So would I, but when you try to talk to ultra-urbanist zealots about that, they act like you’re deranged for wanting your own land in a quiet place, using the devil’s transportation to go places public transit could not reasonably service.
IMO: Anything that’s not a converted unit or a 5-over-1, and where the construction company purchased insulation from somewhere that isn’t a dollar store
This is the true issue. The const of construction doubles to make these things truly soundproof. No one ever does that. Even if you design it that way it’s the first thing the owner removes in VE.
Ha ha yeah, in theory at lot of things are great - I’ve been in a lot of new build appartments recently and you can hear the neighbours in all of them, they’re expensive ones too
I know this is a joke but I wanna hijack this comment to say you could spread out the housing a little to not be apartments but still only take like 30%
the only time i hear any neighbours are when they’re either outside, or the upstairs neighbours drop a fucking anvil on the floor, then i hear a slight “thunk”.
Better than listening to your upstairs neighbor beating his wife. I would call the cops, but they couldn’t do anything unless she pressed charges, and she never would. We would get quiet for a couple of days though, but then he’d be doing it again.
Growing upward as opposed to outward helps in numerous ways. It pollutes less, costs less in services, takes up less land and the list goes on. The issue isn’t apartment buildings, the issue is badly built, uninsulated in every way and overpriced apartment buildings.
There should be some sort of regulation as to how soundproof each apartment must be. Soundproof enough to not her casual sex and whatnot, but not too quiet as to never hear someone screaming for help. Add in filters into the hallways or whatever to manage smells and it would be pretty great.
IDK what the culture is like at your school, but if you’re feeling motivated consider offering to organize a group ride to school to encourage others to join in. It could just start out as a one-time or once a month thing and increase from there if there’s enough interest.
It would be a similar process to organizing a club, though the exact steps would differ between schools. Ideally you’d meet up at a common central location for everyone and then continue onward to school, picking up other students along the way at other checkpoints.
The GO Train pictured in your lawful neutral served 35,234,400 passengers in 2022 and covers 526km connecting 27 cities (rough count).
The old diesel-electric fleet was replaced for higher efficiency/lower emission units about a decade ago and these models are now being converted into even lower emission units.
In the next decade a large portion of tracks will be electrified.
Yeah, I heard the GO trains are undergoing some massive upgrades to provide better frequency and through-running lines. I wish they would do something to modernize the sorely lacking Exo trains here in Montreal. At least we got the REM now, though.
Go is amazing. I can get on a train in Toronto West, like 5 minutes from my house and that train takes me straight to Niagara falls in comfort. I can’t wait till we get faster trains
@uriel238@Album yeah! Let's vote for a high speed rail, give the contract to a racist antisemitic jerk who will dig a few feet of test tunnel then throw a party with flamethrowers.
yea man, i was wondnering too. trains are the least harmful, even the most polluting ones, the amount of torque they deliver for the amound of fuel consumed ratio is just beyond consideration
There’s a study I posted below that says that bike lanes are just about always safer, didn’t really talk about sidewalk riding though. Where I live (not Florida) there’s a lot of blind driveways, so riding on the sidewalk can be dangerous for cars coming out of their driveway. (Second link describes that). Happy riding!
It’s simple: blocks are not built in cities to minimise the footprint like in your meme but to build cheaper and sell more and in the same time externalising the costs of infrastructure development.
A mid density block is something, a heavy packed “bedroom” neighborhood is another.
How about apartments for people who want to live in apartments, and houses for people who want to live in houses, and proper civil engineering to limit sprawl?
Why does it always have to be black or white? There’s a shade of gray here that’s closer to the apartment model, but that would still allow freedom of travel. Public transportation SUCKS ASS. Cars are a central identity to Americans. They are part of our culture. Not having them just means everyone feels like another bee in the hive.
Because this “high density housing” is code for commie block slave quarters.
