How America Lost the Skyscraper Race

[Nan Yang]

That's great. Watch out for sharks in slightly murky water like that! We just had a fatality from a shark bite yesterday in the state of Maine, just 1/2 states north of Antidote and myself. We have a serious great white shark problem here that's getting worst by the year.

It just the photo. The water in Maldive is crazy clear. You could see the boat from 60 feet below. Underwater photography is never easy. All your photos will come out pretty much like that. Fortunately we had 2 photographers in our diving club and so I am very lucky to have some diving photos.

In warm tropical waters usually there are only small reef shark. Does not border me when I am underwater. I only get shark phobia after surfacing splashing my way to the boat.
Largest shark I came across was a shovelhead shark resting on the seabed. A dive marshal led us very close to it. Since he is the dive marshal I guess it must be safe.

Very true. It's no fun at all when you ground the boat, especially on hard rock. Sand is one thing but you can ingest a lot of it into the engine and cause it to seize which is another big problem, but hitting shallow rocks is probably the worst. That's why I have 2 GPS navigation MDFs with depth markings for the entire US east coast. So anywhere we go, I know exactly how deep it is even if I'm unfamiliar with the waters. And having two is redundancy since it's not just for water depth, but many other functions as well as the primary one which is navigation. GPS gets you from point A to B and back to A the easiest and safest way.

All those numbers are the depth in feet at low tide. White water is water that is 20 feet or more and blue water is 20 feet or less. The black marks are "bread crumbs" so that when you leave your home base, they leave those black bread crumbs so you can follow them back easily.
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It even gives you a digital depth reading as well.
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There were no GPS 35 years ago. And no affordable sonar either. Boat captain uses a compass and sea charts to navigate. And at night, observed the frequency of the lights of the beacon and lighthouses.

That's one of the first things they teach you is to always come off plain slowly so you don't submerge your transom and get engulfed by water. Some boats are designed worst than others but with ours, the built-in (integral) swim platform in the back has a 8" step up to the walkway to prevent that from happening. But we still stop slowly just because it's good practice.

These basterds are almost always boarding me to check papers and if anyone is drinking. They're always disappointing haha.
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In South East Asia you can drink pretty much anywhere. On the beach, on the boat, on the street. Nobody cares.
US has to many rules. Sometime we set off fire works on the beach just for fun. No problems.

 

[Nowshera]

It is funny reading the butthurt YT comments but China has won the skyscraper race. It is not that skyscrapers are now undesirable because they are not, it is just financially unviable in the US when you take into account the cost of land acquisition and planning laws. Communist/totalitarian countries have always been able to beat the capitalist machine in this space because capitalism needs space to grow and land is finite. This keeps driving up the cost of land until it reaches the point of losing cost effectiveness.

Another reason China will have better infrastructure going forward is simply because they were so behind until the last few years. This is actually a good thing because countries are able to use what andh been beneficial in other countries disregard things that have not.

European cities were built in the era of the horse and cart. That is why some parts of cities are very unfriendly to cars, being very narrow and twisting which can be a surprise to visitors to the city.

American cities were built in the motor era. They have a distinct grid pattern that makes them easily navigable by car, but they are difficult to get around by foot. They are designed to ship people in from the suburbs to the jobs in the business districts of the centre of the city.

Unfortunately there is now an apparent flaw with the cities built around the motor car. They are livable up to around 1 million residents, however once you start getting over this you find that there is a lot of congestion and it is not uncommon to hear of commutes 2hr+ one way. This causes a significant decrease to quality of life.

In my opinion the future is pushing towards cities designed around public transport and mass transit systems with amenities within walking distance for most people. If the housing in this cities is vertically dense this will allow for a lot more public parks instead of the individual gardens typical of the suburbs.

 

[Nan Yang]

It is funny reading the butthurt YT comments but China has won the skyscraper race. It is not that skyscrapers are now undesirable because they are not, it is just financially unviable in the US when you take into account the cost of land acquisition and planning laws. Communist/totalitarian countries have always been able to beat the capitalist machine in this space because capitalism needs space to grow and land is finite. This keeps driving up the cost of land until it reaches the point of losing cost effectiveness.

Another reason China will have better infrastructure going forward is simply because they were so behind until the last few years. This is actually a good thing because countries are able to use what andh been beneficial in other countries disregard things that have not.

European cities were built in the era of the horse and cart. That is why some parts of cities are very unfriendly to cars, being very narrow and twisting which can be a surprise to visitors to the city.

American cities were built in the motor era. They have a distinct grid pattern that makes them easily navigable by car, but they are difficult to get around by foot. They are designed to ship people in from the suburbs to the jobs in the business districts of the centre of the city.

Unfortunately there is now an apparent flaw with the cities built around the motor car. They are livable up to around 1 million residents, however once you start getting over this you find that there is a lot of congestion and it is not uncommon to hear of commutes 2hr+ one way. This causes a significant decrease to quality of life.

In my opinion the future is pushing towards cities designed around public transport and mass transit systems with amenities within walking distance for most people. If the housing in this cities is vertically dense this will allow for a lot more public parks instead of the individual gardens typical of the suburbs.

The future for China is to build upwards. There will be several huge Mega cities like Beijing-Tianjin Metropolis, Shanghai Metropolis, ChongQing Metropolis, Greater Bay Area etc. Within each Mega cities there will be high speed metro. All the mega cities will be link with even higher speed maglev trains. You will not need to own a Car which can be rented, picked up and drop off.

This will make the Mega cities very energy efficient and people will be able to be more productive generating more GDP per capital.
However this must be plan carefully in order to make it a success. There are many challenges like urban unemployment, mass transportation, affordable housing, social life, space etc.

Is China ready ?

 

[Nan Yang]

A timely article

Trump tells voters who live in suburbs they ‘will no longer be bothered’ by low-income housing
The AFFH rule was designed to eliminate racial disparities in housing
By Morgan Phillips | Fox News

President Trump told suburban voters in a tweet on Wednesday they will “no longer be bothered or financially hurt” by having low-income housing in their neighborhood after his administration revoked an Obama-era housing rule.

More....
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-suburban-voters-housing-rule

Quote
Biden's housing plan would get rid of zoning regulations in suburbs that send prices skyrocketing.

“Exclusionary zoning has for decades been strategically used to keep people of color and low-income families out of certain communities,” Biden writes.

End Quote