Could This City Be the Model for How to Tackle the Both the Climate and Housing Crisis? (npr.org) 71
NPR looks at the "high-quality, climate-friendly apartments" in Vienna, asking if it's a model for addressing both climate change and the housing crisis.
About half the city's 2 million people live in the widespread (and government-supported) apartments, with solar panels on top and very thick, insulated walls that reduce the need for heating and cooling. (One resident tells NPR they don't even need an air conditioner because "It's not cold in winter times. It's not hot in summer times.") Vienna council member Nina Abrahamczik, who heads the climate and environment committee, says as the city transitions all of its buildings off planet-heating fossil fuels, they're starting with the roughly 420,000 housing units they already own or subsidize.... As Vienna makes an aggressive push to completely move away from climate-polluting natural gas by 2040, it's starting with much of this social housing, says Jürgen Czernohorszky, executive city councilor responsible for climate and environment. City-owned buildings are now switching from gas to massive electric heat pumps, and to geothermal, which involves probing into the ground to heat homes. Another massive geothermal project that drills even deeper into the earth to heat homes is also underway.
The city is also powering housing with solar energy. As of a year and a half ago, Vienna mandates all new buildings and building extensions to have rooftop solar. And Vienna's older apartment buildings are getting climate retrofits, says Veronika Iwanowski, spokesperson for Vienna's municipal housing company, Wiener Wohnen. That includes new insulation, doors and windows to prevent the city's wind from getting in the cracks. The increase in energy efficiency and switching from gas to renewables doesn't just have climate benefits from cutting fossil fuel use. It also means housing residents are paying less on electric bills...
With city-subsidized housing, housing developers can compete to get land and low-interest loans from the city. Officials say those competitions are a critical lever for climate action. "As we can control the contents of the competitions, we try to make them fit to the main goals of the city," says Kurt Hofstetter, city planner for Vienna, "which is of course also ecological...." Now the housing judges give out points for things like increased energy efficiency, green roofs and sustainable building materials... Now the climate innovations in subsidized housing are inspiring the private market as well, Hofstetter says...
The article notes that most of the city's funding is provided in the form of low-interest loans, according to a researcher at the Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations. (And the average social housing rents are about $700 for a large one-bedroom apartment, says Gerald Kössl, researcher at the Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations.)
About half the city's 2 million people live in the widespread (and government-supported) apartments, with solar panels on top and very thick, insulated walls that reduce the need for heating and cooling. (One resident tells NPR they don't even need an air conditioner because "It's not cold in winter times. It's not hot in summer times.") Vienna council member Nina Abrahamczik, who heads the climate and environment committee, says as the city transitions all of its buildings off planet-heating fossil fuels, they're starting with the roughly 420,000 housing units they already own or subsidize.... As Vienna makes an aggressive push to completely move away from climate-polluting natural gas by 2040, it's starting with much of this social housing, says Jürgen Czernohorszky, executive city councilor responsible for climate and environment. City-owned buildings are now switching from gas to massive electric heat pumps, and to geothermal, which involves probing into the ground to heat homes. Another massive geothermal project that drills even deeper into the earth to heat homes is also underway.
The city is also powering housing with solar energy. As of a year and a half ago, Vienna mandates all new buildings and building extensions to have rooftop solar. And Vienna's older apartment buildings are getting climate retrofits, says Veronika Iwanowski, spokesperson for Vienna's municipal housing company, Wiener Wohnen. That includes new insulation, doors and windows to prevent the city's wind from getting in the cracks. The increase in energy efficiency and switching from gas to renewables doesn't just have climate benefits from cutting fossil fuel use. It also means housing residents are paying less on electric bills...
With city-subsidized housing, housing developers can compete to get land and low-interest loans from the city. Officials say those competitions are a critical lever for climate action. "As we can control the contents of the competitions, we try to make them fit to the main goals of the city," says Kurt Hofstetter, city planner for Vienna, "which is of course also ecological...." Now the housing judges give out points for things like increased energy efficiency, green roofs and sustainable building materials... Now the climate innovations in subsidized housing are inspiring the private market as well, Hofstetter says...
The article notes that most of the city's funding is provided in the form of low-interest loans, according to a researcher at the Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations. (And the average social housing rents are about $700 for a large one-bedroom apartment, says Gerald Kössl, researcher at the Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations.)
How to end housing crisis. (Score:1)
1) Make all Air BNB landlords register as an actual business, and pay all relevant fees and maintain code.
Re:How to end housing crisis. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would agree that's not the case, but they certainly made it worse.
