One issue I see is that ultimately when there are enough people, choice is removed. Eventually there is only density left. My town isn't very dense right now, but there is definitely pressure to build more homes. When that happens, my interests will be harmed, and the interests of people who would like more density would be served. It's effectively a zero-sum game. You could say "I have a choice to move somewhere less dense" -- but so too do the people who would prefer density: they can move somewhere else and leave me alone.

Now I'm not arguing that I should be able to prevent people from making my area more dense. What I am arguing is that under this regime, people who like density will always eventually win, and people who abhor density will always eventually lose. Why is it fair that one group's preferences matter and another group's preferences do not?

Say your neighbor wants to build a duplex. You might not like it, but that's as far as your harm goes. To enforce your preference, though, you have to restrict your neighbor's behavior. The metaphorical "lines" here are pretty easy to draw, because they're literally property lines with direct physical representations.

Here's an example. I absolutely do not believe that this is actually a fair comparison. I do believe it follows the same logic as your example.

Let me explain what I mean. Let's say that I lived in an apartment, and developed a habit of listening to extremely loud music with bass starting at 10pm, and ending at 5am. My neighbors have a "preference" to be able to not hear that loud music at all, and certainly not when they're trying to sleep. They may not _like_ the loud music, but that's as far as the harm goes. To enforce _their_ preference, they would have to restrict my behavior.

Now all reasonable people would agree that playing deafening bass in the middle of the night is inappropriate, and that it would be perfectly fine to restrict my behavior. In other words, we restrict others' behavior pretty frequently. And, this restriction is based on "common sense" judgements. When the preferences of somebody falls outside of the norm under this regime, they may not have much recourse.

Now to be clear, this is far from a perfect comparison: there are laws against noise pollution, and property lines are not really the same issue as "being obnoxious on purpose." In other words, I agree and admit that these two scenarios are not interchangeable in effect. (I do believe that they follow the same logic, however.)

It's also not the case that in the "duplex" scenario that the greatest ill is not simply that I must "see" the duplex. Really, population density in an area has a number of effects:

- More people means more noise pollution. (and in some cities, kids will play loud bass in their cars no matter what time of night it is)

- More crime. (if not per-capita, then in absolute terms)

- More trash, debris, and pollution in my general vicinity.

- Longer travel times.

- More crowds.

- Etc.

And again, I'm not suggesting that I should have a legal right to prevent density from occurring. However it seems that when density occurs I have no recourse but move. I don't have any way to preserve something which is singularly important to me.

Sure, and what's wrong with that? If your goal is to live in a rural area without many people, then many countries today have plenty of depopulated areas on the outskirts of rural towns. Why not live there?

It's like the parent commenter said; expecting desirable land near a city not to densify is like expecting a puppy to never grow into a dog.

I think that's fair. I'm worried that some of this conversation is just a misunderstanding between the California-based population on HN. I'm fine with residents of California voting to modify their zoning laws to allow more density in principle.

My claim is that even areas away from dense urban environments seem to be getting more crowded. It seems like every place is. If it were restricted to urban environments and their suburbs I wouldn't worry so much. Even the rural areas are growing up and getting more crowded.

Of course it is. No one likes density, even those that say they like it (they enjoy the benefits, not the drawbacks) so it gets voted down almost literally everywhere - such as how you feel about greater density in your community.

Due to this, the only option to build was sprawl as density was banned.

The US really doesn't have "urban" other than for a few legacy pre-war cities that have marginally functional mass transit. The suburban/exurban way of life is pretty much the default for most of the country.

I'd feel a lot better about this debate if there were truly reasonable urban living choices. It would be nice to remove all forms of subsidy so everyone was paying their actual externalized costs.

One thing I've made note of my entire life as I watched sprawl continue unabated was that this is a historical anomaly. The human condition seems to be enough density to keep agriculture going in the hinterlands, with only a very select few being able to afford the upkeep/transport/etc. costs of maintaining an estate outside of the "dirty" city. To me it seems we might have spent a couple generations building a wildly unsustainable house of cards.

Look at this picture:

http://www.dannyquah.com/writings/en/files/2015/09/2015.09.2...

Notice how even in that circle most of that is water. People are moving out of that area for a variety of reasons, some density, some environmental (both natural and pollution), and some economic.

The current low-density north american way of living is a historical anomaly outside of agrarian lifestyles (farms are just open air biological farms). Expecting post-war living to continue is like expecting the post-war economy to continue.

Personally, I bought a 100 acres that are remote and off-road to build my own place off-grid. This is put-up-or-shut-up. You cannot expect to find less dense living without purposefully securing it.

Most of what we do today is a historical anomaly, because our times are very unique. However, it is the dense city living that's historical anomaly. As recently as 100 years ago, majority of Americans lived in rural places. Before 1900, only a small minority of people globally lived in urban environments, and before 1700, it was a very minuscule minority indeed.

