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

shantytowns are pretty dense!

yeah but not kowloon walled city dense!

no but denser than like, san francisco

the density that happens in hk only happens because growth happens vertically, not horizontally

yeah for sure, but that's not the only factor. like mumbai and kolkatta are denser iirc and not particularly 'tall' because people live 300 to a room.

but yeah kowloon sorta was the best of both worlds, poverty and height

india also has a billion people

I think HK's population density is under-calculated because the majority of land in HK is actually undeveloped, mountainous terrain. forget the exact number but I think something like only 10% of the total territory of HK is actually inhabited.

walled city was 3.25 million people per square mile. perfect density imo.

Then again, areas that require fewer building permits and less review in the US tend to have some really bizarre issues. I could totally picture the suburbs of the future having few government building codes, strong residential association codes, and absolutely horrible internal construction standards.

By "of the future", you mean "1986", right?

like the official density figure for HK as a whole is 16,000/mi^2 but I think that for the urban areas where people actually live, it's closer to the neighborhood of mong kok which is 340,000/mi^2* (and not particularly tall compared to most modern housing estates that have been built)

*holds the guinness world record for area w/ highest population density in the world

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.