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Comment by jawns | Hacker News Reader

Definitely a tech entrepreneur's take.

It's a juxtaposition of optimistic futurism (in 5-10 years, most people will just rely on robocars and robotaxis) and anti-regulatory sentiment (critical of the requirement that elevators accommodate stretchers).

Some of the more difficult problems are hand-waved away as, "We could solve this if we just put our engineering hats on."

That said, I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's true that other countries and cultures have very different approaches to residential development. But a big part of that is cultural differences in how people live and what they want. Cultures that are more family-oriented are naturally going to have housing that is more family-oriented.

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Exactly my thought.

People have been saying that robotaxis and self driving cars will take over in a couple years for at least a decade.

It hasn't happened, and not only that, but if the companies making them want to be profitable, they will price out a huge percent of consumers.

My guess is that humans will remain the majority operators of vehicles for at least 20 more years, maybe more.

That isn't to say we need parking requirements though. We should still get rid of them and let the market determine how much parking we need.

"The future is unevenly distributed"

I just spent a week in Austin and took a half dozen Waymo rides. Robotaxies are definitely here and they are awesome. There's no reason why they won't be coming for Walnut Creek.

I think Waymo was approved to operate in Walnut Creek and a lot of northern California in November 2025, but hasn't really expanded outside the peninsula.

Since then, Waymo has actually regressed and stopped driving on freeways, which is a big problem for suburbs. Distances are farther and parking is more available, which suggests people would be taking Waymo less than in more dense areas.

I'm sure they'll exist. I'm not sure they will be used for a majority of trips.

Notify my neighborhood, where the majority of our 65,000 residents are families living in apartments

This exists in America. It's not foreign culture. We just pretend it is to avoid change.

It's the single escape stairway thing again.

Is there a paid lobby behind this?

No, there are people who look at the better and cheaper housing the rest of world has and who want that for us too.

Most of the world lives in concrete multifamily housing.

Being against bad housing regulations is not "anti-regulatory sentiment". Some regulations just aren't good. We shouldn't valorize rules for the sake of rules.

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