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No idea why this gets downvoted. In many parts of Europe, cities are becoming or have become uninhabitable for normal people because rents and real estate prices are absurdly high. In some places, rental housing is either so scarce or so expensive or both that someone who wants to move there would be better off buying a flat or a house, which again is impossible for normal earners. That's why more and more people are demanding to illegalize vacant rental apartments and banning Air BNB and similar businesses
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Presumably it is being downvoted for single blame of a highly complex socio economic problem. Yes AirBnB feeds the problem, but they aren't the sole source of it. In plenty of places in Europe have heavily regulated or outright banned the likes of AirBnB, and ... nothing happened. The places are still overrun by tourists, the places are still ludicrously expensive.
The reality is much of the housing crisis is driven by a multitude of things. In some places it's short stay rentals. In some places its the owne
Vienna - largest percent of public housing in EU (Score:2)
- 25% of Vienna residents live in public housing.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Vienna today has some of the most affordable housing and cheapest rents in Europe.[47][48][58][59] Approximately 80% of Vienna either privately or socially rents,[47][48][60] with two-thirds of rental housing being covered by rent controls.[48] Additionally renters have strong just-cause eviction protections.[48][59] 80% of residents in Vienna qualify for public housing.[48]
Vienna directly owns the most public housing st
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AirBNB issues are just an ornament on top of the 3-tier wedding cake of today's housing price insanity.
The bottom tier serving as the foundation of this disaster cake is the idea that a house should not just be a place to live, but an investment that should appreciate over time, and thus that there should be a "property ladder." Huge fucking mistake.
Tier 2 is NIMBYs enacting zoning laws that all have the effect of restricting housing supply, which they have done successfully for decades.
And the top tier wit
Ian Betteridge laughs... (Score:2)
... and points out that Vienna has almost laughably mild weather: barely below freezing (-2 C) at its winter lows, and barely above warm (+27 C) for its summer highs. Unless the intention is to relocate all cities to places with such nice climates, it's not a useful "Model for How to Tackle the Both the Climate and Housing Crisis". And rooftop solar is theoretically fine, although usually so expensive as to never recoup its capital costs, in a single-family house with a good battery storage system, but it
Climate (Score:2)
My grandma's cousin lived in Eureka California near the coast in a nice open plan ranch house. Air conditioning was handled by a couple of oscillating fans and windows that opened. Heat was supplied by two extra incandescent lamps she'd leave on at night, and a Franklin stove for the one month out of the year it gets down into the 50s.
An amazingly efficient system for her. It wouldn't quite cut it where we live, when it's well below freezing for a third of the year with almost no sun, then into the 90s and
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Not to mention "government supported" equal "the projects," and we know without a doubt who "the projects" end up in the US.
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Where I live in the U.S. midwest, adequate solar costs about $65K for the panels and installation. And then another $54K (at least) for the batteries. So yes, so expensive that it make more economical sense to keep paying the utility company.
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How many years of electricity bills does it take to reach $120k? For me, it would be about 50 years -- considerably longer than I could reasonably expect the solar power system, and maybe my already-50-year-old house, to last.
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Our electric bill is about $4000/year.
So....ugh....$30 years to break even at $120K, plus the opportunity cost of what else you could have done with that $120K. Probably pencils out to more like 50 years.
Solar just makes no sense.
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You do realize that 12.5kWh of batteries will only power our moderately-sized house for 8-10 hours?
I'd like to run my next house off solar but based on my experiments over the last couple of years we'd need at least 60kWh of batteries to cover the cloudy days in winter and even then we'd need to limit non-essential power usage until the sun came back because some days we get negligible power from our existing panels for more than two days at a time.
That would only be about $20k worth of batteries these days
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How on *earth* does solar end up being so absurdly priced? A UK house can get solar installed, soup to nuts, for well under $10k, including scaffolding (typically a significant part of the cost here in the UK). 65k USD would buy you enough for more than four houses! And 54k usd of batteries would be like a 90kWh battery here -- which is gigantic and totally unnecessary for a home setup.
UK solar and battery domestic installs typically come in at under 15k usd equivalent all-in.
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And 54k usd of batteries would be like a 90kWh battery here -- which is gigantic and totally unnecessary for a home setup.
From what people on this site have told me the typical UK household uses substantially less electricity than a typical North American one. At around 2000kWh/mo, which is not unusual consumption at all, that would be a day and a half for me.
Re: Ian Betteridge laughs... (Score:2)
the typical UK household uses substantially less electricity than a typical North American one. At around 2000kWh/mo, which is not unusual consumption at all, that would be a day and a half for me.
Wow! I didn't know indoors weed farms were so mainstream in the US. That explains why everyone is so chilled.
