[HN Gopher] The First Suburb
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       The First Suburb
        
       Author : pepys
       Score  : 24 points
       Date   : 2024-11-25 20:51 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (manchestermill.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (manchestermill.co.uk)
        
       | CalRobert wrote:
       | """ developers were coming in with proposals to demolish the
       | Victorian villas in the area so that they could build apartments.
       | We decided to designate it as a conservation area so that nothing
       | could be knocked down without our permission. """
       | 
       | I note the author does not say what actions they took to ensure
       | their decisions did not negatively affect the supply of housing.
        
         | ggm wrote:
         | They're not obliged to. Conservation is a good on its own
         | terms. They also didn't address carbon burdens, asbestos or
         | diversity.
         | 
         | Look I get it, there's a housing crisis. If you want to argue
         | we should make suburban Seoul with towers for 10km can I remind
         | you le Corbusiers ideas were implemented widely in Birmingham
         | and Manchester and were a disaster.
         | 
         | Maybe, the answer is to raid the green belt? Oh look, another
         | "special interest" bun fight. More Barrett homes now! More
         | ticky tacky. More all the same.
        
           | cassepipe wrote:
           | I believe you had this song in mind when you wrote your
           | comment, didn't you ? :
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_2lGkEU4Xs
        
             | quickslowdown wrote:
             | The video is unavailable, but it's the intro song for the
             | tv show Weeds, isn't it?
        
           | soperj wrote:
           | Most people aren't calling for towers all around, but mixed
           | development instead of single family housing.
        
           | cpursley wrote:
           | That's only because they weren't well connected (by design?)
           | to the community vs how say the Soviets implemented theirs
           | (one of the things they actually got right, despite the
           | brutal aesthetics). Similar story for the US "projects" -
           | completely isolated from ADLs (activities of daily living).
           | 
           | From all the places I've visited, I think the Dutch and
           | Danish have figured out a nice middle ground for building
           | mixed use human scale places.
        
         | pmyteh wrote:
         | There weren't housing shortages in most Northern cities in the
         | 1980s. Significant deindustrialisation had hollowed them out
         | and they were in economic decline. The population in Manchester
         | dropped continuously from 766,311 in 1931 to 392,819 in 2001
         | before starting to recover[0].
         | 
         | This was also before the sell-off of council housing, so it was
         | still possible for the authority to guarantee housing. So
         | conservation of unloved but historically important buildings
         | was probably a more pressing problem than finding some vacant
         | land to build flats.
         | 
         | https://www.manchester.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/25393/a2...
        
         | fffernan wrote:
         | In China they went and built a ton of housing, but then people
         | don't want to live in those cities and their population has
         | peaked up. So forcing housing solutions doesn't necessarily end
         | well either.
        
           | enaaem wrote:
           | Suburbs are most of the time a forced housing solution. Allow
           | people more freedom how to use the land they own. Have simple
           | and sensible regulations on nuisance levels and light
           | coverage. Japan is a good example where it works.
        
         | benj111 wrote:
         | No, well 1980s Manchester isn't modern day $prosperous city.
         | 
         | Further, I suspect a run down '10 servant' Victorian Villa
         | could house more people in bedsits, than the replacement
         | apartments, so in effect youre complaining that the have nots
         | had housing at the expense of the better off, which probably
         | isn't the complaint you were intending to make.
        
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       (page generated 2024-11-25 23:00 UTC)