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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

Let's be honest, it's far from factual that dense housing is problematic in any way. It's just your opinion, and you're mad about it because you stand to lose the most in a world where you have to pay cash for your externalities. The sewer and water system to your house is subsidized. Snow removal from your cul-de-sac is subsidized. Most people couldn't afford the suburbs if someone else wasn't paying for those things (usually future generations).

Many people enjoy living in a dense environment, as evidenced by how much they'll pay to do so. It's objectively better for the Earth, and pretty enjoyable for the people that choose that path.

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> Let's be honest, it's far from factual that dense housing is problematic in any way

Densificatoin causes enshittification spiral. Each successive generation lives in worse conditions. This is an inherent property of densification.

> The sewer and water system to your house is subsidized.

It isn't. I'm paying for it from my taxes (that's why in Seattle my water is more costly than in the middle of a freaking desert).

> Snow removal from your cul-de-sac is subsidized.

It isn't. I'm responsible for keeping it clean, and I was once fined when I failed to do that.

> Many people enjoy living in a dense environment

The vast majority of people want to live in single family houses (90% or so - https://www.redfin.com/news/millennial-homebuyers-prefer-sin... ). They simply can't afford that. And of course, the psychological defense mechanism is: "I never wanted it anyway".

> Densificatoin causes enshittification spiral. Each successive generation lives in worse conditions. This is an inherent property of densification.

Could you uh, explain this a bit more? This doesn't seem to correspond with the desirability of dense cities atm. All of the most desirable places to live seem to either be dense or easily commutable to somewhere dense.

Dense cities create a self-reinforcing vicious cycle. It's more efficient for employers to create office-style jobs in the Downtown, because they can more easily attract talent.

In turn, people want to live close enough to their jobs. So this drives up the price of housing in and around the Downtown. In turn, this incentivizes developers to build new buildings as high as economical, and to make units as small as feasible.

Thus the new construction in Downtowns tends to be smaller than the existing one ( https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/seattle-sma... ). This drives up the price of existing larger apartments even more, making them unavailable for younger people. So if you don't work in tech, you'll have to make do with a small apartment.

But no worries, by the next generation your small apartment will look positively spacious!

For the record, there are lots of people who love living in extremely dense urban situations. There are benefits to being exposed to so many different people living different lives, it's one of the things that cuts down on the bias of icky being exposed to an extremely homogenous group with homogenous opinions.

Obviously urban centers can be improved on, and many people living in them wish they had more personal space. But there are advantages too.

> Densificatoin causes enshittification spiral.

This is not a real thing. Please refer to factual, verifiable phenomena and not imaginings.

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