Major cities are packed with parking decks, but decks are expensive, so they’ll only be built if land values are high. For most of America’s history it was simply cheaper to build out than up in most places.
It may be ugly, inconvenient, and environmentally problematic, but it shouldn’t be confusing.
Edit: it occurs to me that more parking, decks or otherwise, would actually be good for cars which seems antithetical to the point of this community… so I’m unsure what point is even trying to be made aside from calling America stupid
It would actually be bad for the cars, they would spend less time out in the sun causing them to develop a vitamin D deficiency, then they’d die from having weak bones.
But having parking garages wouldn’t reduce the number of cars as you say, but could potentially free up some land for useful things, which could make the cities more walkable at the very least
This is far from new. The best selling vehicle in the US has been the F150 for some 30+ years now and the top 5 spots have typically been pickups from GM and Ram/Dodge.
It’s funny you say that because there was someone on Reddit that would argue with people who stated that trucks are a ton bigger than they used to be. Their shtick was that trucks of yore and today are within a fraction of an inch.
While I don’t doubt the F150 is a leader in sales, it use to be F-Series trucks which included their commercial truck line and no other manufacturers could make that claim.
I live in an apartment with actual good sound-proofing. It’s almost dead silent inside except for the quiet hum of my AC. It’s legitimately so much quieter than my gf’s family’s house, where you constantly hear the rush of cars driving by on the street. Not to mention leafblowers and lawnmowers.
You're speaking from a privileged minority viewpoint, most people don't report living that way in apartments. I've lived extensively in both apartments and suburban homes, suburbs have always provided more peace and quiet. For every day that's been too loud due to lawn machines (a lot of suburbs it's only once a month for context) I've had a dozen more with people partying, stomping, fighting, shouting, grudge starting, complaint making, roach infestation having, shitty corporate landlord owning ruined days in city apartments. And they all costed a lot more. I'm paying half what I would in a city apartment for my suburban townhome with a lawn, and a park, and pool, and walikg trails, conveniently nearby all amenities in my area.
That's the part y'all need to adopt to get people on your side by the way; assure people who like suburbs that your plan isn't to tear down their existing environments for new ones. We're scared shitless you're all gonna try to force us into boxes, many of us will fight violently to oppose such action. Make it clear you're talking only about NEW developments and I think most people will support your cause. I do in principle, but the selfish American in me isn't about to give up my already existing paradise for your apartment block, especially when you provide no answers to the corporate landlord landscape we're operating in. Those of us who have been alive long enough know these plans usually end in lost livelihoods and destroyed dreams, the true benefits only going to the upper echelon of the highest earning capitalists.
If they built more apartments, apartments with good sound proofing would be more common. I used to live in Taiwan, and every cheap apartment I lived in had excellent sound proofing.
Once there is more competition in the apartment/condo market, quality will go up.
Exactly. When there is a housing shortage, landlords and developers have no meaningful competition, therefore they can offer sub-par housing for too-high prices.
Build more housing, make landlords sweat about vacancy, and you’ll see higher-quality units spring up like magic.
My city, Montreal, for instance, has perhaps the most affordable and YIMBY housing market in a major North American city, and the result is rents are cheap (by big city in North America standards), quality of life is very high, and landlords have much less negotiating power. For example, I was able to negotiate my rent down before moving in, and it’s also quite rare to see all manner of onerous restrictions like pet bans in apartments here.
When landlords have a credible fear of vacancy, they can’t afford to scare off prospective tenants with high rents, poor sound insulation, and pet bans.
Well that’s a plain ridiculous fear, you think government thugs are going to go door to door through the suburbs rounding up homeowners and forcing them into apartments?
The idea is to build enough, at a high enough quality, and at a price point, where it’s more appealing to new buyers.
You realize you are speaking from a very lucky position right? Everyone here agrees quiet apartments with clean facilities are pretty nice, but a large majority of apartment dwellers live in older, very noisy, very poorly managed facilities.
