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It seems that the focus has been on creating these urban hives or low cost developments in cities. Instead of crowding into existing popular cities why not replicate the success of small cities like Austin and create new centers of economic/cultural growth in America? There has to be a way to incentivize a large number of corporations and employees to move. I understand some already try to woo business with tax breaks but i'm talking about a larger program of reform. Settling the interior of America with efficient growth industry might be the new "land reform" of the 21st century.
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Jul 4, 2014 01:28
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Peven Stan posted:Solution: Move to St. Louis, buy a 95-120k big house in south city near the shaw botanical garden, ride bikes and drink microbrews daily Implement a GMT and suddenly whatever negatives St. Louis has won't look so bad.
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Jul 4, 2014 04:39
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go3 posted:A city's culture and all the other polite ways of saying 'we dont want X living here' can go gently caress itself when it comes to people just being able to afford a loving place to live. Most of the SF anti-height movement was due the fear of manhattanization and also how SF has powerful neighborhood associations who cockblock any development attempts. Washington DC has similar problems due to a heigh ordinance.
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Jul 4, 2014 04:59
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etalian posted:Most of the SF anti-height movement was due the fear of manhattanization and also how SF has powerful neighborhood associations who cockblock any development attempts.
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Jul 4, 2014 17:15
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cheese posted:Washington DC's height ordinance has a lot more to do with wanting the US Capitol and other national structures to remain impressive and the center of the city. SF has no such reason. Not really. Those national structures are essentially protected from being overshadowed by large buildings by the national park land that functions as a setback and prevents them from being overwhelmed by surrounding structures. Mostly the height limit is intended to prevent structures from overshadowing the streets - the problem is that has led to a downtown core where everything is exactly the same height which makes for terrible architecture. There was a recent proposed zoning update that would have relaxed some of the restrictions without changing the height limit. It died.
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Jul 4, 2014 17:34
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cheese posted:Washington DC's height ordinance has a lot more to do with wanting the US Capitol and other national structures to remain impressive and the center of the city. SF has no such reason. SF does have reasons, all because of rabid NIMBYs who are basically  when it comes to development: exaggerated worries about shadows (to the point that they ignore/forget what hemisphere we're in , and how that relates to the sun's position in the sky), and exaggerated worries that higher/no height limits will lead to the destruction of literally everything they love, including every single view, and every neighborhood in the city, which will obviously be replaced with third world, dystopian nightmare slums. It's the natural result if we raise the default height limit in the neighborhoods above 40 feet (a height limit said NIMBYs got enacted in hte 80s), don't you see? A lot of the NIMBY poo poo is pushed by wealthy people who just want to preserve/boost their own property values though. And of course there's no shortage of ignorant people who buy into said wealthy peoples' propaganda campaigns about how any development taller than 4 floors will destroy SF's affordability, character and beauty.Not that they're good reasons, but you could argue that wanting the capitol building/Washington monument to remain the tallest structures in DC is a dumb reason for height limits too. Given the power NIMBYs have had in SF over the past few decades, it actually kind of amazes me that SF has been able to have a sustained highrise boom since the late 90s (with a small break during the recession), has been able to increase height limits in parts of the city (SOMA, Mission Bay), and is currently building a new tallest tower and 2nd tallest tower. It's one of the biggest booms in the entire nation. I guess it just shows that for all the NIMBYism in the city now, it's not as bad as it was a few decades ago. Too bad the rest of the Bay Area doesn't want to join in on that building boom, because then we might actually get somewhere regarding affordability. Rah! fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 17:46
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Modus Operandi posted:It seems that the focus has been on creating these urban hives or low cost developments in cities. This problem wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't a problem! What you're describing already exists. People don't focus on it because it's not a problem. The small slice of Americans who want to live in one of the handful of expensive and overcrowded cities is the problem. We don't need a program of resettlement in the interior because it is already settled and doing well for itself among the demographic of people who choose to live there.
