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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

> I wish Berlin would just build more housing instead.

The problem is: Berlin can't. There is not much free space for new construction in Berlin proper, with the exception of "Nachverdichtung" such as you propose with apartments over parking lots - and these have the downside that they are horribly expensive, simply because it costs potential developers a lot of money to acquire the land!

The solution would be to build out internet connectivity and public transport in the suburbs in Brandenburg so that employers don't all concentrate in Berlin.

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There's plenty of space. I've walked by countless empty lots and abandoned buildings that could easily fit dozens or hundreds of new apartments. I'm sure there's plenty of ridiculous legal challenges to actually building on those spots, but that doesn't mean that there's no land available.

Please no suburban sprawl while Berlin still has such low density compared to other cities. There are still lots of fairly central areas with single family homes. Just upzone them and let people get rich selling their land to developers.

> Please no suburban sprawl while Berlin still has such low density compared to other cities

A city should be worth it to live in and provide enjoyment for the citizens, not be a glorified chicken coop for people.

That is EXACTLY what you get by building dense housing. You leave room for the important things that a city offers: services, events, jobs, greenery all in walkable or bikeable distance.

Otoh sprawl development leads to dead neighborhoods, car dependence and long commutes. It also uses space that could be left to nature instead.

"Dense housing" is code for "chicken coops" with the only space people have for themselves being 40 m² for a family of four. Seriously, thanks but no thanks.

There is a middle way between US-level sprawl and Japan-style chicken coops - and I definitely hope we don't go the Japan route.

No, "dense housing" is code for multistory buildings in a mixed-use neighborhood (like you already find in many parts of the city!). It doesn't matter very much whether those apartments are 30 or 200m^2, the density is several times better than in a neighborhood of single family homes as you find them just a few km outside of Berlin's city center.

Japan style housing, just like British, is "dense" in the sense of buildings being physically close. It's not what the post is about - it's about building buildings with higher number of storeys.

Have you been to Berlin? We have amazing public transportation network, I never had a car living here for 5 years already, and never felt I need one (at least not before the pandemic). And also coming from a country with dense housing (Russia), I really appreciate we are not sitting on each others heads here.

What about Tempelhofer Feld? What about all the Kleingartenkolonien inside and by the Ring?

Has Berlin built over all its brownfields? If so, very commendable.

Here in Prague we have quite a few brownfields that could be home to at least 50 thousand people (Rohanský ostrov, Bubny, Kolbenova), but the development is extremely slow.

> Has Berlin built over all its brownfields? If so, very commendable.

Well having some undeveloped space is actually quite nice to enjoy in a city. We don't have to live packed narrowly on top of one another.

But more specifically, brownfields (previously-industrial spaces) are usually highly polluted. Some are full of heavy metals and chemicals that you really don't want to displace into the air by digging into the soil... Some people are doing it, but it either costs billions of euros in depollution, or greatly affects the health of nearby population, and often both.

Where I was born (Ostrava, a heavy industry city), there was a giant, massively polluted brownfield right next to the city centre.

It required several years of sanation works to clean up, but now it is built over and serves the needs of the population. [0]

I believe that this is a reasonable use of public money, even though private developers profit from it. Or possibly finance it through a Public-Private Partnership project.

The alternative is to let poisoned land within borders of a big city stay poisoned forever. Which does not sound either people- or environment-friendly.

[0] https://www.ostrava.cz/en/podnikatel-investor/real-estate/br...

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