Happy Eviction Day! - Free ride no longer free

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A particular Russian bitch who fleeced an old widow out of her business comes to mind. She tried to get my mom to pay for structural damage she refused to repair for years. The house was 100 years old.

Being homeless is horrifying. Some of the comments in this thread are pretty horrible. Like I know this is Kiwi Farms and I haven't exactly been Miss Sunshine on here either. But not everyone stops paying rent because they want to buy TVs and PS5 instead with their stimulus. The average rent is astronomical in many areas. I can't even afford to live on my own in my own city. I already lost my home due to the incompetence of others. Life is harder than some people think it is.
Obviously not all renters who cant pay are deadbeats, but much like section 8 tenants, for every renters who cant pay due to difficult circumstances there's 10 that are fucking the system because "muh capitalism".
 
Part of the failure of older public housing projects is that they believed in the modernist mantra that presumed humans to be blank slates that could be molded into perfect citizens; of course that could be farther than the truth. Secondly, they pushed for impenetrable city blocks ('buildings in parks') and ugly, 'economical' commie blocks that had absolutely no owner retail or any ability of their inhabitants to influence their surroundings.

As such, living in a place really designed more to store people, you end up lacking any attachment to the place or any care what happens to it, and as such, the place goes downhill. The authorities notice this, and as such cut funding for maintenance since they also give up hope on the place. (Same thing happened in the Bronx, where many the private tenements were owned by absentee Jews).

The newer public housing redevelopment projects I think focus more on redeveloping these blocks as townhouses in order to give these places some semblence of dignity, but I still think that a lack of owner retail spaces crimps these neighborhoods. I don't care if half of these retail units become weed shops or nail salons, as long as these people at least have some sense of ownership, they'll at least try to keep their places from becoming too crappy. Now, give me them rainbows.
The Romans got this one right. A majority of low-income/plebian housing was in the form of an insula. Think a typical 5 story building but of mixed purpose, the first story is dedicated to workshops and businesses while the remaining floors are residential. Most apartments in major cities tend to follow this model, why housing projects don't is beyond me.
 
The Romans got this one right. A majority of low-income/plebian housing was in the form of an insula. Think a typical 5 story building but of mixed purpose, the first story is dedicated to workshops and businesses while the remaining floors are residential. Most apartments in major cities tend to follow this model, why housing projects don't is beyond me.
Unfortunately it was and still is the mostly Middle-Upper class managerial class that thinks like this, and which still holds the reins of power in the planning departments.

Give a pleb free reign over a property, and no doubt you'd inevitably start seeing some form of retail on lot, increased densification, and a retvrn to pre-WWII work-live urban typologies- this is of course happening in many countries where the central planning regime lacks reach or control over its citizens- i.e. in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, which will always be more vibrant than Brasilia (which architects love and boggle at the fact that everyone thinks it's sterile).
 
The Romans got this one right. A majority of low-income/plebian housing was in the form of an insula. Think a typical 5 story building but of mixed purpose, the first story is dedicated to workshops and businesses while the remaining floors are residential. Most apartments in major cities tend to follow this model, why housing projects don't is beyond me.
Mixed use terrifies a lot of people involved in planning. The dumbfucks screech about each household not having a dedicated backyard for each child, the corrupt don't want people to have commerce options other than buying a car and driving it to walmart, and the ignorant think that small businesses are a net bad thing.

I find the whole thing hilarious, because Mixed use development is the silver bullet for urban walkability issues, which also help seriously reduce traffic and environmental impact. You'd think they'd be all over it, but performative environmentalism is stronk.
 
Mixed use terrifies a lot of people involved in planning. The dumbfucks screech about each household not having a dedicated backyard for each child, the corrupt don't want people to have commerce options other than buying a car and driving it to walmart, and the ignorant think that small businesses are a net bad thing.

