[HN Gopher] Remote work's toll on cities
___________________________________________________________________
Remote work's toll on cities
Author : andrewl
Score : 87 points
Date : 2022-12-29 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nymag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nymag.com)
| koheripbal wrote:
| > cities must let developers convert office buildings into
| housing
|
| This is an Activist piece - not an Analysis piece. You cannot
| trust facts reported in an article that's advocating change.
|
| It cherry picks a number of facts in order to further the
| arguments.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| > convert office buildings into housing
|
| Can't be done. Office buildings of significant size are not
| engineered for 24/7 human occupation. The sewer will be
| inadequate. The water will be inadequate. Retrofitting this
| would be spectacularly expensive, if it's even possible, as
| mechanical and plumbing chases are sized for the original
| design requirements and are difficult (if not impossible) to
| alter. It may be possible to do if residents were willing to
| use shared bathrooms, but they will not be.
|
| HVAC is not sized for 24/7 habitation either. Neither are
| electrical requirements. Stoves produce a lot of unaccounted
| for BTUs. They require larger electrical service. The
| electrical service has to be metered individually, which
| requires quite a lot of space.
|
| Also, when some natural disaster hits and the city loses power?
| You can't go home. Your home is 50 floors up. Nobody is walking
| that. The elevators are sized according to different rules than
| residency, so there are not enough of them, and they won't all
| be on a generator anyway.
| cozzyd wrote:
| I live in a converted office building. And few office
| buildings are over 50 stories (in fact, the higher floor
| counts are usually residential towers).
| adamjcook wrote:
| Detroit is doing it all over the place.
|
| I live in an office building that was first opened in 1914
| and was converted into residential units.
|
| Another 18-floor office building across my street is being
| converted as we speak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_A
| rtists_Theatre_Buildin...).
|
| The Park Avenue Building is supposed to be converted in
| residential units by the end of 2024
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Avenue_Building).
|
| The Book Tower (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_Tower) is
| nearing completion with a host of residential units in its
| main tower.
|
| Griswold Street, a major avenue in Detroit that cuts through
| our financial district has converted so many old office
| buildings into residential units that I have lost count.
| expdshn wrote:
| From the posted Wikipedia links, it appears that at least
| the United Artists building has already begun being
| demolished.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Building infrastructure is scoped for maximum occupancy at a
| point-in-time, not over time. And maximum occupancy is
| typically denser in an office than residential.
|
| Put another way, what matters is the maximum volume the
| electrical, sewer, HVAC, elevators, emergency power, etc can
| handle. If it is scoped to handle 1,000 people for 8 hours of
| a day, it will do just fine for 300 people 24 hours per day.
|
| > Also, when some natural disaster hits and the city loses
| power? You can't go home. Your home is 50 floors up.
|
| I mean, you're acting like 50-story residence buildings don't
| exist, when in fact they do in many cities already.
| x0x0 wrote:
| Nobody is saying residential buildings don't exist.
|
| The claim -- which all the experts seem to back -- is you
| can't convert large office buildings to residential. For
| some of the reasons parent says, plus more importantly, you
| only have a habitable outer shell or donut given light
| requirements. And it's extremely expensive to take water
| and sewer, which are all located in the core, and
| distribute them out to each future apartment.
|
| See eg https://slate.com/business/2022/12/office-housing-
| conversion...
| cozzyd wrote:
| It depends. Smaller scale prewar office buildings work
| pretty well (I live in one). 80's postmodern towers not
| so much. At least here (downtown Chicago), it's mostly
| prewar office buildings that are obsolete for modern
| office use and are being converted to residential and
| hotel.
| gruez wrote:
| > Building infrastructure is scoped for maximum occupancy
| at a point-in-time, not over time. And maximum occupancy is
| typically denser in an office than residential.
|
| That... depends? On one hand, an office building scoped to
| handle 1000 people for 8 hours a day might handle more peak
| toilet flushes than 300 people for 24 hours a day, but the
| latter might get way more peak
| shower/dishwasher/sink/washer use than the former.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Converting office buildings to residential is something
| that already really happens, so there's not actually a
| question about whether it is possible. My comment was
| just to summarize why.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| _> Can 't be done._
|
| It can be done and has been done, but what the article fails
| to recognize is that it is spectacularly expensive--the
| original build-out, of course, but _also_ the maintenance
| (I've seen this firsthand in the stratospheric HOA fees in
| the one class-A office-to-residence conversion I toured in my
| condo search).
|
| Office to residential will happen, but it will be at the top
| end of the market. It is fundamentally incompatible with
| affordable housing.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| How much were the HOA fees in that building? Just curious.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| For a ~$400k 1BR+den, about $1k/ month. This building
| also has $1-2m 3BRs where the HOAs start at $2k and go up
| north of $3k.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| wow that IS pure insanity
| [deleted]
| silon42 wrote:
| IMO, elevators are just as bad as cars (exceptions of course
| apply)
| marstall wrote:
| What about all the industrial lofts that were converted into
| residences beginning in the 80s? Not every commercial
| building is a skyscraper.
| masklinn wrote:
| Conversions from business to mixed or residential have
| happened so it's not an impossible thing either e.g. 70 Pine
| Street.
|
| And while business buildings are not internally designed for
| 24/7 occupancy, their _accesses_ are scoped for much higher
| occupancy as businesses tend to have denser occupancies than
| residential.
|
| So most of the problem is the interior setting, which has to
| be retrofit anyway.
|
| > Also, when some natural disaster hits and the city loses
| power? You can't go home. Your home is 50 floors up. Nobody
| is walking that.
|
| Residential towers exist all over the world. And that's
| literally what Billionaire's Row is.
| kkfx wrote:
| Even ignoring the effort needed and it's cost: who want to
| reside in former office buildings if now downtown areas start
| to be depopulated from local workers and so services built
| for them?
| cozzyd wrote:
| Plenty of people live in service-devoid suburbs. Services
| follow density of people.
| kkfx wrote:
| Ok, good. So what's the purpose of converting former
| office buildings in residential one? Workers who left
| them surely do not came back in them to reside, they left
| and choose new homes more apt to the WFH purposes,
| something not easy to find in a dense city.
|
| Where you have plenty of space to develop renewables in a
| dense city? Where the home garage to recharge your car?
| Where the place to get larger and larger package due to
| the flourish of on-line retail? Where the place for
| future flying cars/drone delivery etc?
|
| If middle-class people start to de-urbanize cities would
| be let full of desperate with much job offers to find
| work.
| woodruffw wrote:
| One possible purpose is demand shift: lots of (relatively
| affluent) people want to live in cities, and are
| currently inflating rents in neighborhoods that otherwise
| would be more affordable.
|
| (In general, it's incorrect to assume that WFH implies a
| desire to flee to suburbia, particularly in dense
| cultural hub cities: people often seek employment in
| these cities _because they want to live there_ , not the
| other way around.)
| cozzyd wrote:
| There is plenty of demand for living in dense walkable
| places, which is why they're more expensive per square
| foot than houses in the burbs. You don't need to recharge
| your car if you don't have one at all, which is much more
| sustainable.
| autoexec wrote:
| > You cannot trust facts reported in an article that's
| advocating change.
|
| There's zero reason why an article advocating for a change
| can't also contain trustworthy facts. I'm not saying this
| article is a good example of one, but I wouldn't follow "You
| cannot trust facts reported in an article that's advocating
| change." as a general rule. Pretty much every article
| advocating for a change is going to include facts, but that
| doesn't make them all untrustworthy. Advocating for something
| in an article doesn't require the author to ignore everything
| that doesn't support their viewpoint, or lying/misleading, or
| cherry-picking.
|
| Identifying that an author is advocating for something should
| cause you to be on the look for out for those types of things
| (that's just critical thinking), but they shouldn't be assumed
| and the article or the facts it contains shouldn't be
| immediately dismissed as untrustworthy or wrong based on that
| assumption.
| marstall wrote:
| welcome to ... language itself?
| throw10920 wrote:
| Thank you for making this distinction - it's a very useful one
| to have that I did not previously.
|
| From the other nymag.com submissions on HN, and a look at their
| frontpage, and my past experiences with their articles, it
| seems like NYMag is an Activist _news outlet_ , so this is not
| very surprising, if rather disappointing.
