Yes, there is a clown law known as Prop 13. Property taxes are extremely low and can’t be raised except by a supermajority of voters… We do have high income taxes but overall it’s actually a middle-tax state.

Residential property values in CA are only reassessed when the property is sold. So if you’re sitting there for decades in the same house you’ll pay almost no taxes.

Almost every problem you’ve heard of about California can in some way be linked back to this law.

I wish the taxes would go up. Here in California there is absolutely no downside to treating your home as an investment vehicle. At least individually.

I live in the city but I get birds that are usually only found in the forest because they like to forage in the fallen leaves! It does make a difference.

Unless you’re looking for the off-road capabilities this doesn’t seem like the most practical way to get around.

For 1-2 passengers and limited cargo electric motorcycles or mopeds are likely the best option.

If you need to regularly carry more passengers or cargo, the more conventional EVs will make sense.

As others have pointed out, the anti-car movement is mainly focused on cities and urban design because using cars as the dominant mode of transit there just doesn’t make sense. But that doesn’t mean they’re bad in every scenario. Living in a remote area without a fast vehicle seems impractical to me, so I would just focus on making sure it’s powered by renewable energy and operated safely.

That said, I would argue that other urbanist ideas like dense town centers might still make sense in rural areas. Unless you’re engaged in agriculture or some other activity that needs acreage, concentrating living space, goods, and services into a smaller area just makes good sense. This is the way all small towns were built throughout the entirety of human history until the last 100 years.

Well that’s kind of what I meant by taking long-term thinking to an illogical extreme. I’m not plugged into that community enough to say whether that is universal or just one voice among many. If that is the predominant view that we need to ignore present or even what most people would consider long-term problems in favor of trillions of future AI souls or whatever then I agree there is a bigger conflict.

I’ve not seen kurzegesagt saying anything like that though. Even in the video criticized above they are discussing the importance of dealing with climate change, albeit in a way that is not sufficiently critical of existing social structures.

I think there is some overlap. Solarpunk is a bit more grounded in simple solutions that are needed now but long term I think we have somewhat similar goals.

Technically, I think solarpunk is both optimistic about technology and concerned with long-term issues, just not to the illogical extreme of some members of those movements.

This is so incredible! You put so much work into this and it really shows. As someone who lives in a place that is becoming increasingly at risk of serious flooding as we fail to stop climate change, it gives me hope to see a design of a thriving city that could persist despite that reality.

It I can provide one minor critique, the text is a bit small and hard to read. But the art is gorgeous.

I might post this on a local urbanist discord I’m a part of.

It’s obvious that prices are controlled by a multiplicity of factors, not all of which can be covered in a short video. However, I found the complete lack of high-COL, high-construction cities to be quite convincing. This suggests that housing supply is so important that it’s very rare for prices to rise so high when supply is high, even despite these other factors. It’s not necessary to discuss every factor to demonstrate that one factor is a very important one. Why do you think this analysis is uncritical?

As far as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia I don’t think there is any real mystery—they simply aren’t considered as desirable as New York, SF, or LA by most people. They’re not quite Detroit but you don’t have thousands of people moving across the country to these cities—or wishing they could afford to.

Honestly, we know from every other category of good that scarcity causes prices to rise. It shouldn’t be terribly surprising that, despite some additional complexities, the housing market works the same way.

Not often. I think in general they are not that aligned, it’s just that overly restrictive zoning and other bad policies have created such a severe crisis that the free market solution, which in a better society we might spend more time critiquing, has become dramatically superior to the status quo.

I think long-run we should still develop better systems to build and distribute housing according to the needs of the community as a whole instead of private investors and the wealthy, but those systems today are virtually non-existent, and they take time to build. Today, people are literally dying on the streets because housing is too expensive. I think it’s harmful to be too ideologically purist about solutions in the midst of such a serious crisis.

Did you watch it? I don’t know if it’s just awkward phrasing but your comment makes it seem like you didn’t. If so, I think your concerns and questions will be best answered by watching.

There is a lot of delving into housing data in the video, which I found relevant and convincing but feel free to form your own opinions or post a more substantial critique if you wish to.

Sure, happy to tall trees any time haha. They are a big interest of mine.

Generally, the depth that tree roots grow to varies greatly depending on soil conditions and species and isn’t very well studied due to the difficulty and destructive nature of such research, so this might not be fully answerable. In most cases, tree roots won’t grow very deep in poorly oxygenated, wet soils but I don’t have much experience with the roots of these species, so they could be exceptions. Certainly their ability to survive and grow in these aquatic environments that are deadly to other trees suggests that they might be.

Another factor is that if there is a seasonal fluctuation in water level, which would be the case in most places on earth, then the roots can grow deeper during the dry season and might be partially underwater during the wet season, similar to what you’ve depicted here.

I realized I never replied to this. I’m definitely not an expert on this type of work–I would guess it’s possible but the question in today’s economic system is whether it’s cost effective. I don’t know the answer to that question.

Great work researching this!

In term of those trees–Taxodium distichum is very similar to T. mucronatum and will make a great replacement for a New Orleans version of chinampas. Many botanists now consider them part of the same species and it takes an expert to even tell them apart.

Willows are a more diverse group but in general they all grow well in flooded areas, so I am sure another species will work for this. I am not familiar with the specific species found in that area. I would probably just pick one that has a similar size and structure and call it good enough. Or you could just leave it as generic willows if you want since it might take some experimentation to pick the best species.

That said, I think other flood-tolerant trees could have their place in this system. Really it’s just substantial woody plants that can grow in flooded, disturbed soil. I don’t know the species in Louisiana super well since I don’t live there but if there are other species that fit that bill I think you could also include them.

I think Nausicaa or the valley of the wind would qualify, despite being more of a post-apocalyptic setting the overall morality of the film is very in line with solarpunk.

Edit: Here’s the opening scene to give you a sense of it: https://youtu.be/4YklSnS-P78?si=mzAao7YeQsodHOg_

In the current moment I would agree. I’m not sure that would be true in comparison to a hypothetical sole superpower China. But who can say for sure.

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Is this a bad thing somehow? I would think reducing debts is generally beneficial, especially in times of economic crisis.

What do you mean by keeping write-offs from occurring?

Chinese foreign policy has been fairly cautious and covert compared to other world powers. I think this has generally been a good strategy as it has avoided major conflicts with the US and Europe in recent times.

I can’t think of any coup they’ve directly supported but they certainly have supported military movements and governments in other countries, including Vietnam, North Korea, Myanmar, and Venezuela. So they’ve been a bit less prone to overthrowing governments but they aren’t afraid to use similar tactics to keep friendly regimes in power, and help those factions expand power. So is it a coup to help the North Vietnamese conquer the South? I guess it depends on the definition of coup which can be a fraught word.

Personally I’m not sure I see any of these as coups. The closest might be Myanmar but while China has protected and supported the junta there, it’s not totally clear they actually supported the coup itself. I interpret their actions as seeking stability and wanting to minimize Western influence.