this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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You think the corporate apartment developer is going to let all that stay green? That many people in apartments, you need a few parking lots, shopping malls, corporate centers, and then some more apartments once the rent goes up.
Perhaps in some parts of suburban north america. However, well-designed walkable, bikeable cities with proper transit don't require mega big box stores all in one zoned area that you drive to from a sprawling suburb.
But you're describing a city. The graphic does not show a city, it shows one apartment building. The rest of the city you've described would swallow the rest of the green space. That's what sprawl is, when the desirable land becomes more valuable so nearby land is further developed and becomes more valuable becomes more developed becomes more valuable.
It's an inperfect metaphor anyway, because island development works under its own constraints. An island can only support so many people, regardless of whether they live in an apartment or a single family home. There are limits, and growing beyond those limits will result in feedback loop which can cause systemic collapse. See: San Francisco, where retailers must raise prices because they cannot afford to hire someone who can afford to live there because everything is so expensive.
I'm with you that we need more walkable cities. But car-dependent development is a result of regulatory capture by land developers. Zoning and public transit spending are the battles we need to win. And if we can tax corporate landlords out of existence, that would go a long way, too.
Neither shows a completed city, but with a little imagination you can imagine businesses on the ground floor of the apartments and dense walkable areas connected by light rail or bus. The example on the right has room to build all the stuff people need.
But the urban sprawl development doesn't have room to build businesses. It would need to destroy another island and build roads for every individual to commute each and every day.
So would you rather have dense, walkable cities that destroy half of nature, or would you rather have urban sprawl which destroys all of nature and then has a housing crisis because it is logistically impossible to build individual houses for 10 billion people?
If the building is mixed function, like commerce on the floor level and offices on the first floors, and residential on the rest, you don't need as much parking and car infrastructure.
I think you missed the point. If you build all of those things you mentioned in a similar compact fashion you still have lots of room for nature and more efficiency when compared to sprawl.
You're missing my point. Development density doesn't preserve green space. It just puts more people in a smaller space. Protecting green spaces requires actual protections.
This graphic implies that there is a market solution to protecting green spaces. It's suggesting that NIMBYs who oppose high-density zoning are the reason for suburban wastelands. Zoning regulation should prioritize preserving green spaces and public lands, but deregulation is not the fix (as is implied).
I agree with you actually. As usual, text conversations don't really convey the entirety of the thought/concept, and lead to misunderstandings.
Anytime a complicated subject is condensed to such simplicity as in the original image, all the nuance of the topic is left out. It's a problem with all true political topics.
You can sell the wood and drill for oil, maybe there is some gas or coal to burn.
bruh you do realize hong kong exists right? that's almost literally a real life example of this image.