| rr808 wrote:
| One of the problems with this too is that a major reason people
| live downtown is for the short commute to the office. If the
| office doesn't exist or in the suburbs, is living downtown
| still be attractive?
| cosmotic wrote:
| Remote work will change, not devastate, American cities. It's
| pretty silly to live a split life anyway. Homes empty half the
| day and offices empty half the day; not an efficient way to use
| space.
| spritefs wrote:
| I personally wouldn't have a problem living in a city like SF if
| crime and homeless were less common
|
| But since this is a literal nightmare in SF, being less "car
| dependent" or appeasing these whining activists is the least of
| my concern.
|
| I could give a shit less about "car dependency" if I have to
| worry about my own personal safety on a regular basis. Expecting
| people to put their own personal safety on the line to reduce
| "car dependency" is asinine. If city advocates want people to
| move to their cities, they should get their shit in check first
| before even bothering to ask
| fundad wrote:
| Most people in SF have cars, most streets are lined with garage
| doors. There are many without cars but the city is designed for
| cars.
|
| If you're ok with car dependency then the suburbs are more
| comfortable. If shopping and hooking-up aren't as important
| than safety you are winning.
| spritefs wrote:
| > Most people in SF have cars, most streets are lined with
| garage doors.
|
| Ok. But what about cars getting broken into? Isn't that
| incredibly common?
|
| If I hypothetically lived in SF, I definitely wouldn't bring
| a car just bc I don't want my catalytic converter getting
| stolen or the windows getting broken
| anarticle wrote:
| Companies did RTO wrong imo, the correct incentive was bonus pay
| for in person. If people are going to be ruthless about money,
| then go for it. Prices for how much that is worth might stabilize
| and save companies from themselves. US cities are built around
| commuter models that don't work well when people don't have to
| come in.
|
| Cities are very upset tax receipts are lower and are increasing
| taxes to shore up budgets. Not a good sign.
| avalys wrote:
| These conversations are kind of like the airplane on the
| treadmill problem, where there are (approximately) two orthogonal
| sets of assumptions/preferences that lead to obvious but
| incompatible conclusions, and people end up yelling at each other
| over the conclusions without realizing the difference is just the
| underlying assumptions.
|
| Personally - I don't want to live in a city, or a town, or even a
| neighborhood. I don't mind seeing my neighbors but I don't want
| to hear them and I don't really want to interact with them. I'm
| perfectly happy driving 30 minutes or 45 minutes into town to run
| errands. I don't think that living out in the suburbs (or
| further) is "boring" because I don't like crowds and I'm not
| going to do anything that people in cities do for "fun" anyway.
|
| I'm living in a suburb now because I need to be close to work -
| and for my career involving hardware, that's unlikely to ever
| change. But if I could truly work 100% remote and I knew this
| would last me 10 years - I'd move somewhere further away in a
| heartbeat.
|
| If you think the world is made up mostly of people like me - you
| think remote work is going to devastate cities because who in
| their right mind would want to live there if not for work? If you
| think the world is made up mostly of people who want to live in
| cities in the first place - you think remote work will make
| cities better because a lot of disadvantages of city living are
| due to the need to accommodate a daily commute.
| SkipperCat wrote:
| Everyone should be able to live the way they want to, but the
| cost of people living far away from each other is a large
| amount of carbon being burned and going into our atmosphere.
| There is a reason suburbs and exurbs only came about when cheap
| fuel became available.
|
| I hope a day comes when renewable energy sources fix this
| issue.
| courgette wrote:
| I don't find suburbs boring. I find them soul-less.
|
| I grew up in rural France. Small village have shops, bars,
| services like post-office, hair-dresser and whatnot. It's not a
| dichotomy between things and absence of things.
|
| Suburbs would be fine in my own personal book if they were
| offering basic services and a sense of comunauty.( not in
| warehouse operated by large chain, but by people living there
| and earning a livehood out of it )
|
| Totally get your point about being left alone, but I still want
| the place I live and raise my kids to be a network of humans
| sharing a sense of belonging. Not private lots next to each
| other.
| candiodari wrote:
| > I grew up in rural France. Small village have shops, bars,
| services like post-office, hair-dresser and whatnot. It's not
| a dichotomy between things and absence of things.
|
| Ah, comparing France of 30 years ago with US today. Reality:
| France has changed. I mean, this model hasn't totally died,
| but it's in it's last spasms.
| sokoloff wrote:
| People have different preferences, so it's unsurprising that
| what you want and what others want will sometimes be
| different. I'm perfectly happy to, even prefer to, interact
| with strangers on a daily basis when I'm out doing things.
| When I come back home though, I want to be able to shut all
| that (literal and figurative) noise out and just be with my
| family or invited guests.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| That's not inherent to rural/urban, that's just good
| soundproofing. A badly soundproofed house won't help
| anymore with a neighbor's shitty leafblower than a badly
| soundproofed apartment will help with a car's backfire in
| the street.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It just so happens that 25-200' of spacing and trees is
| _remarkably effective_ soundproofing, which is a lot
| easier to come by (as in is often the default) in a rural
| setting.
| prepend wrote:
| I suppose it depends on your suburb. Mine is 40 minutes
| outside of a top10 US metro area and has shops, bars, hair
| dressers and whatnot.
|
| Perhaps they are soul-less, but I think it's quite beautiful
| with trees and trails and safety.
| bnralt wrote:
| Around here at least, most of the cool local places around
| here are in the suburbs. That's where you find 99% of the
| "ethnic" supermarkets (Polish market, Japanese market,
| Chinese markets, Korean markets, Indian markets, etc.), where
| you'll find the more authentic ethnic restaurants or
| bakeries, where you'll find the authentic bubble tea shops,
| the family restaurants, etc.
|
| Not that you can't find any of this in the city (though
| almost all the ethnic markets are gone now), but the rent
| inside the city proper has gotten so high that you're often
| left with large chains and places that are trying too hard to
| be "hip."
|
| In general I feel like I'm more likely to find a cool hidden
| treasure exploring the suburbs these days than exploring the
| cities.
|
| And I don't think it's just around here. For example, I've
| noticed that many Chinatowns around the U.S. have moved
| towards the suburbs over time.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Cities may have a soul but they lack a heart (and a brain
| too). From 2018 through 2020, the NCVS found
| that the violent-crime rate in urban areas was between 29
| percent and 42 percent higher than the rate in rural areas
| The property-crime rate in urban areas was nearly twice as
| high in 2021 as in suburban areas (157.5 to 86.8
| victimizations per 1,000 households)
|
| https://www.city-journal.org/violent-crime-in-cities-on-
| the-...
| dublinben wrote:
| Crime is just one of many quality of life factors.
| Mortality rates are significantly worse in rural areas than
| urban areas, and the gap is widening.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-
| rural-a...
| darth_avocado wrote:
| The modern suburbs in the US are soulless and boring. I grew
| up in suburbs outside of US and they were anything but
| boring. The core of it is density and city planning.
|
| 1. The suburbs I grew up in had mixed zoning, you had
| apartments, multi family homes and single family homes in
| every 5x5 blocks.
|
| 2. There were smaller public spaces reasonably located to
| where you lived. Instead of massive parks for an entire
| corner of the suburbs, you had a lot of empty lots developed
| into smaller gardens bustling with neighborhood kids
|
| 3. Streets were narrower and the sidewalks were wider
|
| 4. Shops and mom and pop stores were part of the
| neighborhood. Those apartments that I talked about, had cafes
| and local stores where the store owners knew you and your
| parents. I remember walking alone to the store at the age of
| 7 and bringing back stuff my mom needed, without having a
| phone on me.
|
| The more you make people spend time in their neighborhoods,
| the more you have a character. If you have to take your car
| out for every little thing, you spend more time in your car
| than walking around and knowing people in your neighborhood.
| thewebcount wrote:
| > The modern suburbs in the US are soulless and boring.
|
| I find this refrain tiresome. I grew up in a US suburb and
| had similar experiences to what you describe outside the
| US. I mean, yes, there are some suburbs in America that are
| husks of their former selves due to economics, etc. But I
| grew up in a small midwestern suburb of a failing city. I
| had the following:
|
| 1. Would regularly walk or ride my bike to the store with
| my friends to get things at the age of 7+.
