is than living in an apartment. You don’t sound like a condescending jerk at all.
You could have just admitted there are pros and cons to both but instead you go on this gaslighting crusade to try prove someone else’s lived experience wrong. Good luck with that approach, no one is listening to you except other weirdos.
Sure, I doubt there is anyone here against rural self-sustained living, it is probably one of the more eco-friendly and humane way of living.
But once frequent car trip and road maintainance cames into equation, it might not be the most eco-friendly way any more. I understand not everyone cares about their fellow human being, but this is the point this post is trying to make.
iirc, the further away you live from a city then the worse you impact the environment. Unless you're literally a fully self-sustaining homesteader with no roads or utilities anywhere near you, then living in a city is basically always better for the environment.
That’s starting to change with solar power and EVs. I could see a small number of mostly off the grid homesteaders in a sustainable future. But they’d have to pay for the privilege
I live in an apartment with actual good sound-proofing. It’s almost dead silent inside except for the quiet hum of my AC. It’s legitimately so much quieter than my gf’s family’s house, where you constantly hear the rush of cars driving by on the street. Not to mention leafblowers and lawnmowers.
You realize you are speaking from a very lucky position right? Everyone here agrees quiet apartments with clean facilities are pretty nice, but a large majority of apartment dwellers live in older, very noisy, very poorly managed facilities.
It’s very fair to want the conversation on improving apartments, it is super important. But you.have to acknowledge that people’s response about their apartment history is informed from lived experience.
I think the phrase “lived experience” should automatically disqualify someone from speaking about any topic. They’re just anecdotes, usually in contradiction to actual data.
So for example the “lived experience” of black folks in the southern US in the 60s isn’t valuable I’m the discussion of racism in America? Of course it is. Their first hand experience (indeed anecdotal as you say) is meaningful.
In the context of apartments, especially in America, millions of units are no where near the soundproofing or quality OP was describing. You could determine that by age of the buildings alone.
Do you have sound dampening data for apartments across the country?
Anecdotes are only problematic when they are purported as data. By definition someone relaying their lives experience suggests they are describing their individual life to you. It’s fine to want to move from anecdote to data, but when you talk about “disqualification” from discussion you’re just being a gatekeeper. There is no data rigor here, this is a message board about a meme.
Lastly the person I responded to described THEIR lived experience (the quiet apartment they have) so that further insulates myself and others from any objective requirements to comment.
So for example the “lived experience” of black folks in the southern US in the 60s isn’t valuable I’m the discussion of racism in America?
When their “lived experience” is “no, I’ve never seen any racism!” then no, it’s not really valuable, and it’s incredibly suspect to boot.
It’s fine to want to move from anecdote to data
Let’s just start with data. Anecdotes are supplementary. The way “lived experience” is usually used (and is used here) is to provide the primary support to an argument.
Again you’re expecting a rigor beyond the venue of discussion, especially given that the person I replied to started with an anecdote as well.
If you have data on the soundproofedness of apartments across the US to contextualize the common consensus to the level you expect I would be happy to browse it.
Until then I’m comfortable believing anyone (as in the many commenters here) who say their apartment was loud. The several I lived in were as well so I have no reason to question it
you’re expecting a rigor beyond the venue of discussion
Maybe, but I’m trying to change that. I think we can all be smarter than just trading anecdotes.
And your post emphasizes my point. We’re talking about a preferred hypothetical society, while the point he was trying to make with his anecdote is that apartments are and always will be poorly soundproofed, world without end. Obviously it sounds absurd when you extrapolate it out to the societal level, but when you couch it in anecdotal terms it makes the argument seem worth discussing on the face of it. It’s not.
We can talk about how currently apartments are shoddy in the US, that’s a worthwhile discussion. But to be against the idea of apartments in general because apartments right now are poorly regulated is silly.
It’s not luck. Things are built for a reason, the regulations and structures of society are designed, and it artificially dictate s what is built. Perhaps they live in a place where the regulations mean that sensible livable apartments are fairly abundant. Perhaps you don’t. That’s not luck, those places were designed that way.
I was born and raised in suburbia and only moved into where I am now. It is indeed partially luck that I had the capability and opportunity to move to a new city that has abundant apartments, missing middle housing, and a sane rental market. As a result of the abundance of apartments available, landlords have a credible threat of vacancy, and thus rents are lower, there are fewer restrictions (e.g., pet restrictions), and having decent sound insulation is common.
You're speaking from a privileged minority viewpoint, most people don't report living that way in apartments. I've lived extensively in both apartments and suburban homes, suburbs have always provided more peace and quiet. For every day that's been too loud due to lawn machines (a lot of suburbs it's only once a month for context) I've had a dozen more with people partying, stomping, fighting, shouting, grudge starting, complaint making, roach infestation having, shitty corporate landlord owning ruined days in city apartments. And they all costed a lot more. I'm paying half what I would in a city apartment for my suburban townhome with a lawn, and a park, and pool, and walikg trails, conveniently nearby all amenities in my area.
That's the part y'all need to adopt to get people on your side by the way; assure people who like suburbs that your plan isn't to tear down their existing environments for new ones. We're scared shitless you're all gonna try to force us into boxes, many of us will fight violently to oppose such action. Make it clear you're talking only about NEW developments and I think most people will support your cause. I do in principle, but the selfish American in me isn't about to give up my already existing paradise for your apartment block, especially when you provide no answers to the corporate landlord landscape we're operating in. Those of us who have been alive long enough know these plans usually end in lost livelihoods and destroyed dreams, the true benefits only going to the upper echelon of the highest earning capitalists.
If they built more apartments, apartments with good sound proofing would be more common. I used to live in Taiwan, and every cheap apartment I lived in had excellent sound proofing.
Once there is more competition in the apartment/condo market, quality will go up.
Exactly. When there is a housing shortage, landlords and developers have no meaningful competition, therefore they can offer sub-par housing for too-high prices.
