Why do all these planned communities cost so fucking much?
Cost so much in terms of what? Are you claiming that ongoing cost-of-living or up-front construction costs are higher? I'd need to know exactly what your premise is to be able to look for supporting numbers before I know what you're talking about.
That said, bigger-picture... infrastructure is expensive. Really, really expensive. Individual freeway flyovers routinely cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. On the other hand, good infrastructure projects pay for themselves -- the development of the US interstate highway system is just such an obvious success. To pick another, Japan's Shinkansen line (the "bullet train") cost 400 billion yen in 1959... but moves 23,000 passengers per hour in rush hour (trains every 6 minutes; on good years, the average arrival time is within 6-18 seconds of schedule) and has estimated to save 500 billion yen a year in man hours not wasted in slower forms of transit.
I worry that we're going to be missing out on these kinds of cost-savings in the future on account of the number of people currently on the anti-tax / small-government bandwagon.
The basic root problem to me is that living in the city implies a lower quality of life than living in the country.
Well, hey -- if city life isn't for you, it's not for you. I'm not going to argue against your personal choices -- just against subsidizing them when they create new costs for other people.
Well -- I wouldn't call the noise isolation wasteful; much of the effort and construction cost put into having thick walls and quality windows also helps to keep the heating and cooling costs low. Moving from $400/mo peak summer utility bills at the house to $110/mo in the condo was rather enjoyable.
Regarding the gate -- if I'd had parking behind a gate in my house up north, I maybe wouldn't have had broken windows and radios/CDs/whatnot stolen out of vehicles in the driveway so much. If we're comparing to the real alternative for city-dwellers -- suburbia -- crime is there regardless, and a gate thus a desirable feature in any event. (Also, the gate has a more practical use -- making it safe to let our dogs off-leash in the courtyard without worrying about a squirrel or cat leading them into the road).
On the other hand, detached houses have plenty that's obviously wasteful about them. A separate, separately watered-and-maintained lawn for each person rather than a single, larger, shared lawn with shared maintenance costs? Check. More utility lines/pipes/infrastructure (and more miles of road) needed to reach the same number of people? Check. More externally-exposed surfaces bleeding heat in the winter and taking it in in the summer? Check. As a condo, we have group-buying power to purchase fast Internet, trash disposal, and other services cheaper than you could do as an individual, and because we're all in one place those utilities also cost less to deliver. So -- talking about "waste" is perhaps the wrong tactic to take if your intent is to argue against high-density living.
As I said, that 3rd paragraph had so few truths as to not be worth responding to -- the "$47M bike path" claim was also a lie. The total cost of all the pedestrian- and cycling-related improvements in the bond issue came to $42M. Also, many of the highways you claim are being held up by the Austin city council are actually owned and controlled by TxDOT, not the city.
...and I think I'm done talking with Anonymous Cowards in this thread, at least until they start getting their facts right.
This is one of those cases where condominiums work out a little differently than apartments; if you're building something with the hope of getting a high sale price out of it from someone who is going to bother spending the money to get it inspected and appraised, there's a bit more effort going into Getting It Right than there is for trying to get a renter to give thumbs-up on walkthrough. If I'm going to buy a previously-built condominium unit, I'm damned well going to talk to someone who's lived there a few years... and if I'm buying a new one, I'm not going to be satisfied with just one inspection.
So -- this is a case where making the distinction over how the property is owned and managed when first built can make quite a difference.
Hopefully your time horizon on the market getting better is greater than a decade.
Well -- I'm hoping for something sooner for that, or for the landlord thing to not be too much hassle... but even if I sell at current market value I'm not underwater -- I just lose (basically) all my equity.
Sorry -- I only started following local transportation planning pretty recently; I even heard about the "Shoal Creek debacle" (as it's known in some quarters) after-the-fact, much less highway development in the 90s.
Apologies for being unable to provide any insight.
Kind of goes against the current trend of people moving to suburbs though, don't it?
Running projections for "current trends", and then comparing them to the economic, environmental, &c. projections for where you could be if you took actions to modify those trends, and then using those projections to decide on and take concrete actions is, ya know, kind of what that whole long-term city planning thing is all about.
Huh. See, I'm sitting here in a high-owner-occupancy-percentage gated condo in downtown Austin with 14-foot ceilings, outstanding noise isolation, a big courtyard to play with the dog, a enjoyable daily workout by doing my commute by bike... and I'm pretty damned happy with my quality of life.
I'm familiar with the details of the bond issue you spoke of -- "familiar with the details" meaning that I actually went down the line items and read up on exactly what they propose. Your third paragraph has a few half-truths -- but is mostly full of outright lies. Example: Nothing in the bond issue creates bicycle-only streets -- for that matter, even the failed "bike boulevard" plan wouldn't have created bicycle-only streets.
A bit more accuracy in your future flaming would be appreciated.
Unfortunately, the city I live in (Austin, but it applies in much of the US) has zoned mostly low density and thus high density areas are expensive due to limited supply relative to demand, and jobs are scattered in the suburbs, so I'm stuck with the car.
Howdy, neighbor!
I recently moved from up around Lamar and Rundberg (still own a house there -- renting it out until the market gets better) down to the new (built in 2005) condos on East 6th and Pedernales.
It's a great place -- big gated courtyard (the dog has more room to run than he did in the backyard of the house), cheap to maintain ($176/mo HOA fee includes everything but electricity -- Internet, gas, water, waste, maintenance, etc -- and my electric bill is down by more than that $176/mo)... and the walls are thick enough that when I ask my neighbors if my dog barking annoyed them, they tell me they couldn't hear a thing. (I'm inclined to believe them -- they also own dogs, and I never hear their pets bark except from the hall... so either everyone but me has a silent pet, or we have really good noise insulation). Right now I commute by bicycle (or the train, if I'm feeling lazy) to work up around Northcross and Anderson (~9 miles each way), but I have a few friends with jobs in the middle of downtown, so there's a very good chance that next time I'm looking for work I'll be able to find something with a short east-west commute.
More to the point, though -- it was cheap. Sure, the new square-downtown highrise buildings are as expensive as you'd expect -- and sure, East 6th used to be the ghetto -- but it's totally possible to buy a place "downtown enough" for under $150K.
Of course, I don't know your circumstances -- for me, it was resigning from Dell that freed me to move here -- but the point is that if you haven't even looked at whether there's anything downtown because you're expecting everything to run $400K+... go ahead and look again. You might be surprised.
As population density increases in some region, it becomes harder (disproportionately more expensive) to increase the carrying capacity of roads in proportion
This is true. However, a conclusion that sprawl is cheaper to maintain would be wildly inaccurate.
I spent some time reviewing alternatives for the Austin Comprehensive Plan -- discussing zoning, city layout, pollution levels, cost to build and maintain roads, man-hours and funds wasted by commuting, and the like for several different development scenarios. The high-density, compact city was not only environmentally preferable -- it was by far the most economically efficient way to manage our anticipated growth.
Increasing capacity of existing roads (while still keeping them focused around single-occupancy vehicles) is inordinately expensive, yes. On the other hand, planning a compact, high-density city that puts people in walking or cycling distance of their work, schools and shopping avoids creation of those vehicle-miles altogether -- and creates a more livable, healthier city to boot.
Regenerative braking doesn't make sense for very light electric vehicles -- electric-assist bicycles, for instance, because they just don't have that much momentum -- but it certainly makes sense for busses.
The biggest technical challenge is making sure your batteries can safely sink all the power you're feeding back into them in a short period without shortening their lifespan.
Starter batteries are still mostly lead-acid. Electric vehicle batteries mostly aren't, once you get past the very-low-end of the market... certainly not anyone using a carbon fiber frame -- it'd be silly to spend all that money on saving weight and then throw it away on the batteries.
Most modern battery chemistries (excluding lead-acid) are solid. They may produce (and vent) gasses when ruptured, and/or explode, but they don't contain the acidic liquids you may remember from your childhood.
"The sweetner"? If you can guarantee that anyone can get insurance regardless of prior conditions, people are just going to opt out when they're healthy and opt in when they're sick. If you're going to prevent folks from being rejected on the basis of preexisting conditions, making participation mandatory is the only way it works at all.
The problem is that human eyes and minds aren't well-equipped for appreciating what they see on Mars.
Just as someone who grows up in a uniracial environment might have trouble distinguishing faces of people with unfamiliar features, we don't appreciate Mars because we don't see it in an appropriate manner.
Appropriate enhancement is a tool to convey information in a useful manner, not (just) marketing.
(For a work of fiction providing a very different perspective on a similar problem, consider whether the highly figurative translations of alien behavior in Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky aided or harmed "accurate" human comprehension).
Besides, "moral" is a loaded word. If you say "you're doing it wrong" you're definitely implying that people should be doing it another way... the "right" way, no? Doesn't that make it a moral question, to consider which course of action is right?
I think the example I gave -- considering the "wrong" or "right" of pounding a nail with a screwdriver -- is particularly apropos.