I find the whole thing hilarious, because Mixed use development is the silver bullet for urban walkability issues, which also help seriously reduce traffic and environmental impact. You'd think they'd be all over it, but performative environmentalism is stronk.
Really blows my brain all those skyscrapers were not mixed use to begin with. First half dedicated for offices, second half for residence and the bottom floor an arcade of smalls shops, bars and cafes. Your workers could literally live where they worked, with their commute literally being an elevator ride. They could even go home and have lunch with their wives instead of being stuck "at the office"

I have to imagine this would have been a productivity godsend for all those high speed high stress white collar jobs like Investment banking, corporate law and accounting. Being able to rent one of the apartments could even have been part of the company benefits package to attract talent.
 
Really blows my brain all those skyscrapers were not mixed use to begin with. First half dedicated for offices, second half for residence and the bottom floor an arcade of smalls shops, bars and cafes. Your workers could literally live where they worked, with their commute literally being an elevator ride. They could even go home and have lunch with their wives instead of being stuck "at the office"

I have to imagine this would have been a productivity godsend for all those high speed high stress white collar jobs like Investment banking, corporate law and accounting. Being able to rent one of the apartments could even have been part of the company benefits package to attract talent.
Well at least the tenative acceptance of WFH for office workers is indirectly leading to that path for the white collars. I've been WFH since the coof hit, and my output shot up, I've lost weight, stress is down, I've been eating better than ever, its been universal wins. We can see it across the board, where most office work hasn't seen the sheer drop in output one would otherwise expect.

But American city planners set out to build the american dream with the detached houses and picket fences, shining automobiles in front of every one. The idea of living in an apartment sized home above the family business wasn't seen as a good thing, and was deliberately avoided. High density business and office space with no local housing required the construction of vast tracts of parking space, amplifying the problem even worse. And once it started going, you couldn't really stop, because each piece relied on everything else. Too late to renovate office towers to try and meet home standards, too late to drive an ownership expectation towards condo style units in buildings instead of detatched homes, and too late to try and remove dependence on cars, since most everyone already lived out in irreversable suburban islands.

The worst part is all this has also indirectly bankrupted cities, the mass sprawl is expensive as hell to maintain and generates far less revenue over that space, so municipalities are often broke, or desperately selling new land to drive new expansions with developers who are building million dollar detached homes, because thats the biggest bang for their buck and what people are willing to buy.

Designing good cities is hard enough, retrofitting a shitty city to be a good one is a nightmare. And the shortage of quality high density residences (Quality being services and jobs actually available nearby) just makes the renter situation even more difficult, because even if you rent the home you still have to upkeep the rest of the american suburban lifestyle, which is expensive. Combine that with financial illiteracy and a complete lack of respect to property owners, and the whole renter situation has always been fragile.
 
Well at least the tenative acceptance of WFH for office workers is indirectly leading to that path for the white collars. I've been WFH since the coof hit, and my output shot up, I've lost weight, stress is down, I've been eating better than ever, its been universal wins. We can see it across the board, where most office work hasn't seen the sheer drop in output one would otherwise expect.

But American city planners set out to build the american dream with the detached houses and picket fences, shining automobiles in front of every one. The idea of living in an apartment sized home above the family business wasn't seen as a good thing, and was deliberately avoided. High density business and office space with no local housing required the construction of vast tracts of parking space, amplifying the problem even worse. And once it started going, you couldn't really stop, because each piece relied on everything else. Too late to renovate office towers to try and meet home standards, too late to drive an ownership expectation towards condo style units in buildings instead of detatched homes, and too late to try and remove dependence on cars, since most everyone already lived out in irreversable suburban islands.

The worst part is all this has also indirectly bankrupted cities, the mass sprawl is expensive as hell to maintain and generates far less revenue over that space, so municipalities are often broke, or desperately selling new land to drive new expansions with developers who are building million dollar detached homes, because thats the biggest bang for their buck and what people are willing to buy.