It’s very fair to want the conversation on improving apartments, it is super important. But you.have to acknowledge that people’s response about their apartment history is informed from lived experience.
I think the phrase “lived experience” should automatically disqualify someone from speaking about any topic. They’re just anecdotes, usually in contradiction to actual data.
So for example the “lived experience” of black folks in the southern US in the 60s isn’t valuable I’m the discussion of racism in America? Of course it is. Their first hand experience (indeed anecdotal as you say) is meaningful.
In the context of apartments, especially in America, millions of units are no where near the soundproofing or quality OP was describing. You could determine that by age of the buildings alone.
Do you have sound dampening data for apartments across the country?
Anecdotes are only problematic when they are purported as data. By definition someone relaying their lives experience suggests they are describing their individual life to you. It’s fine to want to move from anecdote to data, but when you talk about “disqualification” from discussion you’re just being a gatekeeper. There is no data rigor here, this is a message board about a meme.
Lastly the person I responded to described THEIR lived experience (the quiet apartment they have) so that further insulates myself and others from any objective requirements to comment.
So for example the “lived experience” of black folks in the southern US in the 60s isn’t valuable I’m the discussion of racism in America?
When their “lived experience” is “no, I’ve never seen any racism!” then no, it’s not really valuable, and it’s incredibly suspect to boot.
It’s fine to want to move from anecdote to data
Let’s just start with data. Anecdotes are supplementary. The way “lived experience” is usually used (and is used here) is to provide the primary support to an argument.
Again you’re expecting a rigor beyond the venue of discussion, especially given that the person I replied to started with an anecdote as well.
If you have data on the soundproofedness of apartments across the US to contextualize the common consensus to the level you expect I would be happy to browse it.
Until then I’m comfortable believing anyone (as in the many commenters here) who say their apartment was loud. The several I lived in were as well so I have no reason to question it
you’re expecting a rigor beyond the venue of discussion
Maybe, but I’m trying to change that. I think we can all be smarter than just trading anecdotes.
And your post emphasizes my point. We’re talking about a preferred hypothetical society, while the point he was trying to make with his anecdote is that apartments are and always will be poorly soundproofed, world without end. Obviously it sounds absurd when you extrapolate it out to the societal level, but when you couch it in anecdotal terms it makes the argument seem worth discussing on the face of it. It’s not.
We can talk about how currently apartments are shoddy in the US, that’s a worthwhile discussion. But to be against the idea of apartments in general because apartments right now are poorly regulated is silly.
It’s not luck. Things are built for a reason, the regulations and structures of society are designed, and it artificially dictate s what is built. Perhaps they live in a place where the regulations mean that sensible livable apartments are fairly abundant. Perhaps you don’t. That’s not luck, those places were designed that way.
I was born and raised in suburbia and only moved into where I am now. It is indeed partially luck that I had the capability and opportunity to move to a new city that has abundant apartments, missing middle housing, and a sane rental market. As a result of the abundance of apartments available, landlords have a credible threat of vacancy, and thus rents are lower, there are fewer restrictions (e.g., pet restrictions), and having decent sound insulation is common.
Sure, I doubt there is anyone here against rural self-sustained living, it is probably one of the more eco-friendly and humane way of living.
But once frequent car trip and road maintainance cames into equation, it might not be the most eco-friendly way any more. I understand not everyone cares about their fellow human being, but this is the point this post is trying to make.
iirc, the further away you live from a city then the worse you impact the environment. Unless you're literally a fully self-sustaining homesteader with no roads or utilities anywhere near you, then living in a city is basically always better for the environment.
That’s starting to change with solar power and EVs. I could see a small number of mostly off the grid homesteaders in a sustainable future. But they’d have to pay for the privilege
Rural neighbors. Even worse. Cowshit, ag runoff ruining our waterways, heavy machinery blocking streets, Trump flags inside every house and old boys racism everywhere the moment you're 'in' with them.