|
| 2. A vibrant art scene.
|
| 3. A plethora of science and learning opportunities
| including a branch of a well-known University.
|
| 4. A walkable downtown with mom and pop stores.
|
| 5. 30 minutes from big events like concerts from our
| favorite rock bands. 60 minutes from famous sports
| franchises. 30 minutes from the symphony and art museums.
|
| 6. 5 minutes in the other direction was rural farmland
| where you could learn about agriculture, etc.
| scythe wrote:
| >where there are (approximately) two orthogonal sets of
| assumptions/preferences
|
| >I don't mind seeing my neighbors but I don't want to hear them
| and I don't really want to interact with them.
|
| _Nobody_ wants to hear their neighbors. The biggest complaint
| you have about cities is shared by most of the people who like
| them. It 's just that buildings are often not built to manage
| noise properly, for a variety of reasons (age / imperfect
| information / deregulation / ...).
|
| Of course, if it offers you no upside, don't live there. But I
| suspect that perspective is rare.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Many people want to live in cities, including remote workers.
| They like being in a lively place. If anything, they leave big
| cities because rents are incredibly high.
| asynchronous wrote:
| Or they leave because they realize raising a family in a big
| city is orders of magnitude harder when remote work is an
| option.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Or because they no longer like being in a lively place. It gets
| old and the quality of life is very low for the prices you pay
| because space is limited and there's enough people that are
| willing to pay anything to be in a lively place.
| Nursie wrote:
| There was a lot of worry about this with London during the
| pandemic, to the extent that the politicians seemed to be putting
| the interests of Pret a Manger (a sandwich chain) ahead of health
| measures.
|
| In the end it seemed likely that commercial landlords were a
| driver behind the politicians - if people no longer come to the
| city, who will rent my extremely expensive office space?
|
| British workers were made to feel like they were letting the
| country down, not coming in to the city, not spending money in
| city-centre shops, personally responsible for bankrupting
| business owners.
|
| Meanwhile my _local_ sandwich bar and my _local_ coffee shop were
| getting a bunch more trade. As were my _local_ tradespeople, as I
| used what I saved on train travel to pay for work on the house.
|
| The effort to drag people back to workplaces was massively short-
| sighted in a country where politics and earnings are massively
| london-centric, where public transport is often straining to meet
| demand for commuters, and commuting by car jams roads and pumps
| out tons of unnecessary CO2.
|
| The hollowing out of big city centres should be considered a
| victory. Spread the wealth, cut unnecessary travel. And give
| commuting time back to families.
| [deleted]
| wesleywt wrote:
| Nah. It will become living spaces rather than office spaces.
| Especially for people who love the density of city living.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Toll? That's a wild title
| akmarinov wrote:
| Another headline: Remote work to invigorate America's smaller
| communities
| marstall wrote:
| yes! In my state, there are dozens of small former industrial
| towns, often in beautiful natural settings, and/or on excellent
| transport arteries.
|
| They have space convertible to offices aplenty, revitalizable
| downtowns, cheap housing. I myself just made the move from the
| bustling capital city to a wonderful city of 17,000. I bought a
| large Victorian house for half of what my tiny city house was
| worth. I can walk to the library, movie theatre, restaurants,
| cafes. Nature is all around. There is an Amtrak Station. I
| could go on!
| wesleywt wrote:
| Or.. Remote work will change how we use cities.
| robg wrote:
| Yes, more city housing is the answer.
| shmerl wrote:
| I don't see how that's a bad thing for cities where housing
| prices were sky high already.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Boo hoo.
|
| US cities are abysmal. Chronic underfunding of public transit and
| bad zoning policies that make it illegal to build dense means
| that we have some of the most unlivable and exclusive cities in
| the developed world.
|
| People are speaking with their actions. No one wants to deal with
| commuting downtown anymore. The expense, the time, the stress,
| just to further line the pockets of a small number of already
| incredibly rich rent seekers.
|
| Forget it, I am done and 100 more submarine articles will not get
| me back.
| netman21 wrote:
| The first time I heard this prediction was in 1994 when the city
| of Atlanta told workers to stay at home and work remotely over
| the internet to relieve congestion during the Olympics. Still
| waiting.
| dukoid wrote:
| Submission to the automobile has already devastated America's
| Cities...
| wmeredith wrote:
| This was my first thought. It's already happened. It will
| happen again as long as technology continues to displace
| production from locale in new and interesting ways.
| norcon4 wrote:
| Maybe I'm biased, but I think cheering on the toll of remote work
| on cities is being sanguine. Cities have existed for a long time
| for reasons beyond proximity to work. Their decline will
| represent a decline in wider society. We centralize people and
| resources to give everyone better access to resources and
| economize on infrastructure. This pattern is as old as
| civilization itself. Bully for you if you can make off with the
| loot to the hills. As cliche as it sounds, we live in a society.
| Of course there will be winners and losers. But to me, the
| picture of wealthy, isolated, and spread out exurbs hoarding the
| wealth while cities languish in poverty is an incredibly bleak
| picture of the future. My hot take is that remote work is
| unnatural and has only taken off because of how laborious
| commuting and unaffordable housing have become in this country.
| Like others have said, many remote workers will still choose
| cities because of what they offer, and they could be much better
| places to live if we re-invested in them as such.
| fundad wrote:
| There isn't evidence that urban resi real estate is coming down
| at all. If it sinks below 2008 levels, I'll worry.
| tharne wrote:
| > My hot take is that remote work is unnatural and has only
| taken off because of how laborious commuting and unaffordable
| housing have become in this country.
|
| Prior to the industrial revolution, most people worked in the
| same place that they lived. Farmers farmed the land adjacent to
| their house, shop owners lived above their shops, etc. Working
| in an office is not natural; working in or adjacent to one's
| home has been the norm throughout human history.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I largely agree, minus the "unnatural" part: remote work _can_
| co-exist with urban development, and does in many places. The
| US is somewhat unique in the extent to which it 's externalized
| the costs of non-urban (primarily suburban) living; there's no
| particular reason (other than difficult politics) why we can't
| price those externalities in and have _both_ strong cities and
| remote work for those who want.
| DevX101 wrote:
| Remote work has the potential to make neighborhoods more dynamic.
| With more people at home, there's more demand for nearby coffee
| shops, entertainment, food options. I prefer the decentralized
| neighborhood approach to the hub and spoke model where you
| commute to a big city from the boring suburbs.
| xnx wrote:
| Urban planners and other entrenched interests are a huge
| obstacle to progress in the US.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| humorous way to say it, since architects and their cousins,
| urban planners, have had vast and creative ideas for decades,
| while local government, real estate sales and their
| colleagues, real estate lending have crushed their hopes with
| coffee each day.
|
| source: professional urban planning office in California
| thegginthesky wrote:
| Yeah, GP has no idea what they are talking about.
|
| I lived with urban planners and architects for 20 years,
| read books about zoning, about the effects of urbanization
| on aquifers and rivers, about the differences between
| cities that grew organically like Sao Paulo or Mexico City
| vs cities that were bulldozed to fit a central plan like
| NYC.
|
| Never ONCE in my life I had read contemporary literature or
| heard a urban planner defend suburbia, or advocate for
| single use zoning only, or even say neutral things about
| American Suburbs. A majority of Urban Planners and
| Architects across North America, South America and Europe
| (my sample) are very much against it as it's not
| sustainable, creates traffic and other myriad of problems.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I agree with your comment, but: I don't think NYC was
| bulldozed to fit a central plan. The city's (really, just
| Manhattan's) street plan was developed in 1807 and
| finalized in 1811[1], at a time when most of the island
| was still wetlands and marsh.
|
| (That's not to praise the Commissioners' plan, per se,
| but only to observe that no dense city was bulldozed to
| enact it.)
