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.
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.
Off the top of my head I'm imagining the infinite loan scheme, but modified a bit, where the vast bulk of your wealth is in securities and then you "rent" a property from a company for like $1 a year. The company doesn't pay its taxes, it goes bankrupt, a new company is created, and the process starts again. YOU never owe taxes, the COMPANY owes taxes and could get deductions on any number of bogus things and then worst case just declare bankruptcy and fold.
This could be addressed, but it's similar to people saying Mac or Linux is immune to viruses. If they get popular enough, they'll need antivirus software.
Similarly, no tax scheme is immune to loopholes, but as long as they're addressed, it's not a point against it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, [email protected], 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).
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 ?
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.
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
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
I spent seven years living in an apartment. I so enjoyed hearing the neighbors having sex, the thumping music they played, the smell of their cigarette smoke inside my apartment with all my windows closed, the random intrusions by management to repair something unrelated to my apartment, the random rent increases. Add this to the fact that I had no space for a work shop to make anything, and paying the equivalent of a mortgage with no equivalent home equity.
Some people love apartment life, but it definitely was not for me.
What is going on in this comments section? Building dense is massively better for the environment than SFH, both in the construction phase and for the life of the units as far more residents can be served with less infrastructure sprawl. It also doesn't mean that detached housing will suddenly stop existing if we let developers build densely packed housing. Doesn't even need to be high rises, it can be townhomes, duplexes, five-over-ones, etc. You'll still be able to get a white picket fence suburban home or a farmhouse on some acreage if you want. In fact, it will become cheaper because all the people who want to live in cities will actually be able to move there and not take up space in that low density area you want to live in.
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.
Make it 100 appartments in 3-4 times the space (in 4 smaller buildings with balconies, community gardens, shared spaces, picnic areas and so on) as a compromis and I am all in!
I won't consider living in apartment buildings unless they have good soundproofing and proper open spaces. I don't want to be cramped in with noisy neighbors and have no privacy.
A truth most people don't want to hear is that densely populated cities are overall better for nature and resources. You need less roads and tracks, fewer concrete overall, compact cities are much easier to make walkable, etc.
Really the only argument against tight packed cities is "I don't like people". That shouldn't really be a priority.
For nature to recover we need to give back space.
The worst you can do is build rural homes or spread out suburbs.
I live in an apartment. I want to live in a house.
Cunt upstairs neighbour smoking cancer sticks on the balcony, making my room smell like shit when he does it, dumbass neighbour to my right who phones some other dumbass at 6 in the morning, screaming into his phone, waking me up. No garden, can't have a cat or a dog.
I don't want to live in a suburb where I am forced to use a car, but you can live in a house and still be able to get anywhere you want without a car.
Density doesn't save nature. Habitat protection laws save nature. Make sure that's part of the plan.
Also, the picture shows the saved nature very accessible to the density. This is not usually what these zoning plans have in mind.
Many important species, especially insects and their predators, can absolutely make good use of patchy suburban habitat if it is properly managed, moreso if it is networked, and natural space nearer homes benefits residents and the environment.
We can't keep saving mountaintops and deserts, we need to rehabilitate more of these nice valleys and riversides we all like to build cities on.
It's simple: blocks are not built in cities to minimise the footprint like in your meme but to build cheaper and sell more and in the same time externalising the costs of infrastructure development.
A mid density block is something, a heavy packed "bedroom" neighborhood is another.
A lot of people are pro-apartmemt before living in one, so here are some fun facts:
Apartments usually have a maintenance cost, that covers as little as possible while still costing a lot. You never really own the flat, the building company does.
You often have a communal garden; it's looked after by the lowest bidding contractor. Not all flats have balconies, so you are unlikely to have your own.
Fear of fire and flooding - if someone else messes up, your stuff is toast/soaked. Insurance companies love that extra risk, it gives them an excuse to charge more.
No flat has good sound proofing - the baby screaming downstairs at 5am and the thunder of the morbidly obese person upstairs going to the bathroom at 1am will denote your new sleep schedule (i.e. disturbed)
I hope you're in for deliveries - apartments have no safe spots to leave things.
You will not be able to afford a flat with the same floor space as a house. I'm sorry, welcome to your new coffin.
Good luck drying your laundry (spoiler, your living room is going to have a laundry rack).
Good luck owning a bike (it's either the bike or your laundry, take your pick).
Vocal intimacy becomes a community event.
Living in a flat is a pile of little miseries grouped together.
This is a pretty terrible way to make this point. The pic on the left is neater and the one on the right leaves almost no space for the people living there to do anything. You probably want a little bit of cleared land for literally anything to do on the island.
Then again, there isn't a dock. So I figure the island on the right has a better way of building boats to leave.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, let's pack people in a dense area where diseases and tempers can and will run rampant because THAT has never happened before.
Sorry, I refuse to live on top of other people. Housing is not the enemy of nature - housing that is not in tune with nature is. It is completely possible to build homes that blend in with nature without having to resort to ultra-dense, 5-story brick behemoths filled with people who loathe one another.
I see what you are trying to convey, and I agree with you to an extent, but density is not the answer to sustainable housing.
Housing is fine, several of my personal heros lived in rural commues far away from society, where they are mostly self-sustained. They dont live in apartments, but there is no doubt I have great respect for them and believe they live in a very responsible fashion.
The problem came when people want to live in the middle of nowhere, produces nothing for their own, pays low taxes; yet think society owes them giant road infrastructure and wasteful parking lots. So that they can terrorize the lives of pedestrians and cyclists, also our dying planet, just because only their oversized driveway princess and their ecological hellhole of a lawn can give them a little sense of achievement in their otherwise fruitless life.
The low density/low height example in the nature article is still 5k people per Km^2. While definitions vary wildly, I usually see 1000-400 people per km^2 for suburb definitions.
Does example D look like suburbs to you? As something undefined it could be considered suburbs, but probably "streetcar suburb" in the Canadian/American context.
Critically the article also mentions a requirement for best practice greenery management to maximize carbon sequestration. I'm no botanist, but I'm guessing caretaken parks do better then monoculture lawns (assumption).
