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Comment by robjan | Hacker News Reader

The work is in the cities

Even if it is it doesn't invalidate the argument. Outside my "city" you can get housing for much much cheaper and have the same commute as if you lived in the city itself.

But at some point you're going to have to give up this notion that population density can be made infinite. At some point you can't simply cram more "work" into a city.

> But at some point you're going to have to give up this notion that population density can be made infinite.

Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Singapore would like to have a word with you.

Or any big city in Europe?

Sometimes I wonder if Americans travel out of the US at all.

> Or any big city in Europe?

Many big cities in Europe are having housing crises of their own - Lisbon, Amsterdam, London etc. Just today, there was this thread bemoaning the housing situation in Netherlands - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38444948

> Sometimes I wonder if Americans travel out of the US at all.

Sometimes I wonder if people know real facts about Europe or just have some rosy imagination or generalize some tiny corner to the entire continent.

And they're still better than most cities in the US in terms of housing, density, and infrastructure.

With its half-million population, Lisbon has better public transportation than my lovely Philadelphia, with its joke subway with two lines. I'd bet Lisbon's trolleys have better coverage than SEPTA has for the whole city in PHL. And, mind you, Lisbon is among the poorest capitals in the European Union.

I could easily live in Lisbon right now if it wasn't for the low EU salaries (and my wife really loving being in the US). My goal is still to claim my citizenship and retire there eventually or in Porto.

And I'm not even considering the really good infrastructure places, like Madrid, with its circular subways (two lines). The wealthiest country in the world must do better.

Context of the discussion is that density solves the housing cost problem. I pointed out that European cities have both a high density and a serious housing problem, which is now impacting national elections (see the example I gave about Dutch elections thread).

Saying they are better than the US is not really relevant to this discussion.

> I could easily live in Lisbon right now if it wasn't for the low EU salaries (and my wife really loving being in the US).

Exactly my point. Lisbon has all the goodies you mentioned (I too liked it when I visited) and yet one needs a US salary to afford a decent house there. Not possible on the median local salary.

Dude, when NYC has half the density of Paris, there is so much more density to be added to cities in the US.

And this isn't building skyscrapers all around. It is building those 4/5/6 levels apartment buildings all over the place, most with some businesses on ground level. There are plenty of opportunities to make these cities cheaper and more livable. What we lack here in the US is politicians who aren't sellouts.

I'm curious if those population density stats account for land used for parks. NYC has 4x the park land area of Paris (12,000 ha. to 3,000).

In NYC parks are 14% of the city's land area, so it can't account for the whole discrepancy, but it's something!

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