• @Un4@lemm.ee
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        32 years ago

        No, many countries do it right. But the meme implies this. Top picture is commie blocks, bottom picture is what you see in some western countries that do not get their social policies right. And the whole statement is a straw man as homelessness is not related to capitalism alone. This is typical propaganda.

        • @crispy_kilt@feddit.de
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          12 years ago

          Hi, person living in one of the richest most capitalist countries (Switzerland). We have such blocks.

          So no.

  • @thantik@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I hate both of them equally and with a vile passion. Having to share walls with other families is just as inhumane. I don’t know why “Urban Sprawl” is such a looked down upon term. I’d much rather cities start as a central hub, and then urban sprawl outwards with minor hubs surrounding them every 100 miles or so.

    This whole – either everyone has to be packed like sardines, or everyone has to have 5 acres per house crap is annoying. Give the nation some medium density housing. We have the fucking internet now, half the people can work from home. You don’t need to be walking-distance from everything.

    • IWantToFuckSpez
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      How is it inhumane? Have you only ever lived in apartments made of paper walls?

      • @thantik@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Have…you sat there and thought about what you’re asking? What “affordable housing” complexes do you know that aren’t made out of paper walls? That’s the “affordable” part.

        • IWantToFuckSpez
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          Come to the Netherlands, where I’m from, social housing apartments are made of brick and concrete with thick walls. No shitty 5 over 1 stick building apartments in my country.

          Also social housing apartments in my country are always mixed in between owner occupied apartments of different price ranges. So the buildings are of high quality and maintained.

        • Two poorer Eastern European countries have 90%+ of their citizens living in government owned housing. It costs them 2% of their monthly income. They prefer the apartments because the government built them properly, so they are modern, and well maintained. Oh, year and the rent is 2% of your income.

      • @thantik@lemmy.world
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        You’ve obviously never actually lived in one of these places. They regularly have infestations, dirty water, and no heating due to the types of people they house and the “affordable” nature of them which generally causes lack of upkeep once built. Which can be, yes – just as inhumane as living in a tent.

        In addition, it removes the potential for ownership away from the people living there, in an effort to rent-seek and make sure they own nothing for as long as they live.

        • Not when done properly. Two poorer Eastern European countries have 90+% of their citizens living in government owned housing that costs them 2% of their monthly income. The apartments are modern, well maintained, and preferable to home ownership because 2% rent. IIRC it’s Estonia and Lithuania, but I may be wrong there.

          • @thantik@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            How is that a yikes? We’re talking about poverty here, it is a class of people which regularly lack the same benefits in society as others, so there’s higher instances of drug use, crime, etc. You know in conversation, it’s occasionally useful to classify things with a broad brush so you can talk about overarching issues and how to solve them without being prejudiced, right?

        • @door_in_the_face@feddit.nl
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          62 years ago

          I’m not gonna dox myself here bg linking my adress, but rest assured: I have been living in apartments all my adult life, and it’s been fine. The problems you describe are not inherent to apartments but rather the way landlords handle things. With better regulations and organizations that help renters assert their rights, it can be a good way to house people.

          • @thantik@lemmy.world
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            12 years ago

            I agree that we’re incredibly overdue for regulations in these areas. Since the mid 90s it’s been deregulation, privitization, deregulation, privitization. A healthy capitalistic society can only survive with regulations which govern how absolutely atrocious capitalists can be. If they could sell you rat poison as food to make a dollar, they certainly would. My guess is that these kind of apartment complexes are probably better in less city-centric areas where the construction is newer. Unfortunately all I see going up around here is wood-frame apartment complexes, and they are clearly inferior to block/prefab concrete.

    • @Illegal_Prime@dmv.social
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      42 years ago

      What you seems to be describing is Single-Family Housing. True medium density is actually really compact, using lots for more efficient housing and including public green space.

    • Sentient Loom
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      72 years ago

      With “Urban Sprawl,” reliable public transit, and working from home, we could each nurture our personal green space and drastically cut emissions. I’m all for it.

