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Comment by marssaxman | Hacker News Reader

There really are not plenty of places in the US where you can live a good, urban, non-car-oriented life, and you can tell that is true because the ones which do exist tend to be very expensive, showing that they are in high demand. You clearly do not desire an urban lifestyle, and I won't try to change your mind about that, but those of us who do want urban living generally don't find that our choices are either plentiful or affordable.

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Not to mention safe urban areas. Most US urban areas are relatively high crime, and even if you don't encounter actual crime you are made to feel unsafe by a bunch of drug addicts in hoodies who yell racial slurs and other creepy dudes who approach you unsolicited, in contrast to urban areas of e.g. East Asia which tend to be extremely safe.

Boston is about the only city in the US that I feel mildly safe walking around the downtown at night.

> relatively high crime

You mention crime in regards to safety within a city, but there is a study floating around Twitter that factors in traffic fatalities in suburban and rural areas, and the dangers of cars make suburbs and rural areas MORE dangerous that urban areas! Take a look at this article detailing urban vs rural deaths: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-rural-a...

well that’s clearly flawed. i certainly don’t buy SF being safer than literally any rural area.

I think it's because urbanites keep getting suckered into letting builders do "condensed affordable housing" under the false premise that more housing means cheaper housing. Obviously that would only be true if the units were owned by competitors. Where one contractor owns all the units they set the prices, and they have no reason to make them "affordable." Just condensed.

> they have no reason to make them "affordable."

The money they make is {rent} × {units rented}. The reason they don't set rent to $1billion is that they will rent zero of them. I think this shows that they do have a reason to lower prices, at least at some range.

Sure so long as the assumption is that they aren't cheating. But apparently Congress thinks they are. Hence the lawsuits.

Supply and demand would like to have a word with you.

Congress would like to have a word with contractors about "supply and demand."

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-and-w...

For the downvoters, nice of you to hope I'm wrong but unfortunately: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-and-w...

Honestly who is downvoting this anyway? Do you work for big contractors or just like unaffordable housing as long as it's condensed? Evil much?

This is entirely unrelated to the presence or lack of housing in urban areas.

If anything, a monopolistic landlord would like to expand and build more apartments, to extract a higher volume of above-market rent.

You appear to be paraphrasing me. Did you get a bunch of downvotes? Or was this not related to my comment?

You shouldn’t worry about downvotes on HN, many here are biased and are looking for reconfirmation of their beliefs rather than discourse.

I'd like to not worry about it, but it then prevents me from posting. The suggestion is to then stop posting and move on, which I fear allows the washing of dialogue and kindles political approaches that further the damage we're doing to society and the environment through corporate influence. If you, as a developer, feel good about your job helping corporations inflate rent prices, you're not going to look for another job. If you can clearly see that your employer is destroying society, you're very much likely not going to be willing to stick around. Maybe that's doesn't matter in most cases, but clearly big tech employees have influenced government contracts, etc.

I did not downvote your comment but I certainly thought about it; between your contemptuous attitude toward people whose preferences differ from your own, and the way your ire over the scandal you're alluding to has blinded you to basic principles of economics, your remark added more noise than signal to the discussion.

Which part of my commentary is contemptuous? I pointed out why I think housing is expensive in the city, based on my experience voting against it.

Well since you didn't answer, I'll give you my thoughts for your benefit. Reading back, I think you're projecting. I welcome you to reflect on your behavior as it well meets your own criticisms. Here are examples:

>contemptuous attitude toward people whose preferences differ from your own

I appear to be welcoming the dialogue, and as I read back, you appear to be downvoting to ensure others won't see the dialogue (downvoting prevents people from replying). This is worse than name calling. It's literally contemptuous. And worse, you're accusing me of your crime.

>and the way your ire over the scandal

I hope you can cite where I did that, otherwise this also is contemptuous. How would you know if I'm angry? Is it because you hear my words in your head in an angry voice? There's a rule about that on HN.

>blinded you to basic principles of economics

Me and Congress? It sounds like you might be missing something that Congress and I are aware of. Can you admit that or would that require you to have a better attitude toward people with a differing preference from your own?

>Remark added more noise than signal to the discussion

Is that because it doesn't align with your world view? If that's not why I'll be glad to consider your defense to this point. I hope it will include some honest reason for not wanting to hear other people's opinion, so much so that you would downvote them for sharing it.

Overall, the irony in just this one comment is largely incriminating in regard to HN rules, and in regard to your own aspirations of yourself, I would assume, given the strict expectations you've set out for me.

> between your contemptuous attitude toward people whose preferences differ from your own

it would be great if everybody on HN felt the same, unfortunately this is quite commonplace. read threads on any EV post for instance.

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