• @[email protected]
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      612 months ago

      Right? And also…who needs space between two homes if there are no lawns? Just moosh all the outer walls together.

      Come to think of it…that’s gonna result in a ridiculously long line of houses. Maybe we could moosh roofs and bottom floors and stack 'em up a bit to make the line of houses only a half to a third as long, and then leave a little space between Consecutive House Stacks™️ - y’know, so that there’ll room for more windows.

        • @[email protected]
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          252 months ago

          It’s amazing what insulation and proper sound proofing can do. Never lived in thicker walls than here in Germany. Other than the blasted church bells, it’d be hard to convince me I was living next to people if the windows were opaque.

    • @[email protected]
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      342 months ago

      Partially, even if you got rid of the lawns the houses would still take up significantly more space for both the road infrastructure as well as the houses themselves.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 months ago

      The way i see it is people prefer to fence themselves from the world in their tiny square, rather than enjoy a larger piece of land they have to share.

  • @[email protected]
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    If the island were 100 times larger, the houses would take 1% of the land area, leaving 99%. The apartment complex would take up .04%, leaving 99.96%, which isn’t much of an improvement. The proportions of our planet are much closer to my scenario than this made up island. That’s a reason why we might not “prefer apartments in our own town.”

    There are good reasons you might want density, this just isn’t one of them.

    • @[email protected]
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      442 months ago

      Yeah, but most people don’t live in that other 90% . Most people live in urban and suburban areas where most if not all of the land is privately owned. Because of this the problem shown of fitting 100 households into 25 acres is way more common than your scenario of fitting 100 households on 2500 acres

      • @[email protected]
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        192 months ago

        And having trees and nature near urban venters is very much desirable, to help with air pollution (tho really not a lot), heat concentration and humidity.

    • Annoyed_🦀
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      272 months ago

      If the island were 100 times larger, the houses would take 1% of the land area, leaving 99%.

      Singapore government: if only.

      Also wildlife, carbon capturing, and distance to everything. There’s reason why denser city is easier to go around, in this island, you might not even need a car.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 months ago

      That’s the difference between America and Western Europe. Western Europe is already mostly built up, they don’t have room. America does.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 months ago

        Yea, everything is pretty full here. We have plenty of nature, but there’s always traces of civilization.

        I often miss the vastness of nature. Been to Alaska some years ago and being in nature is an entirely different feeling.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 months ago

      There is approximately 15.77B acres of livable land and there are 8.2B people so if each person had just 1/4 acre that would be 13% vs if you gave each person 2000 sqft it would only be 2%. Then you need to factor in how to built transit for low density and how many more stores you need due to the lower density and you can see that it would be much better for the environment if we had higher density

  • @[email protected]
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    972 months ago

    But then you have to live in an apartment…

    The neighbors kids who live above you will stomp around at 2:00am.

    The neighbors below you will complain when you make the slightest noise.

      • @[email protected]
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        802 months ago

        That’s really the foundational problem. If you could exist without bugging or being bugged by the neighbors dense housing would be so much more appealing

        • flicker
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          192 months ago

          This is absolutely correct.

          I live now in a well-made townhouse. I can’t hear the neighbors, ever, even the living room, or the kitchen. Or the bedroom! I love this place compared to my last crappy townhouse, or any apartment I’ve ever been in, ever.

          • @Blooper
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            52 months ago

            These threads are full of people making the straight-up weakest arguments for destroying nature…

            “…but privacy and noise!”

            Ugh, just take all that money you would have spent on the ridiculous driveways, extra lengths of road, utilities, and lawn care and put it into higher quality building materials for the apartments/townhouses.