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioners%27_Plan_
| of_1811
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I would love more concentrated neighborhoods like I've seen in
| many places across Europe
|
| many other places across Europe dont have this or most people
| arent conveniently located
|
| but my point is that this doesn't seem to be an option _at all_
| in the US, unless you are in a nice development within one or
| two cities. not an option in the suburbs anywhere to my
| knowledge.
| landemva wrote:
| I would be surprised to find this in suburbs, though Boulder
| might fit.
|
| Some wfh people have easily found it in resort mountain towns
| in USA, which have similarities to European resort mountain
| towns (outdoor activities, walkable, size constrained by
| geography).
| pjlegato wrote:
| That's correct. US zoning laws have banned the construction
| of dense urban neighborhoods and required car-centric
| suburban neighborhood plans since about World War II.
| Mandatory density limits and setbacks and numbers of parking
| spaces and square feet per occupant and other zoning
| regulations make it illegal to build anything other than low
| density suburbs.
|
| Many people still want to live in a dense, walkable
| neighborhood, though; supply is just fixed at ~1940 levels
| forever. The few prewar walkable cities that still function
| such as New York and San Francisco are very expensive as a
| result. Housing that was built for and occupied by working
| class people for generations is now too pricey for all but
| the rich.
| parineum wrote:
| > US zoning laws...
|
| That's an incredibly broad statement since most zoning is
| handled on the state, county or city level. There are
| plenty of places in the US where someone could build an
| equivalent SF or NYC and yet they don't.
|
| > The few prewar walkable cities that still function such
| as New York and San Francisco are very expensive as a
| result.
|
| You seem to be drawing a causal link here, walkable leads
| to desirable and expensive. Yet, as I mentioned before, not
| only is it possible to build walkable cities in many
| states, there are plenty of other walkable cities that
| aren't expensive or desirable.
|
| I suspect that SF and NYC being the both historic and a hub
| of two giant economic engines of the US, the tech and
| financial sectors respectively, has a lot more to do with
| the pricing of those areas than their walkability.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > I suspect that SF and NYC being the both historic and a
| hub of two giant economic engines of the US, the tech and
| financial sectors respectively, has a lot more to do with
| the pricing of those areas than their walkability.
|
| Demand - from various sectors over time, sure, but also
| geographic constraints
|
| Each are different enough to only talk about in
| isolation, but of the commonalities you can't dismiss how
| interrelated the density and walkability are. A byproduct
| of the geographic constraints with a constant need to
| fulfill the demand.
| jen20 wrote:
| > there are plenty of other walkable cities that aren't
| expensive or desirable.
|
| Can you name some of them?
| davidw wrote:
| Most US zoning is pretty similar. There are exceptions
| like Houston, but by and large, zoning codes aren't that
| different from place to place. A lot of the model codes
| were derived from similar sources, IIRC
|
| https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines has some
| good, if brief history of all of it.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > Many people still want to live in a dense, walkable
| neighborhood
|
| I believe this is not true. _Some_ people want this, yes,
| and it may be that they are overrepresented here or tend to
| form bubbles so that they think this view is predominant.
|
| If a majority of people wanted it, it would happen due to
| the majority electing people to their local governments
| that support it.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| This assumes there is a strong link between government
| policy and the way constituents vote, which there is
| increasing cause to doubt, particularly at the local
| level.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It seems to me that it's the best we can do. How else are
| you going to change anything?
|
| I can support candidates who campaign on allowing mixed-
| use in their zoning policy. Or I can support candidates
| who support keeping business, industrial, and residential
| areas separated. It seems that most people (not all)
| support the latter.
| scythe wrote:
| More importantly, it assumes you can vote on the result
| of a policy, when in reality you can _at best_ vote on
| the policy. For example, you can elect politicians who
| promise to lower gas prices, but in practice, their
| influence is limited. A more relevant example is that
| people may want to vote themselves lower housing prices,
| but who vote to restrict development in ways that
| ultimately increases the cost of housing.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| I managed to find a suburban area with restaurants,
| groceries, and shops within walking distance in the US and it
| is an amazing, life-changing thing. I am never ever ever ever
| ever leaving. US zoning laws _need_ to change.
| johnkpaul wrote:
| Where are you? This sounds like a magical place of unicorns
| and fairies. :-)
| selectodude wrote:
| Most inner-ring streetcar suburbs of old major cities are
| like that. Nassau County in New York, the North Shore in
| Chicago, anything off the Green Line in Boston.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Under the existing framework of zoning, you were able to
| find a place that well met your preferences and you never
| ever*4 plan to leave. From that place of extreme
| contentment, you conclude that zoning laws in other places
| _need_ to change (emphasis yours). Interesting.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > but my point is that this doesn't seem to be an option at
| all in the US
|
| There's quite a bit of this on the East Coast as it tends to
| be older. Pre-war towns in particular. Some rather affluent
| places too with trains to the local major city, etc. It's
| nice to have large single family homes and yards and be able
| to walk to the butcher, coffee shop, bookstore, or
| restaurants and the train. However, in Europe you generally
| won't find large, single family homes in this type of
| setting. Mainly multi-family and very small by American
| standards. Especially the UK.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| you might have a point, there is a lot of identical
| suburban sprawl throughout the east coast but is also that
| older setting
|
| I would need some specific examples to look at for
| inspiration though, and see whats wrong with them
|
| > However, in Europe you generally won't find large, single
| family homes in this type of setting. Mainly multi-family
| and very small by American standards. Especially the UK.
|
| You're right, I want the rich person's classic large
| Parisian apartment facing the main thoroughfare, with
| alleys of winding shops and cafe's in the back.
| analog31 wrote:
| The pessimist in me expects more demand for food delivery
| services than for walkable shops.
| twiddling wrote:
| Then you run into local zoning. I for one would love more mixed
| zoning in neighborhoods on city boundaries, but too many
| entrenched interests at the moment
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Zoning may change with more people working from home and
| wanting things closer.
| andybak wrote:
| I live in the UK and local shops, restaurants are
| ubuiquitous. Is that really something that is actively
| legislated against in the US?
| masklinn wrote:
| > Is that really something that is actively legislated
| against in the US?
|
| Yes. Zoning in the US tends to be restrictive and
| exclusionary, as in a given area is zoned for one type of
| use to the exclusion of any other. This means an area zoned
| residential does not allow _any_ commercial use, not a
| local grocery, not a restaurant, not a barber shop.
| Furthermore, residential zones tend to be further
| restricted in order to preclude any sort of MDU or even
| townhouse, it 's common for suburbia to have miles and
| miles of "single family" (exclusively detached residential)
| zoning.
|
| And this is not small cities in the boondocks, Seattle,
| Charlotte, Arlingon, or San Jose, are above 80% single-
| family zoning.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Other comments have described the situation well, but I
| want to note that "suburbs" like this are pretty common in
| the US, but not like the only place to live. In particular
| they are a place where lots of people move when they are
| getting established in their careers, and starting to have
| kids -- lots of people grew up in them so they get an
| outsized weight I think.
|
| We also have college towns and small cities! I tend to pick
| places where there's something walkable, and have never
| lived in a place where I couldn't walk to a shop or
| restaurant (although "walkable" is subjective I guess, I've
| been in places where I had to walk 45 minutes through
| parking lots to get groceries).
|
| I dunno, suburbs are a funny thing... it is easily knowable
| what they are and what you are signing up for when you move
| to them, but lots of people end up there as a sort of
| default choice (or maybe not really a choice, they can be
| the most affordable place to get a house that fits multiple
| kids comfortably and isn't in the absolute middle of
| nowhere).
| ahoy wrote:
| Extensively, yes. Having housing & non-housing in the same
| area is rare in much of the US.
| andybak wrote:
| But... What happens if you've had a beer and suddenly
| remember you need a pint of milk for the morning?
|
| To pick an entirely not uncommon example from my own
| life...
| SoftTalker wrote:
| What if you do? In my experience in small European towns,
| shops close up at 5:00 or maybe a bit later but if you
| remember at 10:00pm (or on Sunday) that you need milk for
| the morning you are SOL.
| andybak wrote:
| My local supermarket shuts at 10pm and failing that I
| walk 5 minutes further to a 24hr petrol station.
|
| For reference I live 3 miles from the center of a town
| with a population of about 280,000.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| In much of the country, you either have it delivered or
| you go without it. There's commonly no reasonable way to
| get to a store without a car.
|
| I'm just moving to the suburbs but I had to specifically
| go looking for one with shops in walking distance. It's
| far from the norm; I've lived in places before where the
| only way to a shop was along a major highway and it was
| too far to reasonably walk unless you had no choice.
