Comments by "Nunya Bidness" (@nunyabidness3075) on "City Beautiful" channel.

  1. Since the roads are generally laid out by the developers, they reflect what the developers thought would sell best. Don’t go blaming capitalism though because it was statism. The federal housing programs ensured the whole scheme would follow their wishes by taking over the mortgage market in the name of affordable housing. The public was then primed to think that new safe neighborhoods had a certain look and feel.
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  2. Typical American, he removed all the railroads!
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  3. Where do you live that you cannot find anything like that in your town? I live in Houston, TX. We are the poster child for suburb hate vids and the arch nemesis of the city planning industry. I can walk to most everything and easily bike downtown or to the museum area or the medical center mostly on dedicated trails. I’m in a 3 story town home. We have an electric bike for our second “car”. Bus stop is two blocks away which gets us to rail as well. If as many people chose walkable neighborhoods as gripe about suburbs, there would be no need to gripe about suburbs.
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  4. None of this matters. I’m totally serious. The data used in the studies is so often rigged, that the outcomes have nothing to do with the metrics. I saw an office building study where they purposely ignored that all the surrounding buildings had changed from single family and small multi family to 4 story and taller apartment buildings still under construction. The guy leasing the tower had huge pull at city hall. They let the study pass through when it was obviously flawed. My shock was noted by the city council members staff guy who explained that there were no hard and fast rules on the studies and that whatever the engineer said was believed even though he worked for the developer and that it was well known there were engineers willing to say anything for a check.
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  5. This the problem with zoning. It’s now turned from some form of representative governance to mob rule. People buy a property and invest in structures with reasonable expectations things will not unnecessarily change in ways that will greatly affect them. Now their property is being wholesale changed while actually unused land nearby which the owners would LOVE to develop differently is unchanged because of the hassles to get permissions.
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  6.  @kirkrotger9208  It doesn’t matter what works in Singapore. Their culture is not like ours at all. Could I ask, why this fact does not seem as important to you as it does to me? I am baffled by how common these sorts of comparisons are. A while back, they caned an American teenager for vandalism and it was a really big deal to Americans. To them, it was just what you do.
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  7. This isn’t at all a new tactic. I’d say a majority of all environmental actions are now about things other than the environment. Mostly, it’s just jobs and resume stuffing for careerist environmentalists. Of course, this creates backlash and is now starting to have horrid results for the environment.
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  8. The recent negation of local zoning laws by Sacramento will, if not thwarted, cause no end of problems for California. If you are an affected owner, I highly recommend you figure out a way to profit off the changes quickly or sell. Your neighborhood might easily get overwhelmed by the changes, and it could cause values to plummet (which might actually be the point). Of course, the one permille will not be affected.
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  9. lol, Exxon built some neighborhoods that way. Yeah, THAT Exxon.
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  10.  @stevieinselby  It’s not just the zoning laws, but how badly they were implemented. I’ve often owned homes next to commercial properties. They generally are, and should be, less valuable if they are zoned residential or otherwise restricted from being developed. The same effect applies with proximity to large multi family. This is at the heart of NIMBYism.
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  11. Lorenzo Trotta, Or is it because the US is always getting trashed unfairly? From the critiques, you’d think this place was so bad, no one would ever want to move here yet it seems to be a stampede to get in. Look at Donald Trump, The press started attacking him when he was still a teenager. Now, they make fun of how defensive he is. They created him, they berate him, they make money off of feeding the hate they created decades ago. No matter what you think about the guy, blame the press.
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  12.  @r.d.9399  How did they do that?
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  13.  @mardiffv.8775  There’s lots of variety in Houston because there is no traditional zoning. The neighborhood I’m in now was cheap twenty years ago. It’s very mixed now. If you can buy, picking an area on the way up is a useful skill.
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  14.  @515nathaniel  All, no, some or many, yes. There will always be those people. One person’s sensible security is another person’s paranoia. I know some communities in the Houston area that went from nearly crime free to crime ridden nearly overnight. The paths and common areas were the way the burglars got around. It played hell on their property values for awhile.