            We build crap quality places in the US and all I hear from my fellow countrymen is “we can’t (or don’t want to) do it any other way”.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 months ago

            Unfortunately, where I live it’s very hard to find a well-made apartment or townhouse. I love the idea of an apartment or townhouse where I couldn’t hear the neighbours no matter what they were doing, and I couldn’t smell their cooking, or be exposed to smoke when they’re smoking, and so-on. But, that just isn’t realistic. Even if laws were passed to make that a requirement as of today, it would be decades for the existing housing stock to be sold off.

        • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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          82 months ago

          If I could live in the city and never see another person I think I wouldn’t mind it.

          No, wait, still not enough trees or animals or stars in the sky.

          • @[email protected]
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            That’s why we should build “luxury” apartment blocks in nature with high ceilings and very good noise cancellation, surrounded by agriculture and food forests, ideally growing their own food. Everyone gets a killer view and can quickly go out into nature.

            And then connect these big ass apartment blocks with underground train.

            • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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              22 months ago

              If it were like that you’d find me living in the food forest and not the apartment.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 months ago

          Seriously. Solid concrete apartments are so impervious to noise that the only times i hear any noise other than them dropping anvils on the floor is when it comes through an open window! I’m more annoyed by people in the room next to me than i am by anyone outside the apartment.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 months ago

        We can’t live in an apartment because it will always have bad insulation. We should all live in single unit housing with… checks the quality of insulation in your average 1970s ranch house oh shit, oh fuck.

        Also, gotta say, love to live in a street level neighborhood Cul-de-sac with that one guy revving his motorbike at 3am. Single pane glass, noisy neighbors, and god help you during July 4th or Jan 1st when someone gets ahold of fireworks.

        But for some reason, we completely forget about this shit when we talk about apartments. Like the suburbs - particularly the corners near intersections or school yards or big churches or highway on-ramps - aren’t routinely noisy af.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 months ago

              Awww surely not!

              Ever heard that quote, paraphrasing the start of it:

              You run into a jerk in the morning, you ran into a jerk.

              (Maybe you know the rest) If you give that some thought for the rest of the week (assuming you’re out and about), interested to hear any thoughts on it :)

              • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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                2 months ago

                Part of the reason I hate people is I put a ton of effort into trying not to be a jerk, stressing myself out with constant worry from monitoring my behavior at all times, but other people don’t seem to give anyone else the same courtesy.

                And that doesn’t even get into how hard it is for me to relate to almost everyone. I watch weird TV shows, listen to weird music, read weird books, and have weird hobbies. Outside of the weather I don’t really have anything to talk to them about, despite their seemingly constant need for interaction.

        • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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          62 months ago

          The suburbs are noisy as fuck. That’s why I want to live in the middle of nowhere.

          • @[email protected]
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            12 months ago

            I have been to a high-density suburb that is honestly not that far from being the second image, and it was literally so dead quiet that i could reliably use the distant sound of the highway to orient myself.

          • @[email protected]
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            12 months ago

            try: Alaska

            you can have trees with people or trees without people, we have train, boats, and airports. Enjoy the tundras full of moss and few people, the largest city in the United States (by area) and the reasonably tall mountains.

            • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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              32 months ago

              You joke but the Canadian Rockies are pretty high on my list of places to wander naked until I die.

      • DefederateLemmyMl
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        The thing is, you can’t really engineer against anti-social behavior. For every better made apartment you will find that there is an even bigger anti-social idiot who still manages to make life hell for their neighbors.

        I’m pretty blessed with my mostly boomer neighbors (🤞) who don’t make a peep after 10PM, but my girlfriend has had some shitty neighbors even though her apartment is pretty well made. Sound insulation between apartments is no match for cigarette and marijuana smoke wafting in from the balcony below any time you want to open the window to air out, or if, heavens forbid, you want to sleep with the window open in the summer, nor does it help much if they are partying and speaking loudly on their balcony until 4AM on weekdays. And then I’m not even getting into how they’re treating shared spaces.

        The proximity makes everything so much worse than it would be with a house, at some point only adding distance helps.