| alexb_ wrote:
| Then you wait until tomorrow so you can drive half an
| hour to the Wal Mart. Or get it delivered. There are also
| places like Dollar General and gas stations which sell
| essentials for incredibly inflated prices nearby that you
| could walk to (but can still be miles away)
| euroderf wrote:
| The HOA (Homeowners' Association) might state, for example,
| no corner shops. So, you want a quart of milk or a loaf of
| bread ? _Get in the car!_
| drivers99 wrote:
| Yes. There's a recent Not Just Bikes video[1] about third
| places (think UK pubs) and how they are largely missing the
| US and Canada. For more about the reason for that
| (Euclidean zoning), which is touched on in that video, this
| City Beautiful video is good [2]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvdQ381K5xg&t=8s
|
| [2] U.S. and European Zoning, Compared
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNe9C866I2s
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I bought a house in a suburb a few years back. There is a
| little convenience store in the neighborhood a few blocks
| walk. Also a little Italian restaurant. It's pretty neat
| but this is the first time I've had this in 25+ years.
| Generally residential means residential. Nice part is it's
| pretty hidden inside the neighborhood so almost all
| clientele is local. I probably wouldn't like it if it was
| convenient to a major road and traffic was pulled in.
| shoulderfake wrote:
| The big problem with that is that zoning laws in america
| compartmentalize everything and you don't have many places with
| intertwined shops/markets with residential areas.
| a3w wrote:
| On youtube, Notjustbikes states that mixed commercial/residential
| areas solve most transportation problems. Living in such an area,
| I absolutely concur.
| bm3719 wrote:
| My long-term prediction: Rural areas and exurbs will up-class,
| housing the higher-paid remote workers. The remaining non-farming
| rural poor will be priced out of these properties and will have
| to live in cities, in ever smaller apartments and eventually
| pods. The nice services that often are only available in cities
| currently will distribute more evenly geographically, negating a
| lot of the benefits of city life.
|
| This will have some positive effects, like having the countryside
| and its adjoining natural environments better curated, along with
| the large underclass masses living more resource-efficiently. The
| main downside will be that cities will be even more of a
| concentration of crime and other social ills, combined with worse
| public infrastructure due to reduced city tax revenue.
| dcre wrote:
| There are still huge returns to concentrating nice in-person
| things besides work in one place. Nobody is attending zoos,
| museums, or restaurants remotely.
| bm3719 wrote:
| If transportation accessibility has recently peaked and will
| invert, with fuel and vehicle prices continuing along current
| trends, the lower classes become increasingly less mobile.
| The better off can drive their $100k SUV to fine dining and
| museums, which may be as close as the nearby town/city
| center. They might accept that trade-off in exchange for
| space and separation from urban blight.
| dcre wrote:
| Driving an hour sucks no matter how nice your car is.
| throwawayoaky wrote:
| all of these things have already been happening for a long
| time. no jobs == priced out
| ergvgdvgrd wrote:
| A story like what you're describing is in the etymological
| history of the word "villain". The rich had villas outside the
| city and people who lived and/or were servants in a villa were
| villains. No judgement here, but interesting parallel.
| tayo42 wrote:
| this has already happened a few times. then the cities get
| cheap, people move in, gentrification happens, poor people move
| out of the cities and repeat
| xrd wrote:
| I was stuck in the Portland airport during the snowstorm. I had
| several illuminating conversations with people in the five hours
| I waited to reschedule my flight there at the airport.
|
| For context, my family recently relocated to a medium sized
| Florida town (~100k) from a Portland suburb.
|
| It was really interesting to hear the 20 and 30 somethings in
| line with me talk about Portland. They seemed to prefer it to
| Florida (where one grew up) and Portland, Maine (where the other
| grew up). They loved access to snowboarding (1.5 hours away from
| downtown Portland) and the restaurant and music scene. I half
| assumed they would be intending to flee Portland, but their
| mindset was not the same as mine is (saturated with bad news from
| Twitter and shitty local news stations).
|
| My news feed is all about the crime in Portland. These two people
| clearly weren't bothered by this to the extent I was (with small
| kids, etc). I think for many young people, living around other
| young people is still very, very important. I miss that part of
| my old life. It seems very stale in central Florida, to be
| honest.
|
| It's a small sample, but if cities could convert their downtowns
| into affordable homes (option to buy, not rent) I bet there would
| be a resurgence of young people establishing long term ties. If
| you don't have kids, you can avoid the homeless people (Portland
| recently voted to evict them from downtown anyway) on your way to
| multiple dates and drinking establishments.
|
| It (revitalized downtown) happened in Detroit, right, when they
| were at the bottom. Why not in all the other cities? Crime is,
| even now, no where near the levels it was in the 80s when I grew
| up in Portland never felt uncomfortable at all. Social media is
| amplifying a point of view for certain people, IMHO.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| I live in a high-crime area. I hear gunshots every now and
| then. In two years there's been one shooting on my block.
|
| I treat others with respect and mind my own business. My
| neighbors reciprocate, and don't bother me.
|
| For various reasons it was convenient for me to go for
| regularly long walks late at night, and I never ran into any
| issues with that. There was one homeless guy who was grumpy I
| woke him up, so I learned to aim my headlamp better.
|
| In my experience people who end up seriously hurt by criminals
| tend to be criminals themselves. It's pretty easy to stay out
| of all that.
| kkfx wrote:
| Mh, allow me a question; let's say almost all offices would be
| abandoned and converted to residential buildings: who will reside
| there?
|
| Modern cities have economy of scale as main reason to exists.
| Most western word is evolved toward tertiary sector, most cities
| have experienced such trend more than the rest of the country.
| Cities still have some social purposes of course, being many
| means meet more people to select as friends, partner, have some
| services that are unlikely in the countryside etc but the main
| raison d'etre was economy of scale.
|
| Without offices who need much of restaurants, health-related
| services, shopping malls etc? Here (EU) it's a not-that-recent
| trend that large malls, supermarket etc disappear or suffer and
| get split in more smaller instances spread in the territory BUT
| even if we do so WHO will reside in cities?
|
| Who want to live in an apartment instead of a home to WFH anyway,
| also counting the fact that many services will closed in cities
| due to lack of office workers?
| danielrpa wrote:
| Cities exist to serve people's needs. The 2 existing models are a
| relic of a low technology past: suburbia with long car commutes
| to downtown, and dense cities built around facilitating mass
| daily movement to the office through subway/public
| transportation. Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods
| catering to different lifestyles and needs (some higher density
| and walkable, others still car-centric but encouraging shorter
| car rides) with limited need for long car rides or large
| investments in mass public transportation.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| You need some kind of long distance transportation with enough
| capacity in cities still, because people just don't stay in
| their little neighborhoods, they want to try the new restaurant
| in neighborhood A, catch up with a friend in neighborhood B, go
| to the sale in neighborhood C and before you know it all these
| little trips add up really fast. This wouldn't happen if our
| neighborhoods were clones, but that would be terrible.
|
| Tokyo is a carpet of self-sufficient, dense neighborhoods, and
| yet people still travel all over the place in large numbers.
| synu wrote:
| Where are you referring to where there are only two city types?
| I live in the Netherlands, neither of the two existing models
| you describe sound familiar in any countries around here,
| although our cities were certainly designed in a low tech past.
| courgette wrote:
| Thanks for remembering about most of humanity.
| cryptonector wrote:
| It's all local. u/danielrpa was referring to local
| conditions, and so was u/synu.
| danielrpa wrote:
| I was referring to the United States, but you can adapt
| the principle to other places, but with updated
| descriptions.
| ido wrote:
| A lot of the Ruhrpott[0] resembles that example and is
| considered a kinda shitty place to live in by a lot of
| Germans. A friend of mine who came here (Berlin) from there
| summed it up as "you spend _a lot_ of time in your car".