Build more housing, make landlords sweat about vacancy, and you’ll see higher-quality units spring up like magic.
My city, Montreal, for instance, has perhaps the most affordable and YIMBY housing market in a major North American city, and the result is rents are cheap (by big city in North America standards), quality of life is very high, and landlords have much less negotiating power. For example, I was able to negotiate my rent down before moving in, and it’s also quite rare to see all manner of onerous restrictions like pet bans in apartments here.
When landlords have a credible fear of vacancy, they can’t afford to scare off prospective tenants with high rents, poor sound insulation, and pet bans.
Well that’s a plain ridiculous fear, you think government thugs are going to go door to door through the suburbs rounding up homeowners and forcing them into apartments?
The idea is to build enough, at a high enough quality, and at a price point, where it’s more appealing to new buyers.
I lived both in dense neighborhoods, rural neighborhoods, and suburbs. Trust me, the more things you give your neighbor to do, the more shenanigans they will make, especially in place where everyone is bored out of their mind.
What about going to your doorstep to tell you that you need to maintain a lawn? your door needs to be a certain color? Or you cannot park your car on your own property? Or you cannot park somewhere simply because "they have always parked there? Or deafening motor noise that can be heard a block away right across the road from you? leaf blower and lawn mower so loud that literally require the person to wear a head phone to operate safely, right next to your house?
These are just a few things I have seen in the suburbs. Are these count as “close enough to you”?
No, I have experience none of these in the cities, because a lot of time, there is no HOA, most places do not have lawns, and I dont need a car in the city.
Also there are in general lawn mowing and leaf blowing are much more moderate in city, because they know they are surrounded by people.
This isn’t a particularly convincing analogy. Islands have limited space. The suburbs where I live border tons of open space and parks. Meanwhile, our school district is already overwhelmed with children, so converting commercial spaces into apartments will merely add to congestion and sprawl. NIMBY’s make a convincing argument against denser residential construction.
A better focus would be the ability to simplify public transit and walkability. Town centers and public spaces could be more accessible with denser residential construction, and the additional green space can be closer to where you live without everyone needing their own half-acre yard to mow and water.
Yep, Toll Bros buys a horse farm and makes half acre mcmansions. There are some big properties that have covenants that prevent it, and the zoning in my township won’t allow new subdivisions less than 2 acres, and we have some great municipal parks which will never be developed. But that means everything is spread out to make public transit untenable. You need a car to get to the nearest train station, and then you need a car when you get off the train at any stop outside of the city.
There’s no one-size solution to combat sprawl. High density housing makes a lot of sense some places, and not so much in others.
That’s only true if the apartment is a shitty American 5 over 1 stick building. In a modern concrete apartment with concrete internal walls you wouldn’t hear the neighbors.
Take it from someone who is autistic, highly introverted and has only lived in apartments in my adult life: you do not ever need to see or interact with your neighbors. It’s as optional as with a house. The most I see of my neighbors is that once every few weeks I might stand in the elevator with one of them for 15 seconds.
Yup. My prior experience with apartments - even single height apartments - is that either you’re going to annoy someone with sounds (had a neighbor that worked nights and hated every thing I did when I was home) or you’ll be annoyed with someone not being quiet when you personally need it.
Hell I had a house with a neighbor who rented that liked to leave their dog tied up outside at 5pm barking incessantly. Not fun to come home from a day of work with a stressful commute to try to unwind.
Yep, it’s a crapshoot depending on your neighbors. Back in my dense living days, things were pretty good, except when the drug dealer moved in next door…
Same applies to some extend to suburban density, but even crappy neighbors are harder to notice… Except the house that does car tuning all the time with a priority on loud revving engines… Ugh…
Well, I live in a America and can’t wait to get out of apartments. I’ve moved a lot in my life and have a lower middle class income. I’ve never found an apartment or condo where I didn’t have to deal with hearing neighbors yelling, stomping, talking outside my front door in the hallway, opening sliding doors, listening to music, etc. Only twice, when I lived with a friend in their house, did I feel like I had any peace or privacy.
Sure, there would be lawns mowed and all that, but I’d take that over the things I’ve heard and worried about my neighbors having heard.
If I could have real privacy in an apartment I could afford I’d continue to rent, assuming I don’t get priced out of the market completely at this rate.
So what should I do in my current situation so that my choices about where to live help to improve the overall situation regarding housing and land use?
Note, my point isn’t Apartments Bad. My point is that my only choice is overpriced shitty apartments.
Can you elaborate? What about stating that I do not have the choice for noise isolated apartments demonstrates that I object to good, affordable apartments near me ?
No, hence my utter confusion at being associated with NIMBYism or being oblivious to the feedback loop or contributing to the problem out of ignorance. I’m stating that the only choice in a lot of places where I live in the US is a shitty, loud apartment/condo or a house with peace and quiet.
I don’t object to apartments but I do object to the general concept of apartments always being superior to the general concept of a house and that anyone who objects is part of the problem. Bad solutions, like shitty apartments, aren’t solutions. They can actually push people away from real, good solutions.
Ultimately it comes down to Capitalism Bad, even more Bad with (inevitable) regulatory capture. I don’t think “the powers that be” are interested in providing good solutions so we aren’t going to use “market forces” to make things any better.
If you agree that well-constructed apartments/condos should be part of the solution, then you’re not a NIMBY. Unless you’re saying they should be the solution somewhere away from you(r backyard) of course.
I understand the dilemma between a bad apartment and a good house, but that shouldn’t be the dilemma, and more housing helps prevent that. Better regulation too.
There’s nothing that differentiates “affordable” apartments those at that aren’t except the amount that are available. Maybe you aren’t a NIMBY but a lot do use similar arguments and then start on about heritage protection.
