Comment by Maarten88 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Maarten88 | Hacker News Reader

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I think infrastructure will be hugely expensive. When you want to build a city that is sustainable, you'll need to build subways, infrastructure for cars, bikes and walking, sewer systems, garbage collection, energy, communication and something for distribution of food and goods. All these things will be better when doing them collaboratively, instead of individualized. You'll need taxation to pay for them collaboratively. But they should be designed and built up-front, before anyone starts living there - because otherwise people will start doing things the wrong way (i.e. traveling by car instead of public transport) and after that it is very hard to change.

Also: paying for utilities and infrastructure from rising value of land seems not very sustainable at all. It can't cover maintenance in the long run. Many US cities already suffer from that.

Utopian dreams like these usually do not end well. It took many decades for visionary developments that were planned in the Dutch polders (Almere) to become something approaching a good city, and the results are quite different then the original vision.

You're missing an extremely important detail. When we write a check for our rent, we're really paying two rents. One is for the land rent (for the actual land beneath the building), the other is for our section of the building on top of that land.

In most developed areas, the land rent is really the vast majority of the cost. I.e. In a city, you can buy a building, tear it down, and somehow you haven't destroyed most of the capital you just purchased.

Under Lore's "Equitism" (fancy name for Georgism/Geoism), the land rent is recaptured by the thing that actually produced the increasing value - everything around the plot of land.

>I think infrastructure will be hugely expensive.

Typically in the scale of millions per year. Which is nothing to walmart guy. The scale of millions to billions is something completely else. When you get into multiple billions it's funny money. Society has rewarded you with so much wealth, society trusts you will use it correctly.

>All these things will be better when doing them collaboratively, instead of individualized. You'll need taxation to pay for them collaboratively.

That's the thing, this walmart guy isn't just paying for all of it out of pocket. There will be people who live and work there who pay taxes to his government.

>But they should be designed and built up-front, before anyone starts living there - because otherwise people will start doing things the wrong way (i.e. traveling by car instead of public transport) and after that it is very hard to change.

That's sort of the thing. The saudis are going to build a long city. When everything is straight, it's easy. Cars will be fine in their design. It's really what your intentions are.

In my design. I have a few things to consider.

The idea will be to generate a new giant city in northern ontario. With the idea of capturing: https://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/en/ring-fire Society needs to start mining that stuff now.

But nobody lives there because the weather sucks bigtime. So we make it a dome city. We at the very same time are designing dome cities on mars. So it's a win in many ways.

>Also: paying for utilities and infrastructure from rising value of land seems not very sustainable at all. It can't cover maintenance in the long run. Many US cities already suffer from that.

I dont understand what you mean here. I suspect you're referencing Detroit as a key point.

>Utopian dreams like these usually do not end well. It took many decades for visionary developments that were planned in the Dutch polders (Almere) to become something approaching a good city, and the results are quite different then the original vision.

this is north america in a nutshell. Virtually everywhere you go there is examples of success, it just takes more than a lifetime for them to become so. Infrastructure that lasts is everything.

> Typically in the scale of millions per year. Which is nothing to walmart guy.

Building a modern subway network with a couple dozen stations will cost a few billion easily. And that is just one small thing on a long list. I think you underestimate what infrastructure for a city of millions would cost. Maybe you think cars are ok, but they really are not, if you want a great city.

> I dont understand what you mean here. I suspect you're referencing Detroit as a key point.

No, What I mean is that most US cities, especially those with large suburbs, cannot cover their existing maintenance costs unless they grow, this will stop working in the near future, see: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growt...

> this is north america in a nutshell. Virtually everywhere you go there is examples of success...

I would argue that most US cities rank low in quality of life comparisons when compared to cities in other developed parts of the world. When planning utopia, I would start looking in other places.

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