Edit: missed that the first link was a different study. That like on spanish cities has its lowest density group defined as <100 pop/hectare, if my math is right, that means <10,000 pop/km^2. Significantly denser than any suburb. This is also a region when thermal energy is spent of cooling, not heating. And while it adjusts for climate effect, it doesn't seem to adjust for the modernity/thermal effectiveness of the buildings. Such to say, a building with an air-conditioner will spend more thermal energy than one without.
Basically your two links are showing that cities can be too dense, and there is a point when they lose GHg efficiency. There is no mention of anything lower than what, as a Canadian, I would still call high density (just not super high density).
It'd probably depend on the park and how it's designed/managed, but I'd be shocked if monocultured lawns sequestered any carbon. I know in agriculture it's a huge problem that industrially-grown monocultures -- where they till the soil and crop-dust fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides and fungicides -- emit huge amounts of previously-sequestered soil carbon. A result is that doing the reverse -- i.e., growing food regeneratively in polycultures and without tillage and artificial fertilizers and without all the -icides -- is considered a good way to sequester carbon.
Considering we grow grass lawns similarly to how we grow corn monocultures, I'd bet grass lawns are similarly awful for the soil and thus the climate as well.
I'm obviously biased by the parks I live near and see/use every day, but when I think of a park, I think of tree'd sitting areas, tree'd play areas, tree'd walking paths, and some monoculture sports fields, with trees for the stands.
There are lost of community gardens around, but as a black thumb I don't use them and bias them out.
Basically my city has a hard on for trees in parks, and I'm all for it. I also think I've developed a bias that roads have no trees, and streets have trees.
Feel free to zoom in on essentially every city in America. You can even download the raw data yourself.
Further, your Nature study you link, actually read the paper and you find this nugget:
These limiting assumptions were necessary based upon the urban scale scope of this study. Providing additional levels of detail at the building scale would greatly improve the accuracy of the analysis and can be refined in future works. Employing a cradle-to-cradle approach to consider resource reuse, the impact of retrofitting existing building stock over rebuilding; the inclusion of transportation impacts; adding a dynamic time component to investigate material inflows and outflows; and including a detailed time-related analysis of carbon sequestration potential offered by urban greeneries in the simulated environments—are all valuable and important avenues for future work to build on this study and expand its relevance while reducing its limitations. This study therefore acts as a stepping-stone to provide a strong foundation from which extensive future work can be born.
It literally doesn't even model transportation emissions. Considering this whole conversation is about sprawl causing more cars, this is kinda a glaring omission.
I'd like to come back and read over this later. The point OP is making seems pretty obvious but it is quite directly contradicted by the sources you just provided. I want to read those later
From a quick read of the Nature article they posted:
These limiting assumptions were necessary based upon the urban scale scope of this study. Providing additional levels of detail at the building scale would greatly improve the accuracy of the analysis and can be refined in future works. Employing a cradle-to-cradle approach to consider resource reuse, the impact of retrofitting existing building stock over rebuilding; the inclusion of transportation impacts; adding a dynamic time component to investigate material inflows and outflows; and including a detailed time-related analysis of carbon sequestration potential offered by urban greeneries in the simulated environments—are all valuable and important avenues for future work to build on this study and expand its relevance while reducing its limitations. This study therefore acts as a stepping-stone to provide a strong foundation from which extensive future work can be born.
It doesn't even model transportation emissions, which kinda makes it worthless in the context of this discussion.
As for Spain, does Spain even have much "suburbia" as we understand it in a North American context? Data for cities in Spain may have nothing to say about the emissions of suburban sprawl vs denser communities, which is what the OP is mainly about.
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.
If you look at land use maps, you will see that the urban areas are so small compared to the agricultural and livestock area needed to support the population. This is the biggest cause of deforestation, and population density actually makes it much worse, because it centralizes consumption and requires more logistic costs to deliver the needed food, with much higher rates of wastes. If we lived in less dense areas, perhaps we could do with local, smaller-scale agriculture instead.
My concern with multi unit living is that your home is now dependent on the actions of others. You could lose everything because some dumbass next to you dropped cigarette burning on their floor, or overflowed their tub.
It also just gets messy having that many people try to manage a property together. I lived in a high rise for a year. There was constant bickering over who put the wrong thing down the trash chute or
who was using the elevator to move furniture without checking it out first. Everyone had to all agree to building repairs, which was a nightmare, and getting them them done took forever. From my understanding our building was pretty well run, but it didn't feel like it. I loved the idea of high rise life when I moved in but by the time we got out house I was ready to be done with it.
I mean there are genuine reasons you might want a house over an apartment. If you have a big family or the fact that you own it and don't have a land lord that can just raise rent and force you out. You gotta have a mix of types of housing that actually matches what the needs of the people are, which is still the exact problem we have now.
The thing with developers is that they build that density, but over ALL of the land. Apartments kill more trees and create more impervious cover than any other type of housing.
Our city requires parkland dedication for development. Single-family developments build public parks and preserve trees wherever possible. Apartments just pay a fee in lieu for tree mitigation and parkland dedication and improvements because they absolutely will not have a millimeter of land not dedicated to housing.
If the people living in apartments had a say in how they were built... yeah
Nobody chooses to live in a fucking tin can hanging from suspension wires that is so poorly insulated you can hear every bird flying into the windows as though you're inside a bass drum.
The sounds of my neighbors at 3 am snoring are not a feature you can call part of the "shared experience."
The prospect of being trapped together because the elevator went out and there's a fire... oh so joyous. Not to mention all the people's pets that get left at home throughout the day and I can hear crying with desperation to be let out as though they're in the next room...
I'm quite happy not to live in a fucking modern apartment thank you very much.
In this image I can't help but notice how much infrastructure cost there is here. Consider need for water treatment pipes run to and from each house for water and sewage as well as sewage treatment infrastructure. Keep in mind that failure rate increases with each house and by length of these runs that you are adding and fire hydrants being added every so many feet, shut off valves. Don't forget that we now have significantly bigger demand for water as we now have a lot more vegetation to manage and a higher reliance on emergency services as we are spread out over a larger area so we now have to increase ems, fire, and police spending. Then you add the costs for electrical infrastructure with your sub stations and transformers and all the costs set to maintain that especially since these are underground lines apparently and ofcourse we have increased risk of failure again per service and foot run and higher demand on those services which will require more workers which turns into money being spent outside of the community. You then add the cost of data lines and phone lines including the costs associated with maintaining and upgrading those which are also apparently underground which means your upgrades may be significantly more expensive and will take much longer to deploy. Now that we have all these houses separated we will now have a population that will be more dependent on vehicles so now we have to factor in all of our road maintenance costs and our public services will not require far more vehicles as well which means we will also need mechanics to repair and maintain these vehicles. Now with roads alone when we consider the costs involved things get rather expensive quickly. Cost to maintain roads, even roads that are seldom used, is surprisingly expensive and require a lot of workers to build and maintain as well as vehicles, machinery, and land to store, recycle, and create materials needed to repair and build the roads. On top of that there is also an often missed statistic of vehicles which is public safety as they are a leading cause for injury which is another stressor on our little community.
