How should the U.S. address its ongoing housing crisis?

[Maricarland]

My opinion: abolish all houses, and everyone learns to live in the trees.

So you are an extreme primativist.

[Torrocca]

Give the homeless homes, and start building up, then clean up the suburban sprawl.

[Biwolfia]

My opinion: abolish all houses, and everyone learns to live in the trees.

So you are an extreme primativist.

Actually, I'm more of an environmentalist, I want this so less trees get cut down. That way, we'll actually have oxygen.

[Maricarland]

So you are an extreme primativist.

Actually, I'm more of an environmentalist, I want this so less trees get cut down. That way, we'll actually have oxygen.

I agree with protecting the environment and the preservation of trees. I am a proponent of reforestation and urban forestry. However, I fail to see how that means we should forgo housing as a species.

P.S. Good news, scientists have found a way to grow plant tissue, such as wood, in the lab, just like what they are doing with cellular agriculture (cultured meat/lab-grown meat). That means they can simply pour a plant cell culture and serum into a mold for a table or chair or whatever, and the plant (wood) cells would just grow into the shape of the furniture. Once this technology is mature, we can have wood and paper products without ever having to cut down another tree.

[Senkaku]

Give the homeless homes, and start building up, then clean up the suburban sprawl.

Alternative plan: reduce most of the population to postindustrial serfdom, then cram some of them into nascent favelas which are constantly subject to police raids yet still incredibly lawless, while banishing the rest to newly-built exurbs in fire or flood zones so distant from the wealthy urban centers that they might as well be on the Moon. It'll really help us with the aesthetics of this whole cyberpunk dystopia vibe we appear to be going for rn

[Biwolfia]

Actually, I'm more of an environmentalist, I want this so less trees get cut down. That way, we'll actually have oxygen.

I agree with protecting the environment and the preservation of trees. I am a proponent of reforestation and urban forestry. However, I fail to see how that means we should forgo housing as a species.

P.S. Good news, scientists have found a way to grow plant tissue, such as wood, in the lab, just like what they are doing with cellular agriculture (cultured meat/lab-grown meat). That means they can simply pour a plant cell culture and serum into a mold for a table or chair or whatever, and the plant (wood) cells would just grow into the shape of the furniture. Once this technology is mature, we can have wood and paper products without ever having to cut down another tree.

We cut down trees to make room for houses, and sadly, only around 1/4 of the people cutting them down replant the trees. Either we replant more, have sections of the country specifically for housing, or just live in the trees.

[Shofercia]

Have you watched any of the videos, Shof? No? Then don't waste my time.

I've asked for specific city names. You claim that the city names are in the YouTube videos. So, what specific city names are in the YouTube video? "Bro, trust me, YouTube is my source" sounds a lot like Alex Jones. When I made my argument, I cited specific examples. When you make an argument on NSG, you might be asked to provide specific examples. If you fail, you'll be called out on it. That's the nature of political debate. "Please watch YouTube bullshit" is not a valid reply.

Excuse me, dealing with some bullshit. No need to trouble the thread.

If I don't want to trouble a thread, I don't post in it.

Your point was that your point didn't matter?

Let's quote you: "It doesn't matter whether they're paying jointly or separately. It doesn't matter if their rubbish is collected jointly or separately"

Now, let's quote what you're replying to: "So... it bang for buck per person is entirely irrelevant. Gotcha."

Except it's not. If four people live in a household, we can divide rubbish collection by four. If it's two people, we can divide it by two. Bang for the buck per person matters when it comes to the number of people that cities have to service. One person driving one car does less damage to city roads than two people driving two cars, all else being equal, even if they engage in joint rubbish collection.

Here is your example:

10 people live in an apartment complex that's worth $2,500,000. They jointly pay $25,000 in taxes, on average $2,500 apiece. The city spends $15,000 to service them, or $1,500, on average, per person. Thus the next average bang for the buck for one of these people is $1,000.

The city pays $15,000 to service them. That's the key metric.

No the key metric, when we're talking about the best bang for the buck, involves revenue minus expenses. If the city's citizenry contribute more than they spend, it hurts the city's budget. If they contribute less than they spend, it helps the city's budget. Thus the more profit one makes for the city, the better, but sure, let's talk about pregnancy.

Let's say your ten people are five couples that are pregnant. How many babies would they need to have before they're spending more than $15,000 to service the complex? No idea? You better have an idea...

