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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   27665 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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This is going too far the other way. If your food supply is limited, you could cut down more of the forest for farmland or you could just refrain from inviting the next tribe over for dinner!

To put it another way, I like my hometown the way it is, I like the countryside the way it is. Yes, we could concrete over ever more of my small country, or build more hideous skyscrapers. Or we could just stop inviting in hundreds of thousands of foreigners every year.

I don't know the situation in your country so that very well might be true. However, it is definitely not relevant in California where there actually is huge space for building more housing without much disruption (as many other posters have given various arguments for).

In addition, people tend to overestimate how full their cities/countries actually are. There are very few places in the world that are as densely populated as Somerville, Massachusetts which is a super pleasant place looking like this on Google streetview. No skyscrapers needed and with that density, the countryside can be kept clear too. I suspect that your country could build housing for hundreds of thousands of more people while still only looking like Somerville and avoiding what you want to avoid.

Thanks for the serious reply.

The country is England, just for the sake of clarity. I might be wrong, but Somerville looks like a pretty standard suburb to me, I think we’re already building in at least that level of density in most areas. Here is a randomly chosen town street. It is nice, though :)

We seriously lack accessible green space anywhere near the big cities, which are constantly expanding. And big chunks of land are rock moorland and difficult to build on (including most of Scotland).

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