Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

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Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Tue Sep 20, 2016 10:29 am

Jeff Wilson, CEO and founder of KASITA, moved from a modern, comfortable, 3,000 square-foot home to a 33 square-foot dumpster.

His inspiration for the drastic, unconventional change came from a UCLA study that tracked the movements of 32 middle class families throughout their homes, and determined that most of a home is underutilized and unnecessary.

http://www.rcrwireless.com/20160916/int ... home-tag31
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by Maddy » Tue Sep 20, 2016 11:22 am

I've had both large homes and small homes, and on balance I've come to favor having some space. One of the under-appreciated problems of downsizing, from a "green" point of view, is that space limitations keep you constantly churning products--buying and re-buying things that you don't have on hand because you don't have any place to store them. When I lived in a tiny house, I was constantly taking boxes of still-useful items to Goodwill simply because I had no room for them. I can't count the number of times I gave great things away only to buy them again years later when the need arose.

I'm a garage sale junkie, and over the course of a summer, I could fill a small building with everything I accumulate for pennies on the dollar: tools, hardware, fencing materials, fabric, gas cans, cast iron pans, canning supplies, furniture, cleaning supplies, home decor, and on and on. Most of this stuff I have no immediate use for, but I know it will come in handy at some point. After three years of stashing useful things away, I've noticed that my trips to town to buy things for the house and property are about 10% of what they were before.

People who gloat green about living in a 30-square-foot space ought to add up the hidden costs of their asceticism. I remember years ago giving a ride home to a "true believer" whose bicycle had broken down. We ended up driving all over tarnation so that this guy could get a week's worth of errands done. All the while, he preached endlessly at me about why he doesn't own a car. I finally stopped the car and told him to get out.
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Sep 20, 2016 11:59 am

There's always a sensible middle ground. 30 square feet or so is just social signaling/showing off; not actually very useful for most lifestyles. My family of 4 lives in a 1300 square foot house with a two car garage (only one car) and we find it to be just about perfect. It feels sufficient, even roomy; and it's fast and cheap to clean and maintain. If I think about the ways I'd improve it, none of them involve more interior space (wood stove, now kitchen cabinets, better landscaping, things like that).
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by Maddy » Wed Sep 21, 2016 8:22 am

A 500-square-foot cabin with a 2,000-square-foot shop/storage building would be perfect!
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Wed Sep 21, 2016 11:31 am

Desert wrote:I've lived in an embarrassingly large number of houses over the years, and my favorite was an 1800 sqft single story. In the high desert, of course. One of these days I'm going to pack up the family and move next door to Pointedstick.
No more high deserts for me! ;) I'm tired of being in an oven.
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by dualstow » Wed Sep 21, 2016 11:41 am

Maddy wrote:A 500-square-foot cabin with a 2,000-square-foot shop/storage building would be perfect!
Ha! I was going to post something similar. A small home with a bit of land and a very large shed for storage + workshop would be ideal.
What I have a small townhouse on a small street that the anti-suburban blogs would love. Although the deed says ~1250 square feet, it's more like 700-800 because of large up-to-code stairs and a troublesome basement. And a postage stamp garden.

No garage, no car.

Great home, but I would love a little land and a shed.

Has anyone seen that Tiny Homes, Big Living show on HGTV? Very entertaining, and I love the clever designs they come up with to make these homes that can be driven around as a trailer. However, when you see them celebrating with guests and everyone has to lean back with their champagne glasses while the host squeezes through, the reality sets in.