I'm fairly certain that babies count as human beings, some argue since inception, others say after they're born, as thus, I'm unsure why I have to have a second idea about citizens that I'm already counting.

it's one of the arguments you're trying to prove... that the costs scale so much with density that if you take "revenues collected from the people at an address divided by the people at the address" - "cost of services rendered to an address by the number of people at an address". (The other argument you're trying to prove is that US municipalities actually run their finances this way.)

It doesn't matter how US municipalities choose to record their finances. You can record 9.81 as 100, but it'll still be 9.81 in reality. I deal with reality, not theory.

The thing about cities is that their costs quite often have nothing to do with their revenues due to this thing called "future costs". Now the obvious example of this is "debt" which, in public finance, is generally taken to mean "borrowing from tomorrow to spend today". It's an inter-temporal concept.

Actually you're required to have a balanced budget, which means revenues versus expenses: https://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-po ... s-and.aspx

You can certainly play with it, but to pretend that revenues have nothing to do with city budgets due to costs is laughable or ignorant. I've dealt with city politics, I'm well aware of how the proverbial sausage is made, in reality, not in theory. And no one time travels.

However, what also happens is this thing called depreciation:

In economics, depreciation is the gradual decrease in the economic value of the capital stock of a firm, nation or other entity, either through physical depreciation, obsolescence or changes in the demand for the services of the capital in question. If the capital stock is {\displaystyle K_{t}}K_{t} in one period {\displaystyle t}t, gross (total) investment spending on newly produced capital is {\displaystyle I_{t}}I_t and depreciation is {\displaystyle D_{t}}D_{t}, the capital stock in the next period, {\displaystyle K_{t+1}}{\displaystyle K_{t+1}}, is {\displaystyle K_{t}+I_{t}-D_{t}}{\displaystyle K_{t}+I_{t}-D_{t}}. The net increment to the capital stock is the difference between gross investment and depreciation, and is called net investment.

What this means in the context of roads, is that you build them first and then you don't have to spend money on them until (basically) they need replacing.

I've yet to see a single city that doesn't spend money on road maintenance in the US and has at least several miles of roads, unless said roads are maintained by the state or federal governments. Furthermore, it's actually cheaper to provide quality road maintenance, than it is to rebuild said roads.

The same is true of houses.

As a property owner of a California beach house, I can tell you that's completely untrue. You have to pay for power and sewage, trash collection, gardening, as well regular maintenance. I'd rather not engage in a "let's see how much of a house termites can eat" contest based on a theory.

The thing is, that suburban expansion in the USA was pretty much paid for by state and/or federal governments, rather than developers or municipalities, but the replacement of the depreciated assets won't be.

The roads, power and sewage infrastructure was paid for by the state, and then the residents paid for maintenance. However, houses were paid for by the people who live in the houses. Have you a source comparing how much of the average city's costs were paid for state/federal government, versus developers/residents? I can't wait to see it, hopefully not on YouTube.

Now, you can access grants to build new roads and suburbs, but that doesn't solve the financial position municipalities all across the USA face... unless you believe Ponzi Schemes are financially stable... because the single family home zones aren't financially sensible developments. And why aren't they? Because the costs scale in terms of people much slower than they scale in terms of land.

As I've shown you before, most municipalities are in bad position due to pension crisis, or fiscal mismanagement, or some other legalized form of theft. Yes, if you steal money from a municipality, legally or otherwise, said municipality will have less money: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... need-know/

(And, also, in a lot of the US, municipalities have to pay for costs that occur in their borders but the people actually work and spend money in other municipalities. This is the inverse to the death spiral of population loss in inner suburbs.)

You might want to check up on the most recent data: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5538 ... ely-gallup

But let's go back to the five couples in the apartment complex. If they all have babies, they're going to suddenly be a minimum of 15 people, right? And babies don't earn money, so they're still going to be paying $25,000 in taxes, but now that totals out to nearly $1667 each. Which means even if the costs remain completely static, that $15,000 means the bang for buck per person translates to a bang for buck per person of just $667 (actually, ever so slightly less). More people being covered for the same cost, is a good thing. But bang per buck per person means it's a bad thing.

First, the US fertility rate is declining, and second, you just brought babies into your argument, and still lose. How do you lose with babies on your team? Oh, and third, how do you know that babies will remain in those homes and become contributors to the city? A worker receives salary and contributes. A pensioner receives pension and contributes. A baby receives maternal love, hopefully, but doesn't contribute. So yes, having members that don't contribute is bad for the budget.