    • @[email protected]
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      I’ve lived in shitty apartments but dated two people who lived in “modern” high rise appartments. In mine I heard the neighbours occasionally since they were clearly old motels that they half arsed into units. The modern apartments I practically never heard anyone.

      Though “modern” apartment generally price out people who are up all hours making noise it’s more the fact that these appartments usually have body corporates or people that live on site. Being the typical “up all hours stomping around” type would be a quick way to have your lease terminated.

      Edit: Duh and the super obvious thing I forgot, improved sound insulation in modern apartments I imagine as well.

    • Track_ShovelM
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      122 months ago

      Concrete framed buildings help a lot with this. Other noise proof options are out there as well

    • @[email protected]
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      82 months ago

      This has literally been a non-issue for me in every apartment I’ve lived in for the last 10 years here in Sweden. You probably need some better building codes, this is a solved problem.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 months ago

      I grew up between a big house with it’s own forest, and a town house. At this point in my life, I have spent more time living in apartments, and the last 4 years living in studios. Gotta say, I have no desire to move into a house at any point. Having an apartment in a well built city with good public transport is just way nicer.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 months ago

        for a while now i’ve maintained that commie blocks (at least over here) are some of the best places to live, and i have to conclude that the only reason people think most other areas are at all appealing is because they have simply never actually been in the commie block areas.

        It’s like how my dad had never once even considered the notion of riding a bike, then one day i convinced him to buy an e-bike and since that day he has driven a car… literally 3 times, i think. Once you actually consider the merits of it it’s so obviously better.

        • @[email protected]
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          Yeah. I’ve lived in one in eastern Germany for a few weeks at one point. It was in a park, which had seating, locations for BBQ, playgrounds, and all streets around where very reduced speed. The flat was sized and partitioned well. Insulation sucked, though I’m pretty sure renovating one to modern standards is cheaper than leveling and replacing it.

  • @[email protected]
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    552 months ago

    Renting sucks and relying on a landlord is awful. I bought a small house and keep my yard wild.

    • @[email protected]
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      292 months ago

      Having renting be the default for apartments is part of the problem. It is very normal where I live that a developer build an apartment building and the sells the apartments to individuals who own the living space and co-own and maintain the shared spaces. The developer takes the winnings and never interferes with the building again.

      • @[email protected]
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        But then you have to deal with the politics of running the complex.

        It’s like having an HOA but even more impactful on your daily life since you have to walk through the common area and such - at least with a standalone home you own the land and are directly connected to a public street.

        • @[email protected]
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          102 months ago

          Having lived both in buildings where my family owned one apartment, and houses where there was an HOA, i can tell you that the politics of the apartment building was not even close to how insne an HOA is. it was mostly taking about the budget, prioritizing repairs, and security

          • @[email protected]
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            152 months ago

            If you buy into a poorly managed building though you are screwed. Many buildings don’t keep enough cash on hand for unexpected bills because they want to keep the fees low for residents. Then an elevator breaks, sewage backs up, someone floods their apartment, and all of a sudden there’s a $20,000 bill that everyone has to pony up money for.

            • @[email protected]
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              42 months ago

              that is true, we had to change administrators one time and it was not an easy process. my comment was mostly that the blanket statement of “politics in an apartment complex are worse that an HOA” is not true, it depends on the building and the HOA

      • @[email protected]
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        32 months ago

        In the US you can be kicked out of your apartment with only 60 days of warning without cause (the owners only have to claim they need it for personal use or some other bs).

        That is part of why people hate renting. 60 days isn’t enough time to find a new place, pack everything up, and move all while working 50 hours a week.

    • @[email protected]
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      132 months ago

      Why does renting have to be the automatic assumption? We’re simply talking about two different ways to organize living space, not how it’s financed. Shit, we should take a page out of Finland’s book, and make some actually really good public housing and make it available to everyone.

