A housing question to Californians

[Az]

Your county is the one on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, right? that's not the kind of stuff I am talking about. I am talking about new suburbs being built in the outskirts, instead of new high density construction in the city or in the near suburbs, but outside the skyscraper core.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Smiley

Why does that army base need to be so large anyway?

A) It's a Marine Base

B) In order to fire artillery and conduct large scale maneuvers a large area is required.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
I think the best solution the high housing costs would be high speed commuter rail from cities to far away areas. The main problem with commuting to the city from the outer suburbs now is horrendous traffic causing unacceptably long commuting times. The further out you extend the area it is feasible to commute to the city from, the more supply of housing you will have which will lead to lower prices across the board.

The problem is that in a large urban area like southern California commuting patterns aren't hub and spoke. The vast majority of the traffic is suburb to suburb, which means that any rail routes will have to be diffuse and include many times more mileage than simply connecting the suburbs to the city center.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
I think LA does itself in. IIRC every building downtown has to be built with 0.6 parking spaces per every resident, a huge encouragement for cars.

The problem isn't created by zoning for parking places, people need their cars whether or not they have a space in their building. Forcing the builders to include them simply clears the streets of parked cars and increases the fluidity of the traffic.

[Az]

B) In order to fire artillery and conduct large scale maneuvers a large area is required.

USE THE ****ING DESERT

[Drake Tungsten]

What do you think southern California is?

[Az]

DESERT+ beach property. It's a world of difference. There is plenty of federal land in the inner states.

[Drake Tungsten]

I think landing on beaches is somewhere in the Marines' job description...

[Az]

And I am guessing there is a more vacant patch of land to practice it than between LA and SD.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Az
And I am guessing there is a more vacant patch of land to practice it than between LA and SD.

Baja California

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Az
And I am guessing there is a more vacant patch of land to practice it than between LA and SD.

Vacant land in California with that kind of topography? I'm not sure there's any left. Remember, it was a vacant patch when it was built, it's just that development has crept up and surrounded it over the last while.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Az
USE THE ****ING DESERT

Doin' that. The cities of Palmdale and Lancaster where northern LA County enteres into to southern end of the Mojava Desert are two of the fastest growing cities in the county. The commute from there to downtown LA by car is about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. There's also a very popular commuter train in from there...but I don't know how long that takes.

Similarly San Bernadino County and Riverside County to the east (i.e the "Inland Empire") are in the desert and supply a lot of our communters.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Baja California

Americans can't buy land in the Baja. I believe 99-year leases are available.

[:) Smiley]

Reposted from an urban development forum:

Back in the 50's, people actually believed in this kind of stuff. That's the Pacific Ocean at the bottom of the picture.

[Spiffor]

:vomit: