Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

'Dense in-fill development' sounds great in theory, but the reality is the elderly underlying infrastructure in the bay area is not capable of sustaining even more overbuilding within the larger cities. Far better to build new towns and cities with fresh infrastructure to meet specific needs now that so many of what Richard Florida called the 'creative class' are working from home.

High density low income housing used the be called 'the projects', and don't have a good track record of being pleasant places to live not least because of 'criminal class' inhabitants terrorizing the other residents.

I'm currently in London which I consider to be overbuilt, with the ancient underlying Victorian infrastructure struggling to cope with endless tower blocks of people, streets choked with traffic and tire pollution etc etc.

In the US there is plenty of land to build new towns and cities, why wreck the existing historical places with overbuilding when it would be more economical to build fresh, more sustainably built places for people to live...

Ruining yet more ecosystems by paving them over is pretty much the exact opposite of fresh and sustainable.

Sorry are we trying to build more housing for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people, or be “fresh and sustainable”? This is the thing that gets me about so called “YIMBY”s: they’re not so much yes in my back yard, they’re just urban density fetishists typically driven by a degrowth mindset. They claim to fanatically want as much development as possible but never on new land, they just want towering skyscrapers packed like sardine cans and no cars. Then they get upset when nobody supports that but claim it’s just being anti-development. No, we’re not anti development, we just don’t like the one specific narrow definition of development that YIMBYs want.

The irony is that most of YIMBY do not have a backyard.

Once they buy some property and start raising kids, the attitude changes to "yeah, the syringe distribution center is very important... but can we please build it somewhere else?"

I prefer the acronym YIYBY - people like Dean Preston in SF live in large detached historic houses while espousing sardine can overcrowding, bicycles and public transport for the plebs. There is no reason to continue to expand giant historic cities at this point in history, that era is now over.

' The Rise of the Creative Class hit on what now seems blindingly obvious: that the “clustering force” of young creatives and tech workers in metropolitan areas was leading to greater economic prosperity. Don’t waste money on stadiums and concert halls, or luring big companies with tax breaks, he told the world’s mayors. Instead make your town a place where hipsters want to be, with a vibrant arts and music scene and a lively cafe culture. Embrace the “three T’s” of technology, talent and tolerance and the “creative class” will come flocking.' https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/oct/26/gentrificatio...

Ancient history, now replaced by anarchic dystopian urban decay

Frankly I'd rather have the syringe center near me because it's less obnoxious on an annualized basis than having to behave and maintain my property in accordance with "good neighborhood" standards lest Karen narc on me weekly to the point where the city gets sick of being bothered, capitulates and then starts fining me over some BS ordinance.

I'd rather not: BS ordinances suck, but in some sense it's my problem. I know how to solve it.

Syringe center inhabitants, on the other hand, is also a problem for my kids and my dog, who may be not mature enough to handle it properly.

Taking anything in its extreme is bag.

The issue is that we have a very obvious issue with housing and said pricing, if you know a method to solve the problem and keep the status quo + with reducing pollution then everyone and their mother will listen.

Density, in and of itself, is consistently correlated with lower per capita carbon footprint, lower water usage, lower vehicle miles traveled, etc.

You can have development that is sustainable and doesn’t pave over what few habitats we have left.

And the Bay Area hardly needs to be Hong Kong to accommodate more people; San Jose, for example, has a density a quarter of that of Queens, NY, a borough associated with large parks, streets with trees and early-20th century housing. If San Jose could accommodate 3M more people that would easily solve a good chunk of the housing crisis, and you could spread that 3M across all nine counties of the Bay instead of just one city.

People and companies want to move to existing cities, not new planned cities that don't exist yet. Cities grow organically and not in a planned fashion.

What is the definition of "overbuilt," anyway? There is no reason why SF couldn't be built to a high density in the same way that NYC is. You may not like it, and consider it "overbuilt" but there is no issue with the underlying infrastructure that couldn't be solved just like it was with NC.

@fallingknife 'Cities grow organically and not in a planned fashion'.

The reality is that both SF & London grew organically as port cities. There is no reason new cities can't grow organically around the new reality of people living and working anywhere. Access to airports and major road arteries are the only limitations...

And this is what happens when they grow organically. Why build a high rise apartment instead of 12 single family homes for 12 families?

That isn't the problem. The problem is that it is illegal to build the apartment building. That has nothing to do with organic growth.

It's illegal to build because people dont like that it disrupts the status quo which formed from organic growth. Either you build emptier high density units "inorganically" from the start or you build fuller low density units and then deal with it.

You are right: nobody wants to go in the middle of desert and start building a new brave world there for nothing.

With some proper incentives though it's doable. Nice parks. Low taxes. Decebt transportation infrastructure. Cheap housing. Good schools.

Hey, Google, what can we do for you to move your Googleplex with 50k employees to out newly built Heaven on Earth, Oklahoma?

Some parts of NYC such as Staten Island have similar density to SF. How much is enough?

Most people prefer some space and privacy, and don't want to live in a skyscraper. They are going to vote accordingly.

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