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  15. Exactly what I was going to say. Been living here for a couple years, and this is the general consensus. It seems to me the only restaurants that were considered good at all on the walk closed during covid. All are considered over priced, but that seems to be expected.
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  16.  @angelsy1975  I’m not saying that isn’t a thing, but it’s not the thing here. This was pure statism. The schools have done an amazing job teaching half truth in this country. Price setting was very common until the mid 70’s. Wilson jumped the shark on statism, and it wasn’t until Reagan that much of it went away (most people have no idea how much still remains in reality. People cry about him in ignorance. Most everything related to material wealth improved greatly during the eighties and nineties FOR EVERYONE because a lot of the interference went away. It started creeping back in as soon as he got close to the end of his presidency. It’s back to ridiculous now, only less obviously.
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  17. This was a terribly biased and practically pernicious video. I suggest a redo. Since it was not explained what was done in some districts to exclude minorities, there is simply no value to the video. The video is an architectural version of racism or religious bigotry where all historic districts are tarred by the actions of some. My first home is in a neighborhood ruined by townhomes and then doubly attacked by the city refusing permits for the original allowed uses in the deeds. An area that was historically small bungalows with garage apartments mixed with duplexes with garage apartments had historically had 1 to 4 units per lot with some small apartment complexes having 6 units. Builders started putting two large to huge townhomes per lot. This removed street parking, and while it added square footage, it did not add homes or population density because often single people bought the cheaply built new units. Lot values increased, taxes increased, parking became problematic. To deal with the taxes, more of the bungalow and duplex owners started renovating or building new garage apartments for income. The city stopped approving this with a blanket policy due to parking. This basically raised the rents more, and also caused more homes to be razed and replaced. Several nearby areas had to go the historic route to stop this process. Doing so has preserved the small rental units and saved neighborhood character. The only thing that may effect the racial mix would be gentrification which happens either way. This is a class issue which only has racial effects because of dirt poor state and federal policies. Blaming historic districts for racial inequality is not helping the problem. Do better!
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  18. Everywhere I see public housing, I see the problem getting worse, not better. The first thing we need to do is stop warping the market by phasing out ALL housing support and subsidies. ALL. All of them raise prices! We need to phase them out because just stopping them would tank the market and really hurt a lot of owners. Then, show me where there’s still problems, and I will most likely show you the cause with very little problem. Likely, it’s land use restrictions. Might be subsidized or government favored sectors (tech, finance). Often it’s not really a problem for the government. If your maid cannot afford to live near your mansion, then pay more, provide housing, or go without. Don’t ask me to pay taxes to subsidize your services while you create housing shortages with land use restrictions and crazy regulatory environments (looking at you big blue states!). Finally, if there’s really, really a need for government housing support, then buy it off the market at market rates. Period.
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  19.  @rexx9496  They are expensive or they are cheap and undesirable. That’s the reality. The fact that many are expensive is actually good. The amount of midrises opened in the last five years in my area is amazing. Yes, they want high rents, but there are low cost options blocks away. Most are 50 or 60 year old buildings. New is always expensive. If new is inexpensive someone is going broke, and building stops, and rents correct.
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  20. Used to be, people would figure out it was taking too long, and either go in, or just leave. I guess that’s why most new drive thru’s trap you). I got stuck behind two huge orders before. I drove up to the window and told the lady I didn’t want my meal now because it was cold. She started to object, but then felt the bag and realized I was correct. I also told her I would have left if I had not been trapped. I was firm, but polite. I got a fresh meal, and it was free.
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  21.  @garryferrington811  Not necessarily true. If you are building a large development, then filling it quickly has a LOT of value. Combine that with the low sales difference for the small amount of yard lost and it can likely make sense pretty quickly.
