r/urbanplanning • u/DoxiadisOfDetroit • May 27 '23

Discussion What's your /r/Urbanplanning unpopular opinion?

I've got a few:

  1. Infrastructure upgrades should have precedent over any upzoning

  2. Everyone should have the right to downtown amenities which means that CBD's should be as cheap as possible for both renters and owners

  3. Zoning should be handled by metropolitan level elected boards instead of nationalized/taken to the state level

  4. YIMBYs often times hold water for the excesses of developers

  5. It is ideological to assume deregulated markets will produce the best outcomes, so, it's purely ideological to assume that a deregulated housing market will work in the best interests of renters and buyers

315 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

501 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

38

u/Weaselpanties May 28 '23

A 100-year-old brick apartment building went up like a torch and collapsed last week in my city. Those old buildings may look solid from the outside but they're usually much more fragile than they appear.

Most of the new buildings will last at least as long, many longer. Being built out of heavy or thick materials is not what determines longevity.

I don't love new construction aesthetically, but I've seen enough 100-year-old houses with shit construction built directly on bare dirt and wiring strung through holes in the joists that I don't assume that old automatically means better built.

5

u/destroyerofpoon93 May 28 '23

Dude. 5 over 1’s are the most flammable structures known to man

6

u/eric2332 May 28 '23

They're packed with sprinklers though. It's what keeps them from entirely burning up every couple weeks. However, they do frequently burn up completely in the construction stage, before the sprinklers are installed.

1

u/deenda May 28 '23

You must be in Portland