Exactly! We’ve gotten into this weird feedback loop where NIMBY policies like restrictive zoning and parking minimums and setback requirements have made there be a systemic shortage of housing in total, but particularly a shortage of dense, walkable housing near transit. This has warped the market such that large houses on large plots of land – which are objectively the luxury housing option – are cheaper than apartments or condos in a dense, walkable community near transit. This makes people think density = expensive, which makes people think we need to get rid of density for the sake of affordability, which just makes the shortage even more severe!
We lived in a concrete apartment, couldn’t hear the neighbors in their apartments but could in the hallways, and smell everything too, could hear the cars revving outside, and had to put up with the weekly (if not more often) fire alarm at 2am which meant evacuating the building. And no space for anything, no hobbies that might generate noise. Also have to deal with STRATA, hope you didnt want to put anything on your balcony cause they didn’t want that, hope you can wait 12 months for the leaking ceiling to be fixed thats dripping and growing mould.
Also it cost a fortune to heat or cool the place, we’re in a bigger place now that costs 1/2 as much to heat/cool
You don’t even need concrete. I’m in a modern building made from mass timber construction, and it’s dead quiet inside my apartment – except for the hum of my AC and the sounds of my cat meowing whenever he wants attention.
But instead of a population of 100 with small houses you will get a population of 1000 because they built 10 apartment complexes. I think I’d prefer the small houses didn’t have lawns and left the nice trees and natural growth.
The point is for any given population size, a city is a better way to house them. Though IMO this drawing makes the difference too stark. Personally i think the optimal is a medium-highish density city of separated buildings with nature interspersed, rather than a single super high density mega block building.
Yeah, the image is really just for illustrative purposes. Imo, if we just abolish restrictive zoning codes and other land use restrictions that essentially mandate sprawl, then tax carbon appropriately and build good public transit, that would likely achieve the overall “optimal” outcome. No need for a mega-arcology, but no need for government-mandated car-dependent sprawl either.
Agreed. They would just be birthed elsewhere. It has yet to be seen if we can hit a global population cap. It seems like it has to be reached eventually.
There is a population cap but it’s societal, people have fewer children as they get more education and higher quality of life.
Which is the solution that conservatives don’t want to acknowledge, if you think overpopulation is a problem then you solve it by making people not live in such abject misery that they need 6 kids to make sure enough of them survive to take care of their parents when they grow old.
We are in a hypothetical plot of tiny land that can be thought of as the entire world. If you have an argument to make based on this rather silly hypothetical world we are talking about then feel free to make it.
And move where? Why have retired people (who are most likely on a fixed income and have paid off their home in some cases) to move from a home they’ve paid off to an apartment/living center with obscene monthly payments? Or introduce another ever rising tax on something they should have been able to age peacefully in without as much financial worry? That seems cruel. I’m no fan of boomers, but damn.
I feel like best plan here would be to impose steeper taxes on second-plus properties. You can have your primary residence, but every home after that accrues a higher and higher tax. Especially on LLCs.
If tax goes up, it’s because the value of your asset has gone up. Either sell it or do a reverse mortgage. I have no pity for those profiting from the system, regardless of their age. Fuck you, Grandma, pay your taxes.
I feel like best plan here would be to impose steeper taxes on second-plus properties.
That’s definitely part of it, and more important than taxes on primary residence. But we should do both.
I feel like best plan here would be to impose steeper taxes on second-plus properties
I think we have that where I live, although after 20+ years of owning I still don’t really understand property taxes here.
Anyhow, the property tax has a basic definition but I believe you get a reduction in assessed value for primary residence. That effectively taxes second homes more
There won’t be any other taxes for them to pay, so they will have more purchasing power. Chances are, they’re still going to have the same place unless that retired guy decides to build a hotel or something on it.
A land value tax (LVT) is a levy on the value of land without regard to buildings, personal property and other improvements.[1] It is also known as a location value tax, a point valuation tax, a site valuation tax, split rate tax, or a site-value rating.
Land value taxes are generally favored by economists as they do not cause economic inefficiency, and reduce inequality.[2] A land value tax is a progressive tax, in that the tax burden falls on land owners, because land ownership is correlated with wealth and income.[3][4] The land value tax has been referred to as “the perfect tax” and the economic efficiency of a land value tax has been accepted since the eighteenth century.[1][5][6]
LVT’s efficiency has been observed in practice.[18] Fred Foldvary stated that LVT discourages speculative land holding because the tax reflects changes in land value (up and down), encouraging landowners to develop or sell vacant/underused plots in high demand. Foldvary claimed that LVT increases investment in dilapidated inner city areas because improvements don’t cause tax increases. This in turn reduces the incentive to build on remote sites and so reduces urban sprawl.[19] For example, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s LVT has operated since 1975. This policy was credited by mayor Stephen R. Reed with reducing the number of vacant downtown structures from around 4,200 in 1982 to fewer than 500.[20]
LVT is arguably an ecotax because it discourages the waste of prime locations, which are a finite resource.[21][22][23] Many urban planners claim that LVT is an effective method to promote transit-oriented development.[24][25]
It reveals that much of the anticipated future tax obligations appear to have been already capitalised into lower land prices. Additionally, the tax transition may have also deterred speculative buyers from the housing market, adding even further to the recent pattern of low and stable property prices in the Territory. Because of the price effect of the land tax, a typical new home buyer in the Territory will save between $1,000 and $2,200 per year on mortgage repayments.
That’s actually the beauty of LVT – the government already knows who owns what land (the landowner has the deed), and land can’t be hidden or offshored. You may try having shell companies, but the tax bill comes due regardless. The reason shell companies work for avoiding other taxes is because they can allow you to offshore your on-paper profits to tax havens. LVT doesn’t tax you on profits, so it doesn’t matter where the profits are on paper. Similar for income or sales taxes, income and sales can be done cash-only and hidden.
