[mjmahone17]

Yeah I don’t see what’s wrong with your (in my mind) utopic vision. Everyone who wants to live in a mass of humanity 1000 ft tall should be able to afford to live in that mass, and we should be researching ways to make it more and more affordable.

The only way it doesn’t work is if the community makes it impossible for more new people to get in, or if there isn’t enough economic opportunity to support all the people living there. But people don’t generally want to move into communities where they can’t find work, and I see no good reason we should enforce minimum lot and zoning laws to prevent people from moving to where opportunity lives.

[derac]

I do think they should get rid of prop 13, demolish all single family homes, and replace them with high-density buildings. What many people mean however, is that they want to continue to live there in the same single-family house forever. This is why prop 13 exists in the first place.

[robocat]

> demolish all single family homes

Ahhhh, brutalism . . . “The Soviets decided to pass: the plan was too extreme and destructive of existing institutions even for Stalin. Undeterred, Le Corbusier changed the word “Moscow” on the diagram to “Paris”, then presented it to the French government (who also passed). Some aspects of his design eventually ended up as Chandigarh, India.”

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-lik...

[dredmorbius]

Or Paris, or Madrid, or much of the rest of Europe in which 3--5 storey townhouses are common. These might be single- or multip-occupant dwellings (e.g., a single family or household on multiple floors). Typically zoning is denser, though structures might be either attached or detached.

In either case, the land-usage intensity rises by multiple factors.

The option is not between 1-story quarter-acre development and a forest of Burj Khalifas. There is in fact considerable intermediate ground.

[jelliclesfarm]

High density housing will not work in places with a high standard and quality of living. It will certainly erode individual rights, create environmental decline and infringe upon privacy.

In developed countries, high density housing will either make the city unbearably expensive(NYC) or bring down quality of life.(SF)

High density is a sign that resources are scarce but demand for them has increased. The sign of a well functioning and professional state is one that has a healthy middle class and enjoys low density sustainable standard of life.

Often the case for high density housing is married to sustainability goals. But sustainability goals exist in the first place because resources are scarce and it is becoming difficult to live in a sustainable manner.

The rational solution is to place a moratorium upon expansion of the city and the population. Only in Bizarro World would the logic of cramming more people even more densely in the name of sustainable design would make sense.

The true scarcity mentality is with governing bodies and elected officials who do not have the vision, integrity or collective access to more than one brain cell. They fail to create networked sustainable communities and manipulate their vote banks.

One might choose to be fair and honest to admit that calls for high density housing is often where successful immigrants congregate due to their employment. Often said immigrants are on work visas and often are not eligible to vote in local/national elections.

Is it a coincidence that elected officials impose high taxes only in certain cities/counties and extract every dollar they can squeeze from a work force who are cuffed to their visa sponsored high paying jobs? The golden goose is slaughtered and well done. Stick a fork in it and let the taxes drip.

There are no high density initiatives in Visalia, CA. Only in Bay Area. Because why build infrastructure and public transport when you can keep taxing those who can’t even vote in the first place. At least in CA, it’s win-win over and over.

Every city that has a highly paid immigrant work force is on the chopping block and will start passing high density housing initiatives. Success must be penalized..it seems. Affordable housing is subsidized housing. And who subsidizes it? The developers will tack that cost to the market value homes. Which would..surprise!..create more unaffordable cities. It’s a vicious cycle that should obvious to most who pay mortgages for all of their working lives.

[tda]

Have you even been to Europe? There is a sweetspot between 500ft highrise and infinite swaths of SFH suburbia. That sweet spot is usualy also classified as "high density", and IMHO is better in every way.

[NoRagrets]

Yes. And agree. Won’t translate in the USA. We are a big country and spend a ton on military spending. Our govt spending bill is huge. Our consumption is also highest amongst all other nations.

We don’t need high density. It’s funny. Hong Kong, Singapore, Mumbai, London maybe..but we have literally brainwashed ourselves into thinking we need to be high density and by creating unnecessary economic activity/jobs/dense zones, we have created an unsustainable situation.

Case in point: Growing 1/4 of America’s food and 80% of almonds in a desert during a drought and in a state with the highest cost of living? Daft! And for what? A fraction of our GDP. While investment in education and tech and automation would create prosperity all over the world and we could export what we do best. Tech.

Are almonds a basic human right? I don’t think so. Water is…and Californians have to sacrifice water during a drought so the world can have its almonds and alfafa for their non native dairy cows. So we will soon be 10 billion. And we came from 3.5 million in 1975. When will this euphoria over expansion and ‘growth’ stop? It’s a fool’s dream and a dangerous one.

