[getwiththeprog]

I don't think this would work in Melbourne, where I'm from. The land is so high priced, and developers can build anyway.

We need caps on normal family houses, single and double living apartments and more land released with the services such as public transport to back it up.

[lostlogin]

Same with Auckland, but we need higher intensity, not more land. Public transport that’s useful seems very unlikely here.

We tried looser regulations and got a massive fiasco of leaky buildings due to poor design, poor material choice, poor workmanship, poor auditing and inappropriate sign off.

It’ll be interesting to see how all goes for Hawaii.

[techdragon]

The effectiveness of public transport is significantly affected by the population density.

Without sufficient people per unit area, you won’t have enough passengers to make the public transport work, depending on all the obvious factors like cost/quality of the public transport, proximity to housing without parking, the existence of housing without parking, etc.

I would view the existence of housing that doesn’t come with parking to be a forcing function, it on average only gets built where public transportation is viable, and once built it ensures ongoing continued demand for that transportation which keeps public transport more viable around that location.

Not a lot of housing development (even removing suburban homes where driving is basically a necessity) in Australia or New Zealand gets built without at least one parking space per dwelling be it a town house an unit or even a studio apartment… it does happen but it’s kind of rare. In large part due to the conflict between inner city real estate where public transport density is high enough to make car free living practical for normal people, is sufficiently expensive that the market selects for people who are rich and thus you’ll see apartments built where the entire first few floors are a multi story carpark squashed in under the actual living space because no one that can afford the apartments would even consider not having room to park their luxury car.

It’s sort of a vicious cycle, the cost also helps drive realestate speculation and the ongoing rise in prices and the continued cyclical rise in real estate prices year on year.

[tmnvix]

> ...it on average only gets built where public transportation is viable, and once built it ensures ongoing continued demand for that transportation which keeps public transport more viable around that location.

A kind of corollary of this is that people living in places where where public transport doesn't exist build a lifestyle around private vehicles (obviously). This then leads to people becoming incredulous that life without a car is possible.

Without a car how do you take your two kids to Saturday morning sports in separate far-flung suburbs? How do you cart home a weeks worth of groceries? Get to your workplace 30km away? Stop in on your fiends who live in the countryside for afternoon tea on the weekend? etc...

The answer is mostly you don't. And believe it or not, that's okay. You don't establish that sort of lifestyle to start with. You live a different lifestyle with its own compromises and benefits. Closer family, friends, and acquaintances. Nearby amenities, serendipitous meetings, smaller (or common) gardens, a closer workplace, frequent public transport, nature walks you can actually walk to from your house. And - ironically - time. So much time! People really underestimate what is possible and attainable if you don't start with the assumption that you will own a car.

The fact that 20,000km is a typical distance traveled in a year by a driver is astounding to me. That's over 50km per day. That has to be an indication of a very inefficient society. Try explaining what it's all for to a time traveler from 100 years ago.

The suburban house really is the siren song of modern civilization.

[techdragon]

The marketing message around the suburban lifestyle has been sold as as the “American dream” or the “Australian dream” for more than a half century… its a profitable social manipulation that benefits politicians, land owners and all the businesses involved in house construction… it’s not that the end result is evil, it’s just pushed as an aspirational ideal that everyone should strive for when there are downsides for society at large when it comes to things like infrastructure maintenance and other costs shared by state/local governments…

[dzhiurgis]

Weird thing my partner noticed - the obsession to have your own driveway. Two adjacent lots, two driveways costing tens of thousands right next to each other. Some lots I've seen have multiple bridges right next to each other. What a waste.

Also, we've recently purchased a place and driveway has more concrete footprint than entire house...

[harambae]

The average driveway costs around $5k and the average home cost in the USA is now $416. So while it could be possible to shave off half of that 1.2% cost and save 0.6% it would come with needing some kind of easement or shared arrangement with your neighbor (who could change and who you may or may not be on good terms with). You also couldn't leave your vehicle or a visiting vehicle in the middle of the driveway since you'd be blocking someone else.

I had a shared driveway with my neighbor in Michigan for many years. It worked out well, especially for more efficient optimized snow shoveling. But I wouldn't say it was some kind of game changer and cure to America's housing ills.

[dzhiurgis]

I'm not sure about that price that. You'd pay that and more for cement (or ready concrete) itself.

Quick google says $200 NZD per square meter. My driveway is at least 200sqm, thats 40k...

[seanmcdirmid]

Transit in the USA is provided publicly, so supply lags demand by a decade or so. Your apartment with no parking forcing function is going to create a bunch of annoyed tenants during that time, it’s a more risky project too build out.

[brettermeier]

Yeah, as they say in the text:

>> "At the end of the [proclamation], if there's anything close to the 50,000 new units on the market the governor predicted and the sky's not black with pollution, the waters look like they do today, that's going to provide some empirical proof that it was these [regulations] getting in the way."

I'm also curious to see what the environment will look like after most of the regulations are eliminated.