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Comment by slingnow | Hacker News Reader

We are nowhere NEAR saturating our landmass with people. There are more and less desirable places to live in the country, but there's no shortage of raw space.

Not to mention, this isn't zero sum. Our roads and bridges can be in desperate need of repair (they are) and we can also need better public transportation and rail.

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> We are nowhere NEAR saturating our landmass with people.

That is true only if you think wall papering the earth from top to bottom with human settlement is acceptable and that the natural world has no value. In short, we have already used up all the landmass we responsibly should use for people. Now, infill.

> In short, we have already used up all the landmass we responsibly should use for people

This sure sounds a lot like a pure opinion. Do you have anything to back up this claim?

If the number of threatened animal species and fragmented biomes don't convince you, nothing I can say will. It's a fact that most of the natural world is threatened. That we shouldn't pave over paradise and put up a parking lot is a value statement that I cannot prove to you more than I cant that murder and rape are bad.

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/natur...

From what I've heard, that specific issue has more to do with farming than with housing. In the US specifically, 4% of land area is urban, 21% is farmland; worldwide it's 33% agricultural and 0.5% urban.

Parking lots are awful, even in their own right, in that we agree.

I live in the mountains of Colorado, on a dirt road. Living there does not mean paving everything. My home's presence does not "threaten the natural world" as evidenced by the moose, the birds, the bobcat, the ermine, and countless other wildlife that we share the environment with.

I understand you might think everything humanity does is destructive, but it just doesn't comport with my experience.

I would encourage you to find some wilderness, and see for yourself whether the "natural world is threatened". I'm not denying that it doesn't happen, it's just not as widespread or universal as you seem to suggest.

Visit the US west and tell me "most of the natural world is threatened". In many parts it's wilderness as far as the eye can see.

> My home's presence does not "threaten the natural world" as evidenced by the moose, the birds, the bobcat, the ermine, and countless other wildlife that we share the environment with.

If your settlement isn't dense enough to disturb nature, then it's not dense enough to make a dent in the national supply. That said, I cannot find the research right now, but I did read that human presence on a hiking trail in a national park effects wolf behaviour for a month as they are weary of the scent, so I definitely bet you are having a bigger impact than you know.

I own a home on a 100 acre wood. It's the only one, and yeah, it probably doesn't disturb the natural world very much, at least much less than the local ATV trail. But I know what it took to get building 5 miles from the nearest logging road, and I know that it's not feasible to do that for a million immigrants a year looking for a home. Cheap and plentiful homes means easier easy sprawl or dense infill.

PS - Willing the home to a local youth organisation to use for retreats and the rest of land is being stipulated to have no more development on it.

Repair and widening are different things. When you say we're nowhere near saturating our landmass with people, are you thinking of the landmass of the entire country or the areas within an hour commute or less of a major population center? That's where the vast majority of people live, and that landmass is pretty saturated.

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