        • @[email protected]
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          62 months ago

          housing co-ops are basically the standard here in sweden and it’s perfectly fine, just because america makes things suck doesn’t mean they have to inherently be bad. Obviously if you execute a concept in the worst way imaginable it’s going to suck, that’s not rocket science.

      • @[email protected]
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        12 months ago

        Cool, call me when that comes to the Detroit area I guess. I’ll probably be dead though cuz it ain’t happening.

    • @[email protected]
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      Owning sucks too. Shit is always breaking, it’s expensive to fix and nobody else will handle it for you. Just paying for lawncare is bleeding me dry, and I don’t even use the lawn… but the city/police get angry when I don’t cut it.

      • JackbyDev
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        2 months ago

        Replace your lawn with white dwarf clover. It looks lawn like but doesn’t get super tall. Also it feeds the pollinators.

        Edit: White dwarf clover is what people think of when they think of clover. It’s not something exotic. Do not get crimson clover and especially not red clover lol. Red clover is a perennial and gets very tall.

          • @[email protected]
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            72 months ago

            You are not thinking about the large picture.

            Renting a tiller and throwing down some clover seeds is cheap compared to a lifetime of lawn people.

            Just like with your first comment. Yes things break and are expensive, but you’re not throwing ~1500 a month out the window renting.

          • JackbyDev
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            12 months ago

            Nah, the process you’d want to do is called over seeding. You trim the grass super super short, spread seeds, and that’s it. You can get seeds and a spreader for pretty cheap. It’s not as expensive as something like sod or ripping up your old grass.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 months ago

              I would still have to pay someone as like I said I cannot do it myself. Thanks for the suggestion though

              • JackbyDev
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                12 months ago

                No worries. I wasn’t trying to make assumptions, just point out that the process is much less involved than you’d guess given what replacing grass usually looks like.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 months ago

          almost certainty that your house is appreciating and you’re not constantly throwing massive amounts of money in the fucking toilet.

          Hard disagree, as I have had the exact opposites happen and know many others in the same boat. Both houses I sold were at a loss, after I got sick of things breaking all the time and being too expensive to fix.

          unless you don’t know how to do even basic DIY shit and you don’t have any friends who can.

          Or you are disabled and don’t have anyone to help.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 months ago

      There’s a principle in economic analysis called “Ceteri paribus”, “other things equal”. So, if you’re renting in the image on the right, you’re also renting on the image on the left.

    • @[email protected]
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      242 months ago

      Your neighbours don’t suck, your insulation sucks. Any time I had annoying neighbours, 9/10 times it was poor insulation. Sonic insulation is hugely important.

    • @[email protected]
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      We moved into a concrete building and then another and then another. The horrible neighbors we had in our last wood frame building - Fire’s Favourite food! - ensured we’re never going back. Now I’m aware I have neighbours but, like bigfoot, you’re never really sure they’re there.

        • @[email protected]
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          I was talking to one of the leasing people and complained about how they were loud all the time. They asked why I didn’t report it more

          “Why didn’t you take time out of your day to help us manage the property, for free, after all the times we did nothing about the reported noise violations??”

          Man, apartment owners and landlords are fucking useless…

    • @[email protected]
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      42 months ago

      Its mostly because all of the older apartment 20th ce try or older have wood floors that reverberate lime a drumhead. Newer buildings with concrete construction elminate noise. I dont hear my neighbors ever. Will never go back to an old building.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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      22 months ago

      Most suburbs suck because of the neighbors, too.

      Seems the common problem is neighbors.

  • @[email protected]
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    532 months ago

    So um, why are the houses and nature mutually exclusive? I live in a suburban detached single family home, and my whole neighborhood is filled with trees, wildlife and even a tree lined creek that separates the back yards on my street from the back yards on the opposite side. You can’t even see my actual yard from google maps because it’s nearly entirely covered by tree canopy (at 6pm in summer my yard is 100% shaded). We have all sorts of wildlife including deer, foxes, owls, frogs, mallards, rabbits, squirrels, etc.