Also, it seems like everyone is living on their parents' or in-law's property. It doesn't really count if you can run across the yard and do laundry in mom's mansion. :D
Maddy wrote: I remember years ago giving a ride home to a "true believer" whose bicycle had broken down. We ended up driving all over tarnation so that this guy could get a week's worth of errands done. All the while, he preached endlessly at me about why he doesn't own a car. I finally stopped the car and told him to get out.
O0
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Wed Sep 21, 2016 12:10 pm

dualstow wrote:Great home, but I would love a little land and a shed.
Thanks for the warning. I'll steer clear of your city, for sure! What could possibly be the advantage to make up for missing what you really want? Whatever it is, it's not working if you feel that way.
Also, it seems like everyone is living on their parents' or in-law's property. It doesn't really count if you can run across the yard and do laundry in mom's mansion. :D
That is due to insipid bureaucracy and stupid regulations. It's not legal to have those tiny houses literally BE houses on a lot all its own.

Boy, saying "fuck all you!" to the silly people living like canned sardines in dirty filthy rotten stinkin' cities sure sounds really attractive right now. So long as there's also high speed cable Internet, FedEx and UPS! What more would you need? ;D
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by dualstow » Wed Sep 21, 2016 12:29 pm

I guess I'm one of the people you're saying "fuck you" to which is fine, but this I cannot countenance:
Thanks for the warning. I'll steer clear of your city, for sure! What could possibly be the advantage to make up for missing what you really want? Whatever it is, it's not working if you feel that way.
I think I have a slightly better idea of whether it's working or not, as you have a single paragraph supplied by me, and I have the other 99.7% of data.

What could be the advantage? Well, I can walk or take public transportation to anyplace I need to go, and most of where I want to go. Restaurants, museums, movies, trains to other cities and to the airport are all minutes away on foot. So are two hospitals, several vets, grocery stores and bodegas, wine bars, farmers' markets, parks, and good neighbors.

Jury duty, DMV -- I still use a driver's license as an ID -- etc are also places I go to on foot.

Not having a shed means I have to get rid of more old stuff than I normally would. That's not so bad.
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Wed Sep 21, 2016 12:50 pm

dualstow wrote:I think I have a slightly better idea of whether it's working or not, as you have a single paragraph supplied by me, and I have the other 99.7% of data.

What could be the advantage? Well, I can walk or take public transportation to anyplace I need to go, and most of where I want to go. Restaurants, museums, movies, trains to other cities and to the airport are all minutes away on foot. So are two hospitals, several vets, grocery stores and bodegas, wine bars, farmers' markets, parks, and good neighbors.

Jury duty, DMV -- I still use a driver's license as an ID -- etc are also places I go to on foot.

Not having a shed means I have to get rid of more old stuff than I normally would. That's not so bad.
Hah! Well said.

So essentially your #1 criteria is not having to have a car and that takes precedence over all other discomforts from living like a canned sardine?

Now a better question is, why doesn't the crowded conditions and general decay (physically and politically) of the city bother you? What is so attractive about, say, going to a crowded park full of people that you may have to fight green space for and surrounded on all sides by noisy, polluting cars and congested traffic compared to the alterantive of having, say, a quiet and lush forested or wooded backyard that you can even enter as your Secret Garden?

How did you get to this position of not having a car anyway? You've said you've lived in many places so what happened that it became the #1 priority that you actually acted upon it not just flapped the piehole about? The cultural pressure on cars is immense and you even still have a driver's license and not a state ID. Inquiring minds want to know!
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by dualstow » Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:11 pm

I never enjoyed driving, and that's the driving factor so to speak. I also don't consider myself to be a good driver. (Wouldn't it be great if all bad drivers took themselves off the road? Most people famously think they're above average). I also don't like sitting in traffic or commuting. I suppose no one does.

The other main factor is that I didn't have my own car in college, and for several years after I graduated, I lived in various big cities overseas. It wouldn't have been practical to even try to get a car in Moscow back then. In Bangkok, I had to sit in a cab for at least an hour for each English lesson (ended up doing language exchange with the cabbies) . And so on. When I got back the States, I had no desire to start driving again.