This is far from all the possibly missed costs of our suburban/rural neighborhood but I feel these are some of the important ones people live to overlook.
Might be a silly question, but would it be better if we somehow turned suburbs into being more akin to rural towns? Like the suburbs could maybe have nearby town centers that they could walk to in 10-15 minutes that would allow small businesses to operate in.
I don’t live on the mainland, so no idea how it actually works.
The only thing i can see on the right bad is that many people dont like beeing cramped in with many other people. + want to have a garden Balcony can be a "garden" but not as good. I have nothing against the right, but keep in mind not everyone is the same.
Condos and Housing coops go a long way I think to reduce some of the pain points most people have had with apartment living. The issue now is that most people are comparing owning a home where you have a lot of control over your circumstances and price stability, vs having a landlord that is doing the minimum and raising rents every chance they can. If apartments were built for people, and not landlords would they still have cramped hallways and balconies, would they have poor insulation and sound proofing, would they have old noisy AC units, etc, etc. The thing is, even in cases where people do choose to not have an amenity, people still had the choice.
Have you not heard of mixed density? There should be houses, semi, townhomes, 3 story walk-ups and apartment buildings. You could probably do all that and still keep 50% of the island nature.
When I see the image what came to mind was that experiment where they had an overpopulation of rats in a cage and how all of the rats turned on each other and killed each other.
Too much human density is not good. You have to be sure to get the percentage of humans to a acre of land just right, to prevent the rats situation.
Growing upward as opposed to outward helps in numerous ways. It pollutes less, costs less in services, takes up less land and the list goes on. The issue isn't apartment buildings, the issue is badly built, uninsulated in every way and overpriced apartment buildings.
I would think looking at this comment section most individuals on this sub hate cars, but love homes with large driveways and massive streets. To drive the cars we hate?
Mid-density apartment are a thing, maybe 4-6 floors tall.
Though north america apartment design is another issue IMO. North america apartment floor plates are unfortunately not designed for families. When was the last time you saw a 3 or 4 bedroom apartment?
Edit: I should add, when was the last time you saw a 3 or 4 bedroom apartment that cost less then a full size family home in the suburbs.
Give me a European style apartment with high ceilings and generous space and you have yourselves a deal!
That said, I've been working in my local building industry for almost 20 years and the trend that I see is that though there are more apartments being built, the quality has tanked. We have huge issues with mould, flammable facades, exploding glass, alternatives are rampant through the roof and price gouging.
Unfortunately this has fed the idea that apartment living is no good.
Yeah, try living in an impoverished town, where it's the housing on the right, spread out like the housing on the left. There are, like, no jobs (none that are actually sustainable long-term for living in this economy), but they just leveled a huge area of forest for more low-income housing (AKA Projects)
I mean, yeah, apartments and such should be widely available. Awesome for high population areas, young folks, temporary housing situations, etc. Had a flat for years and will for at least a few more. However, as a drummer (and general loud music enthusiast) I am very ready to get out of the flat and get into a proper house with a basement, garage, patio for grilling with da boyes, etc.
A good mix of both is ideal. I sure wish we took better measures to mitigate the insane housing prices tho'. Sick of thin walls and and a single room trying to replace 4 rooms.
Here, buying an apartment makes you liable for any structural issues to the whole building, it's a huge risk and with how terrible build quality is these days I'd never buy an apartment
There are many highrise buildings in Australia with residents paying hundreds of thousands each for issues caused by dodgy builders. The builder simply closes the business during the warranty period and they are off the hook for claims
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.
Assuming the needs of a living space is the same across both populations, this graphic seems disingenuous. The pixel count of the apartment suggests it could fit 6½ of the homes per floor. Across 9 floors that's 58 homes worth of square footage.
I assume the homes have garages, which would not account for living space. But garages don't account for 42% of a homes' size.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I own a townhome that i rent out. Have had good tenants for the most part but don't want to deal with the HOA anymore. So we want to sell but sadly the next door neighbor smokes in her unit so much that it smells in our unit.
In this state there is absolutely nothing we can do legally about the problem. The guy across the street destroyed the grassy area in front of his unit and a lean was placed on his unit until it was fixed or he was evicted in 90 days. But actual damage to our unit we were SOL.
This is why people don't want shared units. When your neighbor is an asshole you're usually screwed.
Houses. Apartments would mean I'd have to try my luck with the neighbors. A friend of mine has a neighbor upstairs that makes noise at all hours of the night. I've heard it. It sounds like his neighbor is constantly moving furniture.
My friend has asked the neighbor to quiet down, talked to the apartment complex about it, and even had to call the police to file a noise complaint one time. (My friend has young kids who might get woken up by the noise. That's the main reason he's concerned about it.)
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.
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.
Nah. I'm sorry, but fuck apartments. I was spending $22k a year. Apartment complex did a crap job clearing snow in the winter. My neighbors were disgusting. I had to walk across the complex to get to my laundry room, where the machines rarely worked. The AC wall units were expensive to run, and did little to cool the apartment. The downstairs neighbor's front door slammed every time they closed it. The people next door would vacuum for an hour every night starting at 10pm. I got a $45 fine for hanging a beach towel over a chair on my balcony.
I mean shit, they decided to renovate the apartment beneath me, and turned off my heat and left for the weekend in the middle of winter. They turned off my water multiple times with no notice making me late for work. And then the construction workers stole my package before heading home.
I bought a house. Every time I pay my mortgage I build equity in my home. I have my own laundry room. I may have to clear the snow myself, but I have plenty of space to store a snow blower and shovels - something I could never do before. I can buy bulk sized non perishables too and save money, because I have plenty of space to store it. I can sleep at night without being awoken by my neighbors fucking to the sounds of Bob Marley. I can hang up a towel to dry without being fined for it. And if I need to do work, I can determine when or if the water is being turned off.
