https://nitter.net/balajis/status/1584432653386002432?t=uosOhLsaqPjfIPl7uJ4vOg&s=19
The concern about sprawl is that land is a finite fucking resource and we need to keep 30-50% of it pristine so bull dozing to build you McMansion isn't useful to this goal. If I was in a room with any tech bro I would probably end up in jail after 30 minutes.
The concern about sprawl is that land is a finite fucking resource and we need to keep 30-50% of it pristine
Broadly speaking, quite a bit of the US is entirely undeveloped. 1.9B acres, of which around 2% is actual urbanized real estate. A plurality (41%) goes to grazing pasture. Some 25-odd% is forestland and another 17% is agricultural. (Apologies for the shit url)
McMansions aren't any significant share of the hard real estate figures. They're just black holes for electricity, water, and transit resources, such that they require huge subsidies from the general public in order to function as attractive residencies. One of the reasons you don't see people piling out into South Dakota or Northern New Hampshire or or West Virginia is because there's no physical hook-ups to the national grids. 80 years ago, the entire Tennessee Valley suffered from this problem and we set up the Tennessee Valley Authority to roll out a bunch of these amenities. Great Society, similarly, expanding public services through the Gulf Coast and the Mountain West. But since the 80s, we more or less stopped this infrastructure expansion. And since the turn of the millennium, we've basically stopped repairing/maintaining the legacy infrastructure.
So now you've got a 10,000 sqft mega-house sitting on the California/Nevada border that's hooked up to a bunch of wires and pipes with at best a tentative connection to the sources of electricity and water. And because of the political influence of those far-flung communities, we continue to invest significant amounts of money in maintaining those far-flung networks while more efficient dense urban networks go the way of Flint.
Excellent summary.
The cost ineffectiveness of urban sprawl gets me every time—if you want to live in a rural area, live in a rural area. If you want to live with the amenities of a city, live in a city.
The suburban larp of pseudo-estate landed gentry makes the bloodmist fall over my gaze and all is oblivion until at least one jacked up commuter truck has been defiled.
I hadn't thought of the utility use/accessibility that you'd brought up, interesting.
But just to elaborate on the land conservation that I'd brought up, the location matters, conserving 90% of the areas people don't want to live doesn't make up for developing other habitats because those other habitats that developers like to develop are also important, if not arguably more important since maintaining these ecosystems can actually allow more people to live by them.
For instance mangrove forests protect Florida coastlines from storm surge, by cutting them down and not conserving a decent proportion of them your cities can get fucked by storm surge. Or in the case of Southern California by developing habitat that has small burns regularly you risk having large uncontrollable burns now next to development when you put out every small fire.
For instance mangrove forests protect Florida coastlines from storm surge, by cutting them down and not conserving a decent proportion of them your cities can get fucked by storm surge.
I agree. Although this then becomes very regionally specific and functionally we're talking about making the exigent city sustainable rather than just maintaining the biosphere generally speaking. In theory, you can have it both ways with even more artificial infrastructure. The only economic question is whether you think a man-made jetty or other barrier is more cost efficient than simply not tearing out all your mangroves.
Coastal real estate (particularly vacation real estate) also tends to be much more densely developed than inland properties. Building a twenty story high rise on the coast isn't superior to a McMansion, particularly if the high rise is accompanied by a mile-long stretch of peer buildings. Hell, the McMansion might be better simply because the resident is more likely to preserve the natural character of the property they just purchased.
Although this then becomes very regionally specific and functionally we’re talking about making the exigent city sustainable rather than just maintaining the biosphere generally speaking.
I agree that it's regional specific on some level, cities protected by mangroves in Baja or India can be treated the same as in Florida, though not everywhere has mangroves. But it's important to maintain them because most people live along waterways so maintaining wetlands for their ecosystem services is generally important.
The only economic question is whether you think a man-made jetty or other barrier is more cost efficient than simply not tearing out all your mangroves.
That's fair, but it's also more than just pure economics, when you remove these ecosystems it's difficult to bring them back so there's a hidden cost of making a miscalculation. It's also regional in the west you can maybe afford to build a levy and maintain it, but in other parts of the world it could make more sense "economically" to leave them there, presupposing that economics are the only thing to take into consideration, which I don't think you were saying but far too often people disregard the intrinsic value of maintaining nature.
Building a twenty story high rise on the coast isn’t superior to a McMansion, particularly if the high rise is accompanied by a mile-long stretch of peer buildings. Hell, the McMansion might be better simply because the resident is more likely to preserve the natural character of the property they just purchased.
I see where you're coming from but I think the car culture associated with suburbanization (McMansions) is a greater factor when you have fewer high rises.
I'm an ecologist from Southern California, it's a suburban hellscape. People wouldn't know this, but Southern California is a biodiversity hotspot, there are more species of plants and animals per area there than in most parts of the planet. It's also highly and unnecessarily developed, which fragments many of the unique ecosystems that occur there, putting them in danger of going extinct largely due to the way that we develop. It's not due to habitat development perse, just the way we choose to develop under a capitalist organization of the economy.
