Toggle navigation
Toggle navigation
Home
DCUM Forums
Nanny Forums
Events
About DCUM
Advertising
Search
Recent Topics
Hottest Topics
FAQs and Guidelines
Privacy Policy
Your current identity is: Anonymous
Login
Preview
Subject:
Forum Index
»
Real Estate
Reply to "GGWash?"
Subject:
Emoticons
More smilies
Text Color:
Default
Dark Red
Red
Orange
Brown
Yellow
Green
Olive
Cyan
Blue
Dark Blue
Violet
White
Black
Font:
Very Small
Small
Normal
Big
Giant
Close Marks
[quote=Anonymous]For the most part, I like the site, especially the contributors who do interesting things with data. I also think that the overriding thesis of the project is more or less right. What the people who write things like "they just want more housing because they can't afford the hippest neighborhoods" are missing is that the main reasons these neighborhoods are popular are entirely factors under our control. We can afford to build neighborhoods with the amenities and lifestyles that people want and that are also sustainable. In fact, absent regulatory differences, denser neighborhoods are actually much more affordable to build and maintain. The only reason that we don't build such neighborhoods, and the only reason that they are more expensive, is that we allow individual existing homeowners more influence than the generations of residents that will deal with the consequences of these decisions in the future. The neighborhoods that result are unsustainable. We spent decades making poor planning choices by being short-sighted in this way, and now we're stuck trying to shoehorn in a liveable lifestyle amidst the world we built that doesn't involve spending our entire lives in our cars or destroying the planet. I don't think it's a bad thing that GGWash is pointing that out. The people who I find most annoying are people who pretend that retaining the status quo somehow isn't making a decision while changing anything is, or that only current owners have the right to have their opinions count. Every neighborhood layout in this city and in virtually every metro is the result of deliberate planning and regulation by central authorities. There is no natural law here; the individual rights that we have over our own property only exist because they have been granted after the planning was complete, and within the scope of that planning. We can and should all lobby and vote for what we want, but what other authority does any of us have to say that governments should listen to some citizens more than others when it comes time to augment those plans? And claiming that allowing the status quo isn't making a choice is like claiming that trolley problems just aren't problems. As if it doesn't really matter what harm comes to others as long as we didn't touch the zoning laws to make it so. Total BS. I agree that the site could be more transparent about their funding sources and their relationships to developers. It takes money to keep the lights on everywhere, and nobody really donates the big bucks for free, but I think that GGWash makes itself an easy target sometimes because it's easy to paint as being a mouthpiece. Before anyone asks, I own a house in a very hip neighborhood, thanks.[/quote]
Options
Disable HTML in this message
Disable BB Code in this message
Disable smilies in this message
Review message
Search
Recent Topics
Hottest Topics