There are places, and I know this is hard for you city dwellers (which translates to “bourgeois” in French FYI) to understand, where there is still nature, there are still forests, the houses are a miniscule proportion of the land area. Its like that basically everywhere else except for where you insist on living and think everyone should live. It’s really pretty, but the downside is that you cannot get by with a busywork job sitting at a desk doing nothing productive all day. I know that’s a deal breaker for most of you. Some of us have the life you wish you were living, or something close to it, no expecting the whole world to bend over backwards to accommodate you required.
where you insist on living and think everyone should live.
Where people want to and do live
No one is coming for your ranch/farm/cabin. If you had the life “we wished to live”, you’d be in a dense community with access to local cafes, restaurants, markets, entertainment, and other neighborhoods without needing a car and with a healthy amount of green space as well. We’re specifically, typically talking about population centers.
The house lets you shut out and avoid other people, which is vitally important for safety. People are not good, and they are best avoided when possible. They will hurt you, and enclosed cramped spaces like apartments offer nothing but opportunities and reasons for violence.
Might be a silly question, but would it be better if we somehow turned suburbs into being more akin to rural towns? Like the suburbs could maybe have nearby town centers that they could walk to in 10-15 minutes that would allow small businesses to operate in.
I don’t live on the mainland, so no idea how it actually works.
Yes, absolutely. You can also combine both proposals, and have apartment blocks near those neighborhood shopping centers. The people who want their yards and lawns can have them, there’s room for more people who don’t mind living in an apartment, and the businesses that open in those town/neighborhood centers have more customers living close by. I live in a city in the Netherlands that has put this concept into practice, and it’s really great.
I mean, that’s kind how it is where I live. I live in a 1400sf home on .23 acres of land. I’m five blocks from downtown, where there’s businesses, a courthouse, a train station, thousands of apartments. All the schools are walkable. Parks are walkable, with amenities like pools/splash parks, playgrounds, a paved trail network. We fit about 6,000 people per square mile, which is pretty dense.
I don’t think it exactly fits the 15m city concept, because I don’t think there are enough jobs in town to support everyone, but it’s a pretty good mix. A variety of housing types is important, simply because people want what they want, and I think it makes a more cohesive society to try to have something for everyone.
"Streetcar suburbs" were a thing in this country for a long time. Towns would get built up along streetcar lines, and people would walk to the streetcar to commute into the city. Because there weren't huge numbers of cars density was a lot higher and it was very walkable.
The US. Denver used to have 160 miles of streetcars. The Streetcar Conspiracy that they make fun of in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Straight up what happened.
Absolutely. Back in the day before the car, even rural towns were built fairly densely, typically around a train station. They had to be, because you had to be able to walk everywhere in town, and the train was the main way to get in and out of town. Even to this day, many streetcar suburbs exist, where they had lain out a streetcar line radiating from the city center into the countryside and built mid-density along it. Many of these suburbs exist to this day, and they are often dense, walkable, transit-oriented, highly desirable, while not being anything so dense as Manhattan.
This style of development has been made literally illegal in most of North America through restrictive zoning codes, parking minimums, setback requirements, and other local regulations.
If we just made a return to traditional ways of building communities, our cities and towns and suburbs would all be vastly more human-centric than they are today.
I can’t see the NYT article, it’s behind a paywall, or maybe just an email wall, I dunno, but I find it hard to believe that “most” of America restricts density. I live in NJ and density is almost a must these days, we’ve essentially developed everywhere. Even the towns with multimillion dollar homes are being forced to accept density.
Personally, the solution needs to be tax land higher. You want your 2 acre property? You’re gonna pay for it. And that money will be used to help keep housing affordable.
I look to my own state because it’s what I know. A city like Jersey City has an R-1 zone for it’s least dense zone. At a minimum, you’re talking two family housing. Replacing old housing stock is a process, and so while the zoning has changed to allow for greater density, it’s just taking time.
New York looks pretty good to me, and I think could be a model. I think even 65/35 would be a good mix of high and medium density to single and two family housing.
In regards to all these cities, zoning may be in place for SFH, but how old is that zoning? Some places just don’t update their master plans. And like I said, I can’t really speak outside of NJ because the law is going to be different anywhere. I like to think it’s just a matter of time before things get modernized, but I don’t know.