You might live in a place which already has some form of land value tax. Although a key distinction is that LVT is a tax on just the value of the land, not the value of the entire property that includes buildings, landscaping, ect. …
It really depends on where the land is as it’s based on value. If you are talking about replacing property taxes with land value taxes typically it’s just a rate on the value but in this case it’s just the land value so a higher rate but only applies to land. If you could figure out the total land value in your neighbourhood you could figure it out.
As for who is affected, single family homes on the outskirts probably see a drop in taxes while those in the inner city and vacant plots see a large increase.
The people who will be impacted first will be people who own vacant lots and parking lots in and around downtowns. If you’re concerned about people getting booted out of their homes, consider Estonia:
Estonia levies an LVT to fund municipalities. It is a state level tax, but 100% of the revenue funds Local Councils. The rate is set by the Local Council within the limits of 0.1–2.5%. It is one of the most important sources of funding for municipalities.[90] LVT is levied on the value of the land only. Few exemptions are available and even public institutions are subject to it. Church sites are exempt, but other land held by religious institutions is not.[90] The tax has contributed to a high rate (~90%)[90] of owner-occupied residences within Estonia, compared to a rate of 67.4% in the United States.[91]
In general, LVT should increase overall housing supply, improve affordability, and can be used to reduce other taxes such as property, income, and sales taxes. Most serious proposals I have seen have been to replace property taxes with LVT. These factors should make it easier on average households generally, and also allow them more flexibility to downsize (once your kids have moved out, do you really need a jumbo house all to yourself?), rather than locking you into the only place you can afford.
That was one concern. Another is our specific situation. Our foundation square footage is 972, our lot is 3,991 in total, none of it yard, half is all wild growth and weed trees, the rest is clover we planted to replace the grass and support pollinators. Our property tax is $3,750 this year, our land value is $46,400. I understand the calculation would be different on LVT but if I’d end up paying more on an LVT scheme then I wouldn’t want to have it in place.
I’d be more in favor if the county determined it’s annual budget costs and then divided that by the total acreage of privately owned land and you paid the percentage equal to your total land value.
I may be misunderstanding but it reads like .09 acres I have may be assessed as more valuable because of where it is than .09 acres 20 miles away in Tre same state and county.
At least give some kind of mention to Henry George for being the magnificent bastard that came up with this. His history is fascinating and most people don’t know who he is because he pissed off all the major landowners (ivy league colleges) who blackballed even mention of his name.
A fellow georgist, I see! But yeah, the legacy section on his wikipedia page is absolutely insane, and yet I had never even heard of him before about 2 years ago (which of course led to me promptly becoming georgist). Not a whole lot of people learn about the guy and about georgism without swiftly becoming a georgist themselves lol.
I don’t really care. As a lifelong apartment dweller; I hate people and want nothing to do with them. Get me a house far away from civilisation and I’ll be happy. Communal space, my arsehole.
I suppose since my country is very low population but very large I don’t really see the problem. Everyone could have a house here and we’d still have plenty of room to space.
Sweden has a population of 10.5 million, ish, and an area of 447k square kilometres. Germany by contrast, has a population of around 80 million, and an area of 357k square kliometres.
That said, I believe low density can work just fine. You don’t need highrises to improve population storage efficiency. Simple two-three story buildings work just fine too.
You could also lower the population, something modern society is managing just fine right now anyway. I personally really don’t believe overpopulation is going to be a significant problem in the long run.
Everyone could have a house here and we’d still have plenty of room to space.
You may not run out of wildlands, but if everyone is in large enough houses, it becomes difficult to get to the wildlands (or anywhere else you need to go) without using a car. For various reasons, !fuckcars, is against designing cities around cars.
That said, I believe low density can work just fine. You don’t need highrises to improve population storage efficiency. Simple two-three story buildings work just fine too
I agree. The problem comes when you have large houses with big yards. If you instead have rowhouses, you have plenty of density to avoid car dependency (if the city is designed properly).
This is the insanity of people who advocate for densified housing, IMO. I loathe apartments and attached dwellings. It’s like a dystopian future where you can’t own anything or have private space. If I never have to share a wall or floor with someone again, it will be too soon.
I’ve lived in 4 major cities including NYC, and several small cities. The small cities and green suburbs are light years better than the dense urban hellscapes, without exception. Apartment living is also universally awful. There’s nothing desirable to me about what you idealize.
I guess if I really wanted to scream at a wall, I’d make a c/fuck-fuckcars. These people are beyond help, but I hope they grow out of it so I don’t have to live in high density hell because infinite growth is just accepted as normal.
We used to be a great nation… Invading… Murdering… Stealing… Imposing grass deserts… Now we have left the EU, are implementing government spyware and have no plans to make anything better…
I don’t remember what my point was, but England is shit and I don’t want to be here anymore.
Of course you probably mow and trim. So still pretty unnatural. Natural Flora tends to look better even without obsessive maintenance. A robot mower was critical for me to actually not mind having to have a grass lawn.
Your first statement is all well and good but your second statement is flat out wrong. That can only happen given a static population. But humans reproduce pretty rapidly. There will always be new customers until we hit a carrying capacity limit, but as technology improves the earths carrying capacity keeps going up, until of course we decimate resources and then it’ll come crashing down.
If it’s not housing, it’s a golf course, or business district or something. The old “if you build it, they will come” plenty of people also don’t spend their lives in the same place so moving to a newer, better facility is enticing to those that can afford it.
One thing I’ve learned in SimCity is that a higher population density means you need a corresponding concentration of utility structures as well. Employment opportunities, hospitals, businesses, and schools all need to be close by and in proportion to serve the population. Not to mention managing waste, water, and electricity. In summary, simply building apartments isn’t the solution.
Right, which is good! It means people aren’t travelling huge distances to reach basic amenities and you don’t need to occupy vast swathes of land just for piping and roads.
