For consideration:
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The problem with the NIMBY/YIMBY rhetoric is that whether or not building a particular thing in a particular place is a good idea always comes down to specifics. There is no general policy that is going to work.
Want to build a homeless shelter near the rich white neighborhood? That’s usually a good thing to build.
Want to build a factory in the poor neighborhood, that’s usually not a good thing to build.
Want to build a large apartment building in a very popular neighborhood? That’s usually good. Pressure housing costs downwards in a desirable place, and allow more people to live there diversifying the community.
Want to build a large apartment building in a not-so-popular neighborhood? That’s usually not good. That neighborhood currently has low rents, low property values, and residents with low incomes. Increasing the housing supply will give downward price pressure city-wide, which is good. But if the immediate area becomes a much more desirable place to live as a result of the new development, that will make the prices in the immediate area go up and cause gentrification. Existing residents will be priced out of rent o be pressured to sell and leave. Lots of colonization vibes.
On scenarios 1-3 the YIMBYs tend to agree with me and the NIMBYs disagree. But on scenario 4, gentrification, it’s the NIMBYs that agree with me and the YIMBYs that often do not. What ends up happening is that the discussion of whether to build things often focuses on just the gentrification scenario, making the NIMBYs look to be in the right. Additionally, the NIMBYs will in bad faith frame many discussions about building projects to suggest they are gentrification scenarios, when they are not.
Right now there is a huge battle going on in our neighborhood about a potential new development. Just yesterday the Community Board voted no. There have been several such no votes so far, but all of those votes come from advisory groups. The people with the actual decision making power, like the mayor, could still theoretically vote yes. Though it is unusual, but not unprecedented, for those who actually make the decision to defy the community’s wishes.
Despite being mostly YIMBY and recognizing that additional housing density will push rents lower in the area, at least a tiny bit, I would also vote no on this proposal as it stands today. This is going to be built in an area that is currently low rent, relatively speaking. The people and businesses who are currently in that area will all be displaced. The development plans provide minimal value to the community beyond just being additional housing supply. Very few of the units will be “affordable”. It is not going to improve the lives of the people who already live here. It will only give affluent people from elsewhere yet another nice place to move to, reducing housing prices only wherever they moved from.
If they were to make more accommodations that improve the lives of existing residents, I would be all for it. Put more amenities that are open to the public. Give any displaced residents new apartments equivalent to their existing ones at their current rents, so they don’t have to move away. Provide relief to businesses in the area that could be forced to relocate. Do not give tax breaks or other benefits to the developers. That way the community can share in the wealth generated via taxation.
And with all that, the core problem ends up being that figuring out whether any individual building project is a good idea is a long and complicated process. You could do so many studies for the impact of each building in terms of its impact on the environment, society, economy, infrastructure, etc. But those take time and cost money. We need to build a lot of residential structures, and quickly. We don’t have time or money for all that. It’s a dilemma, and I don’t like either answer. I don’t want to just build and cause harm. I also don’t want to hold back on building either.
Higher population density is a key to solving so many of our problems like housing, climate change, etc. But what’s the limit? How many people can we cram into a space before it doesn’t work anymore? One writer for FT thinks the Netherlands, often viewed as a place that’s getting a lot of things right, may be at or near the breaking point.
Hey, that’s where I live!
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I do think about the lack of social knowledge/ability or different mechanical design that might have made the original vision actually possible. If there was a co-op / rental landlord structure that had a mandated replacement term for the capsules it might have been able to change over time or alternatively if the design allowed capsules themselves to be completely removed individually.
Not that either is a sure thing, we see more traditional condo units defer necessary structural maintenance in the US all the time because nobody collectively wants to pay for the repairs/upkeep for the building superstructure so you have a decline until a major buyer can win a super majority vote to buy out the entire building and either rehab it or knock it down and put it up again.
Yes, the issue seemed to be more of an ownership issue than an engineering issue.
