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Comment by justinator | Hacker News Reader

Ugh - so much of what you say resonates with me.

This is certainly the future (VR) but I'm not really interested in it. I'm interested in just being outdoors (not indoors). I want to feel rain, and cold. I want to know I can't just escape.

Others not so much, and all you need is a little bit of money. The brain doesn't know the difference. Doesn't know you're in a dead neighborhood in suburbia in a house that looks like all your neighbors you don't talk to anyways, far from any restaurants or public spaces. We have this now. Food and other items are being delivered to our doors. So on and so forth - I'm not going to belabor my personal view of a future hellscape of rich tech countries.

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It's astonishing how much you see this sentiment online, but no impact from it anywhere. Sure there is pushback on this sentiment online as well, but just from how much it's expressed online, you' expect at least like 30% of new developments to be more dense, mixed-use that encourages community, walking etc. Yet, somehow it feels closer to 1%. I wonder if that's because online is a small bubble or because the people engaged in zoning and planning are in a bubble or the venn diagram just has little overlap.

I mean real estate and development is a whole 'nother thing. Demand is wholly outstripping supply for places you want to actually live in, so you get what you get and you get to be happy about it.

If we're talking US real estate here, it's largely because of zoning making it de facto illegal to build anything except suburban single family homes or a downtown high rise, and because our public transit was dismantled long ago in favor of colossal (now decaying) highway and stroad systems, which we now have to build around.

Definitely. As I said though, given the push online and my social circle, I'd expected at least some higher percentage of areas to get much more relaxed zoning. Where I live there are a ton of new developments and they are all the absolute worst of both worlds. Hundreds of identical townhouses with nothing within walkable distance. It's too dense to feel rural and free, but has none of the benefits like being able to walk to a cafe or store and the density isn't high enough to make a massive impact on the market either. You even still hasn't neighbors you share walls with.

> given the push online

Have you ever been to nextdoor.com?

Unfortunately, this is the reality. Most people will choose the comfort over those discomfort. Just like the 99% moving matrix, going to select the blue pills over the red pills. Even the people who choose the red pill change their mind. It's just a big lever to enlarge those points.

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