I love nature, but I also don't feel like a canned sardine in the city. I would rather take a train to get to the woodsy areas than have to do the converse just to see a movie or get to the airport or regional rail station. I love cities.
What is so attractive about, say, going to a crowded park full of people that you may have to fight green space for and surrounded on all sides by noisy, polluting cars and congested traffic compared to the alternative of having, say, a forested or wooded backyard in you enter as your Secret Garden?
I don't fight people for greenspace. I leer at gorgeous young co-eds and pet their cute Corgis and German Shepherds. I bump into friends. I have picnics with the wife.

Are there problems? Sure. There are homeless people in the park and on the sidewalk. Every once in a while, the ones on the sidewalk get a little aggressive. There was one guy who used to spit on people if they didn't give money. I think he was quietly taken away. There's crime, kids who throw rocks and bang on doors, flash mobs, rapists.

Of course, everything's a tradeoff and there is no perfect place. I like the fact that I have good, watchful neighbors. I'd feel more vulnerable in a very large house in the suburbs with enough land that neighbors couldn't really see who was at my front door / aren't usually home / don't care.

You know how with fermentation the good bacteria overwhelm the bad? My block is full of good bacteria.

That's not to say that we couldn't suffer from crime, terrorism or gas leak explosions at any time in the future. It's just one of the risks of being alive. If I lived in the woods, I could get eaten by a bear or bitten by a rabid animal, or attacked by some lone fugitive with no witnesses.

Now, if self-driving cars become more popular around the same time that we retire, we may reassess things and adapt with the changes. The car would have to be easy to maintain. We'd probably rent. I miss my parents' secret garden (They're alive but they moved), but I do have places I can visit.
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Sat Sep 24, 2016 7:35 pm

When I first moved to out here back in 2009 to report on life in a post-bubble subprime suburb, I was sure that I was going to witness a city in collapse. It was just a matter of time—a few years, at most—before a mass exodus would transform Victorville into Mad Max territory, a scary no man's suburb with rows upon rows of rotting crumbling homes occupied by bums, snakes, meth cooks and packs of feral dogs.

I mean, who would continue to live in isolated desert suburb that has no jobs, astronomical crime rates, abandoned neighborhoods and some of the worst public schools in the state?

But not only did existing residents stay, new ones kept streaming in even after the bubble popped. The city's population grew at double the rate of the rest of California. Many of these newer residents weren't lower-income first-time homeowners, but the poorest of renters—a large number of them minorities on Section 8 vouchers—who had been forced out of other cities by rising living costs and the demolishing of public housing.

And that's what I see as I start my tour of Victorville's maze of subdivisions, freeways, strip malls, abandoned developments and isolated desert roads. It’s not collapse, but it feels very similar: slow stunted growth, combined with general decay and poverty.

The first thing I notice is that a number of smaller stores had gone out of business, while big corporate outfits have proliferated. Walmart has closed down its store in the center of town, only to reopen a much bigger, mega-Walmart just across the freeway. Both CVS and Walgreens have opened stores in newer parts of Victorville. There’s a new 7-11 where an independent gas station used to be. And a new AutoZone has opened up next door to my favorite Mexican restaurant, Los Roberto’s.

There are definitely more cops, more “Cash for Gold” outfits and more people standing on street corners in sub-zero temperatures, twirling signs for minimum wage.

A large new overpass will soon open up across Interstate 15 in the center of Victorville, and another just like it has broken ground a few miles to the south in the neighboring desert suburb of Hesperia. Another overpass is good planning for the future, but it doesn’t offer much for the people who can't afford cars. Since my last stay here, there are a lot more people trudging around town on foot, struggling against the freezing cold and icy wind.

The real estate situation has only got weirder. According to a guy who runs the best Vietnamese restaurant in Victorville, Chinese investors have been buying up foreclosed properties in vast numbers.

I assume he’s joking. "Chinese? You mean like, from China? What do they come here on their own and just wander around shopping for a dream home?" I ask.

"No, they come with their agents. They buy houses."

"What do they do with the houses? Live in them?"

"They put boards on windows. I don't know. They do nothing with them, man!" He raises his voice, annoyed that I don’t believe him.

