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Comment by hijinks | Hacker News Reader

too many people and not enough land in areas where people don't have to drive 3 hours to work.

Want pricing to go down then we need to build more dense housing even an hour drive from the city. The days of wanting a big backyard are coming to an end for most home owners.

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> Want pricing to go down then we need to build more dense housing

You need mass transit and transport integration. House density can only move you so far (and it's not very far).

Luckily, density is what makes mass transit viable. It's more cost effective to run a driverless metro every three minutes in an urban core than to run a mostly-empty bus once an hour in a distant suburb.

> Luckily, density is what makes mass transit viable.

Up to some point, and it's not even that high...

What really makes mass transit viable is integration.

What if we put the jobs closer to the people instead of making the people get closer to the jobs? Just drop a big ol’ tech park in the middle of Oakland?

Who is the “we” in that sentence? Is there a Central Planning Bureau that forces “jobs” to be placed in certain locations? What jobs would you place near the people, whatever that means?

I often see comments in the theme of "dense housing is the panacea."

You can't really run power tools in dense housing, correct? Or fix stuff yourself? Sounds awful.

I was born, raised, lived in dense cities. I've lived in semi-suburban life as well. Unless you're into some hobbies that requires such tools, you just never use it? And when you have to... you just use it? I live in an apartment building in a city, and once a month or so, during daytime, people use tools and it's no biggie.

To each their own though. I definitely grew to understand that if someone was raised in rural or suburban life, it would be extremely hard to adjust to hardcore city life, and vice versa. But I don't think we should be blocking build ups for one, if there's demand.

We just bought a place in a dense area of The Hague, and I run a table saw + shop vac frequently as we renovate. No complaints yet, just keep my hours between 10-6. Lots of other neighbors doing similar stuff too.

There are lots of benefits to density. Our grocery store and day care are less than ten minutes away on foot, because there's a ton of people so we can support these kinds of businesses (also weed, hair salons, bars, cafes, boutiques, secondhand stores, restaurants, play cafes, etc etc.)

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