This is sort of like how I learned by playing Civ that if you bum rush to Nuclear bombs and ICBMs you can simply bombs your enemies until they don’t exist anymore. Which is great fun in a game, but doesn’t exactly equate to IRL (but damn you Montezuma).
Anyways, here’s the deal; you would have the same amount of population no matter what. So whether my population was 1 person per square mile or 100 persons per square mile makes a huge impact. If you have a suburb of 100k people and a city of 100k people you can utilize less piping, less waste water, and less electricity more often since you often have dozens of families living in the same building which can utilize electricity more efficiently.
Not to mention that of course more people means needing more jobs, healthcare and education, but that’s also why you tend to have more of those things. It’s not like suburbs exist as self sustaining parts. They rely on cities with jobs to sustain them. Building higher density living spaces is a great way to solve many problems of modern American/Canadian life. I’m saying all of this as the opposite kind of person you’d find on this group since I live in suburbia and drive a giant truck. I just don’t want other people on the roads with me that suck ass at driving so I support public transportation to get them off the damn roads, plus it’s better for the environment.
Exactly. The key thing a lot of people conveniently ignore is how much infrastructure is needed per capita. Sure there’ll be more pipes/roads/etc. per sq km in a city vs the suburbs, but there’s a heck of a lot more pipes/roads/etc. per capita in the suburbs. I mean, just looking out my window, 100m of street serves hundreds of people, compared to maybe 100m of street for maybe 8 households in suburbia?
Given that there are 8 billion people on this planet, it simply consumes fewer resources to not have everyone in sprawling suburbia.
Sorry, but fuck this idea in its entirety. This would allow for MORE apartment buildings to be built, since that is how capitalism works, which results in more damage to the surrounding wildlife. L
We need more regulations, and we need a more conscious approach to our housing in general. We should be approaching this with symbiosis in mind, cooperating with nature rather than bending it to our will.
Those houses on the left? Yeah, you could cram so many actual gardens that give you actual food and which could bring so much biodiversity, but we sticking to flat, pure grass gardens that do nothing other than be flat and look green. Fuck everything here.
Sure, let’s build what we NEED to build in a conscious way, but have you seen the housing market as of late? China was printing useless buildings everywhere they could just to keep their faux market going, and any place without regulations will try to cram as many people as possible in as little space as possible, forgoing any quality of life or even safety designs in place of profitable designs.
We love to come together in big cities, and even jobs that don’t need to be on-site end up being on-site, thus worsening the problem. There’s a ton of land out there that could be turned into sustainable housing solutions that could benefit both the people and the environment. I’m just saying we should probably consider other alternatives to “suburban hell” and “communist hell”.
I don’t think we’re anywhere close to having to even think about the possibility of developers building too much housing. And yes, regulations solve the issues you bring up, we absolutely need to enforce the ones we have and many areas need more. Soundproofing should be mandatory in multifamily buildings for example.
How about apartments for people who want to live in apartments, and houses for people who want to live in houses, and proper civil engineering to limit sprawl?
Why does it always have to be black or white? There’s a shade of gray here that’s closer to the apartment model, but that would still allow freedom of travel. Public transportation SUCKS ASS. Cars are a central identity to Americans. They are part of our culture. Not having them just means everyone feels like another bee in the hive.
Because this “high density housing” is code for commie block slave quarters.
There are places, and I know this is hard for you city dwellers (which translates to “bourgeois” in French FYI) to understand, where there is still nature, there are still forests, the houses are a miniscule proportion of the land area. Its like that basically everywhere else except for where you insist on living and think everyone should live. It’s really pretty, but the downside is that you cannot get by with a busywork job sitting at a desk doing nothing productive all day. I know that’s a deal breaker for most of you. Some of us have the life you wish you were living, or something close to it, no expecting the whole world to bend over backwards to accommodate you required.
where you insist on living and think everyone should live.
Where people want to and do live
No one is coming for your ranch/farm/cabin. If you had the life “we wished to live”, you’d be in a dense community with access to local cafes, restaurants, markets, entertainment, and other neighborhoods without needing a car and with a healthy amount of green space as well. We’re specifically, typically talking about population centers.
I would prefer a middle ground where you have town homes for more privacy and room for families. Everything is still walkable, you preserved more green space, but everyone isn’t crammed into tiny pods.
Blocks of flats are awful places. No garden to put up a workshed, or greenhouse or anything at all, or play with your dog or kids (and no dog - it would be cruel to keep a dog in a flat and not have it able to roam a garden all day), they’re noisy, loud neighbours can be above, below, to the left, to the right, and in front …
You can’t modify your home how you’d like, can’t choose what utility companies run into your home, can’t let your kid cycle up and down the street and still be able to see and hear them from the windows etc.
I see your point about density absolutely, but I HATE flats. Awful places.
I also hate how people have started trying to make them sound fancy and posh by calling them “apartments” to try to sound fancy and European/French, as if that will make them more appealing.
Not everyone wants a yard and/or a dog! Very, very, few people modify their houses in ways that wouldn’t be applicable to apartments/flats too - interior changes are common, but exterior is usually far too much money for far too little in return. And if you’re complaining about people calling them “apartments”, which is what they’ve always been called in the US, I assume you’re in the UK where terraced houses are the most common form of housing, and neighbours are on both sides anyway. (Is it possible you’re hearing people calling flats apartments because of the influence of American TV? Where are you getting “fancy” from, or assuming it’s just because the same word is used in French? Do you avoid American TV shows? They were extremely common on British TV when I was growing up. If you’re not in Britain, apologies! But it seems likely, given most other English speaking countries I can think of use the term too.)