    While I agree that we do need more housing options of all sorts, I don’t for a second agree that nature and suburban housing are mutually exclusive. We just need to stop tearing down all the trees when we build, and plan better.

  • @[email protected]
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    432 months ago

    Now imagine apartment buildings taking up 100% of the island and that’s what you get under the current system.

      • @[email protected]
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        102 months ago

        Zoning bylaw might require 1.5 parking spaces per dwelling unit. Three buildings would then need 450 spaces at roughly 128 sqft. each which would take up nearly an acre and a half.

        The three buildings on their own probably wouldn’t need even a single acre.

    • @[email protected]
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      12 months ago

      Great, that means people have a place to live.

      not sure how you imagine it’s better for those people to just… not have a place to live?

  • Sol 6 VI StatCmd
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    422 months ago

    in both scenarios developers eventually buy up the entire island and fill it with either

  • JustEnoughDucks
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    What not many people are touching on:

    In 2, the owner of the building likely owns the rest of the land as well as the apartment. You are a slave to the owner as he owns the island and your “beautiful view” will either be absolutely not developed at all so it is difficult to use as a park or a source of food without explicit consent from your ruler. No community gardens without tons of power tripping and infighting of course either.

    In 2, the owner of the apartment and land can and will bulldoze the entire forest and completely pave it over if there is the slightest hint that he can make more money that way, then jack up your rent for the privelage of living in a hellhole. Conservation of nature my ass. The building owner has a 99% chance about not giving a shit about conserving the rest. They will turn it into monoculture or cattle farming or a parking lot and stores. This post is literally landlord propaganda.

    Edit: owns the apartment building, not apartment.

    • @[email protected]
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      262 months ago

      You’re assuming that in 1 you own the property and in 2nd you’re renting. A strawman argument if I ever saw one.

        • @[email protected]
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          162 months ago

          You don’t have to own the building. It’s not like a trailer park where you have to lease the land. You pay management fees for upkeep and you get a say in how you want the building managed.

          • @[email protected]
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            102 months ago

            That’s where then fun starts. You “own” your apartment but can’t do shit without approval by 20 nimbys. Also you pay into a HOA fund for general stuff.

            Owning apartments is the worst of both worlds. Get a huge loan just and still don’t get to do with your property what you want. It’s “property” commodified and enshittyficated. But what can one do these days? Buy a house? hahahahaha.

            • @[email protected]
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              62 months ago

              It seems only Americans actually have this problem though. Rarely here complaints over here about HOAs.

              • @[email protected]
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                22 months ago

                There are European countries that have similar systems for apartment buildings where every unit is owend by a different person.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 months ago

      In 1, if there was a workplace, it’s likely way farther away from 2, with more limited choices.

      Want to do office job as a disabled person in 1? Bad luck, your only options are a few different factories with different kind of workplace abuses, all requiring you to wake up at 4AM, because the factory opens up at 6AM. Disabled? No, you’re not, you have all your limbs, you just want to take money from the government to then spend it on luxury cars, and maybe a few months of lifting at the factory will make it “magically go away”. Maybe your “wanting to do art” will also be cured, which hopefully got crushed by the good AI, as artists are evil because they don’t get cool injuries during their craft.

      People were okay with apartments, but then some upper-middle class Karens and their male counterparts started to whine about not having “a kitchen garden” (which none of those fuckers can care about at all, thus becoming hotspots for bugs) and “a place where their child can play” (alone), and who knows, their neighbors could be a migrant/black/Roma/whatever is the current boogeyman at your local area.

      Also if you’re in the US, you’re owning the 1 way less than 2 in Europe, thanks to HOAs.

  • @[email protected]
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    382 months ago

    Apartments are never built right. Always cheap out on sound proofing and appliances. Also fuck you if you have a dog

      • @[email protected]
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        If you think the Grenfell Tower cladding issue was just a UK problem, oh are you in for a world of disappointment.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 months ago

          because there aren’t enough of them, it’s literally that simple.