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr an area in Germany
| close to the Dutch border
| kulahan wrote:
| Are context clues no longer a thing? This is a story about
| American cities. Why would you assume he is also referring to
| all non-American cities?
| synu wrote:
| People here often talk make statements expanding on the
| original article and I was curious, but in any case thanks
| for confirming this is a US-only thing. Makes sense.
| delftlander wrote:
| As someone who lived in the Netherlands until 2018, I lived a
| very different experience than you. While those two models
| aren't perfect matches, they are quite familiar--at least in
| North and South Holland.
|
| Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht (ok, not Holland...) had
| mass amounts of people from surrounding villages (essentially
| suburbs) with longer commutes to work in the city (model 1).
| I knew several people who worked in these cities and had a
| daily commute of 40 to 60 minutes one way for university or
| work.
|
| A lot of Amsterdam can be seen as a densely populated area
| facilitating moving people from residential areas to
| commercial for work (essentially model 2). It absolutely has
| a rush hour of people commuting from both the surrounding
| areas and different neighborhoods; this is seen in both car
| traffic, trams, taxis, and trains. Many other large cities in
| neighboring countries (e.g. Brussels) would also fit this
| description.
|
| These might not be a 2-hour commutes, but it's far from
| living, working, and shopping in your neighborhood.
| kkfx wrote:
| The modern (now past) city model was about economy of scale:
| competing business in a small area means innovation, lower
| prices and specialization. Since such model do not exists
| substantially anymore cities have almost no purposes anymore.
|
| Suburbs where people live but do not have services also suffer.
|
| As a result the classic Riviera model where people live spread,
| but also find local spread _small_ services survive and
| flourish. At that point who want to be in cities or suburbs?
|
| I fail to see ANY purposes to "convert offices to residential
| buildings".
| TuringNYC wrote:
| I'm a life-long New Yorker, born and raised. Even I gave up on
| the city and moved out, despite all the desire to live with low
| carbon-impact and live a moderate lifestyle w/o cars. At some
| point, the pain factor becomes too much. I'll give you some
| examples
|
| - Approximately 5-6yrs ago the transit quality in the outer-
| boroughs (not Manhattan) became so bad that you could spend
| 2hrs hours switching multiple trains if you were going into
| Brooklyn. Trains would mysteriously not arrive, would run
| express, would claim they have arrived on official apps but the
| station was closed, etc. Then you think -- in 2hrs I could have
| commuted into the suburb and lived in a beautiful home for half
| the price and have a huge garden. And lots of people did
| exactly that.
|
| - When metros didnt work, you'd Uber, but then punitive fees
| were added onto Uber rides to discourage that even. It was as
| if you'd be squeezed from every direction.
|
| - For some minority groups (eg Asian women), crime became a
| huge problem. There wasnt much care from law enforcement (not
| to punish, but even just to be present at subway stations and
| cars). Many of my Asian friends moved out of the city for this
| reason. You'd see groups of 5-6 cops chatting together at the
| center of a station rather than be distributed across platforms
| across a station.
|
| - Numerous metro steps had non-working elevators and non-
| working escalators, making travel with strollers dangerous or
| impossible. Good luck of you are on a wheelchair. Ridiculous
| ideas would be proposed where bicycles were somehow the magical
| solution to all...as if I could jump on a ride-share bicycle
| with two kids.
|
| - Schooling was increasing byzantine. You could own a home but
| not be guaranteed a seat at your local public school. You had
| to use "connections" just to make it on the list, or your child
| would end up half way across the Borough at a different public
| school. You could have two kids zoned to the same public
| school, but end up in two different public schools, making
| school drops impossible. Test-driven systems were changed,
| making things even harder. "Leadership" based public school
| application systems were proposed, which is a euphemism for
| "rich people" get accepted.
|
| Ultimately cities are competing against suburbs, and from what
| I saw in my particular case the city option failed. Even I
| couldnt stomach the pain anymore and I gave up.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > Approximately 5-6yrs ago the transit quality in the outer-
| boroughs (not Manhattan) became so bad that you could spend
| 2hrs hours switching multiple trains if you were going into
| Brooklyn. Trains would mysteriously not arrive, would run
| express, would claim they have arrived on official apps but
| the station was closed, etc. Then you think -- in 2hrs I
| could have commuted into the suburb and lived in a beautiful
| home for half the price and have a huge garden. And lots of
| people did exactly that.
|
| You're talking about the "summer of hell" on the subways,
| which was over 5 years ago at this point[1]. I grew up in
| Manhattan and currently live in Brooklyn (in an "average"
| neighborhood for transit; neither accessible nor
| inaccessible), and transit has been fine for at least the
| past 3 years.
|
| You can see the improvement in the MTA's own statistics[2].
| This year so far has been slightly lower than 2021, but the
| overall trend is positive.
|
| > Schooling was increasing byzantine. You could own a home
| but not be guaranteed a seat at your local public school. You
| had to use "connections" just to make it on the list, or your
| child would end up half way across the Borough at a different
| public school. You could have two kids zoned to the same
| public school, but end up in two different public schools,
| making school drops impossible. Test-driven systems were
| changed, making things even harder. "Leadership" based public
| school application systems were proposed, which is a
| euphemism for "rich people" get accepted.
|
| I won't claim that this has gotten better or worse, but my
| perspective from going to public schools is that there's
| always been a degree of this.
|
| The historical testing scheme _is_ a way to ensure that rich
| people get access to the better NYC public schools: the
| standardized tests are laughably easy to prep for, and every
| UWS and UES 'er of means for the past three generations has
| thrown money at tutors and test prep for their mediocre
| children.
|
| [1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/24/public-
| transit...
|
| [2]: http://dashboard.mta.info/
| TuringNYC wrote:
| w/r/t http://dashboard.mta.info/ -- I have a feeling that
| some of these are timed/theoretical/simulated rather than
| actual (or at least were at a point.) I literally took
| photos (need to find them) of cases where the dashboard
| would show subways arriving but the station/track/side was
| yellow-taped off.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The technique used to calculate APT/ATT (the underlying
| metrics for timeliness) are documented here (you have to
| click through a few folds)[1].
|
| They don't appear to be simulated or theoretical: they're
| based on riders' swipes into the system. They _do_ make
| certain ridership assumptions, however, because of the
| limited data (e.g. that customers use the same
| "corridor" during weekdays, and that the next swipe-in
| corresponds roughly to the last exit during weekdays).
| Those assumptions don't strike me as unreasonable, given
| the MTA's inability to collect exit data.
|
| Edit: The page goes into detail on those restrictions as
| well. Interestingly, it sounds like OMNY gives them more
| precise timestamps, and thus has allowed them to improve
| the quality of the their metrics over the past ~2 years.
| The fact that they haven't swung _substantially_ during
| OMNY 's rollout indicates that there wasn't significant
| error in the previous data.
|
| [1]: http://dashboard.mta.info/Help
| TuringNYC wrote:
| One of the challenges of "poor-er" people...e.g. those on
| local stops in outer-boroughs is the curse of express
| trains running past their stops. They are expected to
| switch again and come back to the stop where they should
| have stopped anyway. Subway metrics show the trains are
| operational, but they arent -- it is people adding
| 20-30+min to a commute because only half the station is
| operational.
|
| Meanwhile the metrics (and exit counts) will show regular
| operation. Sharing dashboards like these suggest a
| working system when it isnt actually working that well.
| woodruffw wrote:
| That's a great point, and I agree: the subway doesn't do
| a uniformly good job of serving the city's population.
| There's a reason the wealthy areas are around the lines
| that they're around.
|
| That being said: that's been true for 100 years. The
| claim (which I agree with!) that the subway experience is
| worse when poor doesn't have the temporal aspect that
| your original claim did (that subway performance has
| gotten worse _recently_.)