  • Queen HawlSera
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    1302 years ago

    The world will never recover until poverty is seen not as a character flaw, but as a failure of society itself to provide for the most vulnerable.

    • Patapon Enjoyer
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      112 years ago

      That’s the ticket. The most hardworking people I’ve ever met are also some of the poorest.

    • @Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      They wouldn’t be vulnerable if they just overcame their own biology and lifetime of trauma. Its that simple, they arent trying hard enough.

      • I get your point, and while there is certainly a subset of people who are suffering through no fault of their own, there are plenty of people who are lazy and/or made terrible decisions. Lumping them all together like you are doesn’t help the situation. Those who want help should absolutely be helped. Those who don’t should not be allowed to ruin it for the rest of us.

        • @PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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          12 years ago

          We all have our limits. Some people seem to be tougher than others. There are things people go through that I would last maybe two weeks before killing myself. When analyzing these situations it’s hard to balance compassion and being reasonably critical.

        • @Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          No one is on the street because they are lazy. That is ignorance.

          Also, what exactly are they ruining for the rest of us? What upward mobility are they keeping me from? Are you suggesting someone living in a tent or shelter ruins your???Propery value? Urban view? Existence?

          Sounds like to me there is a certain pettiness you hold on to and letting that go means you actually have to accept the humanity of people less fortunate than yourself. That also sounds like an illness you should rid yourself of because it’s rottng away at you.

          No one chooses consciousness. We are all coming in from the cold. We have this one chance to peer into the nature of the universe. Except, some are more concerned with the length of small little plants out in front of their house.

          • @wokehobbit@lemmy.world
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            42 years ago

            No one is on the street because they are lazy. What an entirely ignorant and stupid comment. Come to the West coast idiot. I can show you plenty of people that are lazy ass mother fuckers among the homeless. Not all, but enough.

            • @Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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              82 years ago

              No lazy person wants to be homeless. The amount of stress and anxiety cause by being homeless would crush you. To be lazy a person needs shelter, food and clean water, clean cloths, and good health. Homelessness is about survival.

            • @Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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              62 years ago

              You’re always going to have someone looking to gain from the system. The thing is, I don’t care. Most people want a sense of fulfillment more than they want anything else, and that usually comes from being productive. Not always in the “get a job, earn money” way, but in the “I’m going to create, in a way that makes me happy” sense. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, even finding that thing that fulfillment is such an upward battle because it requires a ton of resources. Time, energy, money. Things the destitute don’t have. Let the few be lazy, fuck it you’ll never get rid of lazy from society, stop trying, it’s just hurting the regular man. Focus on bringing the bottom up, and the whole of society benefits.

        • @Peddlephile@lemm.ee
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          142 years ago

          There are also those who make bad decisions and are lazy but have a lot of money and power regardless. Being lazy/making terrible decisions does not equal poor; same as being hard working/making good decisions.

          The system at this stage is just geared towards making the poor poorer and the rich richer. E.g. making people pay lots of money to stay healthy rather than give people equal opportunity, making good education only accessible to the rich by making it prohibitively expensive, the wage divide between an employee and a CEO, family trusts and associated taxes etc.

        • @wokehobbit@lemmy.world
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          32 years ago

          You’re going to get downvoted into oblivion for speaking the truth. Lemmy is full or libritards who are just as bad as the far right nutjobs. Both don’t live in reality.

        • @Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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          62 years ago

          I’d guess absolutely every person in a shit situation wants help. No one WANTS to be homeless, destitute, and addicted. The problem is, that for a lot of the worst off people in the world, that’s pretty much all they have. Sometimes, the only source of any light in someone’s life is a chemically induced high. Who am I to tell someone in that situation that they can’t do one of the few things that makes life kind of ok?

          This kind of thing is a failing of society, not the person, no matter how deep you drill. Each and every one of the people in this shit needs help, not judgement, not to get clean, not to make money. Start with providing actual help, a home, food, mental and physical healthcare. It doesn’t have to be luxurious,just safe.The rest will follow naturally.

