this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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Fuck Cars

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[–] dojan@lemmy.world 186 points 2 years ago (9 children)

You can still have trees and plant life in low density housing. You don’t need green deserts everywhere.

[–] ladam@lemmy.ml 106 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Yeah fuck lawns too, they aren’t meant to exist

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 32 points 2 years ago (1 children)

We can thank England for those damn things.

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[–] Tropic420@discuss.tchncs.de 62 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But you still need way more infrastructure for the Houses.

[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 48 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yup, tons more parking and tons more road space per capita as well. Low-density sprawl just needs a lot more stuff per capita.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 33 points 2 years ago (26 children)

They should pay a significant land tax instead of leeching off the high-density dwellers.

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[–] rah@feddit.uk 119 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (52 children)

Why not prefer apartments in your own town?

Noise. Neighbours being closer.

[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 70 points 2 years ago (25 children)

That’s only true if the apartment is a shitty American 5 over 1 stick building. In a modern concrete apartment with concrete internal walls you wouldn’t hear the neighbors.

[–] blueson@feddit.nu 55 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Exactly. Here in Sweden if you live into a newly built apartement you are basically guranteed grade A sound isolation.

Even older ones usually hold high quality because of renovations.

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[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 29 points 2 years ago (3 children)

You don't even need concrete. I'm in a modern building made from mass timber construction, and it's dead quiet inside my apartment -- except for the hum of my AC and the sounds of my cat meowing whenever he wants attention.

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[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 36 points 2 years ago (12 children)

Ownership. You will not own your apartment, it will be owned by your landlord and you will pay him whatever he demands. You will not own the forest, either. The state will, or some private entity will. No trespassing.

[–] J4g2F@lemmy.ml 35 points 2 years ago (8 children)

You can still own and buy appartements in most places in the world. Then there are many forms of social housing.

Rent to own is also a possibility but not seen in most countries.

Seems your problem is not ownership but landlords.

Some countries in Europe have the right to roam on any land. State owned and private owned. (Maybe more countries somewhere else have it to but I don't know)

It does not need to be so terrible. In some places it just is because of profits

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[–] AdmiralShat@programming.dev 92 points 2 years ago (16 children)

The issue is that all of those apartments are owned by one person getting filthy fucking rich from rent.

[–] 5714@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 2 years ago (19 children)

Then organise the renters, let them buy the house to transform it into syndicate or cooperative housing. Social apartment construction isn't impossible.

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[–] AKADAP@lemmy.ml 84 points 2 years ago (10 children)

I spent seven years living in an apartment. I so enjoyed hearing the neighbors having sex, the thumping music they played, the smell of their cigarette smoke inside my apartment with all my windows closed, the random intrusions by management to repair something unrelated to my apartment, the random rent increases. Add this to the fact that I had no space for a work shop to make anything, and paying the equivalent of a mortgage with no equivalent home equity. Some people love apartment life, but it definitely was not for me.

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[–] IanAtCambio@lemm.ee 82 points 2 years ago (55 children)

This would just become a 100 apartment buildings.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Well if that much housing is needed then the idea of not providing it is kind of.. monstrous? evil?

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[–] Skyrmir@lemmy.world 62 points 2 years ago (2 children)

You know how computers were supposed to make life so easy we'd only have to work a few hours a week, and how that never happened.

This is the same thing.

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[–] Squirrel@thelemmy.club 45 points 2 years ago

An island of this size should probably have neither.

[–] menemen@lemmy.world 41 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Make it 100 appartments in 3-4 times the space (in 4 smaller buildings with balconies, community gardens, shared spaces, picnic areas and so on) as a compromis and I am all in!

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[–] Izzy@lemmy.world 41 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (11 children)

But instead of a population of 100 with small houses you will get a population of 1000 because they built 10 apartment complexes. I think I'd prefer the small houses didn't have lawns and left the nice trees and natural growth.

[–] LanternEverywhere@kbin.social 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The point is for any given population size, a city is a better way to house them. Though IMO this drawing makes the difference too stark. Personally i think the optimal is a medium-highish density city of separated buildings with nature interspersed, rather than a single super high density mega block building.

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[–] kurzon@lemmy.sdf.org 36 points 2 years ago

I won't consider living in apartment buildings unless they have good soundproofing and proper open spaces. I don't want to be cramped in with noisy neighbors and have no privacy.

[–] TheBlue22@lemmy.world 36 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I live in an apartment. I want to live in a house.

Cunt upstairs neighbour smoking cancer sticks on the balcony, making my room smell like shit when he does it, dumbass neighbour to my right who phones some other dumbass at 6 in the morning, screaming into his phone, waking me up. No garden, can't have a cat or a dog.

I don't want to live in a suburb where I am forced to use a car, but you can live in a house and still be able to get anywhere you want without a car.

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[–] mrpants@midwest.social 34 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Apparently no one in the comments has seen people live outside of an American suburb.

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[–] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 34 points 2 years ago (12 children)

A truth most people don't want to hear is that densely populated cities are overall better for nature and resources. You need less roads and tracks, fewer concrete overall, compact cities are much easier to make walkable, etc.

Really the only argument against tight packed cities is "I don't like people". That shouldn't really be a priority.

For nature to recover we need to give back space. The worst you can do is build rural homes or spread out suburbs.

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[–] Donger@lemmy.world 33 points 2 years ago (6 children)

Yeah but then I gotta listen to my upstairs neighbor make tik toks.

[–] kurosawaa@programming.dev 25 points 2 years ago (7 children)

In a well made apartment building you cant hear anything from your neighbors.

