Comment by lelandbatey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lelandbatey | Hacker News Reader

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The US being huge has no bearing on the requirement that I have to own a car to get to work every day, or to go to the grocery store, or to take kids to school. I live in a more suburban area than I used to and having to pilot a huge deadly vehicle everywhere is vastly more stressful than just walking to handle my groceries.

Note that the study you link to there is from 1994 and only controlled for the following criteria: sex, age, social class, marital status, unemployment, chronic illness and region of residence. Those aren't the things that put folks on edge about cities in 1994 or in the preceding years. 30 years on from 1994 and now in a different world, many of us are wondering why we're locked out of some of the benefits of a bit more density.

No ones saying we abandon all beyond our city walls to nature, instead they'll be farmland or productive rural activities like we already use them for. But we don't need every city of 500k people to mean that there's a 15 mile radius circle of strip malls in every direction.

Most Americans vote with their wallets and feet. They don't want dense apartment living and the majority run from it as soon as they can afford it.

It is usually possible to rent small apartments near work in most metro areas, but instead they prefer 3000sqft places to 600sqft and supermarkets to corner stores.

There is a huge amount that would have to change about the American dream and esthetic desires to enable car free European living.

Yes, this is why San Francisco, Boston and NYC have the cheapest rents in the US.

Sure, there's more demand than there is supply at the moment for sense urban areas. But in the end, most Americans don't choose to live in denser areas even if it's more affordable than NYC and SF.

I do agree we should build more density, but there is also still a large amount of convincing people to actually allow it and move there.

It's not like these zoning laws just appeared on their own one day. People vote for these things. People show up to city halls and fight densification. People fight against transit, they don't want those people coming in to their nice quiet neighborhoods and the undesirables in their apartments.

No, it is why 60% of Americans live in single family detached homes, not including the additional 10% who live in manufactured homes or single family attached. Not factoring in latent demand, or those who are in high-density living for reasons beyond their control, e.g. assisted living, college dorms, military, that should be excluded from the calculations.

San Francisco 2024 growth rate is minus 2.4 percent. NYC 2024 growth rate minus 2.0. Boston minus 1.0 percent. High rent is more likely the result of NYC, SF and Boston renters being on the bleeding edge of rent setting software. Lucky them.

I would think any one of NIMBY incumbents, rent control, and (CA-specific, obv) Prop 13/19 would individually do a lot more to artificially pump up rent prices than rent setting software.

Prop 13 drives down prices the same way mortgage interest drive down sales prices. low tax on homes purchased 30 years ago means higher taxes on new purchases.

New home buyers usually care about their monthly payment. high mortgage rates mean they can afford lower sales prices. High tax rates mean they can afford lower sales prices.

Wait until you see the rental prices for large 2000sqft single family homes within driving distance.

According to Zillow, the median rent (for all property types) is $3,300 is San Francisco, but it is $3,400 in the neighboring San Mateo county, so yes, SF is indeed cheaper ;)

The one thing you can count on based on decades of experience living with the anti car crowd is they are uniquely ill-equipped to change the hearts and minds of the average American. Their Modus Operandi is shrill hectoring about how the lifestyle of the average American is a “problem”, when the average American is either quite satisfied with their situation or actually aspire to the “problematic” low density lifestyle. When that argument fails, they devolve to an apocalyptic vision of social collapse unless their vision wins. Hearts and minds? Yeah, US in Afghanistan all over again…

Neither of these anti car strategies will ever gain traction with any but the youngest, most easily duped Americans, who are already stuck in high density housing for a combination of economic and career trajectory reasons. The approach America has taken for many decades with these young people is “they’ll outgrow it”. And they do, when children arrive and these young people, as their parents and grandparents before them, aspire to that “better family life” that low density housing affords.

I keep getting older and my desire to live with greater density grows stronger, not weaker. I've recently been able to buy a house, and I just wish I could have gotten one even closer to the city than I did.

This patronizing "they'll grow out of it" is a self fulfilling prophecy when suburbanism is the only option.

To give a concrete example of the apocalyptic talk you mention: We aren't going to be able to do this forever, there isn't enough land. Sure it worked for a couple dozen years while the USA built new highways and sold off it's now-close-enough-for-commuting land, but that time is running out. We can kick the can down the road, but the interest in what's borrowed will come due, though probably in a monetary collapse not a social one. After all, who doesn't want a private island all their own (if they can afford it, and it's maintenance)?

But let's say we can kick the can down the road forever, or functionally forever. Even in that world, for those of us that only want a 1500sq/ft house and a nearby corner store, can we please make that just a possibility? Like, legally? Similarly, can we get some legislative support for 3 or 4 bedroom apartments since as it stands they feel incredibly rare...

The suburbs have a lot of appeal, can we please also build other things at all, sometimes?

Americans complain about unaffordable housing, car prices, gas prices, and car insurance premiums. But very few connect the dots between zoning and our housing and transportation ills. If your state DOT spends 98% of their budget on car traffic and 2% on walking, biking, and non-single occupancy vehicles that's what you'll get.

You're not required anything. Nothing is stopping you from walking or riding a bike. You're making a choice of convenience. You're over privileged life has made you believe you need this "deadly vehicle". Go with out? like the 5billion other people that are, or continue to wine about your luxuries and not being able to get groceries 2 minutes faster.

How about this, instead of designing your consumer luxury life around needing to go to a store or restaurant 2-3 times a day... instead maybe shape your habits around not being a mindless consumer.

wahhh it really is awful I have to drive for 30 minutes 1x a month to get groceries.

Why did we build society at all if we should be always satisfied with the status quo standard of living

>having to pilot a huge deadly vehicle everywhere is vastly more stressful than just walking to handle my groceries.

That's a nice luxury to have. I take it you're fortunate enough to live in a very temperate area with palatable weather year-round, rather than somewhere that gets 110° F in the summer, or ice storms in the winter?

Not everyone can afford to live on the beautiful, comfortable, and exorbitantly expensive cities along the west coast.

Have people not lived in those places in the past?

They have, but if you mean before the introduction of the automobile, it was in an era where nobody had to commute to get groceries because a majority of the population were subsistence farmers.

Do you know nothing about the history of the east coast? Do you ACTUALLY think everyone who lived there before 1900 was a subsistence farmer?

We have the choice of affordable, door-to-door air conditioning now, so why should we do without if we don’t have to?

> I take it you're fortunate enough to live in a very temperate area with palatable weather year-round, rather than somewhere that gets 110° F in the summer, or ice storms in the winter?

Okay, we don't get the 110°F in the summer here (only up to the 90's), but we do get the ice storms in the winter.

I still walk to get my groceries if I can, even if it's actively snowing. I just wish they'd plow the sidewalks here, I don't like having to choose between walking in the street or trying to walk on uncompacted snow in my boots while laden with groceries.

Every place I've ever lived has required property owners to clear and salt their sidewalks within 24 hours of the snow stopping, and any place that actually gets regular, measurable snowfall (northeast, northern midwest) is pretty good about citing those that don't.

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