Oh, and renewing my lease would have seen me paying almost as much in rent as my mortgage payment. For what?
You can still have trees and plant life in low density housing. You don’t need green deserts everywhere.
Yeah fuck lawns too, they aren’t meant to exist
We can thank England for those damn things.
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.
https://youtu.be/XQaMr3UHOWE
I don't know. They seem pretty natural in a lot of places.
I didn't plant my lawn. I don't water it. It has just always been there.
That might be true for you but the US uses 9 Billion gallons of water per day on residential irrigation. As of 2017 https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/pubs/outdoor.html#
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.
Sucks for pollinators though....
We do keep a couple patches of wildflowers.
You just made my hoa froth at the mouth a little.
But you still need way more infrastructure for the Houses.
Yup, tons more parking and tons more road space per capita as well. Low-density sprawl just needs a lot more stuff per capita.
They should pay a significant land tax instead of leeching off the high-density dwellers.
Funny you say that as I'm the creator and mod of ![email protected]
For others curious about land value taxes:
Further, it can't be passed on to tenants, both in economic theory and in observed practice, and even a milquetoast LVT -- such as in the Australian Capital Territory -- can have positive impacts:
Sounds like it could have a lot of loopholes like any tax scheme but as long as those are addressed, this looks like a reasonable proposal.
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.
Off the top of my head I'm imagining the infinite loan scheme, but modified a bit, where the vast bulk of your wealth is in securities and then you "rent" a property from a company for like $1 a year. The company doesn't pay its taxes, it goes bankrupt, a new company is created, and the process starts again. YOU never owe taxes, the COMPANY owes taxes and could get deductions on any number of bogus things and then worst case just declare bankruptcy and fold.
This could be addressed, but it's similar to people saying Mac or Linux is immune to viruses. If they get popular enough, they'll need antivirus software.
Similarly, no tax scheme is immune to loopholes, but as long as they're addressed, it's not a point against it.
To somebody else’s point, how would this compare to the what single family home owners pay now?
Where I live we have about .09 acres of land our house sits on and we pay ~$3000/year.
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.
Seems like a good way to get a lot of retired folk to lose their property over taxes, as land value rises above their means
Sounds like they should sell their house - which has netted them a nice profit - and downsize. Or do a reverse mortgage.
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.
That's definitely part of it, and more important than taxes on primary residence. But we should do both.
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.
The one on the left has no communal space. The one on the right does.
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.
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.
That's our dystopian, low-density present.
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.
Don't bother. The regulars on this sub are totally out of touch with reality and normal people.
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.
Yeah, they're welcome to go live in a box surrounded by crazy people - personally I'd rather be in a box six feel under than crammed in with them.
In this case, the communal space is a forest far from housing. You can avoid people by walking alone through the forest.
I think that's a better experience than walking around your backyard
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.
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, [email protected], is against designing cities around cars.
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).
Noise. Neighbours being closer.
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.
Exactly. Here in Sweden if you live into a newly built apartement you are basically guranteed grade A sound isolation.
Even older ones usually hold high quality because of renovations.
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.
You'd think living in a building that was built in 2020 would be good enough. But here I am every night cursing my neighbors who stomp around at 11pm
Blame shitty government regulations and capitalism for shitty apartments.
The minimum standard we should expect is that you can pound a punching bag at 3am without your neighbours hearing anything.
100% we need better regulation
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.
The entire reason your prices out is that there aren't enough apartments though.
This is the shit that exhausts me about NIMBYs. They have cause and effect totally reversed and I don't know how that myth got so ingrained.
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!
Utter insanity
I'm sorry, did you just actually call me a NIMBY?
Yeah, by proxy
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 ?
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.
Voting locally is the single most important thing anyone can do to fix the housing crisis. End single-family zoning in your area.
Oh so you're also going to rebuild all apartment buildings in the US now? Lol
I wish you were right
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
Neighbours will still be closer in apartments.
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.
I'm not sure why you're trying to tell me this. I've got my own experience living in apartments and having neighbours.
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...
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.
I love my quiet.
The instant I step out my door I'm surrounded by people in an apartment. Sorry but nothing you said is true. I'll never live in an apartment again.
Are they just hanging out in the hallway? Are you sure you are in an apartment?
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.
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
Owning an apartment and owning land are wildly different. The housing structure alone is not the entirety of home ownership.
Since we're just talking hypotheticals anyway, let's say in the second image the land is actually owned by the owners of the apartments, like a co-op.
That's still not ownership. That's co-ownership. I'm not free to do what I want with it, when I want.
Same reason I hate HOAs
I own my house and don't have an HOA. Guess what?
Still can't do whatever I want with it when I want. Still need to get permits and follow local/state regulations.
But those regulations tend to be more sane.
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.
The vast majority of places where you own a house, you still can't do whatever you want.
Whatever reasonable thing you want will tend to fly though. Versus HOA which often dictate crazy restrictions.
It's called a condo
Condo financing is not available everywhere.
But it should be, that's the point.
While you are wishing for things, wish for me to win the lottery
Way to miss the entire point of the thread
what no right to roam does to a mfer
Have you heard of a national or state park?
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
You can own and apartment. And there's right to roam.
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.
Uh yes, the suburban tranquility of non-stop leaf blowing, lawn mowing, and pickup humming.
Musics to my ears.
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.
We should amend building codes to require sound insulation
We need the insulation we saw in the Fight Club movie. The entire apartment blew out the window and everyone else was fine.
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.
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.
The homie was pooped out in a place where it was possible, and that was luck.
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.
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.
Ok?
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Assumptions being made here.
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.
You're still too close if you can hear all that.
And I rather like the smell of cow shit
Fresh-cut hay gives me a semi
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.
Turns out commuting by a gasoline-powered car on a sea of asphalt roads every day is bad for the planet. Who'd have thought?
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
Suburbs are the worst of both worlds. Gimme a cave on the top of the mountain miles from anywhere, thanks.
All the fun of overbearing neighbors telling you what you can or can't do with all the inability to take the train anywhere
don't forget the dudebros driving around blasting bass every 20min. I hope they all go deaf. peacocking morons.