Okay, okay, cities sometimes do crazy shit like this all the time (here's a video talking about that), so let's take into account the notion that maybe we've got multiple single family zones. Ten, say. And they all follow the same rules that Shof previously laid out: "One person living in a house that's worth $500,000, pays $5,000 in Property Taxes to the city, hypothetically speaking. The city spends $2,500 to service said person. Thus the net bang for the buck for that person is $2,500."

Right, so ten people, gives us $50,000 now, and $25,000 and we still have a net bang for the buck (why is it net? I thought the whole point was that bang for buck per person was that it meant "profit" which is, in this sense, already a net amount??).

Now, let's add in 1 extra person per house. And as Shofercia says "It doesn't matter whether they're paying jointly or separately" and it doesn't how much these people earn (they can all be babies again) because it's the properties that earn money for the city. So, now we've got $50k revenue/20 - $25k tax/20 = 2,500 - 1,250 = $1250. Hmm, the single family houses are still winning. But 2 people per house isn't a family, is it? Might not even be a couple.

Okay, so in 2019 there were 107.21 million residents of rentals in the US. At the same time, there were 80.68 million owner occupied households in the US and some 328.9 million people (Google). So, we can say from the first source that renters of single family homes averaged out at just over 3 people per house. Not 1, 3. If we assume that everyone in an owner occupied home (328.9 - 107.21) was in a single family home, then we'd have 2.74 (2dp), which will underestimate the number we're interested in (since we're including owner occupiers of 1 bedroom flats). Also, in 2009 anyway, rental dwellings averaged fewer people than owner occupied ones (pg. 19). (We're using estimates because I didn't have any luck finding the number and I'm already bored of trying to find it.)

Right, so let's use 3 since it's a round number. $50k revenue/30 - $25k tax/30 = 1667 - 1,250 = $833. Wow, bang for buck per person has gone way down. But it turns out (first source) that a 10 unit apartment complex has an average occupancy (people per unit) of 2, so we better be fair to Shofercia's example and compare like with like... $25,000/20 - $15,000/20 = 1250 - 750 = $500. Oh, noes, this completely fake example that I didn't give the time of day before validates the beliefs of the person who made it up out of hot air.

The reason I spoilered that argument, is because it focuses on costs, while completely ignoring revenues. Let's say that a manager is running a restaurant, and bringing in $2,000 in profit a month with $10,000 in revenues and $8,000 in costs. Let's say that another manager comes in, and cuts costs dramatically, down to $2,000, in a stellar cost cutting program. However, as a result of his cost cutting, the revenues fall from $10,000 to $3,000. Now the place is only bringing in $1,000 in profit. That's when the manager gets fired, because he decreased the profit by half.

Shocking.

Interestingly, $1250 > $700, so we still have, even with this example, the case that improving density whilst using data based average occupancies decreases the cost of providing services per person.

You seem to be focused on reducing costs per person, irrespective of revenues generated. Cities still have to balance the budget, so they need to focus on the revenue generation side. That's my point, and you know you cannot rebut it, so you're trying to make it much more complex than it is.

Making flippant jokes is impolite. The fact that you think that's absurd is quite telling.

No, flippant jokes aren't impolite either. It's absurd that you care about this. In fact, I rather suspect you don't care about this and are instead using it as a justification for ignoring the point... that user pays principles are used in a wide variety of city service contexts, including in more than 70% (by the only source we've seen) of American municipalities, for the exact example (water) you brought up as an area to demonstrate that bang for buck per person mattered. The problem being, of course, that in a user pays system, you'd expect only cost recovery. But, hey, maybe municipalities are profit driven entities...

Municipalities need to balance the budget, so they have to match up revenues with costs. If people like me see municipalities being fiscally ignorant, we move out, and take our fiscal contributions with us. The end effect is similar to white flight. So yes, cities must, at the very least, try to balance the budget.

First, that example contained plenty of data. Second, when you say things like single family zoning is a major feature of the main reason cities go bankrupt in the US you should be able to name a single city in the US that went bankrupt for that reason. Otherwise you're simply spouting nonsense for the sake of spouting nonsense.

Or, alternatively, I made a claim that is substantiated by several Youtube videos that you refuse to watch because...

And, no, that article contained statements of fact (so we assume) about one example. A datum.

I asked for specific city names. You claim that the YouTube videos have those names. Let's see those city names. What are they? I can easily type in something I heard on YouTube, and I think you can do so as well.

The bankruptcy case I cited was Detroit, which isn't located in California.

