• Jiral@lemmy.world
    672·
    3 days ago

    Funfact: If you build cities like it, walkable nice urban neighbourhoods, attractive for young families and others alike, can be perfectly affordable.

    • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zipEnglish
      655·
      3 days ago

      Another fun fact: Walkable neighborhoods are cheaper to build. But we’ve made that illegal, and instead build insanely expensive car infrastructure everywhere, then wonder why we have an affordability crisis.

          • cavitationfetishist2@quokk.auEnglish
            34·
            3 days ago

            And since all ownership is kind of souled together, profits are averaged across industries.

            Why the hell would you accept the capitalist lie that the owner class would compete against each other?

            • ChilledPeppers@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              7·
              3 days ago

              I hate this kinda thought. It is very much based on marxism (class consciousness or whatever), but very much conspirational. ‘They’ control everuthing and don’t want you to know about it!

              Obviously there is to some level of cooperarion between the greedy fucks, but it really isnt like that. There are people who became billionaires off of green energy companies, and who would actively push in favor of more eletric cars, so that they make more money, inspite of the petrol companies.

              • cavitationfetishist2@quokk.auEnglish
                41·
                3 days ago

                It’s how it works. You don’t own one. You own 5% of twenty things, derivatives in ten others, and one chunk of money in a hedge fund that has you diversified into literally everything.

                Its not a conspiracy. Nothing is behind closed doors here. It’s literally ‘diversify your investments’. The first thing literally any competent investment advisor tells you.

                But ownership is much more abstracted now, so shares aren’t just shares, they’re bundled and derived, until derivative bundle derivative product bundle derivatives are 10% of your portfolio. It’s literly just a matter of class now. The actual money doesn’t matter.

        • VibeSurgeon@piefed.socialEnglish
          5·
          3 days ago

          That’s not at all how that relationship works.

          Reducing the cost that it takes to produce something does not affect its margins negatively

        • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zipEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          I’m not sure how California works, but that’s wholly inaccurate for Wisconsin, and most other states. Gas taxes and registration fees go to the state, and they do not even cover the whole state transportation budget. Non-car zones area far, far more economically productive than car-oriented areas. Strong Towns has a whole series of articles about it, based on data analysis performed by a consultant called Urban3.

          I did the numbers once on the apartment building that I lived in, with ground-floor retail, and it absolutely blew the nearby Walmart out of the water as far as return on investment for the city. More jobs per acre, more taxes per acre, less infrastructure cost, the whole deal.

          Yes, there’s this persistent myth in America that cars are good for the economy and local business. It is a myth, though. When you actually look at the real-world numbers, cars are destroying cities financially.

  • pedz@lemmy.ca
    20·
    3 days ago

    Sometimes it can happen, depending on your lifestyle. I work in tech and live alone. I come from a rural town of 7000 people. When I was a teenager in the 90ies, I wanted to live in a group of towers of a trendy neighborhood in my province’s biggest city. They are connected to an underground mall with a grocery store, a cinema, a pharmacy, multiple restaurants, etc… To me it seemed prestigious and useful to be able to live in a place without going outside for errands.

    Ten years later I moved into that city but in a peripheral neighborhood. Then another few years later, I needed to move again and ended up in a tower near the ones I wanted to live in when I was a teenager. I didn’t even realize it at first. I just needed a place to live. But one day while coming back from the grocery store and exiting the tower complex, I realized that I wanted to live there twenty odd years ago, and now I go shop there while living two streets away.

    But now that I traveled a bit more in the recent years, there are other places in the world where I have this feeling of “I could/I want to live there” and I know it’s probably not going to be possible. Also, as nice and tempting as other countries and cities are, it’s already not easy to find a place to live in your own country right now, let alone in a desirable neighborhood of another country.

      • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        3 days ago

        There’s a pretty wide sidewalk physically separated from the road, with tree coverage to help with shade. You could miss it at first glance though

        Buses also get separate lanes so at least some thought has been put into public transit

        It’s pretty walkable for a big north American city imo

  • Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip
    9·
    3 days ago

    I said this recently when visiting Brooklyn. Place felt like home to me, but I know my ass could never afford it.

    • potoooooooo 🥔@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      It’s got a rough reputation, but even without a real yard, I believe I could get by in one of those humble old brownstones. If it was good enough for Arthur Miller to struggle in…I’d find a way to get by.

  • JakoJakoJako13@piefed.socialEnglish
    161·
    3 days ago

    I spent a couple days in Chicago last year. Roughed it out in a park overnight. Went to the beach the next day. Spent more time on Amtrak than I did in Chicago for the whole trip. My body felt like death the whole time, but I had the best mental high I’ve had in years. My whole life goal is to move there now.

    • VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      10·
      3 days ago

      A disproportionately high amount of lemmy users is older and in tech, so probably doing better than average.

      For me, it’s living in Europe. I can get a train ticket to Paris and back plus a few night in a cheap hotel for 2 days wage. Less for Prague, Vienna, and a lot of other cities.

      • Zidane@lemmy.ca
        5·
        3 days ago

        I’m genuinely extremely jealous of the vastly superior rail network in Europe. The only option for my area is car :^(

        • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          For my wife and me, we get our travel in via taking advantage of our region’s excellent network of state and national parks and campsites. The ones with hot water showers. Not making that mistake again.

        • majster@lemmy.zip
          2·
          3 days ago

          Cross border rail is a major PITA though. Ultra cheap airfares is what is moving people across Europe for peanuts.

          • VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            3·
            3 days ago

            I refuse to use planes for inner European journeys. And from where I am right now, I have direct trains to Zurich, Vienna, Prague, Verona, Rome, Paris, Berlin etc.