People Who Live In Suburbs: Classy, Icky, or Dudes?

haha you are competitive about this. I'm trying to find a figure that adjusts for the green space.

I want people itt to know that my opinion counts

okay I calculated it myself using the wikipedia numbers and the densities of the individual districts of hong kong:

12995.9433 sq/km...which is about twice the regular density. still less than mumbai's regular density tho.

you have to remember there are like piles of 100s of poor people in mumbai, they don't need a skyscraper, they are like a human skyscraper

oops it was actually 20,805.77913, I fucked up some cells.

finally we're identifying some healthy density targets

To be fair, part of the reason Kowloon walled city thrived where it did was that for a number of years local authorities didn't police it, and by the time they did it was pretty difficult to do so. I've seen numbers indicating that there were thousands of police raids, but really no day-to-day police action. Some of the people there were crowding into this area because it wasn't regulated -- hence all the dentists and organized crime.

oops it was actually 20,805.77913, I fucked up some cells.

― iatee, Monday, March 5, 2012 4:33 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

HK would def make this list then

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population_density

To be fair, part of the reason Kowloon walled city thrived where it did was that for a number of years local authorities didn't police it, and by the time they did it was pretty difficult to do so. I've seen numbers indicating that there were thousands of police raids, but really no day-to-day police action. Some of the people there were crowding into this area because it wasn't regulated -- hence all the dentists and organized crime.

― valleys of your mind (mh), Monday, March 5, 2012 4:37 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark

this is all true, but by far the biggest reason was the population pressure of HK. absence of the rule of law doesn't by itself lead to the most densely populated area in recorded human history, it would just lead to a shantytown.

yeah those examples in france are basically just neighborhoods in paris and paris' perceived density is lower than hk so xp

related:
http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2011-06/nevada-passes-driverless-car-legislation-paving-way-autonomous-autos
― iatee, Monday, March 5, 2012 1:39 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

06/23/11 at 4:49 pm
I personaly don't see the need for this because in the end all machines can be hacked,damaged,and be injected with a bad viris. this is just my opinion but if people actualy paid attention to the road and did not drink 5 pints of alchol and then decide to drive home, accidents like this would never happen. i feel the same way to the proposition of inserting machines in the body. instead we should be geneticaly enchced it will feel more natural and wont need a power system.

otm

the man makes a solid point

There's a bunch of open space around where that was though, dayo! If it weren't for the bizarre lack of ownership or whatever, it would have spread horizontally as well as vertically.

right - but because of the historically unique circumstances it couldn't. so I"m not sure what point, if you have one at all good sir, you are trying to make.

I never said it was absence of rule of law by itself! Just that those were two factors. Sorry, I just kind of misread it as you taking me literally that it was just those two things. There were a shitload of things, I was just throwing out a couple that people fixate one

*on

oh I didn't see this in the times article kinda cool

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/newsgraphics/2012/0301-crowded/0304-web-CROWDED.png

errr guess not

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/03/01/realestate/manhattans-population-density-past-and-present.html?ref=realestate

lol la

Matt Yglesias has a new e-book "The Rent Is Too Damn High" - I haven't read it but apparently he argues that building codes that prevent vertical growth in urban areas are harmful to the economy:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/03/06/the_rent_is_too_damn_high_available_today.html

yeah I prob won't read it cause duh but everything in the book is probably true

another pov:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markbergen/2012/03/05/the-stagnant-city-how-urban-politics-are-pushing-rents-up/

more on that:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markbergen/2012/03/06/why-a-city-needs-a-nafta-and-a-nader/

the breitbartians have gone to the review section, incidentally...

http://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-ebook/product-reviews/B0078XGJXO/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar

By Ben - See all my reviews This review is from: The Rent Is Too Damn High (Kindle Edition)

I'll be honest. I was completely blown away by all the male nudity in this book. I wasn't expecting 20 pages filled with naked pictures of the author in various poses. I found the photos that included animals to be in extremely poor taste.

small-time (former?) big government contrib really goes in

1.0 out of 5 stars A boy should never forgive his cheating father, March 6, 2012
By
Morgan Warstler
This review is from: The Rent Is Too Damn High (Kindle Edition)
One has to forgive Matt for the circumstances that he grew up in.... as soon as he admits he is guilty. His father, Rafael Yglesias, was a serial cheater who documents in auto-biographical form how little respect he had for Matt's mom Margaret Joskow.

Growing up in that, needing to normalize and privately even "valorize" it, leads a young man's brain to create neural networks that make socialization antithetical to identity.

