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A comment on Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive. Parent comment

Re:Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive by cortesoft on Thursday January 18, 2018 @01:34PM (#16179896)
I don't think it is some decision or planning that leads to this. New York is so dense because it is geographically constrained, and as the city grew it had no where to expand out to, so it had to become more dense to grow. Los Angeles, on the other hand, was created as smaller cities grew outward and connected to each other.

They are both successful in growth for different reasons, but their density was determined by geography, not by 'what people enjoy'.

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Re:Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive by ecshafer on Thursday January 18, 2018 @02:21PM (#16180402)
Los Angeles has extremely strict parking requirements, and green space requirements. People often have no choice but to build out due to expense. There was a fantastic write up on Reddit by an architect on the issue here https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/com...
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Re:Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive by rayiner on Thursday January 18, 2018 @02:12PM (#16180319)
Chicago was built densely, and it's flat Illinois land as far as the eye can see for 180 degrees. Zoning codes force people to build more densely than they otherwise would. The average lot size in my neighborhood (laid out before zoning codes) is 2,800 square feet. The minimum lot size in the county today is 15,000 square feet (five times less dense).
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Re:Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive by jstanley on Thursday January 18, 2018 @01:43PM (#16179995)
> their density was determined by geography, not by 'what people enjoy'.

But whether people choose to live in them is determined by what people enjoy.

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Re:Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive by EpicEng on Thursday January 18, 2018 @01:58PM (#16180143)
No it's not.

People tend to stay in the area they were born.

People tend to stay near their family.

People tend stay were they can find work.

People can't always afford to just up and move.

Not everyone is living on a six figure salary with a slew of job offers to chose from. Most people don't have the options you may have.

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Re:Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive by cortesoft on Thursday January 18, 2018 @02:27PM (#16180467)
People don't make decisions in a vacuum. I don't get to choose where I want to live based solely on what I enjoy. A big part of what keeps people in a city is the network effect; cities are where the jobs are, so the people have to live there, which makes companies want to move to where the employees are, which makes people live there.....

Plus, you have families, cost of moving, home ownership, etc, that keeps you in a place even if you might enjoy living somehwere else more.

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