[pas]

The incentive is already set, city limits are already set, eventually they will fill up and then people will be motivated to build up a bit.

Sure, fundamentally nothing is sustainable because eventually the useful energy gradients where life can thrive will run out as the universe expands into a cold dark empty vacuum.

But before that let's try to spend the already fixed tax income a bit more efficiently. Compact cities can be more efficient than the endless sea of cul-de-sacs and occasional golf/sports fields.

That said, I have no real horse in this race. If the people of those particular cities want to live like that, let them live like that. Self-determination is important. If they feel that they don't want better mass transit and less sitting-in-traffic, no worries.

[gduffy]

No the incentives are not there, not when you can vote yourself richer by freezing property taxes and preventing building up or out.

Citation needed on cities being fundamentally more efficient. A suburban home can be powered by pure solar, rainwater/groundwater can be captured and recycled locally, an electric car can carpool, and mass transit (sure, let's build more of that too) can easily reach out to the suburbs. You can even telecommute, and that sipping straw of electrons makes the public transit users look like energy-guzzling planet-killers in comparison (Ooh! We all love some tasty moral superiority!)

Even if that weren't the case, there is such a concept as efficient enough. At some level, sanity factors in, and trying to raise a family while dodging needles and poop in San Francisco is enough to make some people say "enough is enough."

I'm all for spending smarter and more compassionately. San Francisco spends $240 million per year on homeless programs, or $30k/yr per individual. And it doesn't even make a dent; the local living costs are so high that $30k evaporates in the blink of an eye.

We need policies/infrastructure that encourage building up AND out to relieve this pressure and better care for the less fortunate people ... while still allowing for sustainable urban and suburban lifestyles.

[pas]

Infrastructure maintenance costs are higher the bigger area you want to cover.

Making small things are rarely efficient (transformers, inverters, heating, cooling, insulation).

Moving people one-by-one more distance will always require more energy, EVs also have to carry themselves, and thus the more people you can move per trip the better. (Hurray for electric buses.)

I already telecommute (our company already works full remote).

I mean if you have problems with needles and poop, but we don't, and most cities also don't, then it's probably not because SF is a city.

Anyway. I have no problem is people want more personal/private space, better sound insulation, a garden, a pool and whatever. But those luxuries should be priced in, so it encourages building up and compact, so more people can enjoy living in nice places. (Like next to a forest, lake, on a hill, in a valley, whatever).

[gduffy]

If you are advocating for capitalism with externalities priced in using fair (by democratic vote) and absolute/equal valuation methods, that is what I am arguing for as well.

SF doesn’t have that by a long shot. That’s the actual point.

Also, I didn’t say I had a problem with cities, far from it – I have liked living in the city in the past, and I can understand why someone would want to live in a good city. But [citation needed] on cities being fundamentally and meaningfully cheaper under the externality-adjusted capitalism model.

Urbanization can increase total living costs compared to lower-density living, for example through disease spread, crime, power density and transmission requirements, high-speed waste processing requirements vs composting opportunities, food production locality, and etc.

Whether the efficiency scales balance out in favor of a particular density or not is a mystery to me. I am just not as sure as you seem to be.

Let’s find some data that shows a TCO per capita for a well-planned/well-run suburb vs a similar city. Or, do what I’m doing and get out there and mold your local environment into what you need while letting others do the same – there’s enough space and energy for all of us here and probably >10x if we fill the Earth and Mars.

P.S. While I don’t know for sure, I suspect that the answer to efficiency vs density is: it is either a wash or a small enough difference that it doesn’t matter compared to living the life you want as sustainably as possible.

[pas]

I'm also not sure, and values are always population dependent, but simply the fact that land (and nature on it) is one of the most scarce resource nowadays, it seems straightforward to say that if we price in land use compact wins over sprawl.

I agree that there's enough energy and stuff in theory to be green and live anywhere, but currently in practice there isn't. (For example just now with the PG&E blackouts the very real cost of living spread out shows itself.) At the same time you are correct that if some pandemic strikes it might be better in a log cabin, but ... for how long? Are you ready to hunt? Grow your own wheat, and so on? And HongKong seems to be doing fine, after SARS they are doing a lot of proactive stuff.

[gduffy]

Land is not scarce. I know this because I've both surveyed a large part of the world from the air myself, and from data. Please cite data.

PG&E's failure is because of poor capital investment, bad infrastructure decisions, and lack of federal antitrust intervention into a mismanaged California-ordained private energy monopoly.

You don't have to live in a log cabin, I am not talking only of pandemics but also the mental well-being of people who want to spread their elbows a bit using the copious land available on Earth, and you don't have to hunt or grow your own wheat to live in a suburban or semi-rural place and buy food and products locally (although there is nothing wrong or crazy about hunting and growing some of your own food, if you want to... we just also have this thing called "money" that you can trade for goods and services that you don't want to provide yourself).

I'm only responding now in an attempt to get you to reconsider the frankly baseless assumptions that you are asserting as facts – the truth is, and the point is: there are ways for people to live efficiently enough in urban, suburban, and rural settings, and we should stop judging that very personal preference and instead focus our time and investments on improving efficiencies across the spectrum (and fighting always to enforce legislation that engenders more competition in every marketplace).