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Comment by woah | Hacker News Reader

Mid-brow dismissal. You're focusing on one phrase and yelling "gotcha!".

Let me make it easier to understand: "The U.S. is running out of places that people want to live."

We're realizing that living in an anonymous suburb on a tract of cheap land a 90 minute drive from where we work is stupid. It's terrible for the environment, it stunts social and business opportunities, and it is boring. More people in cities is good for the environment, good for economic equality, and good for sanity.

There are an infinite number of places that you "could" live, so your use of "running out of housing" is a straw man. By your definition, it's not even possible to "run out of housing".

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So the problem is that people feel entitled to live in places they can't afford to live, because they can't deal with the "boredom" of suburbs or smaller cities/towns?

Cry me a river.

What are you even talking about? This issue is about wealthy homeowners using overbearing zoning laws to stop other people doing beneficial things on their own land, like building housing. Who's entitled?

So build more cities.

In my reckoning, we lack the policy to grow dense and sustainable cities.

When cities become attractive, as the Bay Area is now, they don't respond to the right signals to grow, and when they grow, they grow in unbalanced ways.

I think the solution is through a fundamental overhaul of land-use policy, which is unlikely to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, we'll have failed cities with a ceiling for growth.

Let people work remote. I would be happy to live in the mountains, but there ain't any jobs there.

I'm planning to look for remote-only companies once I'm ready to leave my current job -- so we can live in the Adirondacks in upstate NY!

I'd love if more companies allowed remote work.

You have my vote for president!

I always get the impression that a large number of techies are into the outdoors / outdoor sports. I am surprised no one has tried setting up companies an remoter places with good access to the mountains. Instead they set up in the most expensive places, and need to pay much more to cover for the costs.

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