        • @Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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          82 years ago

          The simple fact of the matter is that most things most people do are simply input -> biology happens -> output. Breaking that hardwired process that happens in the background for every miniscule decision you make is the basis of like, every kind of therapy, self-help, meditation routine, etc.

  • LinkOpensChest.wav
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    672 years ago

    I’d gladly live in one of those apartments in the first picture if it meant that everyone could have a home

      • LinkOpensChest.wav
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        22 years ago

        You believe that housing is not a basic human right, yet you say to me, “bruh…”

        Just gonna pre-emptively block your bootlicking ass

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
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      282 years ago

      I’d gladly walk my ass out to the wilderness rather than live in an apartment block, but at least then there’d be an extra spot.

      • LinkOpensChest.wav
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        222 years ago

        The nice thing is in an anarchist society you could do just that, and no one would stop you

        I’d personally prefer to be surrounded by people

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
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          Which is why I’m an anarchist. Pretty much every other system would force me to attempt to be happy in an apartment block, or waste huge amounts of resources creating suburbs that are still too goddamn crowded for me

          • @trailing9@lemmy.ml
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            92 years ago

            I would like to share your attitude but fear the consequences when millions seek a place in the wilderness. What do you do when you arrive and your neighbor asks you to move on because he wants to be more alone?

            • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
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              72 years ago

              I want to be more alone too, so I’d probably not get to the point where I was close enough to have them tell me to go away.

              However, most people probably wouldn’t like the actual wilderness. They want a big country house somewhere and when they find out they need to build it themselves they’ll go back to the apartment blocks.

              One reason I’m a fan of making cities less objectively terrible is that more people will live in them and be even further away from my hovel.

    • @killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
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      102 years ago

      If everyone thought like this, everyone would have a home.

      And 50 or so people would own all of the rest of the land and do nothing with it because we’re too fucking stupid to realize that a system that wants us all to live in 50m² micro apartments is a load of shit, and strung together by a greedy few.

      There is enough land for us all to live comfortably, but a fraction of a percent don’t want anyone to use most of the land for anything useful so hey let’s just give up and take almost-squalor because at least it not squalor!

      Fuck both these pictures.

      • Cruxus
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        232 years ago

        “Land-usage” is such a narrow-minded way to think about the implicit wants and needs of society. You sound like you’ve never been to actual cities, or never got your head far enough out of your arse to actually experience one.

        North American suburban sprawl already proves that “enough land for us all to live comfortably” is a terrible way to live sociable lives and drains the economy due to massive swathes of those lands being used for roads and the maintenance of said roads.

        I implore you to take a trip to almost any European city, and see for yourself what actual “comfortable living” for most people looks like.

        • AgentOrangesicle
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          12 years ago

          …Why did you reinterpret the premise of their statement into something entirely different and then attack them for it?

          I’m not saying your interpretation is wrong, but that was mean.

        • I’ve lived in cities my whole life, which paints a pretty broad picture of you doesn’t it? Couldn’t even get the premise of your own bullshit comment right.

  • @spread@programming.dev
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    822 years ago

    I hate how when there is any picture of Soviet blocks it’s always shot in autumn or winter when it’s overcast. I live in an ex Soviet country and when these bad boys are maintained they can outperform new apartments, be it in functionality, amenities or price.

    • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬
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      112 years ago

      always shot in autumn or winter when it’s overcast.

      To me this adds a lot to the charm. I’d love to live there (at least for some time)!

    • @Squizzy@lemmy.world
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      202 years ago

      I am simply not believing that 50 year old apartment blocks are outperforming new ones by any metric.

      I’m glad you’re happy and there are plenty of 100+ year old homes in my country that are just fine but they are not outperforming anything.

      • @MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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        Tons of large buildings are older than you’d think. Hell, a lot of large buildings don’t even get serious structural inspections until they’re 40+ years old!

        It was one of many contributing factors to the Champlain Towers South building collapsing in the US in Florida. No communism or Soviet corner cutting. Just good ol’ fashioned American ineptitude. That building was undergoing some work so they could raise prices. It wasn’t a low class building nor did many people think it was too old to invest in.