The Dutch solved this. They are a tiny country growing a lot of hydroponic food for Europe. Now they mostly sell tech and know how to grow hydroponic tomatoes. They don’t actually grow hydroponic tomatoes for the whole of the word. Optimization of resources and proper asset management. The asset here isn’t the water and wind and hydroponic tomatoes in Netherlands. It’s their tech and know how.

America doesn’t operate with an understanding of scale, economies of scale and diminishing returns. We could be better and shine better. But the elephant thinks it’s a pussy cat and ends up trampling everyone around it during playtime. A tragedy all around.

[ahtihn]

> In developed countries, high density housing will either make the city unbearably expensive(NYC)

I think you're reversing cause and effect.

[jelliclesfarm]

Please give me an example?

Or give me an example of an affordable city that is also high density in America. I haven’t seen it.

[ahtihn]

I don't have an example and I'm not saying there are affordable high density cities.

What I'm saying is that they aren't expensive because of the density. They are dense, because they are expensive, because they are very desirable places to live. You wouldn't densify an area where no one wants to live...

[jelliclesfarm]

To your point, I desire to live in Atherton. It is not affordable. Nor is it high density or will ever be.

High density is imposed upon medium density middle class zipcodes because it is the middle class that is working class.

There are more jobs in this zipcode because the govt has chosen to create infrastructure(often supported by the employers like FAANGs or HP at a time etc in the Bay Area for example). It was meant to benefit the workers.

But as these cities prospered, it became crowded. Instead of creating new cities with good infrastructure to replicate the success of tier 1 cities, corporations and governments are trying to stuff more sardines in a small metal can.

The FAANGs are basically run by the employees who are woke adult children who have never had any real life experience or have travelled beyond the confines of their fantasy world. The Govt is run by the equivalent of a pirate with a wooden peg leg and a green plastic parrot on its shoulder plundering the working middle class for extractive taxes with no returns and punishing the productive.

The ‘desirability’ is the availability of jobs. Corporate America and Big Govt are hand in glove as they keep scratching each other’s back. The immigrant tech work force often has no voice as most of them are denied green cards due to what is racism. An Indian or Chinese passport sends you to way back to the end of the immigration line. There is no DACA for the children of tech workers, mind you.

They are treated like cattle and then squeezed to death by taxes. The visa is the chain that binds them because they don’t even have the mobility to move to another job or city that is more affordable. If this isn’t thuggery and theft by Big Gov+Corporate America, I don’t know what is..

I have looked at the minutes of many city council meetings in the Bay Area. Every high density initiative is always wherever there is a substantial tech immigrant population..often Indian/Asian. And the high density is often affordable housing quotas to bring people from other Bay Area cities which is a redistribution program. In one Bay Area city, high density housing is mandated by Sacramento to bring in the homeless and create affordable housing from other cities in the county. But no new schools or roads. No community spaces and existing green and open spaces are being built. There is BART which is basically transport for people who come to the city to steal Amazon packages and catalytic converters. There is an increase in social spending for the new entrants but no increase in law enforcement even though crime has soared, no new fire stations and retail/shopping options have shrunk. Water, electricity and every utility bill has gone up by 25%. Property taxes increase every year and so does cost of living.

What Corporate America and Big Gov needs to do is create more fantastic cities that are desirable. As an Example: Why this scarcity mentality that there will be only one Bay Area? Bay Area is a modern day labour camp. It’s expensive and crowded not because it is desirable but because people are trapped. Trapped by their jobs and by taxes.

[ClumsyPilot]

Westerners totally fail to appreciae,that once you replace all houses with, say, 6 story apartment of equivalent internal area, you gain so much space outdoors.

The single story suburbia looks claustraphobic - instead you have soace for parks, public squares, and services and facilities. There can be large distances between apartment blocks, and can be very green

[jelliclesfarm]

We don’t have to be high density in America. We can have our natural spaces and well planned green cities.

America is a nation of immigrants. They didn’t leave their home countries and sacrifice so much for a better future to go back into high density apartments and sprint to the park for fresh air.

I know elderly Asian neighbors who hyperventilate at city hall meetings when they hear their adopted country going the way of the homes they fled. And my heart goes out to them. My friends who came here from communist regimes prefer to live in middle America that used to be immune to the coastal political restlessness.

The way a govt can control a citizen’s life is through housing, taxes and trade it for quality of life. It’s borderline blackmail. Current trends and progressive/liberal/greenwashing fads invalidates entire lives and makes a mockery of immigrants’ journeys made towards a prosperous abundant life that is free from govt constraints.