The future is dense, walkable cities.

[Chernosoth]

A few weeks ago our Mini needed repairs, so my husband drove it to the shop, took the train home, then took the train back the next day to pick it up.

(Modern) Minis are money pits with high maintenance BMW engineering. I considered buying one for the practical shape and size, but I can't afford BMW repairs. If I eventually get a small car, it will have the simplest engineering I can find.

 

[Chernosoth]

Transportation limits apply both ways.

Huge commercial farms use huge quantities of chemical fertilizer. The mineral ingredients of fertilizer are mined from a few locations around the world, particularly Russia. We will eventually reach a point when there is nothing left to mine, and no fuel left to mine, manufacture, and transport the fertilizer. Without the imported fertilizer, farms will need to go back to the original fertilizer, manure. Our population centers are too far from the farms to move our crap there and bring food back at the walking speed of livestock. That is why all large cities and metropolises will eventually lose most of their population as we spread out to small towns, villages, and farms, or starve.

 

[Rightguide]

Cities need lots and lots of affordable, high density housing within walking distance to major public transportation hubs.

Especially if they occupy an island like Manhattan where everything has to go up, but in other places cities can and do expand up and outward, frustrating public transportation solutions.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Especially if they occupy an island like Manhattan where everything has to go up, but in other places cities can and do expand up and outward, frustrating public transportation solutions.

Replacing one single family home with a 4-story building increases urban density four-fold. You don't need high-rises to have high density.

A neighborhood of 4-story buildings with shops at street level is a lovely place to live. Much more convenient and friendly than a car suburb where you're forced to drive everywhere.

 

[AlexBailey]

Especially if they occupy an island like Manhattan where everything has to go up, but in other places cities can and do expand up and outward, frustrating public transportation solutions.

Just try to imagine Manhattan without public transportation.

 

[TrailerHitch]

Especially if they occupy an island like Manhattan where everything has to go up, but in other places cities can and do expand up and outward, frustrating public transportation solutions.

Every rural living person knows that if things go to shit, whether another depression like scenario or otherwise, a vast number of inner city dwellers will move outwards to the rural areas thinking that food will be readily available and that they will just be able to take it.

The mass urbanization cluster style living pushed for here counts on massive influx of food from rural farms. If the farms stop producing, or products stop getting to town, or there is no money to buy the products, city dwellers will have no choice but to starve or move outwards to seek food. In those circumstances it is very unlikely the greeting those urbanites receive will be friendly. Nor should it be if those very same urban dwellers plan to just take what they want.

No urban center can produce enough food on their own to feed the population, that is an undeniable fact.

 

[Chernosoth]

One necessary and long overdue change is more diversity of crops. Where vast regions are devoted to monocropping, farmers are as dependent as any urbanite on food delivery.

 

[TrailerHitch]

Many of my neighbors here have goats, and/or cows, and/or chickens. Most have huge personal gardens and most people here can, and freeze their crops to last the year. They are not as dependent on the normal food supply chain.

 

[BabyBoomer50s]

Some people like dense urban living with shops and dining within walking distance. Others like suburban living with big backyards and two car garages. Others like rural living. The biggest drawback for urbanites in many cities these days is that walkability is inhibited by human feces, needles, panhandlers, and seriously dangerous crazies.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Some people like dense urban living with shops and dining within walking distance. Others like suburban living with big backyards and two car garages. Others like rural living. The biggest drawback for urbanites in many cities these days is that walkability is inhibited by human feces, needles, panhandlers, and seriously dangerous crazies.

I’m fine with people who like country living as long as they don’t expect the rest of us to subsidize their lifestyle.

It is true that we should be building more public housing, so people who are down on their luck aren’t forced to live rough.

 

[TrailerHitch]

I’m fine with people who like country living as long as they don’t expect the rest of us to subsidize their lifestyle.

It is true that we should be building more public housing, so people who are down on their luck aren’t forced to live rough.

How do you subsidize rural people growing their own food, living in their own homes, working their own jobs?

I have no problem helping people down on their luck, but the insanity of multi-generational welfare, and the accompanying Section 8 Housing has got to stop. Welfare was never meant to be the lifestyle it has become. People that accept welfare should have to sign an agreement that they will take job training and work to get off welfare.

 

[TrailerHitch]

Some people like dense urban living with shops and dining within walking distance. Others like suburban living with big backyards and two car garages. Others like rural living. The biggest drawback for urbanites in many cities these days is that walkability is inhibited by human feces, needles, panhandlers, and seriously dangerous crazies.

We seem not to have a big problem with people shitting on our sidewalks here in Tennessee.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

How do you subsidize rural people growing their own food, living in their own homes, working their own jobs?

I have no problem helping people down on their luck, but the insanity of multi-generational welfare, and the accompanying Section 8 Housing has got to stop. Welfare was never meant to be the lifestyle it has become. People that accept welfare should have to sign an agreement that they will take job training and work to get off welfare.