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Jul 4, 2014 18:55
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cheese posted:Washington DC's height ordinance has a lot more to do with wanting the US Capitol and other national structures to remain impressive and the center of the city. SF has no such reason. That's a very persistent myth. The original "reason" behind it was that they were worried about not being able to firefight in buildings over 11 stories. I put reason in quotes because that was just the argument used but the actual onus was the same old NIMBY neighborhood character argument sparked by the construction of the Cairo apartment building in 1894
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Jul 4, 2014 22:34
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Shifty Pony posted:That's a very persistent myth. The original "reason" behind it was that they were worried about not being able to firefight in buildings over 11 stories. I put reason in quotes because that was just the argument used but the actual onus was the same old NIMBY neighborhood character argument sparked by the construction of the Cairo apartment building in 1894 Yeah it was a case of a NIMBY meltdown being applied to the whole city
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Jul 5, 2014 04:57
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Is there any way to get information about new housing starts by region that isn't through NAHB? Their access to data on that stuff is straight extortion.
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Jul 5, 2014 16:46
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Runaktla posted:I said this earlier in the thread buuuuuut... all this talk about anti-NIMBY and we could build more affordable housing by going upwards begs the question... Just a point of information:  Those red areas? Those contain about 80% of the nation's population (the remaining urban areas in Alaska and Hawaii, not depicted only add another million or so) and take up less than 5% of the nation's land.  And this is of course, in green, the areas with zero population. effectual posted:There are also geological concerns with SF that might limit how tall buildings can be (or require extra costs to EQ-proof them). Which is bullshit, because the current SF housing stock is woefully inadequate in case of earthquake, with most of it having no or only minimal earthquake protection. Meanwhile the Trans America building ain't fallign over unless SF gets hit with an earthquake so severe the city dissolves into the sea. Everblight posted:For real though monoculture is loving toxic and probably a major reason racism still exists Because when white middle class people were living in cities they totally weren't so racist and monoculturist that they divided up their own areas of cities by countries of ancestry, that definitely didn't happen. Shifty Pony posted:That's a very persistent myth. The original "reason" behind it was that they were worried about not being able to firefight in buildings over 11 stories. I put reason in quotes because that was just the argument used but the actual onus was the same old NIMBY neighborhood character argument sparked by the construction of the Cairo apartment building in 1894 Yeah it doesn't have any real basis to keep going. At most it would be viable to keep the height restrictions in the very center of the tourist districts, but it's not going to hurt everything to start having 20 story buildings within DC to remove office space restrictions.
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Jul 5, 2014 20:35
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I don't know what to think of this article, but it exemplifies US housing I think: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/human-props-stay-in-luxury-homes-but-live-like-ghosts/2187417
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Jul 11, 2014 19:31
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Modus Operandi posted:It seems that the focus has been on creating these urban hives or low cost developments in cities. I think it's due to state politics. It'd make more sense to have multiple 500k population cities in states rather than one megacity and a bunch of 100k ones (this is based on IL, adjust for others). But with political leverage focused in the megacity, not much you can do.
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Jul 11, 2014 21:16
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One would be wise to point out that Austin is not a successful small city, it's got a tiny urban core and then a whole bunch of suburbs. It also didn't spring out of nowhere, it's been the state capital since 1846.mastershakeman posted:I think it's due to state politics. It'd make more sense to have multiple 500k population cities in states rather than one megacity and a bunch of 100k ones (this is based on IL, adjust for others). But with political leverage focused in the megacity, not much you can do. There's no inherent advantage to having a bunch of 500k population cities though, a truly big city is able to start bringing in massive scale efficiency improvements for everything from transportation planning to contract leverage. It's hard to imagine redoing Illinois from day one with a goal of creating multiple 500k or so cities spread around the state, as a lot of it just doesn't have much to justify being huge. Chicago happened to be excellently situated as a rail and water transit hub which drew its initial growth, although many places in that general vicinity of Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana could have been the major transit hub instead of Chicago. But it really wasn't in the cards for other places across Illinois to develop that way, hence why the rest of the state's major urban areas that aren't directly tied to Chicago happen to be farming or light manufacturing towns, originally, that eventually accumulated enough oomph to overshadow other nearby towns. You can see similar stories in other states, and in many cases the city that draws in all the population from a state won't even be in that state. Philadelphia and New York City for New Jersey; Philadelphia for Delaware; arguably Boston for both New Hampshire and Maine. Even California, the most populous state, can only support four truly independent urban areas: the bay area as a whole, the Sacramento area, the LA area, and the San Diego area. And while when you look to Europe, while for most countries there's less of a tendency for one city to really dominate a country; that's often down to limited transportation ability for long times, and often heavily fragmented polities. Germany for instance has a whole bunch of cities rather close in size, but most of them originally developed as the domineering city of one kingdom or principality or another. Some people say the solution to cities "dominating" areas might be to redraw state boundaries entirely and refocus them on major urban areas:  Please keep in mind that the borders decided for this map were determined by a proposal in the early 1970s, even though it's had 2000 census data applied to the city populations, so some of them don't really reflect the way urban areas interact in recent times. They were also originally supposed to create roughly equal-population states with the exception of the split off northern alaska bit (which is frankly silly) and so they don't really work for that purpose these days either. But you get the idea right?