So we end up with a sociopath who covers his tracks with high-minded technocrat caring, whose policies and opinions lash out at any and all who'd look down their nose at his family life (ie the majority of rock ribbed Americans).

Forgiveness is a basic human trait, one that most world religions preach. But forgiveness comes after admission of true guilt.

Matt's life work to date is about trying to weaken the bonds of American values, because according to those values, he's not from high quality stock.

ugh

what does "rock ribbed" mean?

people who talk seriously about other people being from deficient "stock" are the creepiest people

That Warstler guy is an idiot. He's a regular commenter on Scott Sumner's blog, where I quickly learned to ignore him.

for whatever reason yglesias seems to attract some of the top trolls working today

i apparently still feel very cap'n save an yglesias all the time, even though i don't remember to read him much anymore

people who talk seriously about other people being from deficient "stock" are the creepiest people

Especially from people who insist the US is a meritocracy. bootstraps, etc.

If they believe both things, then their reaction to people from poor "stock" not being able to make it must be "sucks to be them," huh?

I sorta resent yglesias in the way that you resent people you meet who remind you of yourself but are a little more annoying. his worldview and my worldview have enough overlap that I don't really feel like I'm getting that much from reading him.

You're setting yourself up there.

haha

i wonder what the overlap is between the period when i stopped reading yglesias and the period you started posting a lot on ilx, iatee

okay taking my posts over from quid ag on why Y's arguments strike me as funny:

"on another note, Yglesias' overarching argument in that article also seems pretty nutty to me. I think there's an important argument to be made about the history of zoning restrictions & the growth of the suburbs w/r/t white flight and certain other things. And in the 90s there was very much an issue of the long-term negative effects of low-density zoning with sprawl turning into decay in lots of areas. But an argument that in the midst of what's going on with housing *now*, zoning is in any way an obstacle to construction is pretty weird."

"so again, in the gen. stuck article: "restrictive regulations on multi-family home building" are "discouraging talented middle-income people from settling in San Francisco and New York". really? Is that the problem with the economy? That too many people are discouraged from settling in New York and San Francisco? I hadn't noticed the shortage of young people settling in costal culture centers, but now that he mentions it, where *is* the young population in NY and SF from elsewhere? It's like there's no gentrification at all! And I mean everyone in NY and SF is totally employed and everything. Like full employment. So god knows the only thing holding these cities back is more freaking people."

"Basically I sympathize that the rent is very high in dense popular locations and this sucks, but I don't think this is a problem except to all the people who have to pay the high rent. And some of them (who have been living where they are for a long time, and grew up there even, as did maybe their parents) I have lots of sympathy for. And some of them I have less sympathy for. But I fail to see how the high rent in dense popular locations issue fits into any sort of coherent narrative about broader problems with the former u.s. economy."

I think there are lots of reasons why high-density living is a good thing: economies of scale, transportation, the environment, synergies, specialization. Zoning laws are basically an artificial restriction on density. They only serve to benefit existing property owners, who are de facto monopolists.

Basically I sympathize that the rent is very high in dense popular locations and this sucks, but I don't think this is a problem except to all the people who have to pay the high rent. And some of them (who have been living where they are for a long time, and grew up there even, as did maybe their parents) I have lots of sympathy for. And some of them I have less sympathy for. But I fail to see how the high rent in dense popular locations issue fits into any sort of coherent narrative about broader problems with the former u.s. economy.

― s.clover, Monday, March 12, 2012 2:42 PM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

alright so there's an overwhelming pent up demand for living in nyc or sf, (artificially) high rent due to zoning both make the cities (artificially) less competitive, discourage millions of well-educated people from moving there. and the income that people waste on rent would be being used more productively - if you didn't have to pay 50% of your income for rent, you'd eat out more etc. which would help the nyc restaurant industry. more jobs. new apartment buildings. even more jobs. new schools. etc. etc. you are thinking about nyc's economy as it exists today and saying 'how can 4 million people get jobs?' but not incorporating the gains that come from immigration, housing growth and a flexibile housing market. as well as continual economies of scale w/ productivity, information, transportation costs, etc.

er 'housing growth and a flexibile housing market' = repetition and a spelling error to boot wtg

to tie this into broader problems, there's a lot of evidence that strong industries, especially innovative industries, depend on high-density clusters of people and companies. policies that encourage high-density living and make it practical (mass transit) etc aren't just pandering to coastal elites.

i got in a minor argt with someone about this, specifically about 'historical preservation' districts and so on.

basically, the whole of a metro area is the living system and each part of it responds to the others. if there are more barriers to entry and blockages on changing things in the city core, then any need for anything new will be projected outward to less dense spaces, and be built according to those practices.

so when people try to lock down areas of the core city from (crass? ugly? this is usually aesthetic tbh) change and development, to keep it from "being like the suburbs", they are helping to build more things out in the suburbs

Zoning laws are basically an artificial restriction on density. They only serve to benefit existing property owners, who are de facto monopolists.