Slashdot Mirror
Granted, the Samsung tablet which is the iPod Touch equivalent is not a "by Google" device, so Samsung isn't restricted from locking it down.
Yes it is -- but it's a "by Google" Samsung phone, meaning Google is actually
Huh?
I can buy a Nexus S, just as you can buy an iPhone 4.
My Nexus S doesn't need a jailbreak. Your iPhone 4 does.
What exactly was the point you were trying to make?
Here's a hint: "No NAT" doesn't mean "no firewall".
Cost so much in terms of what? Are you claiming that ongoing cost-of-living or up-front construction costs are higher? I'd need to know exactly what your premise is to be able to look for supporting numbers before I know what you're talking about.
That said, bigger-picture... infrastructure is expensive. Really, really expensive. Individual freeway flyovers routinely cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. On the other hand, good infrastructure projects pay for themselves -- the development of the US interstate highway system is just such an obvious success. To pick another, Japan's Shinkansen line (the "bullet train") cost 400 billion yen in 1959... but moves 23,000 passengers per hour in rush hour (trains every 6 minutes; on good years, the average arrival time is within 6-18 seconds of schedule) and has estimated to save 500 billion yen a year in man hours not wasted in slower forms of transit.
I worry that we're going to be missing out on these kinds of cost-savings in the future on account of the number of people currently on the anti-tax / small-government bandwagon.
Well, hey -- if city life isn't for you, it's not for you. I'm not going to argue against your personal choices -- just against subsidizing them when they create new costs for other people.
Well -- I wouldn't call the noise isolation wasteful; much of the effort and construction cost put into having thick walls and quality windows also helps to keep the heating and cooling costs low. Moving from $400/mo peak summer utility bills at the house to $110/mo in the condo was rather enjoyable.
Regarding the gate -- if I'd had parking behind a gate in my house up north, I maybe wouldn't have had broken windows and radios/CDs/whatnot stolen out of vehicles in the driveway so much. If we're comparing to the real alternative for city-dwellers -- suburbia -- crime is there regardless, and a gate thus a desirable feature in any event. (Also, the gate has a more practical use -- making it safe to let our dogs off-leash in the courtyard without worrying about a squirrel or cat leading them into the road).
On the other hand, detached houses have plenty that's obviously wasteful about them. A separate, separately watered-and-maintained lawn for each person rather than a single, larger, shared lawn with shared maintenance costs? Check. More utility lines/pipes/infrastructure (and more miles of road) needed to reach the same number of people? Check. More externally-exposed surfaces bleeding heat in the winter and taking it in in the summer? Check. As a condo, we have group-buying power to purchase fast Internet, trash disposal, and other services cheaper than you could do as an individual, and because we're all in one place those utilities also cost less to deliver. So -- talking about "waste" is perhaps the wrong tactic to take if your intent is to argue against high-density living.
As I said, that 3rd paragraph had so few truths as to not be worth responding to -- the "$47M bike path" claim was also a lie. The total cost of all the pedestrian- and cycling-related improvements in the bond issue came to $42M. Also, many of the highways you claim are being held up by the Austin city council are actually owned and controlled by TxDOT, not the city.
...and I think I'm done talking with Anonymous Cowards in this thread, at least until they start getting their facts right.
This is one of those cases where condominiums work out a little differently than apartments; if you're building something with the hope of getting a high sale price out of it from someone who is going to bother spending the money to get it inspected and appraised, there's a bit more effort going into Getting It Right than there is for trying to get a renter to give thumbs-up on walkthrough. If I'm going to buy a previously-built condominium unit, I'm damned well going to talk to someone who's lived there a few years... and if I'm buying a new one, I'm not going to be satisfied with just one inspection.
So -- this is a case where making the distinction over how the property is owned and managed when first built can make quite a difference.
Well -- I'm hoping for something sooner for that, or for the landlord thing to not be too much hassle... but even if I sell at current market value I'm not underwater -- I just lose (basically) all my equity.
We'll see.
Do you have any real objections, or just bogeymen?
Sorry -- I only started following local transportation planning pretty recently; I even heard about the "Shoal Creek debacle" (as it's known in some quarters) after-the-fact, much less highway development in the 90s.
Apologies for being unable to provide any insight.
Running projections for "current trends", and then comparing them to the economic, environmental, &c. projections for where you could be if you took actions to modify those trends, and then using those projections to decide on and take concrete actions is, ya know, kind of what that whole long-term city planning thing is all about.
Huh. See, I'm sitting here in a high-owner-occupancy-percentage gated condo in downtown Austin with 14-foot ceilings, outstanding noise isolation, a big courtyard to play with the dog, a enjoyable daily workout by doing my commute by bike... and I'm pretty damned happy with my quality of life.