For sure, agreed. But there’s so much goddamn land and so few people. It’s not like the sprawling suburbia of NJ. I just don’t know that we can apply the same standard, or what the value would be for doing so. It makes sense along the northeast corridor. Land is valuable, and it’s a great place to live, and in an effort to keep things affordable we can apply density. Out west, in states that, when I look at a map, I need to really think about what state it is, I don’t know that the density is as necessary. And where it is necessary, cities exist. But I’ll admit, I’ve been to St. Louis once, but probably nowhere else within maybe 250 miles of it, so it’s a mystery to me.
I’m not even sure what I’m talking about anymore, I’ve lost the point.
I like the idea of a villiage square type plan. You have a bunch of 2-5 story buildings around a central green area. Each square is essentially a little community and you can allocate some of the ground level space to retail.
I live in an area with great green space and great neighbours, I just wish I didn’t have to leave my area to get to literally any shop.
Low-density sprawl essentially requires cars. Further, cars need a ton of space for roads and parking lots. Denser, more walkable communities don’t need nearly as many cars and don’t need nearly as much roads and parking lots.
I disagree. I live in the suburbs in Europe and there is plenty of single family homes with a garden here. But you’re still always within 500m of a bus stop or tramline. Have been living here without a car for quite while, it’s fine.
I’d be curious what the population density numbers are. There’s a world of difference in density between, say, single-family rowhouses and classic American suburbia.
Ah, there’s your answer. I love rowhouses and think they and other “missing middle” are a great compromise for getting denser, more walkable, more transit-oriented communities while still avoiding being like Manhattan. True low-density sprawl (as seen in so much of the US and Canada) is detached single-family homes with large setback requirements, large parking minimums, and typically large lot size minimums. It’s purposefully designed to essentially enforce car-dependent sprawl.
The style of development you describe is what we call streetcar suburbs, as they were generally developed along streetcar lines in the days of yore.
The style of development you describe is what we call streetcar suburbs, as they were generally developed along streetcar lines in the days of yore.
Yeah, you need to build these, they are great. During the busy hours, mine is like a 150m walk away and there is tram or streetcar every 3.5 minutes. It’s amazing.
But unlike in an apartment, you have the whole height of the building, so nobody above or below you. And the walls seperating the houses are really thick, so noise is much better than in an appartment block.
I guess you give up mostly garden space. I don’t think people specifically “want” that, but it’s still usually cheaper and much better situated than a proper free-standing house.
And most people don’t use front or side yards for much anyways, just decoration. I’d much rather have backyard than those, especially if it means I get the amenities that come with density, such as transit and walkability.
Plus, rowhouses just look so aesthetically pleasing. I don’t understand how anyone hates rowhouses.
A college of mine owns a rowhouse around here, fully paid for and all. It’s worth like a quarter million … in CHF on the market. Housing prices are just insane. Compared to me he is super rich, even though he earns less than me.
Though, we’re quite far off the topic of cars now. But you are OP and Mod, so what do I know.
But unlike in an apartment, you have the whole height of the building, so nobody above or below you. And the walls seperating the houses are really thick, so noise is much better than in an appartment block.
That entirely depends on the construction. When I lived in a row home the duct work for the master bedrooms on either side shared a space with no sound insulation, so each side could hear just about everything in the other.
I live in a house attached to someone else’s and it’s pretty great
We have big open spaces in front and behind us instead of each house having their own big lawn. We have separate, fenced backyards but behind that is just a big open field with some benches and tables and trees scattered about.
But essentially, for the same cost as cars, the lowest density possible before becoming rural 106 households / sq mi (6 acres per household) can have a bus pass every 6 minutes, 24/7/365. You can double frequency by adding a second stop on the way to a transit spine.
The idea that an American city might have a housing area A) without roads and B) with a bus stop and C) one that shows up every 6 minutes instead of once an hour makes me want to cry
Single family housing is a massive contributer to (sub)urban sprawl and car dependency. Increased residential density can reduce the need for cars by reducing the distance between people’s homes and their workplace, shops, etc.
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