The housing that people want is the housing they can afford. Sure, I’d love to live in a 20,000 sqft mansion up in the Pacific Northwest rainforest with a built in pool and free-range dino nuggies dispensers, but I can’t afford that, so I live in what I can afford. Problem is, our zoning doesn’t permit really anything except unaffordable, bland tracts of McMansions that force you to drive to everything. If you can’t afford that, then, oh well, get bulldozered, idiot.
I want to make living in my city affordable; if all my kids can afford is a $400 studio with no car, then that should be an option.
That’s absolutely fine, and obviously a worthy objective.
My comment is really just pointing out that the “bafflement and hilarity” from the screen capped post isn’t really baffling nor hilarious.
A surburban lifestyle is nice and that’s why people want to live there and that’s why it’s expensive. You can make fun of people who want that, and you can make a case that alternatives are better in a multitude of ways, but it’s a bit silly to suggest to people happily living in the burbs that a row house would be more comfortable.
We live in one of those soulless, godless cookie cutters suburbs. We had a Russian exchange student from St. Petersburg for a year. He grew up in and still lives in a commie block. In complete fairness, he said it was close, but that he preferred the commie block to the suburbs (largely because it was just so damn convenient to do grocery shopping on the ground floor and catch the light rail just outside if he wanted to go anywhere else).
Are you suggesting, on the basis of the opinion of one Russian kid who expressed a preference for living where he grew up, that I’m mistaken regarding my own preferences?
Well, it’s more like this: have you ever lived in a suburb and a commie block? I haven’t, but he did, and he explained why he felt that way. I’m not claiming it’s scientific or anything
So here’s the thing:
The housing that people want is the housing they can afford. Sure, I’d love to live in a 20,000 sqft mansion up in the Pacific Northwest rainforest with a built in pool and free-range dino nuggies dispensers, but I can’t afford that, so I live in what I can afford. Problem is, our zoning doesn’t permit really anything except unaffordable, bland tracts of McMansions that force you to drive to everything. If you can’t afford that, then, oh well, get bulldozered, idiot.
I want to make living in my city affordable; if all my kids can afford is a $400 studio with no car, then that should be an option.
That’s absolutely fine, and obviously a worthy objective.
My comment is really just pointing out that the “bafflement and hilarity” from the screen capped post isn’t really baffling nor hilarious.
A surburban lifestyle is nice and that’s why people want to live there and that’s why it’s expensive. You can make fun of people who want that, and you can make a case that alternatives are better in a multitude of ways, but it’s a bit silly to suggest to people happily living in the burbs that a row house would be more comfortable.
To your last sentence, I can address it directly:
We live in one of those soulless, godless cookie cutters suburbs. We had a Russian exchange student from St. Petersburg for a year. He grew up in and still lives in a commie block. In complete fairness, he said it was close, but that he preferred the commie block to the suburbs (largely because it was just so damn convenient to do grocery shopping on the ground floor and catch the light rail just outside if he wanted to go anywhere else).
I don’t really follow I’m sorry.
Are you suggesting, on the basis of the opinion of one Russian kid who expressed a preference for living where he grew up, that I’m mistaken regarding my own preferences?
Sorry mate that’s a little bit nutty.
Well, it’s more like this: have you ever lived in a suburb and a commie block? I haven’t, but he did, and he explained why he felt that way. I’m not claiming it’s scientific or anything