Careful. You start talking about things being 15 minutes away and conservative whackos will claim you’re trying to put them in an open air prison.

I wonder if this is a college thing. Most of us who have gone to college probably experienced a 15 minute walkable “city “ and are more likely to appreciate it

I’m not them, but generally, the appeal of ownership is that if you don’t own it, then somebody else does, and that person or company is making profit from the relationship. So, ownership seems like it should be cheaper.

To me it’s about having a real home that you can call yours and the stability that comes with that. In many rental properties you can be evicted on the whim of the owner—usually not immediately but after some warning period. With ownership as long as you pay your bills you know you’ll have a place to live and where it will be barring some exceptional catastrophe.

Stability (your (fixed rate) mortgage payment doesn’t change, control (within reasonable limitations, I can mount things to walls, pour concrete in the back yard, rip up the floors and put hardwood, etc), the ability to actually pay it off and no longer have to worry about the payment (even if its a long way out for a 30 year mortgage, you build equity instead of just losing all of the money), the ability to sell the house to recoup equity (not in an investment sense, just in a, this house didnt depreciate like a car would so i can make a significant portion of what i paid back when I do decide to move), among other smaller things.

The critical downsides in my experience are maintenance (no repair guy to fix your water heater), and being locked in, especially during turbulent economic times and personal instability (for example, it’s difficult to ‘up and move’ for a new job.)

That being said, there are also legitimate reasons to rent, though I found as I get older, I wanted more stability, and less having to deal with a landlord dictating me (and being able to enter my house and decide how I behave) even if that means sacrificing some other aspects like better locations.

We only live one time, and I like being able to have a home that is mine and my families, it’s given us a lot of opportunities, like being able to immigrate family members and have a place for them to live with us, something that becomes challenging when a landlord tells you that you can’t have additional tenants, for example.

Rent is a scam.

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You can actually fix shit. For example, I have electric heating at the moment. Power bill in winter fucking sucks. If I owned the place I would have installed split air.

I want to drill into my balcony to hang planters and lights, upgrade appliances like a more spacious dishwasher, induction range, and heat pump water heater. I’d like to install ir reflecting window films but that’s not allowed here. I also miss having my tv wall mounted and tidy but lag bolts aren’t allowed. We also aren’t allowed to swap light switches for smart switches or add dimmers (maintenance is required to see the apartment for routine stuff like hvac filter changes and they would notice). I also want to be able to pull additional cat6 through the walls but that’s pretty risky and if anything went wrong we could lose our security deposit. Owning would also open up the possibility of doing my own electrical work, which while it was possible to get away with minor additions in my previous rental (get a work box and cover plate and mount it where it looks like it belongs and nobody bats an eye), I would still be prevented from being able to get approvals on stuff that requires inspection and owner sign-offs such as utility diaconnect switches for battery back up. I’m lucky enough that my previous landlord was willing to sign off on fiber internet installation work but at my new place you need approval to even put up a tv antenna on your balcony.

One thing I’ve noticed is that most American cities contain huge, populous suburbs that exert strong political control over the urban core. So in my city the actual dense urban neighborhoods only get one of five votes on the city council (let alone the county where we have straight up nazis on board). This results in an inability to implement many of the policies that we here in the city know will be beneficial, solely because residents in the other 4 suburban districts want to maintain their ability to drive through and park at desirable downtown amenities. In my opinion this represents a failure of democracy because our neighborhoods have very little say in rule making or development even in our immediate surroundings.

It is far less this and far more developers and builders with limited imagination and limited government requirements building subdivisions with thousands of homes that are 10-20 minute drives from commercial districts, combined with state and local governments that are afraid of the political fallout from exercising the right of eminent domain to create trail corridors, so trails are virtually impossible to connect for any distance (except for abandoned rail beds).

You really don’t need new fridges that often, the couple times you do just put them on boards on casters and shove. If you can’t: ask your neighbors, it’s a good bonding experience.

Nope! What is it?

It’s not the heat, it’s the lack of water.

At least it’s not Kuwait. 🤓 Development in Arizona, I think, isn’t happening to meet a demand but rather being funded by eccentric people and being met with a government with less taxes and regulations.

I just wanna add that walkable, while always advocated as a dense “15 minutes city” I hope doesn’t always have to be. There are examples of less dense walkable places, too. A little village with a market to one side, perhaps? “Walkable” exactly refers to a design pattern focused on pedestrian safety and pedestrian-scaled development. Aaaand that could exclude density, at the cost of population size.

Nah.

Walkable towns aren’t just concepts, they are how civilization is structured in most other countries.

What about mixed neighborhoods makes some people depressed?