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Comment by rglullis | Hacker News Reader

You don't need a house as big the one you have, and you (as an example of the average middle class american) don't need to live in the suburbs, with inefficient construction techniques, dependent on a car to go anywhere, ordering ubers to conveniently bring packages of food twice a week, etc.

Between banning private jets and banning parking lots, guess which one would be better for the environment?

Americans really don't understand (a) how wealthy they all are and (b) how a lot of this wealth is based on completely wasteful spending.

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Flagging won't change the facts. High density housing is bad for the environment, especially high rises.

(Discussing pros and cons, with links to the research.) https://humantransit.org/2010/03/does-highdensity-life-have-...

High density destroys plant life, increases traffic delays for delivery of goods, and increases the number of goods that are delivered. Transporting humans to their jobs is a very small fraction of our carbon footprint overall. And there are more pressing environmental concerns than just carbon emissions.

Larger homes promote sharing. One vacuum cleaner for example.

Stop parroting high density marketing. Stop destroying the environment to enrich investors.

Who gets to determine need?

Statistics do.

We have tried this before and it wasn't great.

As you get wealthier, you believe you need things, like a 3 br home where each kid has their own room. If money gets tight, you realize a 2 br is actually fine. Problem is, when you consider downgrading you feel that need a lot more than if you’d never had it. Same goes for the jet. That 2 hr trip suddenly feels really critical compared to just planning your travel better. Wasn’t there a post here recently where Musk redirected his cousin’s plane to go unplug some servers? Where was he going that was so important in the middle of the night? And could that detour have waited for a normal flight booking? And apparently the decision turned out do be a mistake according ti Musk himself.

So to answer, money determines needs.

So each person by itself.

Credit rating agencies, who never done their job properly.

People pushing this agenda, obviously. Think about the regulatory capture poosibilities!

>guess which one would be better for the environment?

According to who?

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