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Northstar1989 t1_iy4nwoj wrote

Reply to comment by farox in This is the first house 3D-printed from bio-based materials - The new technology could come in at a key moment. by speckz

>Exactly my point.

Wasn't clear, I guess?

I thought you were shrugging off the clear and evident need for higher density zoning to deal with the housing crisis with the "ughhh, just pave over more green space" (which I find particularly grating, as besides being concerned about the housing crisis, I am also a hiker and an Environmentalist) argument.

Higher density also helps save the planet from Climate Change (in addition to sprawl directly adding CO2 to the atmosphere through soil mineralization and loss of trees), because while it's impossible to service endless R-1 sprawl with a Mass Transit system good enough people will actually use it over driving, without insanely-large subsidies, it's perfectly doable in denser development.

Particularly when combined with Mixed Use Zoning, this can help move things towards where more people are willing to forego owning a car altogether, in favor of Mass Transit (which right now is rare, and exposes you to immense cultural discrimination...)

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farox t1_iy4tq8d wrote

Check out what they are doing in Tokyo for example. I am talking about allowing more commercial and low industrial usage mixed in with residential.

I get the point of packing people as tightly together as possible and the issue of R1 having very few people paying for lots of roads and other infrastructure, driving communities into debt. (For real, how shit is this whole concept?)

But I don't think you need to go that far. Instead of everyone needing to drive 20km that way, it would already do a world of good if people had to go 2km in random directions.

Yes, this might or might not be problematic for mass transit. But you could use that to play around with different densities. Have more money? Get more land. Have less money? Get less land. But mix it up more as a whole.

I don't think you'll be able to turn north America into Amsterdam. (And trying to will get you lots of ideological pushback)

But maybe you don't have to. (This is assuming electric, maybe even autonomous, cars, renewable energy...) But just mixing things up a bit more would be a step in the right direction. Even if the rest stays the same.

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Northstar1989 t1_iy6zkex wrote

> don't think you'll be able to turn north America into Amsterdam. (And trying to will get you lots of ideological pushback)

This is absolutely what needs to happen.

Massive problems require massive changes.

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