Yes, that doesn't happen in cities at all.
Cities are 100x worse for noise levels.
It'd take it over the sound of the upstairs neighbor fucking his microwave while bowling at the same time
I don't know about that. I don't live in America and I've never lived in suburbs. I have lived in flats (apartments) and in dense areas.
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.
I don't care how much they do, I care about how close they all are to me while they do it.
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"?
I don't see why you would expect an absense of these things in a city?
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.
I can't hear shit when i clise my windows.
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.
I think you replied in the wrong place? I didn't give an analogy.
You're right, I meant to reply to the OP. I agree with you. Still figuring out Lemmy, sorry.
Yeah but then they build more houses and destroy more of those open spaces to make room for more suburban sprawl
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.
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.
The issue is that all of those apartments are owned by one person getting filthy fucking rich from rent.
I spent seven years living in an apartment. I so enjoyed hearing the neighbors having sex, the thumping music they played, the smell of their cigarette smoke inside my apartment with all my windows closed, the random intrusions by management to repair something unrelated to my apartment, the random rent increases. Add this to the fact that I had no space for a work shop to make anything, and paying the equivalent of a mortgage with no equivalent home equity. Some people love apartment life, but it definitely was not for me.
This would just become a 100 apartment buildings.
You know how computers were supposed to make life so easy we'd only have to work a few hours a week, and how that never happened.
This is the same thing.
What is going on in this comments section? Building dense is massively better for the environment than SFH, both in the construction phase and for the life of the units as far more residents can be served with less infrastructure sprawl. It also doesn't mean that detached housing will suddenly stop existing if we let developers build densely packed housing. Doesn't even need to be high rises, it can be townhomes, duplexes, five-over-ones, etc. You'll still be able to get a white picket fence suburban home or a farmhouse on some acreage if you want. In fact, it will become cheaper because all the people who want to live in cities will actually be able to move there and not take up space in that low density area you want to live in.
An island of this size should probably have neither.
Judging from the top rated comments, this post is surprisingly controversial for fuckcars.
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.
And fuck the 900 poor people, they can live in the fucking sea where they won't bother me.
It's more like we wouldn't birth 900 more people because the density of livable space doesn't allow it.
now if only this was true
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.
That's not how anything works
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.
Chewbacca defense. Nice.
So those 900 people live where? In the sea?
Make it 100 appartments in 3-4 times the space (in 4 smaller buildings with balconies, community gardens, shared spaces, picnic areas and so on) as a compromis and I am all in!
Name one good reason the average apartment experience could ever be better than living in a house.
People live in apartments to afford shelter, you'd be hard-pressed to find one that actually likes it better.
Sure you can make arguments about the concept of centralized feeling being better for nature, but no one actually wants to do it.
I won't consider living in apartment buildings unless they have good soundproofing and proper open spaces. I don't want to be cramped in with noisy neighbors and have no privacy.
A truth most people don't want to hear is that densely populated cities are overall better for nature and resources. You need less roads and tracks, fewer concrete overall, compact cities are much easier to make walkable, etc.
Really the only argument against tight packed cities is "I don't like people". That shouldn't really be a priority.
For nature to recover we need to give back space. The worst you can do is build rural homes or spread out suburbs.
I live in an apartment. I want to live in a house.
Cunt upstairs neighbour smoking cancer sticks on the balcony, making my room smell like shit when he does it, dumbass neighbour to my right who phones some other dumbass at 6 in the morning, screaming into his phone, waking me up. No garden, can't have a cat or a dog.
I don't want to live in a suburb where I am forced to use a car, but you can live in a house and still be able to get anywhere you want without a car.
Apparently no one in the comments has seen people live outside of an American suburb.
Yeah but then I gotta listen to my upstairs neighbor make tik toks.
If people had tree Icons in their gardens in the left image, it would look much better wouldn't it.
Density doesn't save nature. Habitat protection laws save nature. Make sure that's part of the plan.
Also, the picture shows the saved nature very accessible to the density. This is not usually what these zoning plans have in mind.
Many important species, especially insects and their predators, can absolutely make good use of patchy suburban habitat if it is properly managed, moreso if it is networked, and natural space nearer homes benefits residents and the environment.
We can't keep saving mountaintops and deserts, we need to rehabilitate more of these nice valleys and riversides we all like to build cities on.
Yaay, space for 24 more apartment buildings!
It's simple: blocks are not built in cities to minimise the footprint like in your meme but to build cheaper and sell more and in the same time externalising the costs of infrastructure development.
A mid density block is something, a heavy packed "bedroom" neighborhood is another.
A lot of people are pro-apartmemt before living in one, so here are some fun facts:
Apartments usually have a maintenance cost, that covers as little as possible while still costing a lot. You never really own the flat, the building company does.
You often have a communal garden; it's looked after by the lowest bidding contractor. Not all flats have balconies, so you are unlikely to have your own.
Fear of fire and flooding - if someone else messes up, your stuff is toast/soaked. Insurance companies love that extra risk, it gives them an excuse to charge more.
No flat has good sound proofing - the baby screaming downstairs at 5am and the thunder of the morbidly obese person upstairs going to the bathroom at 1am will denote your new sleep schedule (i.e. disturbed)
I hope you're in for deliveries - apartments have no safe spots to leave things.
You will not be able to afford a flat with the same floor space as a house. I'm sorry, welcome to your new coffin.
Good luck drying your laundry (spoiler, your living room is going to have a laundry rack).
Good luck owning a bike (it's either the bike or your laundry, take your pick).
Vocal intimacy becomes a community event.
Living in a flat is a pile of little miseries grouped together.
This is a pretty terrible way to make this point. The pic on the left is neater and the one on the right leaves almost no space for the people living there to do anything. You probably want a little bit of cleared land for literally anything to do on the island.
Then again, there isn't a dock. So I figure the island on the right has a better way of building boats to leave.
fuck ... houses?
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.
My math is here: https://lemmy.world/comment/3165486
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
You'd still want roads. Deliveries, emergency services, maintenance. But the roads can be just wider than a car.
Here's a north american proof of concept of a car free neighborhood: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VWDFgzAjr1k
Yeah, I think it's mostly rowhouses.
Also the entire suburb spreads along through a valley, so it's like long and thin, which makes it very easy to run a central tramline through it.
But it still should be possible anywhere with good public transport.