        What OP said is extremely likely to be true: Those buildings are competative.

      • CyclohexaneM
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        162 years ago

        Even communism aside, this is actually not uncommon. One of the advances we’ve made in construction is knowing how to save even more money, making the right sacrifices and meeting the minimum bars of code compliance, to maximize our margins.

        • @PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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          12 years ago

          I don’t know how you say this unironically as criticism. That’s arguably one of the biggest advantages people claim capitalism has: managing finite resources. It’s not a good thing to waste manpower and resources for no real gain.

          • @uis@lemmy.world
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            22 years ago

            That’s arguably one of the biggest advantages people claim capitalism has: managing finite resources.

            No, it’s not capitalism, this is definition of economy itself. Which by the way includes communism.

            • @PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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              12 years ago

              Por que no los dos?

              It’s something capitalists claim. Communism claims to distribute things equitably and they have to fight over efficiency. Capitalism is the opposite.

              • @uis@lemmy.world
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                12 years ago

                Communism claims to distribute things equitably

                No, communism claims to distribute things fair.

                they have to fight over efficiency.

                Same does any other economic system, but define efficiency differently.

          • CyclohexaneM
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            82 years ago

            They literally sacrificed quality and safety to maximize profits and you call that good? Come on… You’re being too biased.

          • @crispy_kilt@feddit.de
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            for no real gain

            What gain? More profits for the ultra rich? A dying planet?

            People living in comfortable apartments is no real gain in capitalism because it means less ROI. But it is a huge gain to everyone’s quality of life if they can live comfortably.

            Market mechanisms are very powerful in optimising resource allocation - but they aren’t optimising for maximum quality of life, they’re optimising for maximum ROI. Which lands in the pockets of the ultra rich, which then allocate the accumulated capital in only those endeavours providing maximum ROI, and the cycle goes on and on until so much wealth is extracted from society that the middle class collapses and the planet dies - and the ultra rich with them, for they depend upon the plebes to work for them in order to have an ultra rich lifestyle in the first place.

            • @PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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              22 years ago

              I mean if we were trying to house people we should be aiming for inexpensive and non-wasteful building choices, shouldn’t we? When we’re handling basic human needs we send boats full of rice and beans, not a bunch of badass chefs.

              • @winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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                12 years ago

                We have all the money in the world. We have more than enough homes to house people, right now. We have an abundance of housing, of resources to build more housing, of everything. What we do not have is a distribution that allows people who need housing to get it. Instead we have a literal Spiders Georg situation where a tiny fraction of the country each own hundreds of homes they don’t live in or even have any intention of living in. This situation is deranged.

                • @PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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                  12 years ago

                  Alright, then show the numbers. Let’s ignore that seizing all that property will go super well. I know, you want people that own more than one house dead, so even include it as double the free housing. Figure out how much it costs to upkeep rental properties. Double it, maybe more, for people that literally don’t give a fuck about it. Add costs for policing the shit.

                  Seizure won’t fix it.

                • @PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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                  12 years ago

                  I mean it’s kind of a scarcity thing. Resources aren’t infinite. I have no problem with letting people have nice things and would certainly want minimums to be pretty decent, but when you’re getting people off the street or something then efficiency means lives saved.

          • This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥
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            52 years ago

            That’s arguably one of the biggest advantages people claim capitalism has: managing finite resources

            Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

          • @winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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            22 years ago

            An apartment complex went up outside my work and it’s made of wood. That’s against fire safety code but they found some creative work arounds to convince the inspectors it was legal. (And of course the inspections are all toadies who have been put in place to rubber stamp developer plans.) Very efficient until it burns down and kills everyone inside.

      • @zephyreks@programming.dev
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        82 years ago

        It’s less a matter of technical capability and more one of cost. It’s not like people didn’t know how to build good, efficient homes before. It was just expensive.

        • @Squizzy@lemmy.world
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          22 years ago

          We have absolutely made strides in material technologies for construction over the last 50 years. Take asbestos for example.

          • @zephyreks@programming.dev
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            12 years ago

            Asbestos has some pretty insane properties, though. Just a shame it causes cancer when disturbed and inhaled.