Built-up areas makes up a small fraction of earth's landmass but land where it makes sense for people to live is a very finite resource. People want to live in urban areas or in reasonable distance to them and have access to infrastructure, socialisation, culture, employment etc.
Today capitalist development squanders that land on building bullshit "luxury apartments" or McMansions, thereby creating a housing crisis. A reasonable society would have used that land to build housing for ordinary people.
The concern about sprawl is that land is a finite fucking resource and we need to keep 30-50% of it pristine
That's a concern, but not the only concern. Besides land use, it's also resource and energy inefficient. The distance between everything and low density forces everyone to have a car. Sprawl also encourages shitty chain stores and strip malls. Overall it's just a horrible place to live.
Also keeping 30-50% of the world pristine is ahistorical. Much of the "natural" beauty settlers saw in the western hemisphere was being shaped by humans for millenia. So in the US's case I think we should prioritize landback over simple conservation.
Edit: Also urban sprawl relies on a transfer of wealth from the cities
muh Burning man
Yes, let's learn city planning by looking at a summer camp for self-important hipsters instead of looking at actual cities that are doing actual stuff that actually works.
Set up the city for telecommute
What does this even mean? Sure, some office workers have that possibility but there's no such thing as a telecommuting carpenter or nurse or firefighter. Most people need to go somewhere for work.
We also have self-driving
No we don't. Not outside of closed, heavily monitored systems like subways. If you want cars, somebody is going to be driving them for the foreseeable future.
For Christ's sake, city planning is not that hard, most problems has been solved ages ago: Build ample cheap transit that also works outside of work hours, build public spaces like parks and squares, and prioritise pedestrians, bicycles and transit over private cars. Build dense buildings to facilitate walkability but avoid building bullshit like skyscrapers that are too big for the human scale.
telecommuting fire fighter
"Yep, that sure looks like a fire. You should get out of there."
:this-is-fine:: Great, thanks!
What does this even mean? Sure, some office workers have that possibility but there’s no such thing as a telecommuting carpenter or nurse or firefighter. Most people need to go somewhere for work.
Just buy a Tesla robot bro, just operate a Canadarm.
This is the person calling you utopian on twitter for believing in communism
That 8 hour burning man traffic jam is just lack of vision. Why not a permanent burning man traffic jam?
Hell In My Back Yard > Zilch In My Back Yard > Heck I Mistake Building Ordinances > Not In My Back Yard > Yes In My Back Yard > Ballin In My Back Yard > Pee In My Back Yard
god imagine all vehicle transport being limited to underground car tunnels. That's a cyberpunk future if I'd ever heard one. Literally just have trolly buses running in an circle constantly instead
my self driving tunnel car took me to the Police station because I tweeted mean things at :melon-musk:
it only took 48 hrs to get me there because all the tunnels are constantly jammed with traffic and stoppages due to all the tunnel fires
I stave to death or burn to death before I reach the Police station for my thought crimes
Land of the Free
Home of the Brave
:amerikkka:
Now I'm kinda disappointed there isn't some remnants of permanent burning man as a Fallout faction
Keep it stylized like the 50s 60s and have them all be beatniks would be so good
like why not instead just make a city that can be traveled by public transport, and also maybe make houses close to the workplaces that don't cost all the money instead of hoping we can someday invent a remote builder or something dumb idk seems like a bad idea
That really can't even be called engineering anymore. It's become a painful artisanal craft of hipsterdom guided mostly by aesthetics and petty political squabbles.
What if the kind of jobs that you can do from home aren't part of a sustainable economy? It's easy to have a bunch of stay-at-home jobs when all your production takes place elsewhere in the world. But as travel routes get interrupted by various crises, then that kind of system isn't very efficient or good. That's why there is a certain amount of deglobalization in the works by capitalists. They're realizing that the global supply chain thing is prone to collapse.
Now you could do production with automation, domestically. But then that requires taking care of people who aren't doing labor for you and that's a no-no.
It's kinda like the problem isn't how we design cities or what tech we have, it's the system. The system will not allow for solutions that even its most loyal adherents dream up. Because any real solution for the long term requires abolition of the system. It's incompatible with actual problem solving.
what's fascinating to me is how this guy probably thinks he's dreaming up entirely new and innovative worlds of infrastructure with his ideas, even though they are completely lacking any kind of imagination. The only thing he can come up with is just endless sprawl supported by whatever Le Hecking Elon Musk Death Traps are in vogue right now.
What is this tech bro obsession with self driving cars?
Public transportation? Nah bro, let's simply come up with cars that can reliably interpret all the information a human needs to take in in every possible situation that might occur while driving. Surely that's easier to do than a bus.
By the way, if you had to choose, would you kill a child or an old person? No, really, I need this for the car AI.
While simultaneously refusing to implement actual trolleys in real life.
