Hacker News Reader

Comment by LarryDarrell | Hacker News Reader

At some point one has to consider costs, scale and political expediency.

WFH and H-WFH would be broadly popular among the electorate and could probably take off with just some changes to the tax code.

Presuming everyone does want to live in a dense area (I do not), building housing and infrastructure is expensive and at the end of the day it has to be profitable to build. We don't really have the framework to zone municipalities at the Federal level. So now you are talking about leaving it to the individual states... and I think you can see where that goes.

Given all that, yes, fewer miles driven in aggregate is a good and easy win for the environment. Less gasoline consumed, fewer tires and brake pads consumed, less work clothes bought, less meals purchased at lunch, etc.

View on HN

> Presuming everyone does want to live in a dense area (I do not)

I wish we stopped subsidizing wealthy folks choosing to live in low density areas. It is intrinsically regressive that poorer people living in sustainable denser areas are subsidizing the infrastructure of the low density suburbs where richer people live. Low density suburbs do not raise enough taxes to support their own infrastructure, from roads, to water management, to electricity, etc.

Want to live in a single family home? Great! But don't expect people poorer than you to bear the cost.

My neighborhood and for miles around me is lower to middle-middle class. All people that wouldn't be able to afford to 1) move and leave their equity behind 2) afford the rents in the denser part of town.

You are painting with too broad of strokes.

I live in a SFH. It's very unpleasant outside of my home. It's inconvenient, sometime outright dangerous to walk to my local grocery store. There's also constant noise from the cars and the ever present possibility of a car driving off the road. I see a bicycle tribute or two to small children in my local area.

I wouldn't even considering cycling given the speed of cars around there. The local road is used for through traffic despite being one lane in each direction. So it's very frustrating if I want to get somewhere during rush hour, and this is just cars!

If you want to walk to the local gas station, you might have to deal with muddy ground because of the ground being the bottom of a hill in order to get there, although the owner of said muddy ground have filled it in with dirt lately. The sidewalks if they exist, are discontinuous.

Yes, wealthier people live in SFH and the surburb, but it's a questionable in term of quality of life.

I visited the city. In some way, they are more convenient such as access to rideshare scooters and bikes, but also dangerous and automotive centric if less so.

> wealthy folks choosing to live in low density areas

There's no way you're saying this with a straight face, right? People move out of the city because it's significantly cheaper. Rent in a nice two bedroom "downtown" is $3500. You move 15 minutes out of there and you can get 3 bedroom house for an $1800 mortgage that'll never go up.

Source: I did that. I got tired of paying such a huge chunk of my income for living.

It’s cheaper because not enough city housing is built and there are other costs associated with suburban living. IMO, property taxes should increase as density decreases because those less dense areas will cost a lot more to maintain roads, utilities, etc. down the road.

Higher property taxes for less dense areas might make sense for suburbs of big cities, but not beyond that. In the countryside road and other infrastructure is required for agriculture, if some people also choose to live there (and that way reduce prices in cities) it's a win-win.

Look, where I live isn't SF or Vancouver that has the "NIMBYs oppose all new building" problem. If you wanted to build super dense high-rise apartments or skyscrapers both the city and state would throw money at you and give you tax breaks. It's still ludicrously expensive compared to even the closest suburb.

We've gotten more traction building apartment complexes on the edges of the burbs than in the metro area in recent years.

No way there should be incentives for living outside dense areas. Utility, road, and service maintenance costs increase per capita as density goes down, and currently that cost is not borne by people in those areas.

It's impossible to build if there are restriction on permitting and construction. Also, I would expect land cost to be a significant factor in high density area due to high demand.

I don't really see how any of this (aside from the brief mention of commuting again) has any bearing on the question of whether it's better for the environment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com