          Here in sweden we built just an absolute shit ton of cheapo commie block-esque apartments areas in the 60’s and nowadays it’s some of the best housing available IMO, it’s hilariously cheap (i have seen small apartments that cost like 200 dollars per month), the apartments are perfectly fine, and the areas themselves are generally car-light and at worst just kinda boring but still fine.

  • @[email protected]
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    382 months ago

    What about something like that ?

    https://static.agraf.archi/media/projets/7/08.lg.jpg

    8 houses in a row, built using a wood structure and straw bale wall for insulation (thermal AND phonic insulation) and clay plaster. So the construction material is storing CO2 rather than emitting tons of CO2 like concrete does.

    It collects rainwater for the garden and has enough solar panels for the community and to contribute to the electrical consumption of the village around it.

    It leaves a lot of space for land to develop a food forest, permaculture projects and leave space for biodiversity.

  • @[email protected]
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    362 months ago

    Because FUCK living that close to other people. Humans fucking suck to be close to and I’d go fucking postal having to deal with that shit.

    I hate my neighbors as it is and barely see them. If I could hear their shithead kids screaming and throwing themselves into the walls I’d burn down a city block.

    • Liz
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      82 months ago

      Modem building codes usually have noise separation requirements.

      You have to remember that people who advocate for apartments usually aren’t trying to make everyone live there, they’re just trying to make apartments/condos an option for who those who want them. In much of the US and Canada it’s illegal to build medium and high density housing, for essentially no reason beyond aesthetics and racism.

    • Consider that if you have one bad neighbour in an apartment, then everyone on your floor will also be talking to them and helping to regulate their disruptive behaviour.

      Apartments usually have concrete walls so you can’t hear your neighbours. Unfortunately, there are some new builds made by developers trying to maximise profit at the expense of the residents who don’t do this.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 months ago

        Unfortunately, there are some new builds made by developers trying to maximise profit at the expense of the residents who don’t do this.

        AKA every developer in an american suburb

    • @[email protected]
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      42 months ago

      See that’s all fine and well. More people should do that. But then you get the people who don’t want to live near people, in the middle of a city. The “have your cake and eat it too” kind. And that’s just not feasible.

      There really is no one-size solution to housing. We need, and all benefit, from having some degree of options, but importantly, those options should be attainable, and all have their costs/drawbacks.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 months ago

      Basic sound proofing can make apartments very quiet. We could pass regulations requiring sound proofing

  • bufalo1973
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    342 months ago

    It depends also on the type of houses. It’s not the same a cabin in the woods and a house with a garden.

      • @[email protected]
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        82 months ago

        Check out Habitat 67 in Montreal - an architectural student solved this in the 60s. Apartments where everybody gets their own rooftop terrace. Given the funding, the original plan was for a 30-story terraced hill of mixed-use and apartments in an A-frame with public green space underneath that mixed the density of apartments with the benefits of single family homes.

        Since everybody thought he was crazy, he only got a fraction of the funding for what he ended up building for the 1967 World’s Fair, but those apartments have the longest occupancy time of any building in Canada (some seeing 2 or 3 generations living in them) and a 5-year waiting list on units.

        Last year, a 3d model of the original concept was released for Unreal Engine: www.unrealengine.com/en-US/hillside

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    282 months ago

    We could also all live in cells. Maybe even hook us up to VR so we dont even need to get out into nature. You could maybe even harvest energy, by keeping us in nutrient filled tubs while simulating a perfect world into our neural perception.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 months ago

      If you’d build an apartment tower surrounded by food forest and nice fields everyone would get an amazing view. Better view than from ground level. Make the ceilings high and very good noise insulation and great windows. And it would be cheap because the land could be cheap.