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > You could own a home but not be guaranteed a seat at your
| local public school. You had to use "connections" just to
| make it on the list, or your child would end up half way
| across the Borough at a different public school.
|
| I suspect this is an attempt to distribute students between
| schools so you don't end up with one school made up of
| students all from a rich neighborhood and another with
| students all from a poorer neighborhood. That's how a lot of
| the US does things and the poorer families consistently get
| the short end of the stick.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| In my experience this was multi-fold (and nothing to do
| with helping the poor)
|
| - Housing would be built w/o appropriate ratios of schools
| being built in the same zone (poor city planning, and over
| reliance on connections vs rule of law)
|
| - You could use connections to get to a well-rated public
| school w/o living in the zone, but at the expense of a
| local student being pushed out of zone. Note, this usually
| favors the rich/connected, not the poor.
|
| - Application acceptances were at the discretion of the
| school w/o bright-line criteria, making favoritism a huge
| issue. Note, this usually favors the rich, not the poor.
| White the applications are straight-forward, NYC public
| school registrars could and would refuse to accept an
| application.
|
| Ultimately, _the causes do not matter_ -- all that matters
| is that the situation isnt palatable -- if you have 2 kids
| in two different school in two vastly different locations,
| and have no car, its close to impossible to drop the kids
| off with public transport and get to work on time.
|
| I rely on remote work now. I go into the city 2x/wk. The
| school drop-offs are simple and live in a suburban township
| where local public school seating is guaranteed by law
| based on my lease/ownership address. No school registrar
| can mysteriously refuse to register me (havent faced that
| issue since i moved out of NYC), I dont need to lobby the
| local congress-preson to register my kids in school,
| nothing.
|
| It "took a toll on NYC" but there wasnt really any real
| option provided by NYC.
| mavelikara wrote:
| > The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past:
|
| Both the factors you mention - cars, and mass transportation -
| were huge technological advances of their times.
|
| Technology has progressed since, so we might see different
| models evolve. But don't mistake those models to be permanent
| either.
| Swizec wrote:
| > The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past:
| suburbia with long car commutes to downtown, and dense cities
| built around facilitating mass daily movement to the office
| through subway/public transportation
|
| I've been traveling Europe this month and visited several towns
| and cities both large and small. From tiny villages of a few
| hundred to 4,000,000+ people monsters.
|
| One thing that struck me as vastly different than how USA does
| things was the mixed zoning. Every city, no matter the size,
| feels alive. People _live_ there. They don't sleep in one area
| then go live in another. Everything happens organically near
| where the people are and the city /town/neighborhood/village
| never feels empty.
|
| > Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods catering to
| different lifestyles and needs
|
| This is exactly what Europe feels like. _A_ high street is
| never far, even when you're in a sleepy residential
| neighborhood. At the very least there's a small grocery store
| and bar on the corner.
| nemo44x wrote:
| If you travel or stay long enough you'll find there's plenty
| of bedroom communities in Europe - you just didn't go to them
| because why would a tourist go to them? The typical layout is
| town->multi-family housing surrounding the town that is
| walkable->larger housing (mix of multi/attached and detached
| ) that is not walkable. Older parts of the USA (pre-war) are
| very similar in that there's lots of mixed zoned areas where
| people live among the shops and services local to them.
| talideon wrote:
| Even those bedroom communities are a lot more livable than
| their US equivalents, because they have local amenities,
| meaning you're not forced to go to some big-box store or
| strip mall for stuff like you do in the US. They function
| as small towns, not just vast swathes of houses, which
| makes them more sustainable.
| selectodude wrote:
| Carrefour is one of the largest retailers on earth
| utilizing a big box model. They're all over bedroom
| communities in suburban Paris.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I agree that it's weird that people want to live in
| places where there's nowhere to walk to and the landscape
| is houses with nearly no landscaping except for lawns and
| some shrubs. Not even trees - just a lawn desert of
| isolated homes. It's not even a cost thing in many cases
| as the homes are not cheap or small, etc.
| Swizec wrote:
| Well I was primarily visiting family so lots of bedroom
| communities that by USA standards feel almost like a
| downtown. Even a rural village had a boulangerie and coffee
| place within a 20min walk.
|
| Also I spent the first 28 years of my life in Europe so I
| feel like I have somewhat of a grasp for what it's like.
| Just that these defaults become more obvious when you live
| elsewhere for a while.
| rychco wrote:
| Good, American cities aren't designed for human beings to
| actually _live_ in. Hopefully this will cause major zoning reform
| & allow us to have dense, healthy, mixed-use cities.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| Some cities, perhaps. I live in a large (for the Midwest) city in
| the heartland and previously, being a software engineer around
| here topped out at ~150k if you had 25 years of experience. (This
| was literally quoted to me by our most "illustrious" local
| company, which is just a big government/bigco contracting place).
|
| I got very lucky in finding a highly unusual job paying >>>
| median wage (but still very light compared to if I moved to the
| Bay Area). Then the pandemic happened and now in my most recent
| job search (just completed, I got laid off in November alongside
| all the other people) pretty much every place offered remote
| without even asking and I had my pick of pretty much any company
| I wanted despite my house being literally in a (feed)corn field.
|
| So pretty pumped about some of these very profitable companies
| finally directing some (prodigious) payroll into my locale. Both
| selfishly and because I hope it helps inject outside cash locally
| where it otherwise wouldn't ever go.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I'm both excited for you and worried that over the medium to
| long term, companies will adjust the pay down to match people's
| locales and such salaries will be lower over time from more
| competition.
|
| But as I said, excited for you as it currently stands :-)
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| The real concern is that companies that are 100% remote will
| pick Romaina and not Iowa.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [dead]
| em500 wrote:
| Why is that the real concern? Are Romanians (or Indians for
| that matter) somehow less deserving of higher pay than
| Iowans?
| watwut wrote:
| I think that it is because speaker is an American and for
| Americans, business being in America is better then the
| one in Romania.
|
| The same goes for people in Romania who absolutely
| understand the exact same thing. They prefer jobs to be
| in their country.
|
| It is legitimate for people to worry whether jobs will be
| where they live or elsewhere.
| em500 wrote:
| My question was mostly retorical. I know that
| prioritizing fellow citizens is common in almost every
| country. But I think it is in most cases not morally
| justifiable, especially in the US where almost everyone
| is descendent of low single-digit generation immigrants.
| Not to mention 0-generation immigrants especially in
| California. (It wouldn't surprise me if there are more
| highly paid Californian SWE with family in India or China
| than in Iowa.)
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It is usually morally justifiable because one is more
| likely to have a positive impact on your family and
| community.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It wouldn't surprise me either to learn that more
| Californian <anything requiring college or equivalent>
| have family coming from among over a bit over a billion
| than from a bit over 3 million people.
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| I'm sitting in the American Midwest. Good jobs are
| already scarce here, and people are used to "move to a
| big city for decent pay". So yes, it's a concern.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Is it a real concern? Obviously if you live in Iowa, yes.
| fundad wrote:
| People can downsize to Romania if salaries sink that low.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Unless Romania decides they want the kind of control of
| their local culture and wat of life that os cited to
| motivate American immigration restrictions, which have
| led to the absolute (not just population proportional)
| rate of legal immigration peaking in 1907.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| I use to worry about this but in my experience there's too
| much work and not enough workers worldwide so it's not a
| big deal especially considering language barriers. Even
| outsourcing hits physical limits. Having folks in the same
| or closely related time zones makes a huge difference.
| Having folks with skin in the game and no Visa issues as
| well.
|
| I also think opportunities are only going to grow.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| I think - and obviously this is speculation - that "real"
| software companies (where their primary product is a software
| thingy with appropriate unit economics) will not really be
| able to lower comp regardless of where it is. There's a
| reason engineers in SF get paid 300-500k TC easy, and it's
| because they generate multiples of that in return. Software
| is ridiculously high-margin and (not to toot our collective
| on horn, but) it's not something anyone can just do,
| especially at the mix of technical and soft skills that many
| FAANG type places require you to be at once you're at
| senior/staff levels.
|
| And let's be honest, if places really could, they would've
| already outsourced to people where COL is 99% lower instead
| of 20-50% lower.
|
| I do think people tend to overestimate how much cheaper it is
| to live in flyover country. Even real estate isn't _that%_
| much cheaper unless you're literally buying a farm with no
| good internet. And iPhones cost the exact same. So it's not
| like companies will be eyeing Kansas as the next India or
| Estonia. It's just not enough of an arbitrage to be worth it.
| Most places I looked at recently were only geo-adjusting base
| comp by either 0 or 10%.
|
| This is all for senior software eng positions though. Junior
| and mid positions might be a very different story due to
| supply being so much higher.
| grugagag wrote:
| Would the salaries be different for different remote locations
| though? If salaries were level then this would be a good thing
| for workers and for cities as well. Cities may as well get more
| decongested, rents may drop enough to become affordable and so
| on
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| I am planning on living on a farming locale like yours. Being a
| software professional what is your internet connectivity like ?
| If wanted to run a fiber how much would that cost ?