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Jul 11, 2014 22:08
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:I don't know what to think of this article, but it exemplifies US housing I think: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/human-props-stay-in-luxury-homes-but-live-like-ghosts/2187417 quote:"I hate the fact that we went through that, and yet, it really helped me understand what people go through." Added Bob, later, after dinner: "I think that's something I won't forget, when I'm wealthy again." Holy poo poo. It's like he's learned nothing.
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Jul 11, 2014 22:29
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Nintendo Kid posted:One would be wise to point out that Austin is not a successful small city, it's got a tiny urban core and then a whole bunch of suburbs. It also didn't spring out of nowhere, it's been the state capital since 1846. Sure, I get the idea, but as this is the housing thread I think that the ultra concentration of 'good jobs' in a few metropolises really leads to perverse housing incentives. Cheap gas and suburbs alleviated that for decades, but now that people are moving back into cores, prices are getting completely ridiculous. It seems that the choice for most people is either deal with hour+ commutes, or resign yourself to low pay in a non-major metro.
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Jul 11, 2014 22:37
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mastershakeman posted:Sure, I get the idea, but as this is the housing thread I think that the ultra concentration of 'good jobs' in a few metropolises really leads to perverse housing incentives. Cheap gas and suburbs alleviated that for decades, but now that people are moving back into cores, prices are getting completely ridiculous. It seems that the choice for most people is either deal with hour+ commutes, or resign yourself to low pay in a non-major metro. Yeah. During the 20th century the bulk of American urban growth was suburban, which lead to an urban fabric largely unnavigable by foot. This means also that the supply of urban environments in the US is low, compared to the European nations where urban growth tended to be more highly concetrated as legitimate urban fabric (for a variety of reasons). As there is a higher population of individuals who reject suburban living and demand urban living, urban rents increase. Oddly enough the general perception of poor quality in urban school districts tempers this price increase - there are a lot of families who live in the burbs for schools, and if urban schools had higher rankings they would likely bid up rents even higher also. I expect to see school reform tied to ever increasing gentrification over the next decade.
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Jul 11, 2014 22:43
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mastershakeman posted:Sure, I get the idea, but as this is the housing thread I think that the ultra concentration of 'good jobs' in a few metropolises really leads to perverse housing incentives. Cheap gas and suburbs alleviated that for decades, but now that people are moving back into cores, prices are getting completely ridiculous. It seems that the choice for most people is either deal with hour+ commutes, or resign yourself to low pay in a non-major metro. In working suburban areas, satellite cities exist where people commute to instead of the main city. Just trying to spin up a brand new actual city with long term job opportunities isn't really a workable thing - many countries are only able to manage this one time, usually when prepping a brand new national capital which will naturally bring in a captive population of government officials and their associated needs. And in some ways attempting to massively expand an existing but small city to be a new metro core can cause even more problems, because of infrastructure and existing development patterns focused around the existing situation.
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Jul 11, 2014 22:55
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