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        2 months ago

        I dont think food forrests are viable solutions. Maybe in very particular places in the world. But globally, commercial food productions will not be replaced by food forrests any time soon

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          42 months ago

          I think there are some trees who are very efficient in creating calories - so maybe with more genetic engineering.

          But yeah mostly you’d have smaller fields like potato or wheat or corn between hedgerows, and food forest or orchards for fruits and most of all for a nicer view. The main idea would be that you don’t need to transport food except from the surrounding area to the apartment tower. You’d produce / recycle food, water and energy locally.

          • @[email protected]
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            42 months ago

            The theory is great! But i doubt that modern consumers will accept this. Sadly! We want our bananas, and oranges all year round and they must be as affordable as possible.

            We do need change to change things but personally i think that what is driving denaturation is the chase of profit not comfort and ease of life. I am not moving into a 1 room condo and stop eating watermelons so that multi trillion companies can increase their proffit margins and make even more money for people who dont live the same life as the rest of us.

            We are already producing too much food and too much land is being used to create food that goes into feeling animals that will become food. Eating less meat will have a larger effect that eating locally grown onions to save on transportation

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              12 months ago

              Well for me Solarpunk is about what would be possible - except for our current global regime preventing it. So yeah it’s fantasy.

              I don’t know if the costs work out low enough, but you could build such a lone apartment tower on farmland right now. If you had like a government owned “eco bank” funding this. If the land and construction costs can be kept low enough. It would be really cheap with some advances in premanufactured parts or 3D printing or house building robots. Kite power for very cheap wind energy.

              If you could buy in for 50k and get all your living costs, food, energy, water and internet basically for free for the next 20 years, plenty of people would jump at this. And if it’s big enough (500 units?) you could justify having a doctor and a kindergarden and hybrid local / remote school. If we were serious about climate change, everyone could live in luxury with a killer view.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 months ago

                so… I love the dream, but it is a utopia.

                First of all, farmland is a diversity graveyard. Just because it is green, does not make it natural or even pretty. I live in a country that uses 61% of its area for farmland and although it makes for a cool Windows background, there is not much life in fields like that. Changing the farmland to food forests could maybe change this, but this leads to the second point

                The reason why farmland is accumulated into larger and larger fields is, because it is cheaper and easier to run. Going the other way, diving it up into smaller production and mixing it up, will make everything more expensive, complicated and require a lot more (manual) work to run.

                500 units is not even enough to support a local grocery store in current times, let alone a doctor or a school.

                That said, i had not realized where this was posted in. It just popped up on my feed, so I guess you are right in that it could be a great setup if it could work.

                • @[email protected]
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                  12 months ago

                  Yeah I have no idea if or how it could work. Commie blocks used to design local neighborhoods with shops and kindergarden. Maybe it would be that when you have kids your move to a block with a kindergarden and school, then it would make more sense.

                  Maybe it would be harder to farm but maybe it could also be solved through lighter robotic farm equipment. I once calculated that you only need ~250m² for potatoes to produce enough calories so feeding yourself so it’s theoretically not that difficult. I also hope in the decades to come we can genetically engineer better food plants. Like higher / better quality protein crops.

                  But my main idea was how to create a view for people that want to “live in nature”. But the hippie ideal for a farmstead is unsustainable with so many people. An apartment block would save a lot on heating, cooling and infrastructure. The proper sci-fi utopia would then be to have underground railway tunnels connect thousands of such apartment blocks in nature. Then much surface area could be rewilded instead of having roads and bridges. But tunnels are rather expensive.

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    262 months ago

    Logic here is broken because we don’t make these decisions anyway. A developer will instead put 30 apartment buildings while chopping down anything that gets in the way, then charge more for rent than you’d be charged for the mortgage on the house. There’s also the fact that this picture assumes every family on the left pic doesn’t give a fuck about free scaping, preserving trees, or planting new ones? Idk, whole thing is jacked.