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NIMBYs are using government powers to dictate what others can build on their own property. While doing so, they are preventing others from having the same access to the city as they do themselves. I just find to be fair more than fair enough to ask the NIMBYs to move to the countryside instead. Wanting space for yourself is one thing. It may be harmful for the environment, but let's ignore this for a moment. Then at least don't force others to live the same lifestyle and didctate what they are allowed to do with their own property and move to the countryside at least.
What nonsense. Every additional body means "less access" for everyone, not the "same access".
Second, if the developer's project is not lawful without a zoning ordinance variance, then the developer is seeking special privilege and exceptions from the ordinance everyone else is subject to. The others subject to the restriction and within proximity of the development have standing to object to zoning variance requests.
Your proposition that people should waive rights when they move to a city is wholly inconsistent with the very idea that the U.S. and State constitutions are supposed to ensure people can exercise certain rights with respect to government. You promote a totalitarian state. No one needs to apologize for saying "no".
OMG WOW you are leaving me speechless. You are really unable to comprehend when I am talking about cities as built form as contrary to "geopolitical boundaries". Just wow. You may read a book about the basics of geography and urban planning before we continue this discussion. The "DEMOGRAPHIA WORLD URBAN AREAS" which is released by Wendell Cox, very often cited by your anti-urbanist friend Randall O'Toole, has a very good definition of urban areas, that includes a certain density threshold. Maybe you should read into the latest World Urban Areas publication to get a better understanding of how cities as built form are distinct from geopolitical and statistical boundaries: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf These urban areas very much include suburban style development. However suburban style development is NOT RURAL, but urban (or as city as the term is used colloquially), because it is still to dense to qualifiy as rural. Most Americans prefer to live in these denser areas as compared to lower densities, because of the amenities these denser areas offer. I am sorry you won't comprehend this, but this is the last time I am responding to you, as this seems to be a senseless discussion. And I also think you are the only one here who doesn't get it, regardless what position people are holding regarding density. You just don't make any sense. Debating you is senseless and a waste of time. I am only going to respond to other users from now on.
The above cited authors don't conflate cities with "built up areas" as you have. The number of posters that have taken issue with your remarks should provide some insight that perhaps your position is not well thought out nor even rational.
I understand you don't like it when people point out the flaws in your arguments/rationales. Although you've tried to rationalize density, your responses to the points raised by others simply exposes that this is not ration at all on your part but rather a blind promotion of density. Even the topic you gave this post suggests the absurdity of your position. You are a religious extremist with a religion of density.
Your blind promotion of density is a religion adopted by very few. Most do not like it and populations disperse away from it. You seem to have an absurd belief that tolerating some amount of density of people/buildings means people must accept unlimited increases in density of people/buildings. There is no rational basis for your premise.
It's certainly your prerogative to not respond when you cannot make a rational response. You probably should have exercised that prerogative a long time ago.
Well, the fact remains that most US residents want to live near or in a city, defined however you want to, and most US residents want to live in an owner-occupied single family house. They consistently vote for local representatives who appoint zoning boards that will maintain large areas of single family houses. When multi-family developments come up for approval, the nearby single family homeowners consistently show up to oppose them - of course the degree of opposition varies with the nature of the project. The luxury townhouses that will replace two blocks of crack houses won't get much opposition; the guy who buys up a dozen small SFH and wants to raze them and put in 250 apartments right in the middle of the neighborhood will get a lot more opposition.
What you see in Oklahoma City or Indianapolis is what people who live there want, and it's why people move there. People who want to live in apartments or rowhouses move to Boston or central Philadelphia.
I don't have survey data but I bet the number of people living in Boston or Philly rowhouses or flats who wish they could live in a single family houses is many times the number of people living in SFH in OKC or Indianapolis who wish they could live in an apartment or rowhouse.
If you want to promote higher-density living, you need to make it sound attractive. Berating those who prefer not to live that way does not make them want to consider your ideas. And why you think those who spend enormous sums of money for their houses based on the nature of their neighborhood should have zero say on whether developers come in and destroy much of their property value, completely eludes me. I bet if a developer wanted to come in and put a lead smelter next to your apartment building you'd feel like you should have a say.
That's called the free market. If you invest into something and that investment turns out to be a money loser, because the market situation has changed you just can't shift responsibility to others. You have to take responsibility for your own decisions. What's the alternative? You are telling others what they can do with their own property? That's communism, not capitalism. I am all for government regulations giving the market a framework, but I am just trying to make you aware what you are promoting here.