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Where I live in the U.S. midwest, adequate solar costs about $65K for the panels and installation. And then another $54K (at least) for the batteries. So yes, so expensive that it make more economical sense to keep paying the utility company.
That is crazy, you are being ripped off big time, I paid a fraction of that 4 years ago for a system many would say was over the top for most needs. Here in New Zealand the ROI for solar is around 5 years and batteries are probably around 10 years (hard to track because they are dropping in cost so quickly).
So yea, if you have a terminal disease, firstly sorry, maybe staying with paying the utility company is best. For the rest of you pull out a calculator and run the numbers for where you live, for ma
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I paid a fraction of that 4 years ago
what fraction? A large NZ solar retailer claims around US$7k install cost for a 5kW system; a presumably neutral news site (rnz.co.nz) says it's about NZ$2k per kW currently so that roughly checks out.
I'm quite surprised genuinely if these numbers are real. Having central AC, switching to a hot water heat pump last year, and probably buying an EV in next couple of years - with the retail price increasing - I've been thinking about this more and more...
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I'm rural and use a BEV for my primary transport.
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While going off-grid rarely makes economical sense if you already have service, for a system that big it really sounds like your home is an energy hog. A friend in Colorado has 8kW of PV and 30kWh of battery that nets them out annually with a F150 lightning and before the EV kept them net-exporters in the winter in an all-electric house.
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Running some calculations at the PVWatts site, Colorado looks like a pretty good place for solar power. An 8kW system is allegedly only producing about a third less in winter than summer.
We're quite a bit further north and get a quarter to a third as much power in winter as summer. Assuming the panels aren't covered in snow.
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I was thinking much the same. Rooftop solar is quite expensive and would be insufficient for providing heat in anything but the most mild of climate. Years ago I did the math on how much energy I could get from solar power with the roof of my Midwestern house and a battery pack. For the winter I could do fine enough assuming I had fossil fuel heat. In the summer I'd have enough electrical power left over for charging up an EV. The problem was that was a solar+battery system that would cost more than th
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It's not an on-off switch, though: the Viennese approach here becomes less effective in more extreme climates, but it doesn't become wholly ineffective in most climates. It's still better to use thick walls in almost every climate, midrise urban housing offers a great balance in almost all cities between density and liveability, and rooftop solar is spreading like wildfire in much hotter climates eg Pakistan, sub-Saharan Africa, because the economics are so compelling.
Short answer : (Score:1)
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Hi Betteridge!
Simpler steps (Score:2, Troll)
Why is no government doing this ?
Because the populist shits ( of left and right ) are doing what people want them to do, not what people need them to do TO SAVE THE FUCKING PLANET.
It's time a politician stood up for WHAT IS RIGHT. They might even get some votes.
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Right now people where I live (Los Angeles area) are screaming bloody murder to stop subsidizing teslas, but they don't say much of anything about oil subsidies.
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That's because you're not listening (Score:2, Interesting)
The goal is walkable cities. Public transportation for almost everything except a handful of commercial uses and people who live out in The boondocks.
If you ever thought about how much you give up to have that big honkin SUV maybe the average American would be more receptive. Nobody thinks about all the indirect costs like the fact that we maintain hundreds of billions of dollars of military t
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You would have to pay me $200K/year to live in a "walkable city". That's on top of whatever I earn from my day job.
Re: That's because you're not listening (Score:2)
May I ask why? Context: I live in Vienna, I do not own a car even though I did when I first moved here.
Identity marker (Score:2)
It's not that they are particularly attached to car culture or hating gays it's that both behaviors signal to other members of the in group that they themselves are a member of the in group.
I bring up homophobia because you see it a lot here among our Christian extremists. It's an easy way to let everyone know that you are very likely part of that radical E
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Because it is not a lifestyle I have any interest in.
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The goal is walkable cities. Public transportation for almost everything
Whose goal is that, do you figure?
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tax ICE cars fairly, i.e. heavily.
Yeah those big black Broncos do burn through the gas - especially with all the stop-and-go driving and heavy acceleration necessary for catching those dangerous lettuce pickers.
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Not just the taxes on the roads but the billions and billions and military spending to maintain a reliable supply of oil globally, keeping in mind that the supply of oil has to be globally maintained or American oil sellers will just sell it for the higher price overseas instead of giving it to you...
Not to mention also the enormous negative health effects an
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Honestly I wonder how much a car would cost if we took all of the externalized costs and made people directly pay them in a way they could see.
The thing about externalized costs is they are impossible to calculate with anything close to being accurate. I expect someone can some up with a number, but there's no knowing if it has any relation to reality since there's too many variables to consider.
