People act like this is some wild new idea rather than the way every city in human history worked until around 1970 when Americans realized blocking new housing was a way around the Supreme Court’s then-recent ban on overtly discriminatory housing policy.
Vertical is the answer. California needs to get over it's aversion to high rise apartments and invest a in flourishing downtown residential system instead of relying on a 1950's mindset of home ownership.
The current system is deliberately exclusionary and self preserving, but it will also fail the state in the long run. That, sadly, seems fine to many people.
People also need to learn that vertical doesn't mean high rise apartments. There's a big gap between single story detached houses and high rise apartments. Townhomes, condos, row houses, and so on can all fill that gap.
Vertical still means “close proximity to neighbors” which is what a lot of people object to when it comes to urban living. I will never again voluntarily live in a building with a shared wall or ceiling.
Same here. This is exactly what I don't want. Sure you can cram a lot more people into a smaller space and make it cheap if you want, but it causes more problems than it solves. Maybe in some futuristic utopia this would work, but not in this reality.
I do not see that happening in California without some virtually magical building material. California is wary of earthquakes, noise, toxics, fire, and crime. Perhaps other states will create cheap high density paradises to suck the population away.
It’s true that space is limited but there’s no reason to believe that we have used up so much of it that there’s no more left and we have to reduce our existing land use.
Every human and human created thing on the planet undoubtedly takes up a tiny fraction of the earth’s surface, even if you exclude oceans.
I am, of course, open to seeing any facts that you have that demonstrate there is no more room left on the planet for additional housing.
It’s not just about housing. It’s also about other resources like food, wood, etc. Animals species are going extinct, deforestation, etc. All because there are too many people on this planet. Proof is everywhere.
> Ahh… planet earth has limited amount of space. We need less people instead.
We have plenty of space. Plenty of resources to support some multiple of our current population. We really need to just be more efficient and less impactful on ecosystems. Totally possible, but difficult.
The problem specifically is that people like living in cities because that's where all the opportunity is. And cities are still growing.
If that isn't addressed, fine, then that means the only solution is to plan and zone for higher density.
If the qualities that make large metros pleasant places to live are distributed more evenly across the whole of a country, such that places in the "middle of nowhere" are desirable, then the current affordability crisis wouldn't be so dire and we wouldn't need to be forced to make drastic changes in policy.
The thing that makes it more desirable IS other people and the inherent economy in being able to reach so many more of them in the same area. These areas tend towards being areas that are presently near hubs of travel and transportation something that has been true for thousands of years. None of this is going to change.