[–] Touching_Grass@lemmy.world 25 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Nobody makes well made apartment buildings within 99% of our pay grades

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[–] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 30 points 2 years ago (10 children)

A lot of people are pro-apartmemt before living in one, so here are some fun facts:

  1. Apartments usually have a maintenance cost, that covers as little as possible while still costing a lot. You never really own the flat, the building company does.

  2. You often have a communal garden; it's looked after by the lowest bidding contractor. Not all flats have balconies, so you are unlikely to have your own.

  3. Fear of fire and flooding - if someone else messes up, your stuff is toast/soaked. Insurance companies love that extra risk, it gives them an excuse to charge more.

  4. No flat has good sound proofing - the baby screaming downstairs at 5am and the thunder of the morbidly obese person upstairs going to the bathroom at 1am will denote your new sleep schedule (i.e. disturbed)

  5. I hope you're in for deliveries - apartments have no safe spots to leave things.

  6. You will not be able to afford a flat with the same floor space as a house. I'm sorry, welcome to your new coffin.

  7. Good luck drying your laundry (spoiler, your living room is going to have a laundry rack).

  8. Good luck owning a bike (it's either the bike or your laundry, take your pick).

  9. Vocal intimacy becomes a community event.

Living in a flat is a pile of little miseries grouped together.

[–] agarorn@feddit.de 29 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Apartments works very different in your country. For me it's like this:

  1. Building companies build apartments, usually they are owned by whoever paided them. That can be a private company, it can also be state owned, a cooperative, or a collection of privates. It's not uncommen to buy single apartments here. Depending on the constellation you have a say in what is what done in what way. However: cost like garbage collection, tax,... Are always there. No matter if you live in an apartment or single home.

  2. Same as 1. Depends on the constellation. Many people living in apartments have a garden plot somewhere else. There are places (close to nature, away from streets) where you can rent a garden and have a place of piece. Quieter than your lawn next to the next house.

  3. If apartments are that more dangerous then insurance companies will want more money, sure. As far as I looked for my neighborhood the cost seems to be related to the living area, I. E. Same size same price. So it does not has to be more expensive.

  4. Of course can you have sound proofness. Usually here walls are massive and not made out of paper.

  5. And houses do? Isn't it a thing that people steel packages from your doorway/garden in the US? But nevertheless: usually I was friends with other people in the house who could get my parcels for me, like the elderly lady on the ground floor. It does not get safer than that.

  6. Yes? Flats are obviously cheaper for the same size as a house. You will not find 500m^2+ appartements, but >200m^2 can be found. How big are your houses usually?

  7. Dryer? Balcony? A lot of apartments have an extra room in the basement, or a sun roof.

  8. Bike or laundry? What are you on about? A lot of places have an extra bike room. Most of the time you have also your own compartment in the cellar. Bigger apartment complexes here are also required to have room for cars, I.e.you can rent a garage if you really want more space.

  9. Same as 4.

I am really not sure if you are trolling or houses work differently in your area.

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[–] oldfart@lemm.ee 30 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Yaay, space for 24 more apartment buildings!

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[–] letsgocrazy@lemm.ee 28 points 2 years ago (8 children)

If people had tree Icons in their gardens in the left image, it would look much better wouldn't it.

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[–] Thoth19@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago (8 children)

This is a pretty terrible way to make this point. The pic on the left is neater and the one on the right leaves almost no space for the people living there to do anything. You probably want a little bit of cleared land for literally anything to do on the island.

Then again, there isn't a dock. So I figure the island on the right has a better way of building boats to leave.

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[–] Gerula@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago

It's simple: blocks are not built in cities to minimise the footprint like in your meme but to build cheaper and sell more and in the same time externalising the costs of infrastructure development.

A mid density block is something, a heavy packed "bedroom" neighborhood is another.

[–] DivineJustice@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If the buildings are actual size, then those apartments must be the size of a closet

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[–] theKalash@feddit.ch 23 points 2 years ago (13 children)
[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 38 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Low-density sprawl essentially requires cars. Further, cars need a ton of space for roads and parking lots. Denser, more walkable communities don't need nearly as many cars and don't need nearly as much roads and parking lots.

[–] theKalash@feddit.ch 20 points 2 years ago (13 children)

Low-density sprawl essentially requires cars.

I disagree. I live in the suburbs in Europe and there is plenty of single family homes with a garden here. But you're still always within 500m of a bus stop or tramline. Have been living here without a car for quite while, it's fine.

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[–] Reddit_Is_Trash@reddthat.com 22 points 2 years ago (5 children)

I'd prefer to live in a house over an apartment

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[–] pm_me_some_serotonin@lemmy.zip 22 points 2 years ago (8 children)

If you look at land use maps, you will see that the urban areas are so small compared to the agricultural and livestock area needed to support the population. This is the biggest cause of deforestation, and population density actually makes it much worse, because it centralizes consumption and requires more logistic costs to deliver the needed food, with much higher rates of wastes. If we lived in less dense areas, perhaps we could do with local, smaller-scale agriculture instead.

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[–] stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world 21 points 2 years ago

I mean is the building owned by its tenants or one entity/person who gets to own the building and a large amount of peoples homes thusly?

[–] WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago (5 children)

I mean there are genuine reasons you might want a house over an apartment. If you have a big family or the fact that you own it and don't have a land lord that can just raise rent and force you out. You gotta have a mix of types of housing that actually matches what the needs of the people are, which is still the exact problem we have now.

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