Then consider the possibility that if this tax to cover externalized costs were applied people might find the taxed fossil fuels still cheaper than the renewable option with all its externalized costs added up and applied as a tax. There's externalized c
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When the solution is more damaging to people than the problem - and it is, when people like Al Gore, from his private jet and multiple mansions paid for with family tobacco money, are telling us we have to shiver in the dark with cold showers - yeah, people are doing to elect different officials.
And getting between Californians and their cars is pretty much guaranteed to be the end of a political career. Just ask Gray Davis about when he tried to triple DMV fees.
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When the solution is more damaging to people than the problem - and it is, when people like Al Gore, from his private jet and multiple mansions paid for with family tobacco money, are telling us we have to shiver in the dark with cold showers - yeah, people are doing to elect different officials.
And getting between Californians and their cars is pretty much guaranteed to be the end of a political career. Just ask Gray Davis about when he tried to triple DMV fees.
I fear you may be right. We may be in an era when people unashamedly only vote for their own immediate interests.
It's how people are when they constantly feel at the end of their tether.
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The flaw isn't in the people voting, it's in the people presenting the reasons why we need change. When you act like an hysterical fear monger who doesn't believe their own crap - and they do, every damn time - then people will assume you are.
Climate change is inherently associated with the left, and the left has spent that last century proving, beyond any possible doubt, how hypocritical they are, "do as I say, not as I do." If they don't believe what they're spewing, why should anyone else?
(Mind you, the
Re:Simpler steps (Score:4, Informative)
Tax flying fairly, i.e. heavily, tax ICE cars fairly, i.e. heavily. Why is no government doing this ?
I'm with you on increasing tax on polluting transportation, but some governments are doing something. TFA is in Europe, so here is the situation here: car fuel is 2-3 times more expensive than in USA, entirely due to taxes. It's not an easy decision to increase further beyond, it is already understood as a tax on the poor (who can't get better cars).
Taxes on air travel are more consensual. This year the French government *multiplied by 4* the tax on air flights (TSBA/TTAP), now up to 120 € per passenger on long distance commercial flights departing France, and 2100 € per passenger in private jets. See the table https://aeroaffaires.com/new-t... [aeroaffaires.com]
On this one, it isn't the populists who disagree, it's the local airlines who complain about their competitiveness.
Re:Simpler steps (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is no government doing this ?
Pricing out the demand side of mobility is a great way of turning your city / country into a crime ridden hellhole. Nothing good has come from regressively punishing the poor for the whims of the rich. If you want to stop people driving ICE cars then the solution is not to tax ICE cars, but rather to build systems of transport that offer an alternative to owning the thing. Vienna didn't get to be on the top of most liveable cities list (continuously for the past two decades) by trying to tax away problems, they did it by investing in social systems, they did it by creating more pleasant walking spaces and cycling infrastructure, they did it by building on of the most comprehensive and best public transport systems in the world - the type where you are connected to the city regardless of how far out in the suburbs you live.
My grandma literally used to live in the last house in Vienna, "am Arsch der Welt" (translated on the arse of the world) as we called it because at the end of her street was a sign saying Vienna with a red line through it. Yet every time I landed at Vienna airport (which fun fact is not even in the state of Vienna), I had zero difficulty hopping over there with public transport. She's passed now but I still have family there. Family like my cousin, who at 40 years old doesn't have a drivers license because he simply doesn't need one.
That's how you can reduce car dependency.
As for taxing flying, you're deluding yourself if you think that solves a problem. Flying now is cheaper than it ever has been, but even in the expensive days of old billions of people flew around the world every year. I'm flying to India shortly. Do you think my company will give a shit if the flight costs more? I'm already being asked to book fully flexible business class tickets. Taxing air travel won't do much.
It's time a politician stood up for WHAT IS RIGHT. They might even get some votes.
Yes because people love voting for increased taxes... *rolleyes*
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So your company will pay high taxes for your flights, so therefore taxing flights is wrong. *rolleyes*
Because no-one can persuade people to vote to save the planet we live on ? *rolleyes*
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What do you think the taxes on cars and flights would be used for ? *rolleyes*
Military spending or bailouts to the fossil fuels industry of course. America doesn't have a problem of not enough taxes. It has a problem of completely absurd priorities, precisely none of which include anything climate related right now. Oh wait, no they do have climate related priorities: Rolling back climate initiatives and increasing fossil fuel consumption is a priority for the government. Do you need to raise money to do that?