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  22.  @bishbosh4815  It’s usually not that big a deal. We were next to a church and school once, that was the worst traffic. Being next to a bank drive thru is a non issue, but being next to a bank without one is a bit noisy. We got fooled one time in a small town. Bought a house in winter, but the summer season turned out to have lots of traffic on our side road. It was supposed to be 30 mph, but the losers in modified pick up trucks liked to use it as a drag strip. A guy on the village board had his office two doors down, but never did anything.
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  23. Lorenzo Trotta, which was no big deal until you pointed it out and made fun of it. The Trump thing is just an analogy that everyone should be able to understand. So yes. Many Americans are thin skinned. And yes, there a good reason for it.
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  24.  @laurie7689  I wouldn’t recommend changing the road network in your neighborhood, but the limited ins and outs have mostly been proven to be of little usefulness in many of Houston’s suburbs. When an area fails, the crime goes up anyways. The damage to the system also has unintended consequences. While it means less traffic in front of some houses, it means more in front of some others. The kids now don’t play in most streets anyways, and they are mostly driven to schools as well. Traffic then is funneled into the “major streets” which become nightmares during peak times. I lived in an old section of Denver on a grid and they had cleverly made most residential lots on roads perpendicular to the traffic heading in and out of downtown. It was truly better.
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  25.  @laurie7689  Yes, I pointed out a lot of people do want to live in suburbs, and you should not be denied it by fiat. I’ve found that there are lots of aspects of modern suburbs I’m not a fan of anymore, and given a choice, I prefer the much older suburbs which people don’t think were ever suburbs, but were. If I can afford it and find it, I prefer small lot single family (with small multi family and garage apartments included) in a walkable neighborhood with garages on an alleyway. 10 to 20 foot setbacks are good with mature trees. Since Covid, the world is a mess, and you take what you can get (which is hard on the young folk, but at least they will likely live to see it get better).
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  26.  @enjoyslearningandtravel7957  Yes, working for the other choices is great so long as it’s about creation. Way too much urbanism is about destruction.
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  27. It’s only an issue for very large projects to show their isn’t unreasonable impact on other property owners. In this case, a billionaire put an office tower (15 stories maybe?) right across the street from a bunch of homes owned by millionaires and multi-millionaires. I know a lawyer who lost about million dollars valuation on his home a block away. During rush hour, he could no longer get to or leave his home from the direction of the tower. He then had to sell because his company moved its HQ. Ouch. So a traffic study isn’t a big deal for a project like that. Avoids lawsuits if done properly.
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  28. Bushrod Rust Johnson, It’s all fine until it happens to you, bro. There’s another project near me where a five story parking garage went up 8 feet from the property line of a row of million dollar houses. Seriously, even hard core libertarians understand your rights to use your property in any way you see fit ought rightly be limited by how that truly affects others. For instance, I’ve got some issues with a certain “wet market” on the other side of the planet.
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  29.  @daniel-wood  Houston is a new city, even by North American standards. I’m a native. My parents moved here in the early sixties. Parts of town that are now considered inner city were still gravel roads or even farmland then. The trains your city has, or got rid of, were not originally built in Houston, just like they were not built much anywhere in the country between the 60’s and late 80’s. Attempts to add light rail have been ridiculously expensive, and deadly. Bad projects, overly influenced by bad politicians, generally have a way of getting voters to just say no to future projects. Unlike most areas of the country, people coming here are generally welcomed by tradition (large waves of people sometimes create some issues, but it gets sorted). We are building more bike lanes, but probably over doing it given the weather. We are building denser in the city, but still building out. If you want a dense urban area with bike lanes and light rail, it’s here, but the school district is dirt and the price is high along with the property taxes. So people move out to newer school districts and commute. There’s nothing wrong with Houston that isn’t political even though our present and previous mayors weren’t all that bad. Well, and the weather. Lol.