Instead of loud neighbors you have to deal with white trash family fights and drunk driving everywhere. Meanwhile everyone has a chip on their shoulder about city and suburban people ruining their world somehow yet they never participate in any of it lmfao.
I never hear my neighbors in a rural area. This community is so blatantly full of shit it’s laughable. As if you don’t deal with white trash or drunk drivers anywhere else. Instead in an apartment the white trash are banging each other with the windows open and getting arrested at 3 am with 8 cop cars flashing their lights in the parking lot.
No one listens to ideas from fuckcars-type people because they’re gaslighting lies that no one except other niche weirdos sympathizes with. Please do keep trying to tell rural people how much worse their situation is than living in an apartment. You don’t sound like a condescending jerk at all.
You could have just admitted there are pros and cons to both but instead you go on this gaslighting crusade to try prove someone else’s lived experience wrong. Good luck with that approach, no one is listening to you except other weirdos.
I lived both in dense neighborhoods, rural neighborhoods, and suburbs. Trust me, the more things you give your neighbor to do, the more shenanigans they will make, especially in place where everyone is bored out of their mind.
What about going to your doorstep to tell you that you need to maintain a lawn? your door needs to be a certain color? Or you cannot park your car on your own property? Or you cannot park somewhere simply because "they have always parked there? Or deafening motor noise that can be heard a block away right across the road from you? leaf blower and lawn mower so loud that literally require the person to wear a head phone to operate safely, right next to your house?
These are just a few things I have seen in the suburbs. Are these count as “close enough to you”?
No, I have experience none of these in the cities, because a lot of time, there is no HOA, most places do not have lawns, and I dont need a car in the city.
Also there are in general lawn mowing and leaf blowing are much more moderate in city, because they know they are surrounded by people.
That’s only true if the apartment is a shitty American 5 over 1 stick building. In a modern concrete apartment with concrete internal walls you wouldn’t hear the neighbors.
You don’t even need concrete. I’m in a modern building made from mass timber construction, and it’s dead quiet inside my apartment – except for the hum of my AC and the sounds of my cat meowing whenever he wants attention.
Take it from someone who is autistic, highly introverted and has only lived in apartments in my adult life: you do not ever need to see or interact with your neighbors. It’s as optional as with a house. The most I see of my neighbors is that once every few weeks I might stand in the elevator with one of them for 15 seconds.
Yup. My prior experience with apartments - even single height apartments - is that either you’re going to annoy someone with sounds (had a neighbor that worked nights and hated every thing I did when I was home) or you’ll be annoyed with someone not being quiet when you personally need it.
Hell I had a house with a neighbor who rented that liked to leave their dog tied up outside at 5pm barking incessantly. Not fun to come home from a day of work with a stressful commute to try to unwind.
Yep, it’s a crapshoot depending on your neighbors. Back in my dense living days, things were pretty good, except when the drug dealer moved in next door…
Same applies to some extend to suburban density, but even crappy neighbors are harder to notice… Except the house that does car tuning all the time with a priority on loud revving engines… Ugh…
Well, I live in a America and can’t wait to get out of apartments. I’ve moved a lot in my life and have a lower middle class income. I’ve never found an apartment or condo where I didn’t have to deal with hearing neighbors yelling, stomping, talking outside my front door in the hallway, opening sliding doors, listening to music, etc. Only twice, when I lived with a friend in their house, did I feel like I had any peace or privacy.
Sure, there would be lawns mowed and all that, but I’d take that over the things I’ve heard and worried about my neighbors having heard.
If I could have real privacy in an apartment I could afford I’d continue to rent, assuming I don’t get priced out of the market completely at this rate.
Exactly! We’ve gotten into this weird feedback loop where NIMBY policies like restrictive zoning and parking minimums and setback requirements have made there be a systemic shortage of housing in total, but particularly a shortage of dense, walkable housing near transit. This has warped the market such that large houses on large plots of land – which are objectively the luxury housing option – are cheaper than apartments or condos in a dense, walkable community near transit. This makes people think density = expensive, which makes people think we need to get rid of density for the sake of affordability, which just makes the shortage even more severe!