Rural places don’t have the tax base to pave their own roads and run electrical cables. Rural electrification was a big government giveaway during the New Deal. Rural highways are paid for by taxing the people in the cities.

And welfare policy has nothing to do with getting homeless people off the streets.

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

We seem not to have a big problem with people shitting on our sidewalks here in Tennessee.

Cite?

 

[TrailerHitch]

Rural places don’t have the tax base to pave their own roads and run electrical cables. Rural electrification was a big government giveaway during the New Deal. Rural highways are paid for by taxing the people in the cities.

And welfare policy has nothing to do with getting homeless people off the streets.

Golly I never realized that we don't pay property tax, sales tax and fuel tax. Awesome! When will I get my rebate check.

On the other hand stop whining about rural people because without us your dumb ass would starve to death.

 

[TrailerHitch]

Cite?

Prove me wrong.

 

[ll74]

Prove me wrong.

Hey genius,.hitchens 'razor

 

[TrailerHitch]

Hey genius,.hitchens 'razor View attachment 2293515

Yawn...

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Golly I never realized that we don't pay property tax, sales tax and fuel tax. Awesome! When will I get my rebate check.

On the other hand stop whining about rural people because without us your dumb ass would starve to death.

I don’t begrudge showing charity to people who can’t afford their own infrastructure. After all, I also want to the government to build free housing for the homeless.

 

[TrailerHitch]

I don’t begrudge showing charity to people who can’t afford their own infrastructure. After all, I also want to the government to build free housing for the homeless.

Free housing? No, free TEMPORARY housing with a plan to get them on their feet and for them to start paying like the rest of us.

 

[Chernosoth]

Some of the work to do is recognizing sunk costs and severity of infrastructure decay. Older cities have older infrastructure under skyscrapers. There are many old leaky pipes that can't be replaced or repaired without demolishing everything above. The leaks cost huge amounts of precious water, damage foundations, and cause sinkholes. Abandoning most of a city may become more cost effective than rebuilding it. Since most of the metropolitan population will be moving out to farms and smaller towns anyway, there will be some time to decide what to do with cities while they're less populated.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Some of the work to do is recognizing sunk costs and severity of infrastructure decay. Older cities have older infrastructure under skyscrapers. There are many old leaky pipes that can't be replaced or repaired without demolishing everything above. The leaks cost huge amounts of precious water, damage foundations, and cause sinkholes. Abandoning most of a city may become more cost effective than rebuilding it. Since most of the metropolitan population will be moving out to farms and smaller towns anyway, there will be some time to decide what to do with cities while they're less populated.

I do think suburbs will be left to rot. They can’t survive without large subsidies from the city core.

 

[AlexBailey]

Free housing? No, free TEMPORARY housing with a plan to get them on their feet and for them to start paying like the rest of us.

Do you work with the homeless?

They are a diverse population. They include people and families who were displaced by disasters, family breakdowns, medical problems… many of them can get back on their feet with some help.

Many others are the ‘losers’ of society - the mentally ill, drug addicted, medically disabled, dangerous people who for whatever reasons are not incarcerated…

When we don’t get them off the streets they are the ones the rest of society complains about and has serious problems with.

What practical suggestions do you have? Concentration camps? Euthanasia?

Think about it. They are already a cost to society, how can those costs be most effectively mitigated?

A knee jerk response of “they just need to get their shit together” isn’t even wishful thinking, it’s just more stupidity.

 

[RandyRebecca]

I do think suburbs will be left to rot. They can’t survive without large subsidies from the city core.

Using this logic, who feeds the cities? The bottom up is how society really functions, not the top down. Nothing moves without the making of commodities in factories, farmers in the countryside, and vehicles to distribute those commodities. The way some people talk, you'd think nothing moves without billionaires in Wall Street, or without "big cities".

Who did people rely on at the time that the pandemic was at its worst? Delivery van drivers, healthcare workers, shop workers, farmers etc.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

Do you work with the homeless?

They are a diverse population. They include people and families who were displaced by disasters, family breakdowns, medical problems… many of them can get back on their feet with some help.

Many others are the ‘losers’ of society - the mentally ill, drug addicted, medically disabled, dangerous people who for whatever reasons are not incarcerated…

When we don’t get them off the streets they are the ones the rest of society complains about and has serious problems with.

What practical suggestions do you have? Concentration camps? Euthanasia?

Think about it. They are already a cost to society, how can those costs be most effectively mitigated?

A knee jerk response of “they just need to get their shit together” isn’t even wishful thinking, it’s just more stupidity.

Hitch, like so many others, fail to see how the investment saves money. But I bet he agrees with the axiom, "you need to spend money to make money". He just missed out on the other axiom, "you need to spend money to save money".