            As a building material? What’s even better than asbestos in terms of the trifecta of sound/heat isolation, bulk, melting point, and structural soundness? Aerogel?

      • @ahnesampo@sopuli.xyz
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        182 years ago

        Here in Finland a lot of new apartment blocks have very small apartments. Three rooms and a kitchen crammed into 60 m2 (650 sq ft) are not uncommon. That means bedrooms that can fit a double bed and nothing else, and kitchens built into the side of the living room. Older blocks by contrast have much more spacious apartments. The condo I bought in a building built in the 1970s is three rooms and kitchen in 80 m2 (860 sq ft). The condo goes through the building, so windows on two sides. The kitchen is its own separate space. Bathroom and toilet are two separate rooms. (The building is not a proper commie block, though. Or “Soviet cube” as they’re called in Finnish. We were never Soviet, but we took some inspiration from their cheap building styles.)

      • @IHaveTwoCows@lemm.ee
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        I sure am

        Building trades have been severely negatively impacted by a housing boom that created milions upon milliions of subcontractors who have no idea what happens before or after their specific trade. Everyone is just covering others’ mistakes. 50 years ago one company did all aspects of the building; 35 years ago that stopped.

        • @winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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          22 years ago

          Yeah i was recently looking for someone to work on windows and finding someone who does work in the traditional way is not easy. They’re still out there, but for every one of them there’s ten hack shops using minimum wage labor for everything. Even then, the real good techniques just seem like lost technology. They didn’t get passed down to our generation.

          • @IHaveTwoCows@lemm.ee
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            12 years ago

            It gets frustrating for me also because I’d like to do high caliber work but there’s not enough of a market to keep myself busy with it. There are other factors involved as well, but I have moved away from artisanal work to utilitarian stuff between kitchen and bath remodels.

        • @Squizzy@lemmy.world
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          12 years ago

          Standards have improved 10 fold, I moved from a house built 70 years ago to a new build. It is completely different, air tight, less moisture, more efficient heating, permanent hot water, triple glazed windows. Literally everything is more secure and improved. There is nothing an old house can do a new one can’t.

          • @uis@lemmy.world
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            12 years ago

            air tight, less moisture, more efficient heating, permanent hot water, triple glazed windows.

            And why “I moved from unmaintained house” is argument against old housing? I have all those things in 50 years old house.

            • @Squizzy@lemmy.world
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              12 years ago

              So you gave your old building a retrofit with new technologies… more in line with today’s standards and have seen results more in line with today’s standards.

              What is your argument here?

              • @uis@lemmy.world
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                12 years ago

                So you gave your old building a retrofit with new technologies… more in line with today’s standards and have seen results more in line with today’s standards.

                So you understand this!

                • @Squizzy@lemmy.world
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                  12 years ago

                  So modern building standards, materials, technologies and completed products are better than old?

                  I don’t see many people taking out the cavity insulation to make their homes more old style.

          • @IHaveTwoCows@lemm.ee
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            52 years ago

            Those are all accessories. The only build difference would be whether or not a moisture barrier was applied to the framing, either on the inside when insulated or outside with Tyvek.

            • @Squizzy@lemmy.world
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              12 years ago

              Heating is an accessory? The new tech associated with central heating compared to 50 years ago is night and day. The building materials have changed, the regulations have changed. Houses have better insulation, soundproofing, fire guarding, plumbing, electrical circuitry like how is this even a discussion.

              • @IHaveTwoCows@lemm.ee
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                Heating is a thing applied to a home. Many homes have none (like mine). Yes, it is an accessory. That accessory has improved, but it has nothing to do with the building itself.

                It’s a discussion because I am a builder and have been all my life and I have worked in most of those trades individually for three to five years each and I know what I’m talking about.

                • @Squizzy@lemmy.world
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                  12 years ago

                  That’s a load of nonsense, experienced builder or not. Heating is part of building a house just like the other plumbing, electrical and joinery work.

