The majority of the affordability crisis stems from car dependency and excessive need for infrastructure due to bad zoning policy.

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BLKNSLVR 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Just got me thinking about how much an area would attract residents if it could advertise the savings they'd make from living there as compared to anywhere 'normal'.

No car = no on-going petrol / diesel costs.

Fewer cars = cleaner / healthier air. Quieter, more serene ... everything.

Cleaner / Healthier air = Fewer health issues.

Fewer cars = more bikes

More bikes = physically healthier people.

Good planning is worth its weight in gold. I fear I'm stumbling into utopia theory, which is fraught with forgetting a whole lot of other realities.

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anon291 2 hours ago | parent [-]

American cities are not nice places to live due to crime..the built environment is often better than equivalent cities elsewhere. People who care about cities need to care about law and order.

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BLKNSLVR 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Law and order, to some extent, is about 'life satisfaction', so making life cheaper and more pleasant would chip away at some of the crime factor.

	▲	irishcoffee 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		“Chip away at some” Man, you really sold it.

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Ericson2314 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Crime has declined for 30 years to an amazing extent, almost uninterrupted but for Covid. Total non-problem.

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cheonic4040 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The majority of the affordability crisis stems from car dependency and excessive need for infrastructure due to bad zoning policy.

New York City is one of the most expensive places in the world. Housing is more expensive than SF.

No cars needed in NYC, yet expensive as hell.

	▲	1270018080 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		NYC, and a handful of neighborhoods from the other top 5 cities, are the only places in the entire country that have semi-functioning urban design. The entire population of America who wants human centered urban design only have a few square miles to pick from. So of course the cost of living will be high.

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supertrope 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

oatmeal1 is right. The largest components of most people's budgets are housing and transportation. Restricting new construction constricts new supply which results in rent/mortgage payments being higher than they need to be. Zoning which makes driving easy and anything else very hard makes buying and maintaining an automobile a de facto necessity. It also exposes you to oil shocks.