"Slum"? I don't see it.
I'm familiar with the details of the bond issue you spoke of -- "familiar with the details" meaning that I actually went down the line items and read up on exactly what they propose. Your third paragraph has a few half-truths -- but is mostly full of outright lies. Example: Nothing in the bond issue creates bicycle-only streets -- for that matter, even the failed "bike boulevard" plan wouldn't have created bicycle-only streets.
A bit more accuracy in your future flaming would be appreciated.
Howdy, neighbor!
I recently moved from up around Lamar and Rundberg (still own a house there -- renting it out until the market gets better) down to the new (built in 2005) condos on East 6th and Pedernales.
It's a great place -- big gated courtyard (the dog has more room to run than he did in the backyard of the house), cheap to maintain ($176/mo HOA fee includes everything but electricity -- Internet, gas, water, waste, maintenance, etc -- and my electric bill is down by more than that $176/mo)... and the walls are thick enough that when I ask my neighbors if my dog barking annoyed them, they tell me they couldn't hear a thing. (I'm inclined to believe them -- they also own dogs, and I never hear their pets bark except from the hall... so either everyone but me has a silent pet, or we have really good noise insulation). Right now I commute by bicycle (or the train, if I'm feeling lazy) to work up around Northcross and Anderson (~9 miles each way), but I have a few friends with jobs in the middle of downtown, so there's a very good chance that next time I'm looking for work I'll be able to find something with a short east-west commute.
More to the point, though -- it was cheap. Sure, the new square-downtown highrise buildings are as expensive as you'd expect -- and sure, East 6th used to be the ghetto -- but it's totally possible to buy a place "downtown enough" for under $150K.
Of course, I don't know your circumstances -- for me, it was resigning from Dell that freed me to move here -- but the point is that if you haven't even looked at whether there's anything downtown because you're expecting everything to run $400K+... go ahead and look again. You might be surprised.
This is true. However, a conclusion that sprawl is cheaper to maintain would be wildly inaccurate.
I spent some time reviewing alternatives for the Austin Comprehensive Plan -- discussing zoning, city layout, pollution levels, cost to build and maintain roads, man-hours and funds wasted by commuting, and the like for several different development scenarios. The high-density, compact city was not only environmentally preferable -- it was by far the most economically efficient way to manage our anticipated growth.
Increasing capacity of existing roads (while still keeping them focused around single-occupancy vehicles) is inordinately expensive, yes. On the other hand, planning a compact, high-density city that puts people in walking or cycling distance of their work, schools and shopping avoids creation of those vehicle-miles altogether -- and creates a more livable, healthier city to boot.
Regenerative braking doesn't make sense for very light electric vehicles -- electric-assist bicycles, for instance, because they just don't have that much momentum -- but it certainly makes sense for busses.
The biggest technical challenge is making sure your batteries can safely sink all the power you're feeding back into them in a short period without shortening their lifespan.
(err, I meant throw the weight savings away on the batteries, not throw the money away)
Starter batteries are still mostly lead-acid. Electric vehicle batteries mostly aren't, once you get past the very-low-end of the market... certainly not anyone using a carbon fiber frame -- it'd be silly to spend all that money on saving weight and then throw it away on the batteries.
"Spill"?
Most modern battery chemistries (excluding lead-acid) are solid. They may produce (and vent) gasses when ruptured, and/or explode, but they don't contain the acidic liquids you may remember from your childhood.
"The sweetner"? If you can guarantee that anyone can get insurance regardless of prior conditions, people are just going to opt out when they're healthy and opt in when they're sick. If you're going to prevent folks from being rejected on the basis of preexisting conditions, making participation mandatory is the only way it works at all.
The problem is that human eyes and minds aren't well-equipped for appreciating what they see on Mars.
Just as someone who grows up in a uniracial environment might have trouble distinguishing faces of people with unfamiliar features, we don't appreciate Mars because we don't see it in an appropriate manner.
Appropriate enhancement is a tool to convey information in a useful manner, not (just) marketing.
(For a work of fiction providing a very different perspective on a similar problem, consider whether the highly figurative translations of alien behavior in Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky aided or harmed "accurate" human comprehension).
But they didn't! The entire reason this case got started is that Omega objected to Costco selling their watches at too low a price.
...offset by the fact that the plastics in question would be trucked and stored regardless (by a trash-disposal entity being paid to take them).
I think the example I gave -- considering the "wrong" or "right" of pounding a nail with a screwdriver -- is particularly apropos.