Am I understanding that the solution proposed in the article is to allow more dense building in suburbs/outskirts of cities in Europe? This doesn't solve the actual problem that many European cities face, which is a housing shortage in the actual city center, where people want to live; there's generally not that much a lack of housing the further you get outside of a major city center in Europe, and people don't want to live outside of the city center because, well, they want to be in the city.

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jonkoops 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I live in Amsterdam; nobody wants to live in the city center. There are plenty of ways to keep an old city center AND build out the surrounding areas in a way that people actually would like to live there.

We do really need to have a serious conversation about single-family homes; you will even find them right next to metro stations. Some of these low-density neighborhoods really need to be demolished and reconstructed into higher-density housing that can still reasonably house a family.

	▲	yladiz 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's a fair point, maybe "city center" isn't the best term here. What I mean are areas still in the city close to where a lot of the cafes, bars, restaurants, nightlife - third places in general - are, which is where people that want to live in a city generally prefer to live in if possible.

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yen223 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Making secondary cities more attractive ought to be part of the conversation around housing affordability

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JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> people don't want to live outside of the city center

Are home prices just outside the city center stagnant?

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yladiz 14 hours ago | parent [-]

No, but they are don't rise nearly as much as real estate prices in city centers, and it's mostly irrelevant to the point I was making, because it doesn't matter how the prices are outside of the city center if you want to live in the city center.

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JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago | parent [-]

> they are don't rise nearly as much as real estate prices in city centers

Pick the low-hanging fruit. More housing outside the city centre (with requisite transit infrastructure) still means more-affordable housing. That, in turn, should relieve pressure on the centre.

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yladiz 14 hours ago | parent [-]

Many cities and areas close to major European cities have good transit infrastructure, yet people don't want to live there, they want to live in the city. So making more housing outside of the city, again, doesn't solve the actual problem facing major European cities.

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hyhatqtv 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Such as? I don’t think the other commenters meant areas requiring a 1-2 hours commute but actual suburbs

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JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> yet people don't want to live there

This is obviously untrue if the prices have risen.

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yladiz 13 hours ago | parent [-]

What?

	▲	JumpCrisscross 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If prices for houses just outside the city haven’t fallen, there is clearly demand for them.

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elzbardico 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Most people in HN fail to understand that the vast majority of people don't want to live in incredibly dense city centers. Not everyone is a young single professional without kids. This doesn't mean that everyone wants to live in a single family house in a suburb, but also not everyone wants to live in a highrise in a packed city center that looks like hong kong.

	▲	watwut an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Families want to live in dense centers or close to them. The parents who can afford it actually like being close to schools, to their work, to where after school programs are. The city centers are the most expensive, because vast majority wants to live there. Further away is less expensive and even mode further away is even more expensive. Most if not all european city centers are no dystopia. They are perfectly compatible with having familly.

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secretsatan 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

With many city centers in europe steeped in history, it’s never going to happen.

But in contradiction to the article, just up the road from me, practically a small town was built of high density housing in what i would still consider “the city”, but with amenities and improved public transport factored in