Doing it right after a major fire where people are alive precisely because they were able to put themselves and a few belongings into their personal vehicle and go where they could shelter with friends or family is bordering on an impossible ask.
i take waymos all the time, often replacing my car, i have never had a single issue
of course they can scale in a cost effective manner, the operating costs are theoretically the same as just owning a car but they get to amortize it across many different users and don’t have to pay for human labor
But so what if they do have full coverage in 10 years? We can build apartments with no/fewer parking spaces, and therefore somewhat lower costs. Why do we build those sort of apartments on some of the most desirable land on the planet? Look at the One Coast development on the bottom of Sunset - denser than SFH, plenty of parking, and no trouble selling condos starting at $3-5m. At that's at the bottom of the hill!
Does Monaco have apartments for $300k? Does the LES? West Palm Beach?
It's just like technology: If you make it happen, it will happen. If you don't, it won't. Some people are working hard, developing the technology, while many sit around saying it's impossible, etc.
Opportunity knocks, right now. There's no guarantee of success. Let's go!
There are many examples of places around the world who managed to intersperse SFH with medium-density housing (3-4 stories apartment buildings) so it's not an either-or situation. For example: many suburbs of Stockholm have developed this way, it allows options based on people's budgets and needs, while also creating enough density to attract local businesses so people are not entirely car-dependent for basic necessities, creates third places for meetings, etc.
I'm preaching to the choir though, I do understand you will probably never understand or see it that way given the vitriol you started with. It's quite sad because there are other ways for a community to live that can cater to different needs where mixed-housing exists while also making these neighbourhoods more interesting and livable in themselves.
"Do it the way we want or die" is a pretty bold take.
Are you going to enforce this or demand to have law enforcement or even military units do it?
You'll notice the loaded language used in the title of the article: "California's future depends on how leaders rebuild". Ideally I would think that the landowners should have priority in deciding what is built on their land. After all it is still at least nominally their private property.
Expect further arguments towards a subjectively perceived "greater collective good" to follow from that point. After this is established, the ends justify the means. In this case, the above poster explicitly describes the means as "men with guns".
That's a myth / fantasy of gun and violence zealots and anti-liberals.
Obviously, to scholars and to anyone looking at the world, the basis for governance is consent. There are not enough guns in the world to do it otherwise. And I've never and I don't know anyone who has ever done something because the government pointed a gun at them. They did it because they are law-abiding people, social beings, and want a fair, ordered society.
For governance, perhaps, but not for government.
A trivial example: I do not consent to the authority of my city, county, state, or country. I have withheld that consent my entire life, and yet all those levels of government continue to not only exist, but to grow.
The city could issue no permits to rebuild SFH on that land and then buy it for 15-minute walkable development.
No one has explained why a given developer should rent for less than 3K when they could easily rent the same space fo 4K? Is the government providing an incentive covering the shortfall?
That global imperative does not translate into a local demand that every SFH (and in particular, these SFHs) be replaced with denser housing. As you realize in your comment, the damaged areas aren't exactly well-positioned to support substantially denser housing.
Even Hong Kong builds mostly between its hills and only on them when really rich people are involved (e.g. Victoria Peak).
Very few want to give developers the profits they need to match the profits they get rebuilding in accordance with maximizing the return on their investments.
People asking for cheap apartments are just not being realistic. Why rent that square footage at less than luxury prices when the market will readily eat up the square footage at prices far exceeding the national luxury median?
And that’s before we even get to the people who want condos or luxury homes.
You would basically need to make a law that caps how much an owner can make on his land for some of these ideas to work.
And that’s where luxury condos and apartments come in.
There is no scenario where building for less than luxury returns makes sense in these areas. Renting a set square footage for 1500 makes no sense when I can rent the same square footage for 3200.
And that’s at the bottom end.
> Renting a set square footage for 1500 makes no sense when I can rent the same square footage for 3200.
uhhh, except for location?
Maybe in the flats of the palisades.
How much of that location value was because of the views, proximity to LA proper, etc.?
How much of it was due to the types of houses that were in those specific neighborhoods and the type of people that lived in them?
If the "rich and famous" don't return to those neighborhoods and rebuild their multi-million dollar homes, those parcels will be worth significantly less.
Multiple luxury apartments? Maybe? Depending on amenities and view.
But multiple non luxury apartments for the hoi polloi? Not a chance. I challenge even the politicians championing non luxury apartments to run the numbers and make them work. They just don’t.
People are out here advocating that we make multiple apartments available all under 3K. That’s insanity. The same space can easily be rented for much more than 3K. If I’m a developer, what’s my motivation to forgo that ludicrously high return? Being a good guy? I’ll take the return and make a donation to the boys and girls club instead thank you very much.