I personally disagree with anyone who promotes a one-size-fit-all approach to housing etc, but I don’t actually think most advocates of density really are doing that. They’re usually Americans fighting the completely insane zoning laws and building practices in the US that force people to own cars, make public transport uneconomic except with massive subsidies, and require Americans own houses that are far bigger and more expensive to maintain than they need. Nobody’s actually better off because of these laws, not even the people who want to live outside of real cities and drive to work - it ends up taking just as long to get to the supermarket to get a gallon of milk in a suburb where you have to leave your home, get into your car, drive it, drive out of your residential neighbourhood where businesses like supermarkets are banned, drive it past large numbers of buildings built for individual businesses each with enough parking to support the maximum number of customers it might conceivably need, 5-10 minutes later getting to the supermarket’s parking lot, which is again, absurdly oversized because it has to have one parking spot per potential customer, finding a spot, walking across this vast expanse to the supermarket, and then doing the same thing in reverse. Time savings? Nil. Tesco was five minutes walk away when I lived in the UK, and while that was unusual, most places I’ve lived in the UK had some kind of supermarket within walking distance. Money savings? Worse: my grocery bill tripled when I came to the US and I had to pay gas prices and for car maintenance on top of that. Not surprising when every store needs 4X as much land as it needs in the UK, just so it has enough parking.
So that’s what the pictures are likely about. The option of high density housing ought to be available to everyone, in the UK it is for the most part, hence it looks odd to you and you’re assuming the intent is to take your detached or semi-detached house from you. But in the US, no it isn’t, the few places that have good high density development are either impractical to live in, because you still need cars to work, or uneconomic for most people because those places are in such high demand to live the property prices are astronomical (think SF or NYC.)
can’t choose what utility companies run into your home,
This is the most farcical complaint. I guess sometimes you can pay a lot to get a new utility option to your owned home, but that's usually not an option.
In a lot of apartments you have no choice of ISP regardless of whether the building has a choice, which might be what they're on about. But I've never owned a home where I could choose which utilities were available. (Except for electric choice which works in apartments, too.)
even then it’s a problem we choose to have, in my apartment area we have a platform that allows us to choose between like, i think around 30? different ISPs, and switch between them freely at any time.
I agree with you fully, except the last part. Which is just a regional gripe, as to say "apartments" in the States is just as degrading/non-special. So it's interesting that you find specialty in that term when my region is anything but.
It sounds like this is about affordability...even though thats not what we're talking about when we're talking road induced demand. Im talking about public congestion, pollution, climate change. Instead of more cars on the road, its more people in the world
I don’t think there’s any evidence at all that more housing increases birth rates. Japan has remarkably affordable housing, even in Tokyo, because of very good zoning codes, but they have a plummeting population. And sure, more housing in a given area means more people in that area, but if you force them out of that area, they’re still going to have to live somewhere. If you force them farther away, they’re more like to drive and they’ll probably pollute more as they have to travel farther to access jobs and amenities.
Nah mate, there should be laws to how much people can live in some area. It’s inhumane to compress so many people in one place. I don’t want every city to be Hong Kong.
Exactly. People who advocate for densification are basically advocating for everywhere to be Amsterdam or NYC with continuous human habitation and maybe small concessions in the form of city parks (a joke compared to real natural areas, IMO).
I’m not sure if they’re aware that this will be the logical conclusion of those policies.
Man so true. I live in Dallas Tx home of suburban sprawl. I just spent a month in North Carolina and I had no idea what I was missing. The unspoiled nature in the Appalachians just blew me away. Hard to come back to miles of concrete.
I agree that if we could build a few wall label buildings, and leave the rest untouched that would be the best way. But I’ve seen how hard it is to stop development once money starts being thrown around.
No such thing as suburbia doesn’t have the density necessary to allow for public transit (with sane frequencies) or to be walkable. Living in there will always mean taking a car to fetch groceries, to get to school, to get to kindergarten, to go to the doctor, to go to the hair stylist, to go anywhere.
Meanwhile you’re forcing people to live in accommodations which are absurdly large and expensive because batshit zoning codes make building anything that’s not a gigantic house on a humongous plot illegal. I don’t want to fucking upkeep a house.
…and I also don’t want to finance the sky-high per-inhabitant infrastructure costs that suburbs bring with them. They’re the leading cause of municipal bankruptcies in North America.
“forcing”, yes that’s it. These people hate living in the suburbs and we are “forcing” it on them. Did you ever stop to wonder why suburban houses sell for 2-3x or more of the cost of condos? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not because people hate single family homes. The anti-car urban zealots don’t have a clue that there are people out there that live in pleasant green communities, and yes, have to take the car to the grocery store.
I lived in NYC - an ultra-dense city with incredible transit. I had to walk or take transit to get groceries. Now I live in a suburb, the store is the same distance away, and it takes 1/4 the amount of time to get groceries. Someone save me from these awful car-centric troubles.
You know that there’s options besides concrete box in the sky and suburbia, don’t you?
With a couple of row houses, multiplexes and small apartment buildings – think three, maximally five storeys suburbia could be densed up to support public transit. It could support supermarkets in walkable distance, schools, the whole shebang.
And guess what? The rare places in the US that have that style of mixed development, places that pre-date the suburbia zoning codes, are the ones with the absolutely highest home prices. Because they’re legitimately nice places to live, not because they’d be expensive to build, they’re actually very economical.
I’ve lived in multiplexes and small apartment buildings. For decades at this point. I fucking hate it and I know this is not an uncommon viewpoint. If people hated suburban homes, they would be selling at a discount, which is clearly not the case. You have to pay a premium to live in a less densely populated place and the lack of density is what makes those places expensive and desirable
They’d be even more expensive if not cross-financed by inner city taxes.
But that’s not really the point I want to make: You might hate living in a multiplex and really want your detached home. There’s nothing wrong with that. Noone’s stopping you. Maybe you want space for a shed so you can set up a hobby machine shop or whatever, you do you. What people are pissed about is that it’s either that, or the box in the sky. And now be honest: Would you NIMBY a couple of multiplexes three-story apartment complex flanked by some commercial space and a tram stop in your suburb? A plaza, cafes, restaurants, bars, doctors, no car parking, it’s serving your suburb, you can bike there, there’s ample of bike parking. Would you support repealing laws that make such developments illegal.