Hordes of Chinese investors being bussed in to buy up and mothball foreclosed properties? Is this some kind of covert deal China made with the U.S. to prop up America's real estate market? Or are doing this on their own as an act of self-preservation? After all, if America goes, so does China…

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/victorville-part-two/
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Sat Sep 24, 2016 7:58 pm

The show was held inside two adjacent warehouse-like structures. One was nearly empty; the other was filled to no more than half-capacity. There were blue collar white dudes, bikers with long goatees, diabetic pensioners and plenty of families with kids and strollers. Children under fourteen got in for free, so parents used the opportunity to turn the gun show into wholesome family time.

To my surprise, there was a large Latino contingent—I'd say somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of the attendees. It was a reminder that Victorville's population, which used to be solidly Republican ex-military white, is changing fast. Latinos are expected to outpace whites in the next few years.

I wonder what Harlon Carter, the founding father of today's far-right NRA, would think of all this brown skin. The man didn't particularly like Latinos or Mexicans, and was convicted of murdering a 15-year-old Mexican American kid. In the 1950s, in his capacity as head of the US Border Patrol, Carter ran a racket called "Operation Wetback" in which his border patrol agents "charged" illegal immigrants a transportation "fee" for deportation.

Now, not only are Mexicans successfully invading America and turning it into Aztlan, but they’re even invading gun shows, a holy American ritual and possibly the last place where white male patriotic pride can be practiced in the open without guilt or shame. Latinos tend to vote Democrat, too! Damn them, they're destroying America from the inside!

As I walked around the show, I realized the sign wasn't joking about the shortage of firearms. It looked less like a gun show, and more like an antique fair or a high-end swap meet.

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/victo ... art-three/
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Thu Oct 13, 2016 2:55 pm

In the first half of the 20th century, Bronzeville was one of the most important destinations of the “Great Migration”, the move of hundreds of thousands of African Americans fleeing oppression down south in search of the Promised Land up north. Finding that racism did not end at the Mason-Dixon Line, these migrants created a unique Black Metropolis that provided all of their needs within the narrow boundaries of their community. They gave rise to a Black Arts Movement, created gospel and electrified blues, build hundreds of businesses, and created a political base that eventually would give birth to the nation’s first Black president.

Bronzeville’s fortunes began to decline in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Broad disinvestment by the city, large corporations, and absentee owners resulted in decay of many neighborhoods. Consequently, when racist housing restrictions were struck down, many Blacks followed the broader societal trend to the suburbs. At the same time, local businesses lost many of their customers to well-capitalized downtown and suburban competitors newly opening their doors to black patrons. As a result, commercial enterprises and jobs disappeared, crime rose, and the population plummeted.

https://wefunder.com/urbanjuncture
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by Xan » Thu Oct 13, 2016 3:09 pm

MachineGhost wrote:
In the first half of the 20th century, Bronzeville was one of the most important destinations of the “Great Migration”, the move of hundreds of thousands of African Americans fleeing oppression down south in search of the Promised Land up north. Finding that racism did not end at the Mason-Dixon Line, these migrants created a unique Black Metropolis that provided all of their needs within the narrow boundaries of their community. They gave rise to a Black Arts Movement, created gospel and electrified blues, build hundreds of businesses, and created a political base that eventually would give birth to the nation’s first Black president.

Bronzeville’s fortunes began to decline in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Broad disinvestment by the city, large corporations, and absentee owners resulted in decay of many neighborhoods. Consequently, when racist housing restrictions were struck down, many Blacks followed the broader societal trend to the suburbs. At the same time, local businesses lost many of their customers to well-capitalized downtown and suburban competitors newly opening their doors to black patrons. As a result, commercial enterprises and jobs disappeared, crime rose, and the population plummeted.

https://wefunder.com/urbanjuncture
If things are so bad, isn't the population plummeting a good thing? And aren't all the people who left for the suburbs better off?
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Thu Nov 03, 2016 11:09 am

Kalamazoo or Missoula? Never head of them (as relevant, anyway).

