NYC votes to approve City of Yes upzoning plan | Hacker News Reader

NYC votes to approve City of Yes upzoning plan

abc7ny.com

29 pointsapsec1129 comments

apartments on single family lots sounds like a death sentence to the city.

I can't imagine Queens and Brooklyn covered in hi-rise apartments and yet that's what will happen.

sure finding a place in NYC sucks but this is so radical it will wipe the whole concept of what NYC is / was.

A lot of queens/brooklyn is already covered in hi-rise. Hi-rises will only reach as far as subways along with a few dense clusters around shopping districts.

The only thing constant is change. Queens and Brooklyn used to be a marshland swamp. If somebody proposed we build a metropolis in the everglades, we'd say we're ruining that too.

Cities should densify as needed, not be held to some arbitrary "good old days" ideal

NYC's defining trait and constant throughout history is development. The concept of a tiny row houses and a car on every driveway in Queens was invented in the mid 20th century when Robert Moses scarred a half dozen neighborhoods to make it that way.

Yep, I don’t understand why we need to crowd into a few big cities. It’s better to spread the economy out, if only for resiliency. Instead we upzone and pack people in like rats, in concrete canyons with little breathing room, and take away environments that have healthier situations like single family homes.

Public transport simply does not work at low densities, and improves with density. Car based societies are, almost by definition, not walkable. Dense, walkable cities are cheaper, healthier, prettier, greener, and more productive.

There are problems that come with density, like crime, but there are solutions to that other than low density. I encourage you to explore life in Asian cities, especially SE China or Singapore, to see how great low crime, high density cities can really be.

Suburbs and rural areas are economic death but they happen. Single family homes cost more and lead to perverse incentives like not wanting housing prices to crater which prevents affordable housing to be built which leads to homelessness. There's no reason a city needs to be a parking lot but while rural and suburban areas persist they all but have to be to accommodate the micro plastic noise and air pollution death machines we call automobiles.

We shouldn't want suburbs (white flight) or rural (incestuous wide beating) areas to exist. Nor should we design cities for cars.

Some people love city life, like me. The idea of everything only a few subway stops or even a walk away. So many opportunities and things to discover.

I wither away in small provincial towns (I've spent more than 10 years living in one so I know)

Cities are not for everyone but there's definitely an interest in them. Ps I don't have a family so I don't need a family home.

Kinda funny to see someone from NYC complaining about high-rise :)

I know that's concentrated only in 2 areas of Manhattan but still.. it's the city with the most high-rise in the world.

But I know what you mean. I lived in a low-rise area of Sydney that took a lot of effort to keep low.

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