From what I heard from the states such places are very popular – modulo the no car parking thing. They’re called open air malls, you have to drive to them and walk through an asphalt desert of a gigantic parking lot and can’t, if you so choose, live in an apartment above a store because that’s illegal… why?
And now be honest: Would you NIMBY a couple of multiplexes three-story apartment complex flanked by some commercial space and a tram stop in your suburb? A plaza, cafes, restaurants, bars, doctors, no car parking, it’s serving your suburb, you can bike there, there’s ample of bike parking. Would you support repealing laws that make such developments illegal.
I should really give up on collecting downvotes by arguing with people who are incapable of considering my arguments, but it’s worth making this point: “NIMBY” as a term has been overused and misused to the point of meaninglessness. Let me give an example:
There are people in cities and suburbs across the US right now trying to shut down small airports. Ostensibly they want the airport converted into “low cost housing” or a park, but the real underlying reason always seems to be that they hate airplane noise and the value of their house would increase if the airport were to disappear. The wrinkle is these airports existence predates ownership of their house, predates the construction of their house, predates their housing development, and in the majority of cases the airports are older than 99% of people in the area. Nevertheless, they are succeeding in shutting down these airports, which arguably have more right to be there than they do. They knew there was an airport there when they moved in. The developer knew there was an airport there when they built the house. In many cases, the airport was actually busier in the past than it is in the present.
These people could accurately be called NIMBYs, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that the term NIMBY is most often wielded as a pejorative for anyone who opposes anything you don’t like. It has lost its descriptive power because people who want to conserve the status quo are NIMBYs, and people who want to change the status quo are equally NIMBYs.
Do you oppose development? NIMBY!
Do you support development? NIMBY!
Do you have any opinion about anything in your community? Believe it or not, also a NIMBY.
I think it’s bullshit. I think opposing change to preserve the status quo happens to be more valid in most cases. I’m sick of democracy being used as a weapon where an influx of outsiders can move into an area, become a majority, and vote to change its character. There are rural areas across the US that are being invaded by people from wealthier, populous states - namely CA and TX - as a result of remote work. The effect this has is that people who have lived there for generations are priced out, and then the local character is forced to change by these newcomers who now outnumber the original locals. If being opposed to that change is being a “NIMBY”, I think the NIMBYs are morally in the right - and I think the term being used as an insult is nonsense.
That was a lot of text to complain about the term NIMBY while I could’ve just as well said “oppose” without any change in meaning.
I think opposing change to preserve the status quo happens to be more valid in most cases.
Fair enough, you’re a conservative. Others err in the other direction and want change for change’s sake. Some people like to preserve, some like to innovate. In both scenarios, we should add the word “good” to make it a sensible position.
And there’s a very specific developmental scenario I painted, and that is to put a tram line into the suburb together with some medium-density development so the station and line has enough people living there to actually see use, see at least a tram each direction every 20 minutes during the day, every 60 or so in the night.
One other alternative? Let me paint a nightmare scenario for you (or rather your wallet): New federal regulations forbid subsidising low density zones with the land taxes from high density zones, from now on you’ll have to pay for your own sewage system, streets, electricity lines, etc, the inner city isn’t footing the bill any more. Your land tax is suddenly 3-5x higher, if renting, no the landlord isn’t going to cover it for you. Tons and tons of people get priced out. Alternatively, your infrastructure rots until it is gone.
Which of those scenarios is a good one, which a bad one? All are changes from the status quo, which, as I said, is suburbia getting subsidised – a bad scenario, at least in my book, especially given that suburbanites don’t exactly tend to be poor.
Last, but not least: Mixed medium-density development is the conservative option. It’s how cities have been built for millennia. Suburbia is an invention of post-war North America, driven by car manufactures and redlining. The most expensive places in North America are places old enough to still have that mixed medium-density structure (google “streetcar suburb”), which is the norm everywhere else in the world.
No, im good on suburbia, it’s inherently damaging to both our mental health and the natural ecosystems of the planet. You cannot have a sustainable single family suburb.
Ok, well surely you recognize that there are lots of people who agree with me - who feel single family homes are nice and living elbow to elbow with your neighbors in maximum density is not in any way desirable.
Unfortunately, ultra-urbanist zealots are very loud online. I suspect many of them will change their tunes with age.
Edit: what’s damaging to the ecosystems of our planet is PEOPLE! There’s no law of nature that states a suburban density isn’t sustainable, just that it’s unsustainable for 8b people. You’re proposing eco-austerity because human population is out of control
Let the population contract to <<1b as it was for thousands of years of civilization before industrial agriculture caused a very recent explosion in population the past 2 centuries (predominantly the 20th century)
Education? Contraception? It’s not fucking rocket science. Every developed country in the world is at well below replacement rates. The idea needs to be promoted and not derided or conflated with eugenics (which it emphatically isn’t). Blunting the impact of an aging population is the most difficult problem.
Edit: the most difficult problem is that capitalism demands perpetual growth, and billionaires and heads of state with a vested interest in growth would never allow the population to shrink without extreme resistance, like pervasive propaganda and outlawing abortion.
How about this: housing in places with a shrinking population is relatively cheap and plentiful (math, right?). Developed countries could dial back immigration so that immigration + birth rate is below replacement. That solves overpopulation at the regional level.
Under 1 billion is unrealistic but some contraction will happen. The main factor dictating how many children people will have is infant mortality of the previous one or two generations as well as the existence of pension systems.
…which is the reason why developed countries have birth rates below replacement level and with increased wealth elsewhere it’s also going to happen there, which would mean contraction everywhere. I don’t expect that to keep up forever, however, states will get their shit together and set incentive structures (in particular making having kids affordable) long before we’re contracting to one billion.