Image

Image

Image
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Sun Nov 13, 2016 8:48 pm

Truly, I've never read more deeply depressing doom porn than what gets posted to GranolaShotgun and StrongTowns. The pictures make it visceral.
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by Kriegsspiel » Sun Nov 13, 2016 9:31 pm

MachineGhost wrote:Truly, I've never read more deeply depressing doom porn than what gets posted to GranolaShotgun and StrongTowns. The pictures make it visceral.

It's only depresssing if you identify with those places. Read Johnny's posts about Cincinnati and you will feel a little twinge of "fuck.. yea that does look good!" If he's shooting jpegs of your neighborhood... yea, you should move. There are so many nice parts of America it's stupid.

MG: nobody is going to make you live in the shitholes they chronicle! Be positive.
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Wed Nov 16, 2016 12:52 pm

Dead malls are popping up all over the states, particularly in the Midwest, where economic decline has sped up the “going out of business” process. This map, put together by a Dead Malls Enthusiasts Facebook group, shows that well.

As Americans are faced with multiple shopping options and more stores are leaving malls, it should be interesting to see if malls and mall culture will survive.

What you are about to see is what happens when malls are abandoned. It’s apocalyptic and really, really creepy.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/complet ... oned-malls
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Wed Nov 16, 2016 5:17 pm

Desert wrote:Good riddance to those malls! Online shopping is not just the future, it's the present. Introverts like me are never going to go hang out in a mall with sleazy sales people when we can just add it to the cart.
It seems like the blacks with their pants backwards, down to their knees and/or chains dangling from their neck, killed the mall by causing white flight. Go figure.

I think its a real shame to demolish them. They would make a magnificent fortress/bunker just like in Dawn of the Dead.
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by Pointedstick » Wed Nov 16, 2016 7:09 pm

Malls killed themselves by being a part of car suburbia, whose inherent model is building new stuff farther away and abandoning old infrastructure once it needs to be repaired or replaced. New malls are in fact being built, just in a different way (now they're called "lifestyle centers" or "urban villages"). In 20 years, they too will be abandoned.

https://granolashotgun.com/2016/07/09/t ... e-problem/
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by Xan » Wed Nov 16, 2016 10:21 pm

IIRC the Weird Al movie "UHF" was filmed in an empty mall. I forget whether it was abandoned, or not yet opened, or what, but it was the ideal shooting locale because they could dress up each bay to be whatever they wanted, and it had a movie theater so they could view their dailies.
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by curlew » Fri Nov 18, 2016 6:40 am

Desert wrote:
MachineGhost wrote:
Dead malls are popping up all over the states, particularly in the Midwest, where economic decline has sped up the “going out of business” process. This map, put together by a Dead Malls Enthusiasts Facebook group, shows that well.

As Americans are faced with multiple shopping options and more stores are leaving malls, it should be interesting to see if malls and mall culture will survive.

What you are about to see is what happens when malls are abandoned. It’s apocalyptic and really, really creepy.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/complet ... oned-malls
Good riddance to those malls! Online shopping is not just the future, it's the present. Introverts like me are never going to go hang out in a mall with sleazy sales people when we can just add it to the cart.
Where I live (West Coast of Florida), if you go to the mall on a weekend it's hard to find a place to park. Over in Orlando where they have all the outlet malls it's even worse. There have been times when I've had to leave because no parking space was available.
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Re: Big, Open, Green, Wasted, Space!

Post by MachineGhost » Fri Nov 18, 2016 8:24 am

curlew wrote:Where I live (West Coast of Florida), if you go to the mall on a weekend it's hard to find a place to park. Over in Orlando where they have all the outlet malls it's even worse. There have been times when I've had to leave because no parking space was available.
That's materialistic Baby Boomers for ya! eCommerce is still only a very small portion of all retail sales.
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes

Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet.  I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
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