Designing good cities is hard enough, retrofitting a shitty city to be a good one is a nightmare. And the shortage of quality high density residences (Quality being services and jobs actually available nearby) just makes the renter situation even more difficult, because even if you rent the home you still have to upkeep the rest of the american suburban lifestyle, which is expensive. Combine that with financial illiteracy and a complete lack of respect to property owners, and the whole renter situation has always been fragile.
If you were elected autocrat of some american city that has the problems listed, what would you do to fix it?
 
If you were elected autocrat of some american city that has the problems listed, what would you do to fix it?
Easiest change would be to stop zoning cities with the fill bucket tool in paint. Rather than one massive swathe of residential, one massive swathe of commercial, it'd be far better to create regions of medium density mixed use zones, so small apartment blocks zoned in the same immediate area as commercial use, with more dedicated commercial zoning in small, 2-4 city block sized chunks within 30ish minutes walk of most of the medium density. You can still have single house single family zoning in the spaces between, and Industrial zoning should still be elsewhere (real industry, not office parks), but mixed use development helps everywhere. Even just putting a strip mall style area in the heart of a low density residential gives the locals walking options, youth employment options, and basic services in their back yard.

But back yard is the key word, you'd have to absolutely murder or ignore NIMBYism for it to happen.

More radical options would involve explosives, but this is one of those "80% of the benefits for 20% of the work" options.
 
Really blows my brain all those skyscrapers were not mixed use to begin with. First half dedicated for offices, second half for residence and the bottom floor an arcade of smalls shops, bars and cafes. Your workers could literally live where they worked, with their commute literally being an elevator ride. They could even go home and have lunch with their wives instead of being stuck "at the office"

I have to imagine this would have been a productivity godsend for all those high speed high stress white collar jobs like Investment banking, corporate law and accounting. Being able to rent one of the apartments could even have been part of the company benefits package to attract talent.
Who knows, it may just start now. Office buildings are losing tenants left and right as work-at-home is still a thing, and one particular building in my city (a landmark tower that got edged out by NEW NEW NEW shiny towers just blocks away) is in foreclosure now. One of the new shinies is actually is a mixed-use with retail below and apartments up top, not sure if they incorporated office suites in their mix though.

Like all the other new towers with apartments, though, they are prohibitively expensive even if not Downtown or on the lakefront - the riverside properties have been also exploding, completely changing what used to be somewhat low-rent areas on the lower east side and pricing out the majority of the population that once lived there.
 
I know a few people who are scared of this and they also coincidentally spent every single dime of the stimmy on drugs, vidya, and Doordash because they're lazy incompetents who don't feel like walking half a mile to pick up their food. I would say I felt sympathy but sometimes you need to sleep outside for awhile to get your perspective in order.
 
Mixed use terrifies a lot of people involved in planning. The dumbfucks screech about each household not having a dedicated backyard for each child, the corrupt don't want people to have commerce options other than buying a car and driving it to walmart, and the ignorant think that small businesses are a net bad thing.

I find the whole thing hilarious, because Mixed use development is the silver bullet for urban walkability issues, which also help seriously reduce traffic and environmental impact. You'd think they'd be all over it, but performative environmentalism is stronk.

Well at least the tenative acceptance of WFH for office workers is indirectly leading to that path for the white collars. I've been WFH since the coof hit, and my output shot up, I've lost weight, stress is down, I've been eating better than ever, its been universal wins. We can see it across the board, where most office work hasn't seen the sheer drop in output one would otherwise expect.

But American city planners set out to build the american dream with the detached houses and picket fences, shining automobiles in front of every one. The idea of living in an apartment sized home above the family business wasn't seen as a good thing, and was deliberately avoided. High density business and office space with no local housing required the construction of vast tracts of parking space, amplifying the problem even worse. And once it started going, you couldn't really stop, because each piece relied on everything else. Too late to renovate office towers to try and meet home standards, too late to drive an ownership expectation towards condo style units in buildings instead of detatched homes, and too late to try and remove dependence on cars, since most everyone already lived out in irreversable suburban islands.