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.
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.
Rowhouses: "let's turn your house into an apartment!"
Why anyone would want to have their house attached to someone else's is beyond me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
That’s not true you can have bikes, horses, skateboards, etc.
who doesn't ride their horse to the local grocery store?
When I lived in Lancaster, PA there was a little barn at the Costco for the Amish people to park their buggies
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.
Zoning laws are a bigger contributor
Yes, let's pack people in a dense area where diseases and tempers can and will run rampant because THAT has never happened before.
Sorry, I refuse to live on top of other people. Housing is not the enemy of nature - housing that is not in tune with nature is. It is completely possible to build homes that blend in with nature without having to resort to ultra-dense, 5-story brick behemoths filled with people who loathe one another.
I see what you are trying to convey, and I agree with you to an extent, but density is not the answer to sustainable housing.
Housing is fine, several of my personal heros lived in rural commues far away from society, where they are mostly self-sustained. They dont live in apartments, but there is no doubt I have great respect for them and believe they live in a very responsible fashion.
The problem came when people want to live in the middle of nowhere, produces nothing for their own, pays low taxes; yet think society owes them giant road infrastructure and wasteful parking lots. So that they can terrorize the lives of pedestrians and cyclists, also our dying planet, just because only their oversized driveway princess and their ecological hellhole of a lawn can give them a little sense of achievement in their otherwise fruitless life.
Density reduces emissions. Low-density, car-dependent suburban sprawl is extremely unsustainable for the planet.
https://coolclimate.org/maps
I reply to your infographic with a scientific paper that shows higher densities lead to higher CO2 emissions: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/12/9/1193#:~:text=Regarding%20CO2%20emissions%2C%20the,density%2C%20the%20higher%20the%20emissions.
This study was done in Spain.
Another study, in Nature, also shows that lower density is better for reducing carbon emissions and climate change. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-021-00034-w
Sorry, but you and your infographic/sources are not supported by science.
Literally the frist sentence in the abstract:
"higher densities lead to higher CO2 emissions" you say...
The low density/low height example in the nature article is still 5k people per Km^2. While definitions vary wildly, I usually see 1000-400 people per km^2 for suburb definitions.
Does example D look like suburbs to you? As something undefined it could be considered suburbs, but probably "streetcar suburb" in the Canadian/American context.
Critically the article also mentions a requirement for best practice greenery management to maximize carbon sequestration. I'm no botanist, but I'm guessing caretaken parks do better then monoculture lawns (assumption).
Edit: missed that the first link was a different study. That like on spanish cities has its lowest density group defined as <100 pop/hectare, if my math is right, that means <10,000 pop/km^2. Significantly denser than any suburb. This is also a region when thermal energy is spent of cooling, not heating. And while it adjusts for climate effect, it doesn't seem to adjust for the modernity/thermal effectiveness of the buildings. Such to say, a building with an air-conditioner will spend more thermal energy than one without.
Basically your two links are showing that cities can be too dense, and there is a point when they lose GHg efficiency. There is no mention of anything lower than what, as a Canadian, I would still call high density (just not super high density).
It'd probably depend on the park and how it's designed/managed, but I'd be shocked if monocultured lawns sequestered any carbon. I know in agriculture it's a huge problem that industrially-grown monocultures -- where they till the soil and crop-dust fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides and fungicides -- emit huge amounts of previously-sequestered soil carbon. A result is that doing the reverse -- i.e., growing food regeneratively in polycultures and without tillage and artificial fertilizers and without all the -icides -- is considered a good way to sequester carbon.
Considering we grow grass lawns similarly to how we grow corn monocultures, I'd bet grass lawns are similarly awful for the soil and thus the climate as well.
I'm obviously biased by the parks I live near and see/use every day, but when I think of a park, I think of tree'd sitting areas, tree'd play areas, tree'd walking paths, and some monoculture sports fields, with trees for the stands.
There are lost of community gardens around, but as a black thumb I don't use them and bias them out.
Basically my city has a hard on for trees in parks, and I'm all for it. I also think I've developed a bias that roads have no trees, and streets have trees.
https://coolclimate.org/maps
Feel free to zoom in on essentially every city in America. You can even download the raw data yourself.
Further, your Nature study you link, actually read the paper and you find this nugget:
It literally doesn't even model transportation emissions. Considering this whole conversation is about sprawl causing more cars, this is kinda a glaring omission.
I'd like to come back and read over this later. The point OP is making seems pretty obvious but it is quite directly contradicted by the sources you just provided. I want to read those later
From a quick read of the Nature article they posted:
It doesn't even model transportation emissions, which kinda makes it worthless in the context of this discussion.
As for Spain, does Spain even have much "suburbia" as we understand it in a North American context? Data for cities in Spain may have nothing to say about the emissions of suburban sprawl vs denser communities, which is what the OP is mainly about.
The fact that your immediate first association with dense housing is disease is rather telling
Ah yes, because that's how capitalism works. People would definitely stop developing the rest of the island because they don't need more housing.
Developers will stop building once there aren't any customers left, which absolutely does happen in countries that allow high density urban housing.
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.
It's common for states to institute urban growth boundaries that protect forests / farms.
I'd prefer to live in a house over an apartment
If the buildings are actual size, then those apartments must be the size of a closet
If you look at land use maps, you will see that the urban areas are so small compared to the agricultural and livestock area needed to support the population. This is the biggest cause of deforestation, and population density actually makes it much worse, because it centralizes consumption and requires more logistic costs to deliver the needed food, with much higher rates of wastes. If we lived in less dense areas, perhaps we could do with local, smaller-scale agriculture instead.
My concern with multi unit living is that your home is now dependent on the actions of others. You could lose everything because some dumbass next to you dropped cigarette burning on their floor, or overflowed their tub.
It also just gets messy having that many people try to manage a property together. I lived in a high rise for a year. There was constant bickering over who put the wrong thing down the trash chute or who was using the elevator to move furniture without checking it out first. Everyone had to all agree to building repairs, which was a nightmare, and getting them them done took forever. From my understanding our building was pretty well run, but it didn't feel like it. I loved the idea of high rise life when I moved in but by the time we got out house I was ready to be done with it.
I mean is the building owned by its tenants or one entity/person who gets to own the building and a large amount of peoples homes thusly?
