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1. Anthon+(OP)[view] [source] 2023-09-03 18:27:24
The trouble with "more effective public transit" is that it's really not about having more transit, it's about having higher density housing construction so there are more areas that you can run a subway or a bus and have it full of passengers.

In cities this means you have to fight with property owners who want to keep housing costs high by limiting supply. And even if you win it will be years before the necessary amount of new housing is built to even start talking about new mass transit lines, whereas we need to do something now.

And in rural areas it's just not going to happen at all. The farmer is always going to have a truck. But it could be an electric truck.

replies(2): >>logifa+i9 >>jandre+nh
2. logifa+i9[view] [source] 2023-09-03 19:23:40
>>Anthon+(OP)
> it's about having higher density housing construction

Umm, how would one go about selling that policy? Do enough (any?) people want that?

FWIW, my wife and I have spoken at length over the last year about what it would take for us to move, leaving our house and garden and safe streets and clean parks, our open countryside being only a short walk in pretty much every direction, and that our 7 year-old is able to walk the half mile to her primary school on her own every morning...

...and as it stands, there is no job offer _at all_ that would persuade us to move to the city.

Especially after what we saw during the pandemic.

replies(1): >>Anthon+Kc
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3. Anthon+Kc[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-09-03 19:43:11
>>logifa+i9
> Umm, how would one go about selling that policy? Do enough (any?) people want that?

The thing preventing it right now is that it's illegal. Most areas zoned for higher density housing already have it, so to make more it would have to go somewhere currently zoned for lower density, which the existing zoning prohibits.

As for whether people want it, why does the existing higher density housing tend to cost more rather than less per square foot? Because it's nearer to jobs and shops and mass transit, and many people like that.

Nobody is forcing you to live there. In fact, if the place you currently live was one of the ares rezoned, it would net you a tidy sum -- the value of the land goes up because now someone can build a condo tower on it, meanwhile you can go use a fraction of the money to buy another single family home for even less than the one you have now is worth because the new construction reduces housing scarcity.

replies(1): >>logifa+Rh
4. jandre+nh[view] [source] 2023-09-03 20:08:19
>>Anthon+(OP)
> The farmer is always going to have a truck. But it could be an electric truck.

Farm trucks are a pathological case for electrification. They often have fairly extreme range requirements under adverse weather conditions and heavy loads. They spend much of their time far from the electrical grid, never mind a proper charging station. In some regions they have to account for being too far from a normal gas station, which is one of the reason you can buy barrels of fuel to bring with you or an extended tank.

But it doesn't matter because there aren't that many of them. Certainly not something we need to optimize for.

replies(1): >>Anthon+9u
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5. logifa+Rh[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-09-03 20:11:28
>>Anthon+Kc
> The thing preventing it right now is that it's illegal

Just like towers (condos or any other kind) are round here.

Your local politicans are elected? So are ours.

replies(1): >>Anthon+Gx
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6. Anthon+9u[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-09-03 21:24:13
>>jandre+nh
Farm trucks are a perfect case for electrification. You install solar panels at the farmhouse and the thing is sitting there with a full charge every time you go to use it without ever making you drive 100 miles away to buy fuel. Farmers often have a commercial driver's license or drive on private roads where one isn't necessary, so the thing can be big and heavy and have enough capacity to run whatever equipment you may need to run in the middle of a field.

But the point isn't about farmers in particular, it's anyone who lives in a rural or suburban area without enough density for mass transit. Plumbers and real estate agents in those areas are not going to find a bus there to take. And there are a lot of those.

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7. Anthon+Gx[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-09-03 21:56:37
>>logifa+Rh
Your claim was that nobody wants to live in them. But then why ban them, if no one would build them anyway because no one wants to live in them?

The current problem is that the people who want to live in them are priced out of the areas where they would have to go by the zoning rules they would want to change. Having a 20% lower cost per square foot doesn't make it more affordable to move there when the smallest available unit is required to have three times as many square feet. But since they can't afford to move there they can't vote to change the law there.

It's effectively a local law against poor people living there, which the poor people can't vote against because they don't live there. That seems bad.

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