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  30. Here’s the problem which you conveniently left out of your script. You are proposing that people in these neighborhoods, having been victimized by R1 zoning, be potentially victimized again by deleting it. Neighborhoods should get to choose the changes, and owners should not be victimized by changes next door to them that they are not compensated for. Furthermore, I find your discussion of racism unnecessarily simplistic. You are very young, and the real history has been well hidden. If you knew what really happened, you’d hate progressives and become much more libertarian.
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  31.  @infantebenji  The only clear thing in that post was your emotion. If you actually have a point of curiosity, please ask a question. If not, I think I know where you stand.
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  32. Texas cities have similar zoning to other US cities except Houston. What you described is not likely to even happen in Houston today. Some smaller cities and towns have lax zoning, and since zoning boards are notoriously corrupt it can of course be a possibility anywhere in the US. What used to be common in non zoned areas including Houston is a factory, or other undesirable neighbor would be built and then get surrounded by cheap homes on cheap land. Another solution was to buy out or pay off surrounding home owners. Of course, connected and unethical people used legal trickery to skirt the system or bully neighbors. I met a guy who built an airport in the middle of a bunch of farms on what used to be west of Houston, but is now in Houston. He simply asked the farmers politely if they would mind. The planned runway orientation was actually changed to avoid flights over an existing chicken coop! Half a century later the new owner has spent much of his income fighting off lawsuits aimed at shutting him down from cheats who bought cheap homes built next to the airport and want to shut it down to make a big profit. I’m a Houston native who has lived all over for different jobs, but always came home. The reality is Houston is very much like any city that grew in the times it grew when it comes to land use. People make huge assumptions, and magnify the effects of some exceptions. The real difference here was the lack of time spent on red tape which may still be less than the norm, but has expanded like everywhere else.
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  33. Phoenix only exists as a metro because of the car.
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  34. @Russ Olson Being a human, I love to hear more ways I’m right, lol. Thanks for the tip. Aspen is an amazing community full of crazy, crazy stuff.
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  35.  @x1achilles99  Oh yeah, it was a Jack in the Box. About once a month I used to get their patty melt. My go to lunch was Wendy’s or Whataburger. I never got over a 36” waist which wasn’t bad at 6’3”. I have the heart of someone 20 years younger than me. It’s not like it didn’t take its toll on my health, but as soon as i saw it, I quit. I almost instantly lost 20 pounds. I had to start exercising again, and eating protein snacks to get some of the weight back. I’m now 6’2” at 190 (age causes tall people to shrink a lot). My wife hates me. 🤣😂🤣
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  36.  @linkhidalgogato  Do you REALLY want to live in a country where the government decides things like drive thru’s? Remember, if they can ban them, they can require them. 🤔
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  37. These are copies. Just like much of the Soviet economy copied that of the US. As long as you have constraints like too much zoning and planning, you will have poor copies and no new original places. Those old downtowns grew organically. Then, more and more government was used to prevent undesirable outcomes. In the Houston area, there are at least three of these style developments with lots of living space. One of them is in a strictly zoned city, right next to the mall. It’s working well because they loosened their restrictions when they saw their mall might die. If you want government to fix something, first and best practice is to clean up all the rotten rules that are making things worse, not just make a new change or additional rule.
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  38. This sounds great to you because you aren’t a soccer mom or in a wheel chair or have any other issues that make drive thru’s a preference. Banning drive thru’s is not proper government. The government has an interest in the cars not backing into the street, so they should legislate to stop that without getting in everyone’s business. I cannot believe you prefer punishing all these businesses for the harm done by a tiny fraction. Are you really thinking? Perhaps if it’s an issue, send over a traffic cop and charge them a fine when the cars back into traffic.
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  39. Yes, we are the most individualistic people on earth. This happened through self selection and is now genetic. Instead of hating it, you might look at how it made this country better as well. There are whole other countries that might not exist today without American individualism. This is also the last refuge for people like us. There is no new frontier. How about some frigging tolerance? You can argue about train tracks all you want. I lived near one when young, and it didn’t seem to bother me, but I could not do it today. Science says it’s harmful. History says those tracks will hurt values substantially. Courts often agree and award damages. I don’t disagree with your take on voters who happily vote for other people to improve things and also vote for candidates who will enact laws that force some minority outside of government to bear the cost of their promises.