That said, the market value of living in Boston is much higher than the market value of living in Oklahoma City. The majority of people may not like to live in apartments rather than single family homes, but much more people want to benefit from living in a place, where you have this urban atmosphere that comes with apartment or increased density environments.
...What's the alternative? You are telling others what they can do with their own property? That's communism, not capitalism.....
There is basically no place in the United States where there are no regulations on what a person can do with their property. Try to build a 100 unit subdivision without sewage treatment and you'll see.
As I've said before, the "density at all costs, to hell with the quality of life of the existing property owners, we want to use all means possible to jam as many people as possible into this space" advocates only trot out this pseudo-libertarian argument when it suits their purposes. They think Americans are so stupid that they'll not notice this is the same old stuff dressed up in a new set of clothing. I can guarantee that the density advocates would NOT support a property owner's right to move in a scrapyard, manufacturing plant, or pig farm next door to their home. It's only for shoving apartments into SFH areas that they're all "oh, it's the free market".
....The majority of people may not like to live in apartments rather than single family homes, but much more people want to benefit from living in a place, where you have this urban atmosphere that comes with apartment or increased density environments.
Well, you just got hoist by your own petard.
You just ADMITTED that people don't prefer apartments but that they SETTLE for them as a compromise, so they can live near things they want.
At least in the United States (a place you've never even been to - a place where I've lived my entire life) over and over and over again you will see that when people have the opportunity to CHOOSE they overwhelmingly choose single family detached houses. But of course it's often unfeasible to choose that kind of dwelling, and they end up in flats, rowhouses, duplexes, triple-deckers, etc. What makes it unfeasible? Mostly, cost. Other than lower Manhattan, if you've got enough money you can have a SFH pretty much anywhere in the US.
But don't mistake what people do as a compromise with their real-world finances, with what they prefer.
You just ADMITTED that people don't prefer apartments but that they SETTLE for them as a compromise, so they can live near things they want.
At least in the United States (a place you've never even been to - a place where I've lived my entire life) over and over and over again you will see that when people have the opportunity to CHOOSE they overwhelmingly choose single family detached houses. But of course it's often unfeasible to choose that kind of dwelling, and they end up in flats, rowhouses, duplexes, triple-deckers, etc. What makes it unfeasible? Mostly, cost. Other than lower Manhattan, if you've got enough money you can have a SFH pretty much anywhere in the US.
But don't mistake what people do as a compromise with their real-world finances, with what they prefer.
Just about everything we do is some kind of compromise with finances.
Most people might prefer Mercedes to Toyota, first class to coach, Neiman-Marcus to Target, lobster to burritos...
but when they make their real-world choices, they factor in price. And it doesn't mean they don't like their Toyotas or burritos.
If I had the $$$$, I might want to live in a little cottage up at Sea Ranch.
But in the real world, I still like my city apartment.
You just ADMITTED that people don't prefer apartments but that they SETTLE for them as a compromise, so they can live near things they want.
At least in the United States (a place you've never even been to - a place where I've lived my entire life) over and over and over again you will see that when people have the opportunity to CHOOSE they overwhelmingly choose single family detached houses. But of course it's often unfeasible to choose that kind of dwelling, and they end up in flats, rowhouses, duplexes, triple-deckers, etc. What makes it unfeasible? Mostly, cost. Other than lower Manhattan, if you've got enough money you can have a SFH pretty much anywhere in the US.
But don't mistake what people do as a compromise with their real-world finances, with what they prefer.
I can offer myself as an example.
I think it should be clear that I value the benefits urban density has to offer. But I now live in a twin in an outlying neighborhood that got carved up into five apartments.
Why? it has a backyard, and I love to barbecue, which you can't do properly in most apartment buildings here. The city fire code prohibits "open flame devices," by which the code means grills whose flames you cannot quickly adjust or extinguish, within 10 feet of any residential structure, with a carveout for one- and two-family residences (thus rowhouses and duplexes/twins qualify). Most newer apartment complexes here have courtyards or terraces outfitted with gas grills.