Can you elaborate? What about stating that I do not have the choice for noise isolated apartments demonstrates that I object to good, affordable apartments near me ?
No, hence my utter confusion at being associated with NIMBYism or being oblivious to the feedback loop or contributing to the problem out of ignorance. I’m stating that the only choice in a lot of places where I live in the US is a shitty, loud apartment/condo or a house with peace and quiet.
I don’t object to apartments but I do object to the general concept of apartments always being superior to the general concept of a house and that anyone who objects is part of the problem. Bad solutions, like shitty apartments, aren’t solutions. They can actually push people away from real, good solutions.
Ultimately it comes down to Capitalism Bad, even more Bad with (inevitable) regulatory capture. I don’t think “the powers that be” are interested in providing good solutions so we aren’t going to use “market forces” to make things any better.
If you agree that well-constructed apartments/condos should be part of the solution, then you’re not a NIMBY. Unless you’re saying they should be the solution somewhere away from you(r backyard) of course.
I understand the dilemma between a bad apartment and a good house, but that shouldn’t be the dilemma, and more housing helps prevent that. Better regulation too.
There’s nothing that differentiates “affordable” apartments those at that aren’t except the amount that are available. Maybe you aren’t a NIMBY but a lot do use similar arguments and then start on about heritage protection.
So what should I do in my current situation so that my choices about where to live help to improve the overall situation regarding housing and land use?
Note, my point isn’t Apartments Bad. My point is that my only choice is overpriced shitty apartments.
We lived in a concrete apartment, couldn’t hear the neighbors in their apartments but could in the hallways, and smell everything too, could hear the cars revving outside, and had to put up with the weekly (if not more often) fire alarm at 2am which meant evacuating the building. And no space for anything, no hobbies that might generate noise. Also have to deal with STRATA, hope you didnt want to put anything on your balcony cause they didn’t want that, hope you can wait 12 months for the leaking ceiling to be fixed thats dripping and growing mould.
Also it cost a fortune to heat or cool the place, we’re in a bigger place now that costs 1/2 as much to heat/cool
Ownership. You will not own your apartment, it will be owned by your landlord and you will pay him whatever he demands. You will not own the forest, either. The state will, or some private entity will. No trespassing.
You can still own and buy appartements in most places in the world. Then there are many forms of social housing.
Rent to own is also a possibility but not seen in most countries.
Seems your problem is not ownership but landlords.
Some countries in Europe have the right to roam on any land. State owned and private owned. (Maybe more countries somewhere else have it to but I don’t know)
It does not need to be so terrible. In some places it just is because of profits
Oh, you planted zoysia grass and maintain it well? That’s “inharmonious” , you need to tear that out and plant fescue.
You don’t have a maple tree of at least 8 feet in height in a particular spot in your yard? Inharmonious again, you need to buy a tree, can’t wait for a sapling to grow.
Your driveway has dirt on it? You must get it pressure washed.
You want to park your vehicle in your driveway? It better not have any branding from a company on it, or it better not be an older car or any pickup truck, those are too ugly for our precious neighborhood.
Regulations tend to be “don’t make fire hazards”, or “don’t block streets”, generally you can’t get a regulation on the books without an actual rationale behind it.
Yeah that’s my main concern. Also less space to store things like my bike.
Then there’s the upstairs neighbors. Like I get that the kids are loud. But also could the kids stop throwing stuff at my bird feeder. And their upstairs neighbors flooded the dang place
There is no such thing as universal right to roam in the US. Likewise, apartment ownership (we call them “condos” when you can own one rather than rent) exists here, but by far is the minority option in multi-family housing. You can claim you want to buy a condo or apartment as much as you want, but that doesn’t do you any good when no one is selling. Units are built to be rented which is a recurring revenue stream, which big capital likes a lot more.