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  40.  @flakgun153  I’m not disagreeing with you, but I have to point out that Japan is a problematic example to use. They have all sorts of unique cultural and demographic qualities that are very unique. The strangest is their incredible disdain for “used” houses. I think we share a suspicion of all the zoning changers who instead of seeing the whole system as problematic, think they can get their desired results with rule changes that can easily create other problems. I’m not a fan of big changes, and really not a fan of the rhetoric used.
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  41.  @barryrobbins7694  I was attempting to cut off the inevitable snipe.
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  42.  @rcfanatic2000  No, it’s statism. Go read what I said again. You don’t have to go full Soviet to be statism. The only way most families were buying was with a government back mortgage, and the mortgage game was fixed to easily approve developments that met certain “standards” and hard to get for other types of properties. It literally was a rigged system.
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  43.  @barryrobbins7694  The whole Strong Towns thing is very suspect. I think he makes a lot of good points, but the suburbs subsidizing the dense inner city is based on a flawed methodology. If you look at the actual budgets, instead of cherry picking certain costs, density costs MORE per capita. The reality is that Strong Towns mostly just confirms why central planning fails - accounting for everything is just too complex to do.
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  44.  @SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333  How about you make an actual point so this can become constructive? Why is capitalism so bad in your opinion? Perhaps you can name what industries or parts of the economy you find it ruins?
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  45.  @barryrobbins7694  NJB’s references ST as his source. The problem is not better explanation being necessary. The problem is that reality does not conform to the ST theories. There should be municipal bankruptcies all over. Many municipalities virtually ran out of space to keep up the supposed ponzi scheme decades ago, but have not failed. It seems to me you are now simply flailing for a way out. You now want to assume suburbs are getting more federal aid than large cities while trying to downplay the costs and rely on climate change and other theories to explain the evils of suburbs. Why? What’s so important about the ST movement? I don’t need it to know I prefer walkable neighborhoods with mixed uses based more on what the residents and owners decide than what people in city hall or some other government office even more detached think should be done.
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  46.  @barryrobbins7694  There’s no such thing as scientific consensus. Science is always changing. If your concern is climate change then let’s get serious. Raise energy and pollution taxes, enact school choice, and start putting violent criminals back in the prisons again. The big draws of the suburbs are better schools and less crime and lower cost. All fixed.
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  47.  @OuijTube  You make excellent points. Another issue is the loss of a lot of our norms. My feminist, liberal, very partisan wife decided that after retiring from corporate America she didn’t need a car. One bus ride downtown was all it took to make her uncomfortable with public transportation, lol. The “those people” thing is something I still have hope for. We are very divided right now, and I think that will peak. In another ten years or so, anyone with a job who dresses normally and behaves politely will be considered upstanding. The remnants of these progressive and nationalist tribes will be the “them”, and there won’t be that many of “them”.
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  48.  @neolithictransitrevolution427  I think I’m realistic. I don’t think most people under 30 are anywhere near realistic, and it’s added a lot to our perceived housing issues.
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  49.  @seaweed167  walawala is correct. Every requirement becomes a cost and time loss. It’s one of the reasons there’s not a lot of smaller homes being built. If you have 30k worth of red tape that’s 10% of a small structure and 5% or less of a larger one.
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  50.  @Hhhh22222-w  Racism is endemic to the species. You think a white guy in a minority area isn’t seen as suspicious? The difference is that the majority’s actions are simply more problematic because minority groups need the option to assimilate or it hurts everyone. I suppose being a successful white guy with some money and a fancy degree, I know that minorities aren’t really missing much by being shunned by people that simply are better left in their weird worlds because I more easily get into see those worlds even if I quickly get rejected like a virus.
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