The worst part is all this has also indirectly bankrupted cities, the mass sprawl is expensive as hell to maintain and generates far less revenue over that space, so municipalities are often broke, or desperately selling new land to drive new expansions with developers who are building million dollar detached homes, because thats the biggest bang for their buck and what people are willing to buy.

Designing good cities is hard enough, retrofitting a shitty city to be a good one is a nightmare. And the shortage of quality high density residences (Quality being services and jobs actually available nearby) just makes the renter situation even more difficult, because even if you rent the home you still have to upkeep the rest of the american suburban lifestyle, which is expensive. Combine that with financial illiteracy and a complete lack of respect to property owners, and the whole renter situation has always been fragile.
I see a lot of the new structures being built in the city near me (a city that is world-famous for its sprawl) nowadays are opting for the "commercial downstairs/residential upstairs" layouts. Although the commercial obviously ends up being chain stores and what not but at least it's a start.

I think a lot of apprehension for people in the US to live in high density cities comes from their shitty experiences living in apartments. I have a family member who is cuirrently living in a moderately sized city in the mid-west. He works night shifts (WFH) and is constantly complaining about either people above him stomping on the floor during the day that prevent him from getting sleep or the people next door blasting music at all hours of the day that he can hear from the other side of the apartment. He's had really bad luck with neighbors for the last 4 years moving between multiple apartments. At this point he's more or less fedup with living in a city and looking to move out as soon as he can, specifically to a detached house where he expects to have some peace and quiet.
 
I see a lot of the new structures being built in the city near me (a city that is world-famous for its sprawl) nowadays are opting for the "commercial downstairs/residential upstairs" layouts. Although the commercial obviously ends up being chain stores and what not but at least it's a start.

I think a lot of apprehension for people in the US to live in high density cities comes from their shitty experiences living in apartments. I have a family member who is cuirrently living in a moderately sized city in the mid-west. He works night shifts (WFH) and is constantly complaining about either people above him stomping on the floor during the day that prevent him from getting sleep or the people next door blasting music at all hours of the day that he can hear from the other side of the apartment. He's had really bad luck with neighbors for the last 4 years moving between multiple apartments. At this point he's more or less fedup with living in a city and looking to move out as soon as he can, specifically to a detached house where he expects to have some peace and quiet.
It doesnt help that most apartments in the US are older buildings built as cheap as possible. Soundproofing insulation is a theory only employed in the richest of establishments.

Owning a house means, at least in theory, your neighbors are functional members of society that can get mortgages and pay them. Renters come from all walks of life and when you consider how common house ownership in america is its not a surprise there are so many shitty renters.
 
Here's hoping the non-English speaking hispanic immigrants next door are being evicted so their delinquent son will stop breaking into my goddamn storage unit. That slimy little fuck pissed and came on my girlfriend's dirty laundry. Can't believe the balls on that fucking kid.
 
Easiest change would be to stop zoning cities with the fill bucket tool in paint. Rather than one massive swathe of residential, one massive swathe of commercial, it'd be far better to create regions of medium density mixed use zones, so small apartment blocks zoned in the same immediate area as commercial use, with more dedicated commercial zoning in small, 2-4 city block sized chunks within 30ish minutes walk of most of the medium density. You can still have single house single family zoning in the spaces between, and Industrial zoning should still be elsewhere (real industry, not office parks), but mixed use development helps everywhere. Even just putting a strip mall style area in the heart of a low density residential gives the locals walking options, youth employment options, and basic services in their back yard.

But back yard is the key word, you'd have to absolutely murder or ignore NIMBYism for it to happen.

More radical options would involve explosives, but this is one of those "80% of the benefits for 20% of the work" options.
Well in the hypothetical you are an autocrat, meaning unilateral control with military force behind it. If you want to carpet bomb the suburbs you can do that. Hypothetically.
 
