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goodsam2 t1_j2xb8ar wrote

Reply to comment by STREAMOFCONSCIOUSN3S in Your City Is the Most Livable in America, Until We Publish This Article About It by ValancourtB

>Are you referring to housing or businesses?

Both

>If you continue building, is there a risk you erase what is currently nice about a place?

I mean why can't we add something new fan style housing one of the most popular neighborhoods. Most people in urban Richmond city live in 100 year old housing, old factories converted into apartments, or brand new apartments that are a very recent development for the most part. That or shitty cape cods and more everywhere suburban sprawl.

>What if the low density is what makes a certain place desirable?

I mean yes in some cases but how many neighborhoods haven't built anything in decades and you are just yelling stop and watching as things increase as price fundamentally changing the nature of the area IMO more than building ever would have. I mean this view preserves the infrastructure but not the price point at all.

Increasing density has massive network effects, so it would almost all be clustered closer to the center. Most suburbs are too far away to really make sense for much higher density. Short pump to Willow Lawn is 9.8 miles, high density along that corridor maybe but bus times would be absurd. Nobody is adding more than like a couple of duplexes in any free market context to most neighborhoods and 90% of people can't tell the difference between a duplex and single family home.

>I know this will get downvoted because most Redditors would like to live in 100 sq ft apartments built 80 stories high, but I'm actually curious what you're saying.

I mean why don't we have more 2,000 sq ft row houses from this century that are actually urban?

Also people don't want small spaces but the 100 SQ ft places would actually take a huge bite out of the homelessness population, smaller places could be a lot more affordable. To me banning things below a certain size sounds to me like you are saying we should only build mansions, because I don't want to live next to poor people.

IMO the blight on this city is shitty post war cape cods. Which if you like them good, we have a shit ton of them (because they built stuff back then and now we don't). They are old and have no character association especially to Richmond.

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STREAMOFCONSCIOUSN3S t1_j2xx9y5 wrote

> mean why don't we have more 2,000 sq ft row houses from this century that are actually urban?

Schools. Make school choice a thing and you'll see young families flock back to urban areas and desire those 2k sq ft houses.

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goodsam2 t1_j2xy1kd wrote

I think that answer is changing rapidly, fan museum district with high housing prices lead to good schools.

Suburbs having good schools and cheap housing IMO is a dying concept. High housing prices means good schools. Infrastructure costs are getting to the suburbs now.

Look at great schools for elementary some of the best schools in the metro area in city limits and the numbers are improving, if I had a kid now I would send them in the city rather than out for the express purpose of better school future.

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STREAMOFCONSCIOUSN3S t1_j2xz2xj wrote

What about middle and high school? The sad fact is that as long as you have education-focused parents with the means (wealth) to remove themselves from poor students, they will continue to do so, and currently that means moving away from the poor students. Implementing school choice would remove the necessity of moving away.

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goodsam2 t1_j2y377k wrote

>What about middle and high school?

It's moving up from the bottom.

>The sad fact is that as long as you have education-focused parents with the means (wealth) to remove themselves from poor students, they will continue to do so, and currently that means moving away from the poor students.

Which means not moving into the suburbs where poverty has been rising faster than urban areas for 2 decades.

Explain to me how we have the fan and entry price is twice as high as the suburbs and has a worse school long term.

>Implementing school choice would remove the necessity of moving away.

I mean yes but also what level of choice are we talking about here. I think we need to keep them in public schools.

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STREAMOFCONSCIOUSN3S t1_j2y6nt6 wrote

> Explain to me how we have the fan and entry price is twice as high as the suburbs and has a worse school long term.

Because elementary schools pull from a smaller area than middle and high schools. For elementary, students come from just the Fan, but for MS and HS they also come from impoverished areas surrounding the Fan. Same scenario is true of Tuckahoe Elementary in Henrico county.

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goodsam2 t1_j2yb8o1 wrote

The areas around the fan are not that impoverished and are rising quickly as well. If it continues to be an issue I think they push for a rezoning to only keep the richer areas.

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