So your company will pay high taxes for your flights, so therefore taxing flights is wrong. *rolleyes*
Tax away. My point is that your "solution" doesn't change anything for the
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I think to be fair, it has both a problem with not enough taxes and bad priorities. Unless one of the priorities you're talking about is corporate welfare and low taxes on the rich. Certainly it is the case that they (and Canada) could raise enough money if they would actually just enforce their tax laws and implement wealth taxes on the ultra-rich.
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Family like my cousin, who at 40 years old doesn't have a drivers license because he simply doesn't need one.
That's how you can reduce car dependency.
Removing car dependency means increasing dependency on public transit and companies offering some kind of taxi-like service. That's not the kind of life Americans are likely to tolerate.
I grew up in rural Midwest USA where what we'd call a "city" had a population under 5000. There's no public transit there. There's school buses for children. Those living in an elderly community or such would have a scheduled shuttle service for members of the community to visit shopping centers, the movie theater if the
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That's not the kind of life Americans are likely to tolerate.
Americans aren't special. In fact most American expats I've met in Europe actively wish they had public transport access and less car dependency back home. The lack of tolerance is born out of ignorance. It it the subject of growing up not knowing any differently. I was like that too by the way. Not American, but I grew up in a car dependent society with laughably bad public transit system in my city. Getting a license and a car was an absolute priority for me. Now I live in Europe ... and don't own my own
Boxed in (Score:3)
I don't want an apartment/flat. I want a house, with a garden and driveway. You live in a box if you want. Most people need outdoor space.
Re:Boxed in (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you get this "need" from? About half of the population of Europe are living in a flat and are perfectly happy doing so. Add to that terraced housing (which I'm sure you would consider equally boxed in since they don't come with driveways, and many without gardens) and you can objectively say the majority of the population is doing just fine without it.
You may not want it, more power to you. But don't pretend you speak for a "need" of others.
As for outdoor space, even when I lived in an apartment I had outdoor space, both in terms of balcony as well as common outdoor areas in the form of a lovely park centered among our apartment complexes. Most well designed cities have plenty of green space, parks, outdoor areas for people to enjoy.
I wager you are more boxed in than anyone living in an apartment in Vienna. You've just swapped walls for a fence while the apartment dwellers are out and about enjoying their city.
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Newsflash: people like different things.
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Ah, of course. If someone doesn't live their life how you like, tax them into oblivion. People must OBEY!!
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Most well designed cities have plenty of green space, parks, outdoor areas for people to enjoy.
In America there is a cultural aversion to shared assets. There's a preference to have one of your own - outdoor areas included. That's why people can't help but see apartment living as a downgrade from a detatched house with a garden.
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Why would I live in a tin among other people? Around annoying, loud neighbours and their habits? Why would I not want to live as a free, independent human being and have something for myself?
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I mean, it sounds like you have bad neighbours. I live in a townhouse, and my neighbours (co-owners, really) are great. We help each other out. I can ride my bike for a few minutes in any direction and be out on a beautiful trail or out by the lake. Don't get me wrong, I've very deliberately selected a city to live in where access to nature is trivial. That was a priority. But I'd be happy enough to live in an apartment here if I needed to, the only thing that stopped me in the first place is the rules/laws
Re: Boxed in (Score:2)
It's a neighbour Russian roulette, and noise is just an example. Noise, smoking, antisocial behaviour, wanker-grade parking, visitors all around the night hours... I'm a grown-up. I want to live an independent life, live life my way.
Besides, where I live, most flats are leasehold. Why would I keep paying someone for the privilege of living in a place I paid for? It's modern extortion.
Detached as the goal. Semi at the very least.
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Exactly. A lot of people don't want to live like cockroaches.
Insulation isn't good enough. (Score:2)
Nitpicking (Score:2)
And the average social housing rents are about $700 for a large one-bedroom apartment
I followed all four links and none have this $700 figure to expands on what it is. Firstly is it USD? Vienna uses the Euro, that is not denoted with a '$' character. Secondly what is the time period that $700 covers. My travels of the world would suggest it is for a month but in some countries, such as where I live rent is normally quotes for weekly.
Vienna (Score:2)
Very thick, insulated walls. Sounds like the dungeons in Liechtenstein Castle. There are a limited number of these to go around.
And I'd like a window in mine as well.
15 minute cities! (Score:1)
Micro housing (Score:2)
The solution is to build a mad amount (I'm thinking a city like San Jose, CA with a homeless population of 6,000 may need about 25,000 micro housing units -- extra because some people who can barely afford rent may move there too) of free 150 square foot micro-housing cabins on a few square miles of land about 15 to 20 miles from the outskirts of the city. Put a maximum cabin-stay duration of 60 days after which you have to change cabins. That's to prevent hoarding. Also maximum outdoor surveillance. That's