Quote:
Originally Posted by YOWetal
I think it is a culture war. There are those whose livelhood is largely seperate from economic growth who demand we sacrifice our lifestyle at the altar of climate change and there are those who find collectivity abhorrent no matter the reason. Those are cultural choices.
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That type of language is part of the problem. Lifestyles constantly change and evolve and have done so countless times throughout history. My lifestyle has changed various time even during my own lifetime. But painting any sort of change as "sacrificing your lifestyle on an alter" which implies that it's dying is not only unproductive, it's just outright wrong. Having something change about your lifestyle doesn't mean your lifestyle has died. Pretending that it has means you're not open to any sort, pragmatism, adaptation, or compromise yet all these of these things are necessary to solve most major problems. Doing something different because it helps solve an important problem isn't "killing" anything. And it should go without saying, but the dangers posed by a problem like climate change are not a cultural choice. The risks exist and pose the same threat regardless of how anyone feels about them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by YOWetal
A lot of the climate change warriors also abhor shoe box condos, density while being in favor of unlimited immigration. At the same time they are against sprawl. In fairness a lot of them have concrete preferences for something like the built form of Paris. 3-6 story apartments surrounded by great public transit. We have a lot of municipal and state governments across North America I don't know any that have moved in any meaningful way towards that. Vancouver has an active anti-sprawl movement. The result is very high housing prices. Condo towers and a stagnant economy. Meanwhile the going all in on highways to open up virgin land to more and more SFHs is a proven winner in many cases. Many southwestern US cities have kept up building roads to access the city and allow familes to buy the housing they want. Their downtowns are desolate hulks, they are fat and unhealthy but they do get real benefits from building free and plentiful roads.
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Being anti-sprawl doesn't cause high prices and sprawl doesn't cause low prices. Limiting supply causes high prices. But you can have dense supply just as easily as you can have sprawl. Those southern US cities would have prices just as low or lower if they had either built densely to begin with or allowed density to increase organically without putting exclusionary restrictions on infill such as with SFH zoning. If a city like say, Phoenix, had built the same number of greenfield housing units at twice the density, the prices would be just as low because there would be just as much supply. But people would have much greater mobility since everything would be closer together and they'd have a choice between modes rather than the car being the only practical option. And they would be cheaper since it would take much less infrastructure - everything from roads, to water, sewer, and power - to connect all the homes since they'd be closer together.
The only thing that makes sprawl necessary to lower prices is that it's the only release valve when new supply is demanded when there's no option for large scale infill after all the land in the existing area has been occupied by low density development. But if you build densely from the beginning and keep building densely as the city expands outward, the dense development does not constitute as "sprawl" and there's no upward pressure on prices since a shortage isn't able to develop. The only reason people benefit from all the excess car infrastructure down there now is because it's the only work around for the low density that's still enforced. In the case of Vancouver, it like many cities in NA, grew with restrictions that limit most residential land from being used for anything but low density housing and limited most infill to being highrise condos.
But yes, fixing past mistakes tends to be costlier than not making the mistake to begin with. Like the old saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." But that's the fault of the mistake, not of the fix. And not fixing past mistakes ends up being even more expensive in the long term (and sometimes even the short term).
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