Easiest change would be to stop zoning cities with the fill bucket tool in paint. Rather than one massive swathe of residential, one massive swathe of commercial, it'd be far better to create regions of medium density mixed use zones, so small apartment blocks zoned in the same immediate area as commercial use, with more dedicated commercial zoning in small, 2-4 city block sized chunks within 30ish minutes walk of most of the medium density. You can still have single house single family zoning in the spaces between, and Industrial zoning should still be elsewhere (real industry, not office parks), but mixed use development helps everywhere. Even just putting a strip mall style area in the heart of a low density residential gives the locals walking options, youth employment options, and basic services in their back yard.

But back yard is the key word, you'd have to absolutely murder or ignore NIMBYism for it to happen.

More radical options would involve explosives, but this is one of those "80% of the benefits for 20% of the work" options.
Looser zoning categorizations and a 'right to build' permitting system also help as well in rebalancing development towards smaller owner-developers, which I believe Japan has.

The bigger issue though is the awful, awful suburban lollypop layouts, which will require more work to fix. It's easy to fix a bad building, it's hard to fix bad urban planning.
 
Not if they are hot and have an OnlyFans page, duh!


Chick-Fil-A has a different approach where you basically have to be wealthy to begin with to own one but not only that, you have to be there at least 50% of the time to manage it. Franchising a Chick-Fil-A is a full time job. Only the most motivated franchisers will get into that game. It's smart though, I have never really been to a shitty Chick-Fil-A. And it's a bonus that hate godless sodomites. Filthy faggot tears season my Spicy Deluxe. I eat Chick-Fil-A while watching videos of Islamic Republics throwing fairies off the roof head first.
It's amazing to me how efficient Chick-Fil-A consistently is with their drive throughs.

Proof they have the power of God on their side.
 
Looser zoning categorizations and a 'right to build' permitting system also help as well in rebalancing development towards smaller owner-developers, which I believe Japan has.

The bigger issue though is the awful, awful suburban lollypop layouts, which will require more work to fix. It's easy to fix a bad building, it's hard to fix bad urban planning.
I'm quite a fan of the road/street dichotomy line of thinking. A lot of America's urban planning blight can be traced to car centered design. So much so that there isn't a distinction between a street and a road in many towns. It essentially fractures towns into islands of interest surrounded by parking deadzones with an envelope of single family homes further out.

It sounds silly, but a street can be defined as a mixed use path for pedestrians, drivers, trams/streetcars, and cyclists. The speeds are slow and space is more limited. Streets are accesses to destinations: home, shopping, work, etc.
Conversely, roads are for through traffic. Public transit, drivers, motorbikes - anything that can do highway speeds. No cyclists, no pedestrians, no trams/streetcars. These are thoroughfares that connect places at high speed.

Instead we have so called "stroads" in America, routes that are neither street nor road yet retaining the worst qualities of both. High speed limits (+35mph) but with outlets and inlets everywhere that facilitate intersections and turn lanes at the expense of space. Big dead empty trafic pits.
The biggest indicator of a given route's status as a stroad is if it is difficult or impossible to get around as a pedestrian while traffic jams up because there are stoplights every 500 yards.

A perfect example of a stroad is Williston Street in the Burlington area of Vermont. It starts as Williston's Main Street once US Route 2 ends but quickly morphs into a 3 to 5 lane abomination by the time you reach UVM. At its worst by University Mall/I-89 Exit 14 it can be almost impossible to cross the street, let alone try to turn accross traffic. Mind you this is with Vermont's tiny population.
Ironically in Burlington proper there is a great walkable section with mixed use development in the form of Church Street. It's easily the most libby lib section of the state complete with out of control rents but it's a very pleasent part of town, if you can believe it. It's easy to spend a lot of time there goofing off if you're not in a rush. Shame about the big gay church though.
 
Is there a reason all office space hasn't become completely worthless? Are corporations really that morally opposed to keeping work from home?
 
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