If your goal is to live in a dense area packed with people, then many countries today have plenty of densely populated areas in the center of urban cities. Why not live there?

People who want their village life surrounded by farmland can go live in a small village with a train line stop and commute into the huge downtown city for work within 45 - 60 minutes. Look at berlin for example:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Dabendorf,+15806+Zossen,+Ger...

"Move to another country" is a complete non-starter for most Americans too.

What Americans have done to their country is a fence sitting exercise that creates the worse of both worlds. Cities in Europe are smaller, more dense and the drop off into nature is significantly faster. When americans attempt to make something city like, they're noisy, dirty, traffic clogged and crime ridden because it's against the culture to make walkable, transit orientated cities that are significantly quieter, than an american car dependent 'city'. They still give themselves long commutes, but you get huge suburban sprawl that never really ends until your hours out, so you still don't get your log cabin lifestyle anyway.

By allowing cities to properly happen, you ironically create the conditions that make what you want more frequent and would still let you work close enough to a city core to actually make good money. A key issue with rural living is a bad income, because your too far away from other humans to make large productive groups than can make money.

Go to https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/region_rankings_c... and check out some European cities you know by name. I recommend looking at the "Mortgage as Percentage of Income" metric:

Mortgage as Percentage of Income is a ratio of the actual monthly cost of the mortgage to take-home family income (lower is better). Average monthly salary is used to estimate family income. It assumes 100% mortgage is taken on 20 years for the house(or apt) of 90 square meters which price per square meter is the average of price in the city center and outside of city center.

90 square meters is around 1000 square feet. In San Francisco, that's 50%. Sounds bad, huh? Well, it's 70% in Madrid, 92% in London and Munich, 101% in Rome, and 117% in Paris, and these are not even the worst: Kiev, Moscow, Minsk, Krakow or Dubrovnik are much worse than that. Maybe it's better in 2nd tier cities? Well, in some (e.g. 31% in Antwerp or 37% in Aarhus), but not in most: 115% in Brno, 93% in Zagreb, or 61% in Lyon.

Back to US: San Francisco 50% is basically as bad as it gets in US, outside of NYC (where it's 66%). Most places in US are in 20-30%s. You think Seattle or Denver are not affordable? Well, the mortgage-to-income ratio there is only around 27%. That's cheaper than basically any major European city.

So yeah, compared to most of European cities, San Francisco houses are a steal.

As a counterexample, my partner and I require wherever we live to support life without a car. There's a handful of places in the US we can do that, all super urban. We'd be open to a lot of other places in the US were that possible, but it's singularly important to us.

I wouldn't say you're making the following point exactly but, there is definitely a contingent of people who argue for rural or single-family housing by saying "it's just objectively better". But I really think that's incredibly hard to substantiate. Probably the best we can do here is that people have strong preferences for one or the other (though they can change over time) and we should try to get people what they want without destroying the planet/creating infested hell pits.

I completely agree. I know there are a large number of people (perhaps a majority?) who prefer dense urban environments. I certainly don't want those to go away. I just also don't want to lose rural spaces.

Well, have you thought about buying a larger plot of land? Seems like the obvious solution if you are intent on controlling wide swaths of land surrounding your house.

We can call this idea “zoning”.

Of course human beings want to restrict what other people do on their own land. History is full of groups of people just, you know, taking land whenever they think it suits their purposes. That's why the right to private property is in the Constitution. It's why Euclid was wrongly decided. And it's why you don't get to appeal to "democracy" in an attempt to abridge a fundamental right.

No?

Oh great, I guess I'll be commuting 2 hours to get to an office that is walking distance for my boss.

I think there's a big difference in this case between what I should practically do to meet my goals and the philosophical argument at issue. In other words, even if I always lose the philosophical argument, I can simply try to buy some large plot of rural land as you suggest.

Philosophically, I worry about what happens when density is the only choice left for people, and a large majority of them don't or won't understand why that might be so unpalatable for a significant minority of people.

Your social life and neighbors will more skew towards the grey haired spectrum, but that is the sacrifice you will need to make!

The issue is that classic democrat “I believe in climate change but a large house and a F-150 / giant SUV is a want I don’t want to compromise on” is why we’re not making progress on any of this. Those things will still consume a ton of electricity when they’re electric.

> My town isn't very dense right now, but there is definitely pressure to build more homes. When that happens, my interests will be harmed, and the interests of people who would like more density would be served

When you bought your house, you bought the land, not the right to decide what other people do with their property.

> Why is it fair that one group's preferences matter and another group's preferences do not

Because you preferences lead to my grand kids having a noticeably worse planet to live in?