I was fortunate enough to live in a 12-unit Center City apartment building with a courtyard large enough to accommodate a charcoal grill for 17 years. But to do what I want to do, I'd need a house with its own yard. Now, the carveout means that all the rowhouses in Center City, most of which have small backyards, some barely big enough to keep a grill in, would qualify, especially since the city doesn't go around counting doorbells to see what kind of rowhouse (or twin) it is. If it looks like an SFR, it is an SFR as far as the Philadelphia Fire Department is concerned. (And rowhouses everywhere that haven't been carved up into apartments are SFRs, for they're designed as single-family residential units. They just share party walls with the houses next to them.)
But for most of us Q fiends in Philly, a house with a yard is a must if one is going to smoke their own. ISTR Stadtmensch faulted the people who live in freestanding SFRs because their lawns and yards get no active use. On the contrary: Backyards do get used, and the analogy of the football stadium that sits empty for two-thirds of the year is applicable here.
I live in the countryside and I love it. I have a car(ICE) so I can drive to the city if I need amenities, but I only do that a few times a year.
I thought the whole point of urban planning was to force everyone to live in cities though. Or if not force, then put immense pressure on people who resist. Make them uncomfortable enough that moving to a city is the only reasonable choice left to them. Living in the countryside is supposed to be environmentally unfriendly.
I live in the countryside and I love it. I have a car(ICE) so I can drive to the city if I need amenities, but I only do that a few times a year.
I thought the whole point of urban planning was to force everyone to live in cities though. Or if not force, then put immense pressure on people who resist. Make them uncomfortable enough that moving to a city is the only reasonable choice left to them. Living in the countryside is supposed to be environmentally unfriendly.
No, it's not.
Urban planning is not some nefarious plot to force those who don't want to live in cities to live in them. But it does seek to reshape the urban environments we do have to make them friendlier for those who either cannot or would rather not drive.
Our suburbs are urban, not rural, environments. They don't function as well as they could because we try to have it both ways.* And that doesn't necessarily mean apartment towers everywhere. It could be smaller lots and a lattice of streets rather than a dendritic (tree-like) street network. It could be legal granny flats or accessory apartments in existing houses or on their lots. It does mean commercial centers aligned around streets and intersections rather than ringed by lakes of parking along some six-lane arterial highway.
IF you look at the kinds of built environments the Congress for the New Urbanism crowd advocates for, you will find they look more like small towns than like Hong Kong. Ever read the CNU's explanation of its reason for being? You could say they want to go back to the future. The defenders of and apologists for the autocentric status quo like to portray them as wanting to force everyone into high-rises, but nothing could be further from the truth — that accusation is a canard.
*I've been known to say that "by 'moving to the country,' suburbanites destroy the thing they seek."
I think it should be clear that I value the benefits urban density has to offer. But I now live in a twin in an outlying neighborhood that got carved up into five apartments.
Why? it has a backyard, and I love to barbecue, which you can't do properly in most apartment buildings here. The city fire code prohibits "open flame devices," by which the code means grills whose flames you cannot quickly adjust or extinguish, within 10 feet of any residential structure, with a carveout for one- and two-family residences (thus rowhouses and duplexes/twins qualify). Most newer apartment complexes here have courtyards or terraces outfitted with gas grills.
I was fortunate enough to live in a 12-unit Center City apartment building with a courtyard large enough to accommodate a charcoal grill for 17 years. But to do what I want to do, I'd need a house with its own yard. Now, the carveout means that all the rowhouses in Center City, most of which have small backyards, some barely big enough to keep a grill in, would qualify, especially since the city doesn't go around counting doorbells to see what kind of rowhouse (or twin) it is. If it looks like an SFR, it is an SFR as far as the Philadelphia Fire Department is concerned. (And rowhouses everywhere that haven't been carved up into apartments are SFRs, for they're designed as single-family residential units. They just share party walls with the houses next to them.)
But for most of us Q fiends in Philly, a house with a yard is a must if one is going to smoke their own. ISTR Stadtmensch faulted the people who live in freestanding SFRs because their lawns and yards get no active use. On the contrary: Backyards do get used, and the analogy of the football stadium that sits empty for two-thirds of the year is applicable here.
Even when used from time to time here and there, the utility of mostly empty lawn is disproportionate to the wasted space. This wasn't an attack against your private lawn and I am sure you are using it for barbecuing as well, but I am more broadly speaking. If what you tell me is true and you do live in some of these older neighborhoods, your lawn is probably more efficient than the average one.
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