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Comment by i80and | Hacker News Reader

Minnesota native here. There's plenty of outdoor infrastructure decoration that does just fine in Minneapolis.

Kindly don't incorrectly use my home as justification for your beef with beauty.

You need to look at some cities in the south for comparison. The things they can get away with are on a completely different level since they only need to reject water. Stamped designs in sidewalks and other horizontal slabs are a good example, common in lots of "nicer" applications down there (say a pedestrian entrance to a courthouse or something). You'd be a lunatic to do it anywhere with a real winter. It'll spall in short order.

But, the south gets the short end of the stick for non-masonry materials and plant growth. Anywhere shaded harbors mold. Wood rots. So the kind of complex trims and accents you see in for example the northeast are fairly absent in the south.

Unless you're trying to keep colored plastic looking bright the desert is easy mode.

I think their point is a good one: that there is a reason that things got this way and it’s easy to underestimate the costs associated with beauty.

I wouldn’t read it as a “beef with beauty”.

I moved from a place that puts at least some effort into beautification to a place that slaps everything as cheaply and minimally together as possible. Both with significant freeze-thaw cycles.

I'm pretty pragmatic in general. I get the argument in the abstract. But having been on both sides, I know which is better.

But more to the point, the parent used a very bad example to make their point.

There's a middle ground between cheap and beautiful: "functional". I think you're being a bit hyperbolic in this discussion.

Sure, but I don't think I've called for aesthetics at all costs anywhere here.

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