So... you're either telling me that your source is irrelevant to everywhere other than California or it doesn't know what it's talking about?

You asked for an example of a city that went bankrupt as a result of the pension crisis. I cited Detroit, while pointing out that it's not even located in California. Considering the shitfuckery of CalPers, quite a few Californian cities are in fiscal trouble due to pension costs not being fully funded.

Furthermore, despite semantics, a lack of real life examples, and lots of YouTube videos, if a city is bankrupt and has to be bailed out by the state, in my book that's still a bankrupt city.

Which has what to do with whether or not your source is factually correct about a topic it purports to provide information on? And excuse me for being careful about what words mean when you're currently claiming that you meant "profit" by "bang for buck (per person)".

You asked for a source of a city that went bankrupt due to pensions. I cited Detroit. Not seeing how that's super complicated.

That why I provided two sources with several examples. You couldn't even provide a single non-YouTube source. Here's an actual document after all of five seconds on Google, coming from reality: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/LSB10116.pdf

You'll note nothing in there talks about "most cities go bankrupt (or whatever semantic term you want to use) because of pension schemes" which is what you're claiming it proves. Everything in green makes it pretty clear that your source is about pensions and is interested in convincing people to care about public pensions... in fact, it doesn't even have an interest in why cities are bankrupt. Did you, like, read this?

Where did I say that most cities go bankrupt? Most implies a majority. A majority of cities do not go bankrupt, so they're not bankrupt. I didn't realize that was complicated.

That's from the Congressional Research Service. And it's a PDF document, not a YouTube video. And it has all of information ready in the first paragraph. But I'm not asking you for that, I'm just asking you to name a single city.

Which can't prove, let alone substantiate, the point I'm making at all. Similarly to how you can't prove "most" with a source that says "a number of". In contrast, the Youtube videos do back up what I'm saying.

Correct, because it substantiates the point I'm making, not the point you're making. That's been my whole point, that reality substantiates the point that I'm making, whereas you might be right, in theory...

No, it asks for several cities, but it order to get several cities, you have to name at least one city. If I ask for eight cities, that means you have to name eight individual cities. You've yet to name a single city.

Asking me to say "1+1 = window" doesn't advance my argument at all. Neither does naming one, or many, cities.

So backing up your claim with actual facts doesn't advance your argument?

Relevant to what? The fact that it's easier for cities to raise revenue from wealthier individuals than poorer individuals on property taxes and sales taxes? Or the fact that one rich person uses less services than several poor people, while contributing similar property tax revenues to the city? That's common sense. And you've yet to name a single city Forsher.

But cities don't work like that, do they Shofercia?

Yeah, they do. This is why cities with wealthier people have better services than cities with poorer people. It's part of why Buckhead wants to secede from the rest of Atlanta.

[Georgists]

effortpost later
build more fucking homes, abolish single-family zoning requirements, throw mandatory parking minimums out the window, end local control of zoning, build decent public transit systems (to address the contradiction of density and car culture), revamp the owned but uninhabitable homes (which is the vast majority of them, for the 500 people going to pile in here with "well actually there are more homes than homeless people"), and stop planning around cars


but the big two are simple: abolish single-family zoning and build more apartments/townhouses/duplexes/condos

we're undoing the legacy of harland bartholomew and making functioning cities for once

I can't think why this dragged on so long when the correct answer was right here on page one.

The economic ignorance of this thread...

Where to even begin. Ok, let's go with rent control. Ever wonder why housing in rent controlled areas is subpar when compared to housing in non-rent controlled areas? We live in a globalized economy, so investors always have non rent controlled investments available. Between a rent controlled investment, and a non rent controlled investment, (all else being equal,) the wiser investors will most likely choose the latter, leaving the ones who do poor research to invest in rent controlled areas. Who do you think will be better managers, the ones who know how to research or the ones who don't? Whoopsie.

Next economically dumb idea - abolish single family zoning. Who's paying those property taxes for schools? You've abolished single family zoning, congratulations, there goes a large chunk of the school budget. Way to go! Now we have even more unprepared students entering college, and failing out with massive student loans. Yee haw! Oh, you'll raise income taxes? That'll just accelerate migration to Texas and other no income tax states even more, especially since the majority of white collar workers are working from home. Whoopsie. It'll also defund the police, since it'll defund the city budget in general.

So how to actually fix this crisis... how about payments for those willing to study retraining programs at community colleges or trade schools? That'll help with the rent. How about fixing the state's mental healthcare system, which is in glorious disarray? How about lowering the costs of universities, that have grown astronomically, or encouraging students to attend trade schools or commit to apprenticeships?

