this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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When I see the image what came to mind was that experiment where they had an overpopulation of rats in a cage and how all of the rats turned on each other and killed each other.
Too much human density is not good. You have to be sure to get the percentage of humans to a acre of land just right, to prevent the rats situation.
Nature is important, but Humanity moreso.
Part of the thing is humans aren't rats, so we can't necessarily extrapolate from rat behavior to humans.
And another thing is space is 3-dimensional. If people have spacious apartments and access to good parks and public spaces, we don't necessarily need as much private acreage.
And a final thing is different people have different preferences. Some people enjoy and prefer those tiny houses. Some people prefer a homestead with acreage. Some people are happy with a condo in a high-rise. Some people want a rowhouse with a little space for a garden in the back.
But -- at least in North America -- we make it literally illegal to build anything but the houses on the left on the vast majority of urban land.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities-across-america-question-single-family-zoning.html?mtrref=undefined&gwh=FF365D597898BD763ABC57B0B9DDEC48&gwt=pay&assetType=PAYWALL
http://www.datalabto.ca/a-visual-guide-to-detached-houses-in-5-canadian-cities/
If we're going to talk about forcing people into living conditions they don't want to be in, we should be talking about how we're systematically shoving most people into sprawling, car-dependent suburbia.
I know that, growing up in suburbia, I felt trapped like in a cage because I couldn't get anywhere without getting a ride from my parents. The internet was the only escape really.
I may not NEED private acreage, but I want it. If I own it no-one else can ruin it.
Their point is that developers are legally forced to build SFH even if demand says otherwise. Detached homes are a major tax burden on cities; their cost should reflect their real cost. If you want one, go ahead and get one (I will be doing the same!), but cities genuinely cannot be built to handle most of its land being single family, detached homes.
I may want a detached home for hobbies and space, but the most fun I've had to date was when I lived in a townhouse in the middle of the city and didn't need a car to get anywhere. Exploration and discovery is impossible in suburbia.
Hell, you can have suburbia, but it should still be walkable. And you do that by increasing the taxes on them (rightfully), adding regular busses, having bike lanes, including businesses in the mix, and having them not be so sprawling so that you are closer to the city itself.
I don't live in suburbia, I live in a tiny hamlet with cows for neighbours.
I agree that cities cannot be all detached homes, but likewise they cannot be all high-rise either. Where my wife and I come from ( France and UK respectively) high-rise experiments have always ended in poverty and decay.
I could buy a crappy little flat in a city with junkies for neighbours, or I could buy a massive house with space for a pool 40 minutes drive away. Which would any sane person choose? Am I saving the environment driving around in my SUV? Yes, because we hardly use it thanks to the internet and us being fit.
My feeling is the current status quo will continue:
Young people live in flats in town. Kid #1 comes along and it seems fine. Then #2 arrives (plus they start having a bit mor £€$) and things start getting a little tight. Also the downsides of city life start outweighing the upsides (people drinking and shouting at 2am is more annoying when you and your kids have work/school).
Obviously that is a gross generalisation, but I have seen the pattern all over the place.
Actually the study was specifically being done to study humans. We are similar enough when it comes to the factors being studied to be able to be used for studying, as the scientists did.
The actual scientist who did the study were confident that the results could be correlated and used for human behavior.
I think it's safe to say for all of us that we don't like being crowded in. And when we're crowded in for a very long time then we get cranky. It's biological.
The experiment actually had the rat cages set up with up and downs areas and small cordoned off areas as well. Some of what they found was just the congestion of moving around from area to area was enough to cause conflict.
I honestly don't think you can be confident in saying that long-term crowding would only affect a small subset of humans though, because of human nature, that affects, well, all humans.
You crowd us in too much and we don't like it, and we act upon it. And that tolerance between the two ends on the bell curve of people's crowding tolerance is not that great.
Right, but the experiment was in an actual, literal cage, right? With no ability to walk outside to get groceries or stroll through the park.
So long as we're not cramming people into Hong Kong's cage homes (which only happens because of a thoroughly fucked housing market in Hong Kong), I think our efforts should be spent on making there be abundant housing supply -- particularly of dense, walkable urbanism -- so that the most economically vulnerable amongst us aren't left with no other option besides horrible, inhumane conditions.
Essentially, if we unfuck our housing market by legally allowing development denser than ultra low-density sprawl, there's no reason to think the market can't decide what level of density people are comfortable with. That is, if the poorest among us have enough money, and there are ample housing options available even at the price level affordable to them, too-dense development will disappear of its own accord from pure market forces. After all, if you feel cramped and miserable, and you have the means to leave for someplace better, you will.
But if we don't legalize density, people will end up crowding themselves in with too many roommates, with abusive partners or overbearing family, in wholly inadequate quality housing, or just straight-up homeless.
Because if we set out at the onset to dictate what constitutes "too much" density, well, many of the commenters in here are of the opinion that even rowhouses are too dense. If we empower them to decide what constitutes "too much" density for the rest of us, we'll end up with the laws we currently have on the books. The very laws that cripple the economy and exacerbate inequality. This will just create the conditions we have now, where a housing shortage and widening inequality push people into really sub-par living arrangements.
You've nailed the crux of the problem right there. And yeah, like with everything else with human beings, you'll get a big range of people who have different tolerances for density.
But besides their own individual opinions of what is too much density, there's a biological/psychological definition as well, that all humans in common have, and that's what the scientists were studying.
Drilling starts at 6am, then normal day noises until the evening when there's inevitably some couple shouting at each other or a loud party.
This is EXACTLY the kind of point I'm trying to make. Humans keep packing more and more into the same forever-growing cities and it makes the formerly-pleasant harsh, foreign, and unwelcoming.
There exist nice places that have balance - green spaces, slow pace of life, nice local restaurants, uncrowded trails, minimal traffic and short commutes.
Then they become discovered, become popular, and become overcrowded in a way that ruins what made them special to begin with. But they still look small to people from the big cities, who keep moving there. Now increasingly expensive, congested, and losing their original character, the urban zealots who invaded start screeching about cars, walkability, bikeability, and transit. It was perfectly bikeable, and there was no traffic before everyone tried to pile in.
The enemy is GROWTH, and OVERCROWDING, not single family homes and cars.
Both pictures are equally overcrowded though. And just getting rid of people is not really an option.
Not allowing the overcrowded parts of the world to invade the less crowded parts of the world is a policy choice.