Gigafactory

Quote: Pacomartin

In Mexican cities you can walk out of your home and buy food, go to a simple restaurant, and shop for some necessities all within a few hundred yards. Now I have to get in a more than one ton vehicle to get milk and bread.

That was one factor in selecting my house. I can walk for most of what a person needs. Gas station, drug store, supermarket, state (liquor) store, beer dist, several bars, several restaurants, and USPS all within a few blocks. I usually drive for stuff because I am out anyways and the nicer things are further away, but so nice to walk.

Growing up that way probably makes you like it. My parent's house was walking distance to lots of things. Though My dad, myself, my brother, and about 3 neighbors are the only ones you saw walking to the drug store to get a newspaper. Most of the rest were typical Americans, firing up a V-8 for a half-mile trip.

I hate carrying things home so I never
walk. When I lived in Santa Barbara I
never even walked to the bank, which
was in the next block. Nobody who
lives in Calif walks anywhere. You see
people walking, it's tourists.

Quote: AZDuffman

That was one factor in selecting my house. I can walk for most of what a person needs. .

You need to get to a district that is at least 10 people per acre until you are not completely dependent on an the automobile. Seattle is about 12 people per acre. Pittsburgh, despite it's industrial past at 9 people per acre is proving to be a very livable modern city.

Even a small Mexican city has a dense urban core where you can walk to things.

People per acre
452 St Anthony's Parish Macao (densest district that is not a slum)
247 St. James Town Toronto (densest district in Canada)
226 District IV L'Hospitalet de Llobregat near Barcelona Spain (densest district in Europe)
173 Manila (densest city proper)
171 Upper East Side Manhattan
57 Brooklyn
54 Bronx
28 San Francisco
-- Districts of Mexico City
70 Iztacalco
65 Iztapalapa
64 Cuauhtémoc
55 Gustavo A. Madero
53 Venustiano Carranza
53 Benito Juárez
51 Azcapotzalco
47 Coyoacán
31 Miguel Hidalgo
30 Álvaro Obregón
16 Tláhuac
14 Magdalena Contreras
14 Xochimilco
10 Cuajimalpa
8 Tlalpan
2 Milpa Alta

Quote: Pacomartin

You need to get to a district that is at least 10 people per acre until you are not completely dependent on an the automobile. Seattle is about 12 people per acre. Pittsburgh, despite it's industrial past at 9 people per acre is proving to be a very livable modern city.

I live in an "urban suburb" of Pittsburgh. The density works well here, I would bet about that 9-10 per. What makes it work for me is that I live one block off the main drag. Main drag being twin one-way streets, which makes it work even better. The town can look a little gritty but signs of gentrification are there. Two plant nurseries and a ballet studio for crying out loud. Kind of place you need to get out of the car to notice some of the places.

In the city proper there are 91 "neighborhoods" which is more than Brooklyn has! Every time you turn around you hear about another cleaning up and being more livable. It feels crazy after years of going the other way.

Quote: AZDuffman

I live in an "urban suburb" of Pittsburgh.

I think Pittsburgh has more of both the good and bad parts of urban life in the close in suburbs than in the city. My grandparents kept their boat at Oakmont Yacht Club about 3.5 miles from the Pitt city limit on the Allegheny.

Quote: Pacomartin

I think Pittsburgh has more of both the good and bad parts of urban life in the close in suburbs than in the city. My grandparents kept their boat at Oakmont Yacht Club about 3.5 miles from the Pitt city limit on the Allegheny.

I live near the Ohio, main bad part here is that a train goes by several times a day. You get used to it for the most part, but if you are having an intense dream it will half-wake you at first sometimes and it kind of blows your mind. Even just hearing the gates lower, which makes a weird, grinding noise. The traffic noise I am used to and now do not really mind, price you pay to be close to stuff.

Wish I had this temperment when I bought my first place 15 years ago. So much money wasted no matter how nice it was.

Quote: Pacomartin

I My grandparents kept their boat at Oakmont Yacht Club about 3.5 miles from the Pitt city limit on the Allegheny.

Is that the ChrisCraft 1959 motor launch you
inherited and stay in on weekends?

Quote: Evenbob

Is that the ChrisCraft 1959 motor launch you
inherited and stay in on weekends?

It looked like that when he was done with it. He bought it around 1959, but it had no superstructure. He built the superstructure himself. But he died when I was age 31, and wooden boats take a lot of care and expense. I had just moved to Washington DC and keeping a boat in Annapolis is uber expensive. If a boat is a hole in the water surrounded by a hull that you throw money into, a wooden boat is a massive labor of love. I would have had to buy it and then spend the same amount as the price every few months to maintain it. So my grandmother was forced to sell it for a few thousand.

It looked very similar to the one in that photo. It slept six, had a kitchen and a head.

They built Chris-Craft's not 40 miles from
me till the late 80's. Best pleasure boats
in the world.

Musk Empire has benefited from $4.9MMM in various government subsidies. This doesn't include the crony credits system under which he is getting cash from other automakers.

I saw on "Autoline After Hours" on YouTube this week where they were discussing the quick-change station that Musk demonstrated a few months back. The panel said the station was not viable for more reasons than some of us brought up here, mainly that even when you unbolt the battery from underneath the car you still have multiple wires that connect on top. The station is just to get more corny EV credits and has barely if at all been used by the public.

This is not going to end pretty.