We live in a globalized economy. The wealthy aren't bound to live in California, and can actually leave the state. Currently they're moving in because of economic conditions, but if you change those, welp, California's already losing the lower and middle classes, so...

"We need to maintain single family zoning because it supports an education funding system that maintains class privilege and racial disparities" is the strangest defense of single family zoning that I think I have heard. If you have two broken systems that rely on each other to work then fix them both, don't maintain one broken system because the other broken system will get even more broken.

As for these suggestions to fix the housing crisis, while none of them is an unreasonable aim in improving education, without reforming single family zoning I think I would be hard pressed to design a more effective way to worsen the housing crisis unless you let me actually dynamite homes to build more car parks.

[Great Algerstonia]

My opinion: abolish all houses, and everyone learns to live in the trees.

Nice try, squirrel spy, you're not enslaving and/or shapeshifting the human race today.

[Neanderthaland]

My opinion: abolish all houses, and everyone learns to live in the trees.

Excuse me sir! I am a caveman!

[Ifreann]

My opinion: abolish all houses, and everyone learns to live in the trees.

Excuse me sir! I am a caveman!

We will simply place a cave in a tree. Treecave.

[Great Algerstonia]

Excuse me sir! I am a caveman!

We will simply place a cave in a tree. Treecave.

I am Groot-Korg!

[Genivaria]

Give the homeless homes, and start building up, then clean up the suburban sprawl.

This unironically, suburbs are fucking abominations.

[The Black Forrest]

Give the homeless homes, and start building up, then clean up the suburban sprawl.

This unironically, suburbs are fucking abominations.

As compared to?…..

[Maricarland]

Give the homeless homes, and start building up, then clean up the suburban sprawl.

This unironically, suburbs are fucking abominations.

Agreed

[Antipatros]

I think we should look at financing affordable, high speed internet in underdeveloped rural areas to enable telework. That would allow for different patterns of spatial development when compared to now, and would relieve some of the housing pressure in crowded urban markets. There should be plans in place to manage the way these places are developed (mixed zoning and walkability are important).

In urban areas, you could also have a program where you use government funding to convert vacant office space and commercial buildings into affordable housing units. That would provide relief for distressed commercial property holders and alleviate the housing shortage in some markets.

[Alcala-Cordel]

This unironically, suburbs are fucking abominations.

As compared to?…..

As opposed to pretty much everywhere else. Suburbs are just so fake and unsustainable, like that town from the Lorax movie.

[Forsher]

As compared to?…..

As opposed to pretty much everywhere else. Suburbs are just so fake and unsustainable, like that town from the Lorax movie.

The best way to think about suburbs is as "car generating processes".

And this is true whether we imagine Over the Hedge/American style suburbs or the gradual expansion of low density residences around older settlements familiar in most of the rest of the world.

[Torrocca]

This unironically, suburbs are fucking abominations.

As compared to?…..

They don't really need a comparison, considering it's obvious how bad suburban sprawl is on its own based on land wastage, lack of service coverage, and fueling of car culture and other bad things, but if you must:

Apartments are unironically millions of times better, especially when done right. Building upward saves so much land, and if you make apartment buildings mixed-use and give them plenty of greenspace and other services per city block (ala Soviet microdistricts, for example), and make the apartments themselves decently-spacious and livable for a family, then you can have a really, REALLY good and functional setup that works for thousands to tens of thousands of people in just a single square kilometer or less.

[Valentine Z]

As compared to?…..

They don't really need a comparison, considering it's obvious how bad suburban sprawl is on its own based on land wastage, lack of service coverage, and fueling of car culture and other bad things, but if you must:

Apartments are unironically millions of times better, especially when done right. Building upward saves so much land, and if you make apartment buildings mixed-use and give them plenty of greenspace and other services per city block (ala Soviet microdistricts, for example), and make the apartments themselves decently-spacious and livable for a family, then you can have a really, REALLY good and functional setup that works for thousands to tens of thousands of people in just a single square kilometer or less.

Oui to that.

Though personally for me, I will just buy a small piece of non-suburb land in Burma (not exactly relevant to the topic, I know), for a small house. I like cozy places.