The significant problem is not that nobody is whacking out slabs of apartment housing fast enough. The issue is that our underlying capitalist system is fucked, and a simple anti-car attitude is not going to fix that.
This isn’t a particularly convincing analogy. Islands have limited space. The suburbs where I live border tons of open space and parks. Meanwhile, our school district is already overwhelmed with children, so converting commercial spaces into apartments will merely add to congestion and sprawl. NIMBY’s make a convincing argument against denser residential construction.
A better focus would be the ability to simplify public transit and walkability. Town centers and public spaces could be more accessible with denser residential construction, and the additional green space can be closer to where you live without everyone needing their own half-acre yard to mow and water.
Yep, Toll Bros buys a horse farm and makes half acre mcmansions. There are some big properties that have covenants that prevent it, and the zoning in my township won’t allow new subdivisions less than 2 acres, and we have some great municipal parks which will never be developed. But that means everything is spread out to make public transit untenable. You need a car to get to the nearest train station, and then you need a car when you get off the train at any stop outside of the city.
There’s no one-size solution to combat sprawl. High density housing makes a lot of sense some places, and not so much in others.
God I hate living in high density housing. Dogs yapping, bass and loud music booming, smelly, loud, animal poop and pee on every green/natural area, higher crime, more traffic, etc.
That’s funny because I think commuter cars could maybe be replaced, but not trucks. How else do you haul supplies and materials for craft, industry, and agriculture? There’s sadly no viable alternative.
As a tradesman for over a decade, I much prefer working out of a van. They are a bit more effecient on average. They haul stuff really well and larger ones can even be used as a small workshop/well organized storage. Their decks are lower and easier to load and they accomadate large cargo without the need for tarps to water proof. Strapping stuff down is easy too as the walls can help. Many vans these days can be bought from the dealer ready to tow. For bigger jobs cube vans/trucks are also an excellent option.
Technically true, but I meant, like, there’s no alternative to a motor vehicle. As for van vs truck vs car, I’m just saying it seems easier to replace a commuter vehicle with alternative transport than it is to replace a hauling vehicle with alternative transport.
Both cars and trucks need to exist for some cases, like you need cars to get around in rural areas and farmers need trucks to move around and haul shit. The problem is using either where they don’t fit. You shouldn’t need a car to get around a big city and you certainly shouldn’t be using a truck to do so.
Fucking CAFE standards… Basically, the larger the truck, the less aggressive the mandatory improvements in fuel economy. So, manufacturers have eliminated the old, compact trucks from the 90’s and early 2000’s, like the Ranger or the S10. Their modern equivalents are now as large as full-size trucks from that era. Fuel economy has worsened considerably, because CAFE standards pushed manufacturers to abandon their most efficient vehicles and focus on their least efficient.
Don’t get me wrong, I love big trucks. I’m hauling 9 people and a 2-ton trailer every evening, in a 2000’s suburban. But aside from that, an old S10-sized truck would be the perfect daily driver for me, and I can’t get one.
I’m really hoping the alpha wolf truck that’s supposed to hit production soon is a decent vehicle. 300ish mile range EV truck around the size of the old S10. Supposedly going to start in the low 30k range before the tax rebate. https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8675dac0-c721-4466-ad5d-960bdd5a9abc.jpeg
Their web site has twice as many photos of the fancy shovels they plan to include with the truck as they have of the truck itself. Not exactly inspiring confidence here.
They have a working prototype they released footage of driving around and it’s supposed to go into production this year. Sorry you don’t like their marketing teams approach I guess?
The only thing I see from them right now is that they have a “marketing team.”. At least, they have someone who knows how to buy a domain name and produce 3d renders from a CAD file.
Prototypes are irrelevant. Anyone can produce a one-off vehicle in a garage.
The real question is whether they have the logistical chain established to support full-rate production. I’m seeing no indication of that.
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