Yes. The likely turning point, according to the UN, is around 11bn in 2100, then declining. Plus or minus a billion or two and a couple of decades.
Which is btw nowhere close to the earth’ carrying capacity though that’s highly variable in the first place. It’s probably not a good idea to pine for a population increase past that point and leave some room for other species. And no matter how many we are it’s a good idea to minimise ecological impact. Why do people want fresh strawberries in winter anyway those transportation-stable strains taste like water. If you want strawberries in winter eat jam.
Also note that this overshoot is happening precisely because developing countries are, well, developing: Their fertility rates still stick to the old child mortality rates but the actual rates are lower so you get a population spike. Keep that up a generation or two and they plateau, then fall as people don’t require kids to provide for them in old age and also are barely affording rent with dual income from three jobs each so they definitely can’t afford a kid. Oh wait that was the US in particular. But yes that’s exactly what you want to avoid to halt contraction.
Where “fascism” is defined as whatever you want it to be, regardless of any reasonable definition. Is renewable energy eco fascism? How about fuckcars? How about forcing densified housing?
Do you have an example of a sustainable single family suburb that exists currently, or ways in which to offset the inherent inefficiency present in such structures?
Why is not living in a suburb austerity? Is all of every city and rural population living in austerity?
Do you have to drive to the grocery store? Do you have to commute to work? Do you grow monoculture grass lawns? Are the roads winding instead of straight? Do private lawns create circumstances where to get to the nearest store you have to go multiple times the actual distance to get there? These are all ways in which suburbs are unsustainable.
There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with winding roads. Sincerely, a European.
I’d rather be worried if they’re straight, are built like highways, and have no sidewalks. If they don’t have sidewalks they better be gravel or cobblestone.
That’s ludicrous - I don’t know which hedgerow maze you’re navigating to get to the grocery store. 2500ft is half a mile. You cannot make 0.5 miles into 4-5 miles in any reasonable amount of neighborhood streets, and I have never lived somewhere like that in 6 completely different suburbs in different regions/cities.
In my suburban neighborhood, the straight line, as-the-crow-flies distance is 0.52 miles. The driven distance is 0.7 miles. Everywhere I’ve ever lived it’s proportionally similar, though not always as close. Anyplace with public transit - even good public transit - would require more distance than walking and WAY more time than driving.
Are there just a bunch of people out there living in insaneland (where?!?)? Everywhere I’ve lived is dense city or completely sane suburbia. Are suburbs just an evil caricature of reality in your mind? Is fuckcars just full of people living in some crazy fictional strawman of a suburban hell?
Many suburbs have a single entrance and exit, so if there’s something behind the suburb near your house, your only choice would be to go all the way to the entrance, then around the entire neighborhood to get to what’s behind it.
There’s varying levels of suburban hell, for sure. It seems like more newly built suburbs near me at least think to put walking paths at all angles through the development, which helps mitigate the issues the long, winding roads can cause. I’d prefer not to build more suburbs at all, though.
This is nothing like places I’ve been, most of which are not new suburbs
Edit: you probably hate new build suburbs that are imitating old suburbs because the population grew too much in the last 50 years and everyone wanted a slice of the pie
Where are you getting this absurd, fictitious distance? I’ve lived in MANY different suburbs and cities. The driven distance is only ever slightly more than the straight line distance. The only consistently true fact is that public transit takes 3-4x as long to go the same places as driving (and I mean in dense urban areas with real transit). It really seems like there’s a strawman that fuckcars participants have in their head for just how bad it is to drive places in less dense areas - I promise it’s not. Or you just need to find one that isn’t shitty AZ/TX/FL new build HOA hell that exists only to enrich a scummy RE developer.
That doesn’t sound like good transit, however real it is. I can go from where I am to the capital of my state on a regional bus in 50m, it takes 1h10m by car, not including parking time. Busses have their own lane and speed limit, they go significantly faster than the flow of traffic.
I live right next to one of the most bike friendly cities in the US, and even there the suburbs are hell compared to the wonderful creek paths and trails present through the rest of the city. Going from walking down a shaded creek path to walking down a scorching concrete jungle is quite a shock, as is suddenly having to figure out which suburban streets dead end and which wrap around and which go through.
You’re also missing the point, you shouldn’t have to drive to get to grocery stores, work, or ANY OTHER place that you need to get to regularly, regardless of how shitty or not the drive is.
If you can’t get to the store without using a car or walking miles, it’s an unsustainable development, period.
Over here there’s tons of small paths that allow you to take much shorter routes on foot or bike. Sometimes official, sometimes the path belongs to a multiple-entries apartment block connected to two streets, or a street and a park, or whatever, in any way you don’t know your surroundings without having explored them.
I lived in one of the most viable biking cities in America for sometime, and the paths around and through everything were my favorite part. You could get anywhere in that town and only have to cross 1 or 2 roads, because everything else ran over or under the roads and through beautiful creek paths and walking paths cut through residential and commercial areas alike. Even there, suburbia represents a sort of dead end to all the trails, and you have to bike through miles long streets of housing to get back to a path. Thankfully, there’s great bus routes through those areas, so you can usually get to within a few blocks of your destination even in suburbia.
The ‘under 1 billion’ part implies genocide, because that is literally never gonna happen - in a time frame where we wouldn’t have to rethink housing and nature right now and the next few decades - otherwise without a major worldwide catastrophe. Sure, climate change might take care of it (again, decades away and people need housing now, also, these solutions actually help with climate change) but then we won’t have to worry about silly things like housing ever again.
Or we could promote education, contraception, and contraction of the global population the same way we promote renewable energy - because the ideas are related. Or do you think that there’s no point in trying to fix the problem? Because you clearly don’t seem to hold that opinion about the climate catastrophe, you just refuse to look at population as part of the problem.
![[meme] How would you rather see this land developed?](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f6ec67a5-2636-4875-8dd4-fa5241a3083c.jpeg){kind=link}
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