[Torrocca]

They don't really need a comparison, considering it's obvious how bad suburban sprawl is on its own based on land wastage, lack of service coverage, and fueling of car culture and other bad things, but if you must:

Apartments are unironically millions of times better, especially when done right. Building upward saves so much land, and if you make apartment buildings mixed-use and give them plenty of greenspace and other services per city block (ala Soviet microdistricts, for example), and make the apartments themselves decently-spacious and livable for a family, then you can have a really, REALLY good and functional setup that works for thousands to tens of thousands of people in just a single square kilometer or less.

Oui to that.

Though personally for me, I will just buy a small piece of non-suburb land in Burma (not exactly relevant to the topic, I know), for a small house. I like cozy places.

I never knew about that Singapore example, but that's honestly great. More countries need to adopt systems like that, or ones even better.

[Valentine Z]

Oui to that.

Though personally for me, I will just buy a small piece of non-suburb land in Burma (not exactly relevant to the topic, I know), for a small house. I like cozy places.

I never knew about that Singapore example, but that's honestly great. More countries need to adopt systems like that, or ones even better.

Most of the time, it is pretty nice here. I am going to sound like I am singing the praises of it all the time, ahaha. Okay, so here's a bit of a quickie, hopefully without jacking this thread. ^^;

Having been lived here for 16 years, and with my current house (3-room apartment) bought and living for11 years and counting, I don't feel the usual amount of drab and dullness for 95% of the time. Plus parks and community areas were 5-15 mins walk away, and so are clinics and supermarkets. Train stations were all over, and buses will take you almost anywhere you want. Of course, there were - both pre-COVID and during-COVID - moments whereby I do feel that I could use more space or just a bigger home, but as I said above, I am already set on buying a small piece of land in Burma for my personal use; for Singapore, it's a family home. Anyway, Singapore's land prices and housing is... crazy. Extraordinarily crazy. This is mostly because we don't really have a lot of space to begin with, and thus was using it to the best of our abilities. Plus as the video said, there were a few societal problems here and there.

As for US, I know there is no silver bullet to a situation, so my personal take would be a reduction of suburb areas, improving the current/existing apartments, and a combination of a few more other things. Definitely won't happen overnight, but hey, apartments don't have to be dull and so undermaintained! It is technically the Projects, but it can also be something that does not ideally look too much into wealth gaps and social status.

[Maricarland]

Oui to that.

Though personally for me, I will just buy a small piece of non-suburb land in Burma (not exactly relevant to the topic, I know), for a small house. I like cozy places.

I never knew about that Singapore example, but that's honestly great. More countries need to adopt systems like that, or ones even better.

I love the social housing models in Singapore, Finland, and Vienna.

[The Black Forrest]

As compared to?…..

They don't really need a comparison, considering it's obvious how bad suburban sprawl is on its own based on land wastage, lack of service coverage, and fueling of car culture and other bad things, but if you must:

Apartments are unironically millions of times better, especially when done right.

The operative word “done righ”. You know that is not the case. I have lived in a few apartment complexes and it sucked. Having people walking on your head (noises because the builds are as cheap as possible). Having people complain about the noices because the walls were cheaply built. The lack of parking. The rules upon rules of what you can do., etc., etc., etc.

“Done right” are for those who buy the expensive lofts.

Building upward saves so much land, and if you make apartment buildings mixed-use and give them plenty of greenspace and other services per city block (ala Soviet microdistricts, for example), and make the apartments themselves decently-spacious and livable for a family, then you can have a really, REALLY good and functional setup that works for thousands to tens of thousands of people in just a single square kilometer or less.

Again the ifs. This is america; quality is for those who can pay.

Sorry I moved to the burbs to get away from the people. To be able to fix things when they needed fixing and to not have rules about what I can or can’t do for noise and my outside areas.

Simply outlawing the burbs and taking peoples property will not solve much. If you are going to have density; you have to have the resources. And such planning tends to be “oh we can handle that later”

[The Black Forrest]

As opposed to pretty much everywhere else. Suburbs are just so fake and unsustainable, like that town from the Lorax movie.

The best way to think about suburbs is as "car generating processes".

And this is true whether we imagine Over the Hedge/American style suburbs or the gradual expansion of low density residences around older settlements familiar in most of the rest of the world.

For the US; it will not happen for a long time. You have the cultural issue of freedom. Cars engender that. You don’t like a place; drive to another one. Side: In my area, this is hybrid and electric central. Can’t throw a rock…….

Mass transit? The argument tends to be when enough people use it; then we will make it better. Also laying out the thing. You have the nimby mentality and added nimby mentality from arguments of “you need to sacrifice for the betterment of the whole”

When there are resources; mass transit and decent builds at affordable prices; you might find some who move to that.