Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zip1234 2336 days ago
Perhaps schools should just be built with temporaries? It seems like there are no schools that are ever the right size. They either close the 100m school that was built 10 years ago because they don't need it or they need 100m to build a new one.
1 comments
maxsilver 2336 days ago
> It seems like there are no schools that are ever the right size.

Maybe every city shouldn't be chasing constant huge growth? And that for cities that do chase constant huge growth, they should plan and build the infrastructure for it before inviting a bunch of people and property developers in?

We have lots of schools here that are the "right size". But that's in-part because we have ~0.3% population growth year-over-year, instead of say the 3.0+% YoY pop growth that somewhere like Seattle often sees. Population growth isn't a bad thing, but it should be built and planned for, not just dumped into a place and expected for everything to "just work out OK".

> Perhaps schools should just be temporaries

That's a really unsafe idea, for a whole host of reasons : https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/nyregion/pushing-to-rid-n...

link
zip1234 2336 days ago
Schools don't need to be the crappy temporary trailers. However, do schools need fancy immense structures or can they just lease office space?
link
pchristensen 2336 days ago
It's not a bad idea, but due to zoning, there's usually not office space near neighborhoods, and schools are usually the most durable and identifiable parts of a community. Just like people that own 2 cars take fewer Ubers, a school district that already owns and operates a bunch of real estate has an incentive to either expand it or use it more intensively vs taking on temporary obligations with unknown future budgetary consequences.
link
homonculus1 2336 days ago
After they get rid of all their lunches, lockers, libraries, laboratories, music programs, theater programs, shop programs, and athletic programs. Also after finding a landlord willing to comingle enterprise tenants with hundreds of loud children, and superimposing a school zone over an office building through regulatory alchemy.
link