No, extreme density leads to degradation in quality of life. Either extreme on the spectrum does. And your attitude is unreasonable, unrealistic, and naive in terms of people's diverse preferences in living space requirements.You can't keep getting denser without compromising on certain aspects of your autonomy when approaching the physical density upper limit. This is an objective reality based on scarcity of space and the premium put on it which skews many people away from city living in the first place.Yes it is. Tokyo does just fine. This attitude is a huge part of the problem.
The restrictions put in place are built to protect peoples investments, not actually protect people.No, extreme density leads to degradation in quality of life. Either extreme on the spectrum does. And your attitude is unreasonable, unrealistic, and naive in terms of people's diverse preferences in living space requirements.You can't keep getting denser without compromising on certain aspects of your autonomy when approaching the physical density upper limit. This is an objective reality based on scarcity of space and the premium put on it which skews many people away from city living in the first place.
The goal in this particular instance should not be to massively increase population but rather to enable a diverse socioeconomic strata of people to coexist within the city.
The idea that nyc has a non diverse population is absurd on its face. It has one of the most diverse populations in the entire country, much of which can continue to live there only due to the rent control programs offered. I'm all for increasing density to a relatively high level. But the dynamics of increasing density indefinitely equate to unreasonably expensive living conditions that are inherently limited.The restrictions put in place are built to protect peoples investments, not actually protect people.
If you dont like the density you don't have to move there! Theres plenty of cheap housing in noname, nowhere, USA if you want a lot of land. But the density excuse is normally just a ploy to say "we're full, no poors/nonwhites pls."
Restrictions on density that dont allow for new replacements that meet or exceed the prior buulding make it so your dream will never be a reality because only the wealthy can live there.
The average rent of a 2bedroom apt in tokyo? Around 950 USD.
And you can afford it. Or choose not to live there. But you have the choice.The idea that nyc has a non diverse population is absurd on its face. It has one of the most diverse populations in the entire country, much of which can continue to live there only due to the rent control programs offered. I'm all for increasing density to a relatively high level. But the dynamics of increasing density indefinitely equate to unreasonably expensive living conditions that are inherently limited.
For example, the average new construction apartment size in Tokyo is nearly 200 sq. ft. smaller than in nyc (which is already modest at 866 sq. ft.):
"The average size for a brand new apartment in 2017 was 63.24 sqm (680 sq.ft), and 60.11 sqm (647 sq.ft) for an existing apartment."
I'm not sure what you are trying to say.And you can afford it. Or choose not to live there. But you have the choice.
This isn't rent control. This is closing loopholes to get around the city's rent regulated apartments that it has always had. It's strengthening tenants rights.
The idea that nyc has a non diverse population is absurd on its face. It has one of the most diverse populations in the entire country, much of which can continue to live there only due to the rent control programs offered. I'm all for increasing density to a relatively high level. But the dynamics of increasing density indefinitely equate to unreasonably expensive living conditions that are inherently limited.
For example, the average new construction apartment size in Tokyo is nearly 200 sq. ft. smaller than in nyc (which is already modest at 866 sq. ft.):
"The average size for a brand new apartment in 2017 was 63.24 sqm (680 sq.ft), and 60.11 sqm (647 sq.ft) for an existing apartment."
I'm all for making good use of unused/underutilized buildings/plots and converting them into flats. I was speaking more to the fact that in many areas of the city, there isn't even room to build up any more and that any new residential construction will be obscenely expensive or will be in exchange for something the community might rely on like a park, all while primarily serving the needs of the rich and pushing out everyday people who are just hanging on. There is also the question of whether the existing public transit infrastructure can continue to serve a growing population while already being overtaxed as it is. All this stuff should be invested in continuously anyway.Huge swaths of the outer boroughs are one and two-story buildings. There are "taxpayer" storefronts that were supposed to just be temporary buildings from the depression that are still there. Within a four-block radius of my building, there are two full blocks of empty land plots, let alone low-developed area (single story buildings along a major transit artery.)
I don't want to live in Tokyo either, but there's plenty of room for more density without reaching eastern city levels (which we're really not in danger of ever reaching given demographic trends.)
I'm all for making good use of unused/underutilized buildings/plots and converting them into flats. I was speaking more to the fact that in many areas of the city, there isn't even room to build up any more and that any new residential construction will be obscenely expensive or will be in exchange for something the community might rely on like a park, all while primarily serving the needs of the rich and pushing out everyday people who are just hanging on. There is also the question of whether the existing public transit infrastructure can continue to serve a growing population while already being overtaxed as it is. All this stuff should be invested in continuously anyway.
My worry is that liberal cities continually attract affluent outsiders, making them completely unaffordable for normal income people, especially those underserved communities already living there. We've seen this happen over the last 2 decades in almost all coastal cities, where they become obscenely expensive regardless of the amount of new housing built.
My point is that at that level of density, adding more people is not necessarily a good thing, in addition to the space limitations. Quality of life relative to density operates on a bell curve just like everything else. You jam too many people in that small of a space and it begins to detrimentally affect quality of life. NYC has different problems than west coast cities exactly for this reason.
OH MY GOD
NON-NYers YOU HAVE NO IDEA getting rid of that vacancy rule will change EVERYTHING. Landlords force apartments to be empty, contributing to homelessness, just so they can jack up rents because of that idiotic rule.
They need to retroactively lower rents across the board because the fuckin landlords are out of control. Management companies are the most corrupt evil organizations in NYC hands down.
This is true, but in a place like NYC where you already are zoned in most places for mixed use and land is prohibitively expensive to build on almost every where, how do you incentivize building ay a pace that far exceeds the natural supply growth rate?They became obscenely expensive because the amount of new housing built was nowhere near what was necessary. This is the simple problem.
New York could also do to get rid of the stupid "broker commission." It's the only city in the country that makes renters pay for the privilege of signing a lease. There is no reason you should have to pay a portion of your rent...just to rent. That's what the rent is for.