But as I was discussing with my girlfriend, similar ownership issues leads to apartment block collapses in Florida, which just exposes engineering issues in reinforced concrete structures rather than detachable pod structures.
For anything that requires long term maintenance, that has to be priced into the initial purchasing price. Businesses do this, but private citizens can’t even understand it with car purchases, let alone apartment purchases, let alone apartments that are steel boxes like vehicles.
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Yes! I was also thinking about all those 70s/80s condo buildings in florida specifically as well that have excessive sea water rust in the reinforced concrete and everyone baulks at the cost to finally repair decades of deferred maintenance.
Saw this report on percentage of teens who see their friends almost every day.
https://twitter.com/rex_woodbury/status/1633900583726792719
It was in the 40-50% range and then it plummeted after 2010. iPhone and Twitter and such came out in 2007 and really caught on around 2010, so there you have it.
One nerdy person I know commented on the relation between this and the fact that split-screen video games went away.
There were also comments that there has been a greater burden on the kids outside of school with tons of homework.
Another explanation is that kids are less friendly with the people who happen to live in their geographic area and have stronger connections over the Internet with people who live further away. They can’t see their friends every day, at least not in person, because they might be many time zones away.
Personally I’m more curious about the relation to cars and urbanism, which is why I post in this thread. Yeah, nothing really changed regarding cars that correlates with the sudden nosedive in 2010. I’m just curious to see the graph split up between places where teenagers have their own independent non-car mobility options and places where they do not.
I live right next to a NYC high school. I see teens every day who are clearly seeing their friends almost every day. They’re taking the bus and walking places together all over. But that’s just anecdata.
Do teens in cities have more in person time with friends than suburban and rural teens? Does that, as one would expect, translate to better lives and better mental health and such?
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That was my entire life between when I got access to the Internet and when I moved to RIT and lived next to people I had real mutual interests with.
This video is literally about Rym going to Boston. A tech guy who lives in LIC…
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Anti-Sports evil universe version of Rym.
CityNerd does great stuff I follow the channel already.
Very insightful take here.
People almost universally want a walkable neighborhood. The people who design their town gave it over to cars. The result is that places like malls, Wal-Marts, colleges, and corporate campuses are all just walkable neighborhoods. People just have to drive to get to them because they no longer live in them.
Magdalen Rose just put out a video on how America became a car-dependent, class-divided hellscape.
I was planning on putting this in the “War on Cars” thread, but then she brought up an interesting idea on how to fix the problem of social isolation as a result of America’s transformation, so it’s more fitting here.
There’s been a lot of talk of third places for quite awhile now. The problem I have is that even here in NYC where there are plenty of third places, a lot of them revolve around alcohol, which is its own problem. But it’s also a problem that heavily overlaps with transportation safety.
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It might be a shock, considering my fondness for a drop, but I agree with you, and add that it’s hardly just NYC. A lot of social culture includes drinking as a default, which even for those without more serious issues with it and just consider it a matter of preference, it can kinda suck.
I’m a big supporter of venues having robust alcohol-free options, or even whole booze-free nights. Folks not being able or not wishing to drink alcohol deserve to have a reasonable expectation that, just like folks who do drink alcohol, they can get some good drinks, in good company, in a good atmosphere, without having to settle for bog-standard soda, or plain water. And socially, They shouldn’t have to be questioned about why they don’t drink as if it was an oddity they need to justify, or any shit like that, and normalizing it as not just an option, but one that’s worth specifically catering to, would go a ways towards correcting that.
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The ones that really get me are any sort of cancer prevention/awareness/charity events that serve alcohol. Might as well give out free gasoline at the climate change gala.
Walt Disney World has significantly better transit than most cities in the US.
Its 12-train-set monorail, 325 buses would make it the 16th most ridden transit system in the nation.
America’s fantasy world, it turns out, is a place you can get around without getting into a car.
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