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| It's a bit odd tbh because around here even a city of almost
| half a million souls isn't more than about a 25 minute drive
| from honeybee territory even if you stand in the heart of
| downtown. So while I do live in a cornfield, I have gigabit
| fiber and am in a new construction suburb right on the border
| between the honeybees and the actual city limits. It's a nice
| mix. And since the area of a circle increases with the square
| of its radius I expect it to stay roughly at this level of
| development for quite a while since there's tons of space.
|
| I don't think you could even get a response from someone at
| the local ISPs to laugh at you for asking about running fiber
| though, so you do have to pre-check that if (since) it's
| important to you. (I did). It's ATT and Spectrum (nee
| Charter) around here.
| coldtea wrote:
| Amen! It's high time the shit-holes that are car-oriented
| megacities gave place into more livable places
| bottlepalm wrote:
| You mean the car-oriented suburbs?
| kcb wrote:
| They are related. The car-oriented cities that serve as only
| a destination for car-oriented suburbs. With huge highways
| cutting up neighborhoods that lead directly into a downtown
| that is mostly parking lots. See the example of Tulsa,
| Oklahoma that is fully encircled by massive freeways and half
| the surface is just parking lots.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| You say that as if they aren't two parts of a whole. American
| cities and suburbs aren't distinct entities, they are two
| essential organs to a single body. All of the things people
| hate about American cities are enabled by American suburbs
| and vice versa. The hope is that remote work will enable more
| self-contained neighborhoods and small cities to replace
| soul-less suburbs and unlivable cities. Suburbs will likely
| be the long-term winners and cities the long-term losers, but
| the status quo in America was unsustainable, so something was
| going to have to give.
| ricksunny wrote:
| poor-man's market research:
|
| Would _you_ (not your belief about others) be interested in co-
| working / co-living locales, in different countries (think Costa
| Rica, Tenerife, Zanzibar) with excellent maintained QoS
| connectivity, and (higher tier offering) where your right to work
| (local work visa) for your home-country employer / clients was
| looked after by the company hosting the network of sites? Goal:
| to liberate you to maintain your employ but hopping from locale
| to locale on a monthly or even weekly basis, with diverse life
| experiences to go with it.
|
| (cue HNers posting links of offerings that already exist but I
| promise from experience don't really offer at any ubiquity or
| scale)
|
| Important caveat: assume your home country's tax regulations have
| no contest with your working physically from outside its borders.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Prior to getting married and having kids, absolutely. After,
| not at all unfortunately
| ricksunny wrote:
| Thank you for that feedback, helpful to understand that
| segmentation :) I'm guessing that traveling with family /
| setting kids up in local schools or remote learning is a non-
| starter?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Yup, exactly. Wife's job is hybrid so could probably
| overcome that obstacle and get to fully remote. Kids though
| have friends and an established school. Can't really
| justify pulling them out of their established lives now. If
| we had always been nomadic then not a big deal but hard to
| change now.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I cannot imagine moving weekly or monthly with kids in
| school. I think that's not going to be fair to the vast,
| vast majority of kids and their need to develop friendships
| over a multi-month to multi-year timeframe.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Me personally, no. Nomadic lifestyles prevent one from pursuing
| the kind of hobbies I would like to pursue (exotic pets and
| plants).
| ricksunny wrote:
| That makes sense - cool hobbies! =)
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Thanks! If a counterpoint would be helpful, I know someone
| around my age where a nomadic lifestyle would be perfect
| for because his hobby is traveling.
| ricksunny wrote:
| Indeed, when I think of all the resumes & CVs I've come
| across whose personal interests line at the end says
| "Hobbies: traveling", I'm led to wonder why more people
| don't seem to allow themselves the creativity to
| integrate their work alongside their hobby of preference.
| Those such that I have met in passing in far-flung
| locales had taken grest pains to structure their work
| lives $ careers around the location-independent
| capability. I just thought more should have that
| opportunity of they could be facilitated to.
| bobwaycott wrote:
| Absolutely, if the locations are a good personal fit. Looking
| into that right now as a recent empty-nester.
|
| Weekly hopping is too frequent for me, however, and a month
| feels barely long enough. I've been looking at 90-day minimum
| stays, with a preference for 6 months to a year.
|
| Feel free to reach out if you'd like to chat with someone
| seriously interested in this.
| ricksunny wrote:
| That's great to understand: Just messaged :) Totally hadn't
| thought of the empty-nester persona yet makes a lot of sense
| - I wonder if it represents a decently sized segment..?
| oceanplexian wrote:
| I personally would be in the target market, however I've
| typically rented AirBNB's in different countries and worked
| from there. So there would have to be some kind of upside over
| that for it to be worth it.
|
| That said, biggest problem with "working from a different
| country" for me is self control. It's hard to actually be
| productive when the weather is beautiful, lots of interesting
| things are going on, and the beach is calling. Perhaps a co-
| working, or some kind of organized offsite with coworkers could
| change that.
| shams93 wrote:
| Cities take a huge toll on the environment. in Los Angeles the
| week we had basically total lockdown we had the best air quality
| ever here.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [dead]
| Terretta wrote:
| It wouldn't devastate them if people could live above or around
| (walkable distance even in bad weather) where they work. It would
| revitalize them.
|
| The automobile society notion of residential far from workplace
| is just bad.
| ggreer wrote:
| Except for remote positions, how does that work? Does everyone
| move when they change jobs in a city?
| chemerson wrote:
| You could. Lots of people do things like that. You could also
| live near public transportation that might change the
| definition of "near" for some workers. I personally have
| never gotten a new job in the same city as my last.
| mavelikara wrote:
| > I personally have never gotten a new job in the same city
| as my last.
|
| If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Not GP, but I'm 51, been working in tech since I was 21
| and, though all my jobs have been within about 50 miles
| of each other, none has been in the same city as the
| previous either. The closest sequential pairing of jobs
| was 3.5 miles apart.
| mavelikara wrote:
| Do you move when you take different jobs, as the ggreer
| had asked above in the thread?
| sokoloff wrote:
| No, but that's because I don't have to because I drive to
| work*, in contravention to Terretta's suggestion "if
| people could live above or around (walkable distance even
| in bad weather) where they work...The automobile society
| notion of residential far from workplace is just bad."
|
| * One of those jobs was close enough to walk (1.1 miles).
| I would regularly walk that commute, in most anything
| less than hellish rain or heavy snow. But that means that
| my previous job from that residence was 2.7 miles away,
| which isn't nearly as practical to walk year-round in New
| England.
| analog31 wrote:
| Right now, yes and no. I live in a mid sized town in the
| Midwest. People who are renting, and not tied down by things
| like having kids in school, are fairly likely to move if a
| job change alters their commute. However, it's complicated by
| the fact that they are also influenced by the amenities that
| different neighborhoods offer. For instance do you prefer
| lots of hip restaurants, or lots of green space?
|
| Once people are more dug in, they will often just eat the
| longer commute. However, there is a sizable "transient"
| population that is as likely to move to another town when
| they change jobs. This is true of people like academics,
| doctors, and so forth.
|
| There are certain occupations that are fairly centralized,
| due to being the seat of government and home to a large
| university. My spouse just changed jobs at the U, and we
| already live close to there.
| thewebcount wrote:
| > People who are renting, and not tied down by things like
| having kids in school
|
| What? Why do you think that? Plenty of people with children
| in school live in rented apartments, condos, townhomes, and
| even houses.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> It wouldn't devastate them if people could live above or
| around (walkable distance even in bad weather) where they work.
|
| So how would this work when you switch jobs, do you keep moving
| residences? That would be super-disruptive. Also, what if you
| switch jobs but you're in a timed-lease? What if you switch
| jobs and change residences but your kids are in a local school?
| These things get really complicated.
| shoulderfake wrote:
| [dead]
| talideon wrote:
| Then cities need to become places where people live again.
| That'll be easier to do with fewer silly restrictions on what
| qualifies as valid as a residential area, but also can't be used
| as an excuse for developers to create tiny box apartments.
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