I mean there are genuine reasons you might want a house over an apartment. If you have a big family or the fact that you own it and don't have a land lord that can just raise rent and force you out. You gotta have a mix of types of housing that actually matches what the needs of the people are, which is still the exact problem we have now.
Or everyone could plant trees instead of just grass?
I work in municipal develpment.
The thing with developers is that they build that density, but over ALL of the land. Apartments kill more trees and create more impervious cover than any other type of housing.
Our city requires parkland dedication for development. Single-family developments build public parks and preserve trees wherever possible. Apartments just pay a fee in lieu for tree mitigation and parkland dedication and improvements because they absolutely will not have a millimeter of land not dedicated to housing.
I couldn't live in a place that didn't have a workshop, that's what deters me from apartment blocks.
If the people living in apartments had a say in how they were built... yeah
Nobody chooses to live in a fucking tin can hanging from suspension wires that is so poorly insulated you can hear every bird flying into the windows as though you're inside a bass drum.
The sounds of my neighbors at 3 am snoring are not a feature you can call part of the "shared experience."
The prospect of being trapped together because the elevator went out and there's a fire... oh so joyous. Not to mention all the people's pets that get left at home throughout the day and I can hear crying with desperation to be let out as though they're in the next room...
I'm quite happy not to live in a fucking modern apartment thank you very much.
This isn't how this would work. You'd get 100 houses, or 100 high rises.
Maybe the problem isn't the houses. Maybe it's the grass lawns.
Build a co-op garden around the apartment and you've got yourself a deal.
Everyone in the place gets X amount of space. More then 60% of people won't garden at all and their share can be maintained by the gardeners.
Fruit trees and berry bushes will be grown for all to use.
In this image I can't help but notice how much infrastructure cost there is here. Consider need for water treatment pipes run to and from each house for water and sewage as well as sewage treatment infrastructure. Keep in mind that failure rate increases with each house and by length of these runs that you are adding and fire hydrants being added every so many feet, shut off valves. Don't forget that we now have significantly bigger demand for water as we now have a lot more vegetation to manage and a higher reliance on emergency services as we are spread out over a larger area so we now have to increase ems, fire, and police spending. Then you add the costs for electrical infrastructure with your sub stations and transformers and all the costs set to maintain that especially since these are underground lines apparently and ofcourse we have increased risk of failure again per service and foot run and higher demand on those services which will require more workers which turns into money being spent outside of the community. You then add the cost of data lines and phone lines including the costs associated with maintaining and upgrading those which are also apparently underground which means your upgrades may be significantly more expensive and will take much longer to deploy. Now that we have all these houses separated we will now have a population that will be more dependent on vehicles so now we have to factor in all of our road maintenance costs and our public services will not require far more vehicles as well which means we will also need mechanics to repair and maintain these vehicles. Now with roads alone when we consider the costs involved things get rather expensive quickly. Cost to maintain roads, even roads that are seldom used, is surprisingly expensive and require a lot of workers to build and maintain as well as vehicles, machinery, and land to store, recycle, and create materials needed to repair and build the roads. On top of that there is also an often missed statistic of vehicles which is public safety as they are a leading cause for injury which is another stressor on our little community.
This is far from all the possibly missed costs of our suburban/rural neighborhood but I feel these are some of the important ones people live to overlook.
I love my own yard with privacy and a firepit where I can get drunk, loud and high as a kite without anyone bothering me.
Apartment living was hell, it's what convinced me to get a house.
Best decision ever
Might be a silly question, but would it be better if we somehow turned suburbs into being more akin to rural towns? Like the suburbs could maybe have nearby town centers that they could walk to in 10-15 minutes that would allow small businesses to operate in.
I don’t live on the mainland, so no idea how it actually works.
How about having fewer kids? By definition nothing can be sustainable if population keeps growing.
The only thing i can see on the right bad is that many people dont like beeing cramped in with many other people. + want to have a garden Balcony can be a "garden" but not as good. I have nothing against the right, but keep in mind not everyone is the same.
Condos and Housing coops go a long way I think to reduce some of the pain points most people have had with apartment living. The issue now is that most people are comparing owning a home where you have a lot of control over your circumstances and price stability, vs having a landlord that is doing the minimum and raising rents every chance they can. If apartments were built for people, and not landlords would they still have cramped hallways and balconies, would they have poor insulation and sound proofing, would they have old noisy AC units, etc, etc. The thing is, even in cases where people do choose to not have an amenity, people still had the choice.
Have you not heard of mixed density? There should be houses, semi, townhomes, 3 story walk-ups and apartment buildings. You could probably do all that and still keep 50% of the island nature.
Sounds like a literal nightmare to me. No garden to enjoy. No vegetables. No privacy. No ability to get solar panels.
No room for improvement. Basement second levels. Changing plumbing windows etc. No ability to charge your ev.
Fuck is this some corporate bullshit
The island on the right probably isn't as hot either.
When I see the image what came to mind was that experiment where they had an overpopulation of rats in a cage and how all of the rats turned on each other and killed each other.
Too much human density is not good. You have to be sure to get the percentage of humans to a acre of land just right, to prevent the rats situation.
Nature is important, but Humanity moreso.
Growing upward as opposed to outward helps in numerous ways. It pollutes less, costs less in services, takes up less land and the list goes on. The issue isn't apartment buildings, the issue is badly built, uninsulated in every way and overpriced apartment buildings.
It also saves farmland something rural people tend to care about.
Fewer people ..1 house
Thank you for explaining why suburbs suck. Also, the mass of people flooding an area all at once is just a niceness.
I would think looking at this comment section most individuals on this sub hate cars, but love homes with large driveways and massive streets. To drive the cars we hate?
Mid-density apartment are a thing, maybe 4-6 floors tall.
Though north america apartment design is another issue IMO. North america apartment floor plates are unfortunately not designed for families. When was the last time you saw a 3 or 4 bedroom apartment?
Edit: I should add, when was the last time you saw a 3 or 4 bedroom apartment that cost less then a full size family home in the suburbs.
I'd rather live in my own few acres of forest with a creek running through it and a big house.
Diversity is good. Different types of homes and zoning. Mix of nature and buildings
abolish zoning
Yeah sure, that could also be nice. I guess I meant that even in that case, without pre-zoning, the end result should be diverse
Lmao what are these comments, are lemmers thicker than redditors?
