Comment by mangeletti | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mangeletti | Hacker News Reader

Do you think it's strange that cities need to map nature to prove its economic value?

I've never understood the appeal of cities (other than a quick 1-2 day visit).

Cities are more inefficient[1], have more pollution[2], have less nature[3], stink like shit[4], have less happiness[5], have more noise[6], require subways and mass transit just to get around, are more expensive[7], etc. (the list almost doesn't end).

1. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/content/download/70101/1253214/v...

2. http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20490855,00.html

3. I don't think I need a citation for this one

4. http://www.businessinsider.com/why-new-york-city-smells-in-t...

5. http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/06/the-price-of-happines...

6. http://earthjournalism.net/resources/noise-pollution-managin...

7. http://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-2/expenditures-of-urban-a...

Mapping trees is important no matter how many trees you have. I've worked with mapping trees in areas that look like this: https://www.google.se/maps/@60.51161,11.6414,1007m/data=!3m1...

> Cities are more inefficient[1]

That's not what your source says at all.

What it says is that there is a point where further increases in density will provide less positive economic effects than negative. It does not say what that point is, nor does it say that there aren't means that can move the interesection point further up. The point where a city becomes less efficient than a rural area is also much further up the density scale, because to get there you first need the inefficiencies to outweight all the benefits, not merely rise faster than the benefits.

The paper doesn't even try to quantify which cities might have reached or exceeded the threshold where further density would be detrimental. All it does is try to establish office rents as an indicator of the efficiency of land use policies.

The paper itself also points out a lot of caveats even for their very limited goals.

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