― o. nate, Monday, 12 March 2012 19:48 (6 minutes ago) Permalink

I'm a proponent of building more pretty much everywhere in NYC, but I think this is a bit simplistic. There do happen to be some nice aspects of lower density neighborhoods in a large city, and even though the bulk of them are enjoyed by people who already live in them, they're available to others. E.g. I enjoy visiting neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights/Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens and would be kind of sad to see them bulldozed for highrises.

I'm not arguing for zoning laws for the most part, and certainly not for sprawl. I'm just saying that yes rent in NY or whatever sucks, but it's not like NY & etc. are low density areas to begin with & citing things that are just massive freaking gentrification payola pits like atlantic yards doesn't really help anyone's case. And also the rents are terrible for the people paying them, and even worse for the people moving because they can no longer pay them, but new housing won't mean cheaper rents in lots of neighborhoods b/c it will mean more gentrification, and more displacement of ppl at an even faster rate, but even then new denser housing won't mean sweet fa w/r/t broader economic conditions.

also the nyc restaurant industry does better probably with ppl that can afford to pay zillions in rent than it would with ppl in more affordable housing (and more housing won't mean more affordable housing -- there's just too much demand!). also new people moving in wouldn't send their kids to public schools anyway because that's not how they roll. also I don't know in what measure you can say that nyc and sf are "less competitive." You want a less competitive city? Try st. louis. or detroit. And god knows rent is a problem there, right?

i got in a minor argt with someone about this, specifically about 'historical preservation' districts and so on.

basically, the whole of a metro area is the living system and each part of it responds to the others. if there are more barriers to entry and blockages on changing things in the city core, then any need for anything new will be projected outward to less dense spaces, and be built according to those practices.

so when people try to lock down areas of the core city from (crass? ugly? this is usually aesthetic tbh) change and development, to keep it from "being like the suburbs", they are helping to build more things out in the suburbs

― goole, Monday, March 12, 2012 3:57 PM (14 seconds ago) Bookmark

it's interesting to note that this kind of politics is kind of unique to America since America is just so damn big, even the oldest states like NJ are still very sparsely populated compared to other places in the world

And actually I think I remember hearing that New York has been trying to push some nuanced planning in Brooklyn where they down-zone some streets and upzone others, so builders can build higher and the brownstone streets can keep their character, I guess.

Look if there was a proposal to rip up the historic brownstones of yuppieville and replace them with low-income affordable housing then I'd think that was sort of neat. But that's hardly what this is about.

http://vodpod.com/watch/1302018-james-baldwin-urban-renewal-ii

there are still quite a few unused or under-used spaces in minneapolis along the riverfronts. plenty of these buildings are enormous late gilded-age warehouse and grain facilities, classic 'loft spaces' just begging for annoying upmarket gentrification.

my counterpart was arguing that it was fine for residents, through a policy process, to express a wish that the look of the place not change too much if the building was going to be developed into living & retail space. my argument was that it's better for a valuable chunk of land to be used for anything rather than sitting idle as a pretty industrial wreck. too many stipulations on what can be done with a space and nobody will do anything.

there are some ugly as shit condos around tho, don't get me wrong.

And also the rents are terrible for the people paying them, and even worse for the people moving because they can no longer pay them, but new housing won't mean cheaper rents in lots of neighborhoods b/c it will mean more gentrification, and more displacement of ppl at an even faster rate, but even then new denser housing won't mean sweet fa w/r/t broader economic conditions.

There seems to be something perverted about the way developer incentives are designed in new york -- you have all these luxury condos benefitting from tax abatements that were supposed to be for creation of affordable housing. I mean ok, maybe they sometimes create $400,000 1-bedroom condos in borderline neighborhoods, which, with an FHA loan and today's low rates could actually be affordable to, say, two teachers willing to sleep in the same room with their child.

That said, the fact that there's so much pent-up demand that housing isn't becoming cheap yet is not really a good argument for not building more, because based on the same reasoning housing will get even MORE expensive if you DON'T build.