Give me a European style apartment with high ceilings and generous space and you have yourselves a deal!
That said, I've been working in my local building industry for almost 20 years and the trend that I see is that though there are more apartments being built, the quality has tanked. We have huge issues with mould, flammable facades, exploding glass, alternatives are rampant through the roof and price gouging.
Unfortunately this has fed the idea that apartment living is no good.
What if we put an apartment complex and use the rest as a race track ?
I live in a flat and it sucks. I'll probably move to living in a car eventually.
Yeah, try living in an impoverished town, where it's the housing on the right, spread out like the housing on the left. There are, like, no jobs (none that are actually sustainable long-term for living in this economy), but they just leveled a huge area of forest for more low-income housing (AKA Projects)
I mean, yeah, apartments and such should be widely available. Awesome for high population areas, young folks, temporary housing situations, etc. Had a flat for years and will for at least a few more. However, as a drummer (and general loud music enthusiast) I am very ready to get out of the flat and get into a proper house with a basement, garage, patio for grilling with da boyes, etc.
A good mix of both is ideal. I sure wish we took better measures to mitigate the insane housing prices tho'. Sick of thin walls and and a single room trying to replace 4 rooms.
Do both import 100% of the goods?
Here, buying an apartment makes you liable for any structural issues to the whole building, it's a huge risk and with how terrible build quality is these days I'd never buy an apartment
There are many highrise buildings in Australia with residents paying hundreds of thousands each for issues caused by dodgy builders. The builder simply closes the business during the warranty period and they are off the hook for claims
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.
I hate living in an apartment. I'd probably kill myself if that was the only living option for long enough.
OP do you live in apartment complex?
Assuming the needs of a living space is the same across both populations, this graphic seems disingenuous. The pixel count of the apartment suggests it could fit 6½ of the homes per floor. Across 9 floors that's 58 homes worth of square footage.
I assume the homes have garages, which would not account for living space. But garages don't account for 42% of a homes' size.
I want to see this graphic with an added 3rd panel showing the difference between homes, apartments and arcologies.
I'd rather see more than just housing if I have to live on a tiny fucking island.
You do know that individual houses can also have trees, right? Why are you ignoring that?
Single family homes need to be banned from cities.
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.
Not true. I've lived out in the country and had a WFH job where I sat at a desk and did nothing productive. It was awesome.
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.
Oof that's a lotta targets for one troll
It's all 1 target: full of shit communists. They're so uniformly predictable its crazy. It's almost as if its a cult.
Godspeed, you beautiful keyboard warrior
Hey man, you're on the internet making your opinions known too.
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.
Only if people need housing, and if they do...what's your alternative? Not allow them housing?
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.
Man and nature can live together it's just man is selfish and doesn't like to share
i would prefer there just be less people in the world, then there wouldn't be this problem
Yeah, but which one is sustainable inside the game?
Lies, compare:
To guadalajara:
Mexico
NewYork
LA
Debbie does
What we need is less people. Simple, use a condom.
Well, considering I can hear my neighbor through the wall right now, it’s hard to agree with this use of space.
Good isolation is a thing. We've apartments where you could scream and you wouldn't hear it at your neighbour's.
Yeah, no fucking way. I lived in apartments enough to know I'd rather live in my car than another.
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.
SimCity developers had to take off parking of the game because they destroy cities.
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.
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.
neither is good. A leads to sprawl. B leads to crime.
Yeah, I love paying 2 grand a month for something I will never own.
I own a townhome that i rent out. Have had good tenants for the most part but don't want to deal with the HOA anymore. So we want to sell but sadly the next door neighbor smokes in her unit so much that it smells in our unit.
In this state there is absolutely nothing we can do legally about the problem. The guy across the street destroyed the grassy area in front of his unit and a lean was placed on his unit until it was fixed or he was evicted in 90 days. But actual damage to our unit we were SOL.
This is why people don't want shared units. When your neighbor is an asshole you're usually screwed.
Houses. Apartments would mean I'd have to try my luck with the neighbors. A friend of mine has a neighbor upstairs that makes noise at all hours of the night. I've heard it. It sounds like his neighbor is constantly moving furniture.
My friend has asked the neighbor to quiet down, talked to the apartment complex about it, and even had to call the police to file a noise complaint one time. (My friend has young kids who might get woken up by the noise. That's the main reason he's concerned about it.)
Apartments suck ass
Option C, some selfish dipshit would rather have one building in the spot for the apartment that houses his 2 kids, wife, and himself and that's it
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.
"Apartment" is just what they're called in the US.
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.
Nah. I'm sorry, but fuck apartments. I was spending $22k a year. Apartment complex did a crap job clearing snow in the winter. My neighbors were disgusting. I had to walk across the complex to get to my laundry room, where the machines rarely worked. The AC wall units were expensive to run, and did little to cool the apartment. The downstairs neighbor's front door slammed every time they closed it. The people next door would vacuum for an hour every night starting at 10pm. I got a $45 fine for hanging a beach towel over a chair on my balcony.
I mean shit, they decided to renovate the apartment beneath me, and turned off my heat and left for the weekend in the middle of winter. They turned off my water multiple times with no notice making me late for work. And then the construction workers stole my package before heading home.
I bought a house. Every time I pay my mortgage I build equity in my home. I have my own laundry room. I may have to clear the snow myself, but I have plenty of space to store a snow blower and shovels - something I could never do before. I can buy bulk sized non perishables too and save money, because I have plenty of space to store it. I can sleep at night without being awoken by my neighbors fucking to the sounds of Bob Marley. I can hang up a towel to dry without being fined for it. And if I need to do work, I can determine when or if the water is being turned off.
Oh, and renewing my lease would have seen me paying almost as much in rent as my mortgage payment. For what?
To paraphrase every fo3 vs fo:nv discussion, "But where do they park?!"
Given that this community is called "Fuck Cars," nowhere, because cars shouldn't exist.
Density builds no equity in the US. At least, not for the renters.
You're welcome to live up your neighbours arse; I'll keep my large leafy block and free standing home.
consolidate housing, and transportation. ussr, circa 1940
You know what, i have an argument against denser housing: induced demand. Just like more roads means more traffic, more dwellings means more people.
Good luck to the apartment dwellers when the next wave of COVID hits.