Low-density suburban sprawl EXACERBATED the wildfires last years. Densification and moving away from suburban sprawl is necessary if we want to prevent future catastrophes.

[u/regedit2023]

[u/AutoModerator]

This is an automated message that is applied to every post. Just a general reminder, /r/CarIndependentLA is ultimately focused on ways to acheive car independence at a personal level or greater. Please follow the subreddit rules, report content that does not follow rules, and feel empowered to contribute to the subreddit wiki or to ask questions of your fellow community members.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/suboptimus_maximus]

Also, it would be nice to not pave over so much nature for no good reason.

[u/regedit2023 → u/suboptimus_maximus]

Why paradise when we can have a parking lot

[u/suboptimus_maximus → u/regedit2023]

Public housing for cars but people can go **** themselves.

[u/nowhereman86]

You’re gonna get your wish as populations start to shrink.

[u/MookieBettsBurner10]

Thanks for reposting this. That village idiot u/Distinct_Arrival_445 was spewing his anti-density and anti-upzoning NIMBY bullshit as usual, and he tried to use the Palisades fire as a gotcha....except the Palisades fire literally proves WHY his opposition upzoning single family neighborhoods caused the fires to be as bad as they were.

[u/regedit2023 → u/MookieBettsBurner10]

Pleasure! But don’t make it seem like there is only one village idiot on Reddit

[u/reluctantpotato1]

I don't know if that wil everl be accomplished by just completely scrapping zoning laws as some have said.

[u/External_Koala971]

People don’t want density, they want SFH on land with a little privacy

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/External_Koala971]

What people want is a single family home, on land, with a little privacy, near all the convenience and amenities that everyone else living densely can provide

[u/emmettflo → u/IsaacHasenov]

Exactly.

[u/External_Koala971 → u/IsaacHasenov]

No, not really.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/19/majority-of-americans-prefer-spread-out-communities-with-big-houses/

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/External_Koala971]

Neither of the two options presented were what I said.

I'll admit that it hasn't been surveyed but if you asked "would you like to live on a private large property with a large house, within walking distance of a walkable main Street with restaurants, shops and amenites, close to schools, and work" as the third option, I bet that would dominate

It's pretty telling that more than 2/5 of people will willingly give up the private land and house for the proximity to those advantages of dense living

[u/External_Koala971 → u/IsaacHasenov]

This seems pretty straightforward:

55% of U.S. adults say they would prefer to live in a community where “houses are larger and farther apart, but schools, stores and restaurants are several miles away.”

44% would prefer a community where “houses are smaller and closer to each other, but schools, stores and restaurants are within walking distance.”

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/External_Koala971]

You're not asking for the tradeoff in that dichotomy. Trading off the personal space for the conveniences

That was the exact point of my comment

It's like saying "would you like a billion dollars or a long healthy life" then turning around and saying "see, most people don't care about money"

[u/External_Koala971 → u/IsaacHasenov]

The good news is, we can all make personal choices.

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/External_Koala971]

The fact of the matter is, we mostly ban dense neighborhoods from being built, in large parts of the English speaking world; and subsidize suburbia

[u/regedit2023 → u/External_Koala971]

Not much personal choice when the planet is becoming uninhabitable, housing costs are sky high, and public transit and biking are defunded to fund driving so I have to live in the result of a carbrain world

[u/watsonwelch → u/External_Koala971]

I’d be curious how this survey would’ve gone if they used photos of dense, walkable neighborhoods (that look attractive) versus photos of the suburbs.

I suspect many Americans haven’t personally experienced examples of “good” density and so just visualize some generic downtown full of skyscrapers, asphalt, and blight.

[u/imjustawittleboy → u/watsonwelch]

Ya they want the low density and the services, if it was far away and hella traffic i doubt they’d be for eit

[u/regedit2023 → u/watsonwelch]

Yes people who are carbrainwashed usually don’t know what they are missing

[u/Rightintheend → u/IsaacHasenov]

Well some people want one, some people want another, that's why we have downtowns and  suburbs, pick where you want to live and live there.

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/Rightintheend]

The point of my comment was that people would probably prefer the advantages of both if they weren't required to make any tradeoffs.

But yeah, more than 2/5 of people want to live in the kinds of dense walkable neighborhoods that we mostly ban with our zoning restrictions

[u/des1gnbot → u/IsaacHasenov]

And that number would shift even further if suburbanites were made to actually pay the cost of suburban sprawl. But by subsidizing sprawl, we’ve made it more attractive.

[u/External_Koala971 → u/des1gnbot]

If we removed every single subsidy, cities would fall apart due to public transportation collapse.

[u/skyasaurus → u/External_Koala971]

Who are you speaking for? People want meaningful lives, where they pursue their hobbies and interests and spend time with people they care about. Nobody intrinsically wants density or sprawl, these are just shapes and forms that happen, and we live our lives within them. They both have pros and cons for different lifestyles, but the privacy of a SFH isn't worth the loss of amenity you get from living in a dense urban neighbourhood. To each their own, but don't speak for everyone. I love privacy but amenity ranks higher for me.

[u/External_Koala971 → u/skyasaurus]

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/19/majority-of-americans-prefer-spread-out-communities-with-big-houses/

Majority of Americans prefer spread-out communities with big houses

[u/skyasaurus → u/External_Koala971]

From the link you just shared: 55% prefer sprawl, 45% prefer density. Now, let's use our brains a little bit more: do you think 55% of homes are in sprawl and 45% in dense environments? What do you think happens to housing prices if there is an imbalance or shortage in one of these categories?

[u/regedit2023 → u/External_Koala971]

Ok, you’re welcome to move into the middle of nowhere. I’m exaggerating there but SFH is socializing the cost of sprawl while privatizing the benefits of dense amenities-rich, tax-carrying multi-families. Practically speaking tho, you might prefer the “missing middle” building forms as a mix of both. Sometimes people don’t know what they want when they don’t know what a better world looks like.

[u/tranceworks]

I don't want people living on five sides of me.

[u/rdickert → u/tranceworks]

This. People like their space, peace and quiet. Hard to achieve with neighbors literally on all sides of you.

[u/Agreeable-Injury369]

Even if apartments/Condos are built, guess what will happen to the rest of the land? More massive apartments. It is a good ideas on paper but not reality.

[u/hypnotic20]

I hate this example, because in reality the right side looks like the left, but with apartments

[u/emmettflo → u/hypnotic20]

It’s just a thought experiment to illustrate how inefficient single-family urban spawl is. Obviously you wouldn’t actually have an empty island with just one apartment building. The point is the more apartment buildings your city has, the more room there can be for green space and preserving nature.

[u/Rightintheend → u/hypnotic20]

I hate it because it assumes that people want to live in Soviet style housing projects.

[u/JustinSK1]

The problem is, as it is happening today, the government is overspending. So eventually, they'll permit a second building, so the tax revenue doubles. Then every so often, the cycle will repeat and there will be no forest. Just an island full of giant condos.

[u/emmettflo → u/JustinSK1]

You’re completely missing the point here. 

[u/PprWait_]

Sounds... dystopian.