              • @IHaveTwoCows@lemm.ee
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                Lemme let you in on another secret: modern housing has inferior framing compared to 50 years ago. The reason for this is that the housing boom that started in the 80s and into the 90s demanded more lumber than the supply could keeo up with so trees were hybridized to grow faster with a more erratic Heartwood grain and have spent less time in the kiln so they haven’t dried properly. The high moisture content left in this inferior grain wood has caused lots of buckling, or bowing, excessive settling, and other associated issues. When a 2x4 is ripped on a table saw it does not turn into two equal pieces, it’s springs apart into two twisted and bowed pieces. This is the behavior of an inferior product.

                I believe it was in 1992 or possibly 93 that the CEOs of weyerhauser, Georgia Pacific, and one other manufacturer of masonite siding we’re convicted of fraud and sent to prison because they had been changing out the test samples of masonite siding in Dade county Florida in order to justify selling masonite as a building code compliant siding material. Masonite was then banned in favor of cementitious siding board. Masonite also led to a vinyl siding boom…fake plastic to cover up the problem and give insects a new home. So we at least have an improvement in siding materials now, but not over brick or stone.

                Now, there ARE ways to make the modern home superior in construction by using steel studs, heated concrete slabs, on-demand water heaters combined with solar tanks, blown foam insulated walls, and condensation-capture cooling tubes, but it is very expensive and requires a very talented labor pool.

                • @Squizzy@lemmy.world
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                  12 years ago

                  Oh we don’t have timber framed housing here, my house is concrete and the 50 year old house I was in, probably closer 100, was a stone cottage.

                  The new house has exactly those things you listed. I’m fairly certain they have to be in all new builds where I am. Though the solar is optional, we have a heat pump instead.

  • @ReakDuck@lemmy.ml
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    122 years ago

    Not sure why or from where this quote comes from. In germany and poland we have many such apartment houses that are very affordable

    • @LoamImprovement@beehaw.org
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      62 years ago

      It comes from America, where capitalist simps preach the virtues of idiots who buy companies and act like it makes them paragons of humanity.

      • @crispy_kilt@feddit.de
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        22 years ago

        Where living in such apartments would be hell because they’d expect them to be built out of sticks and cardboard, as it is common in the USA. Someone sneezes in the south end on the 2nd floor, the guy on the 12th floor north end goes bless you.

        Buildings in Europe are built from proper building materials, concrete, steel, glass, and bricks. Not cardboard and sticks and paper. Hence living in them is actually much nicer than one used to US buildings would expect.

    • @IHaveTwoCows@lemm.ee
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      162 years ago

      There are hundreds of right wing memes talking about how “communist archetecture is depressing” with pictures like this one

      • It’s also forgetting that a significant portion of homeless people are homeless by choice, or are homeless for reasons that just providing housing won’t resolve.

        People have this idea that all homeless people are just regular people who experienced hard times, but that’s just a minority. Most homeless are mentally ill people who won’t take their meds or drug addicts who aren’t willing to quit.

        It sucks, and they shouldn’t have to live on the streets, but you can’t force people to change.

        • @darkdemize@sh.itjust.works
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          32 years ago

          I believe you are arguing in good faith, so I’m hoping you can provide a source for your claim that the majority suffer from mental illness or drug addiction.

          • @Zink@programming.dev
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            12 years ago

            Some might say the big fear of someone getting something undeserved is strong enough to prop up an entire political party.

            But it is not exclusive to them, of course. Some are just very bad about it.

            • @irmoz@reddthat.com
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              2 years ago

              Yeah, liberals and conservatives only differ on whether gay people should be put to death, so you’re not really saying much. And being liberal does not, whatsoever, make you immune to conservative propaganda. We live in a capitalist society, founded on liberal values: whether conservatives know it or not, it is liberal values they are conserving.

              Also, as I’ve said about 5 times now, no one is saying that building houses alone will solve the issue. So stop beating that strawman.

              • You’re more than welcome to look up statistics. ~60% of the chronicly homeless have life long mental health issues, and ~80% have substance abuse issues.

                Pretty much every city/state has resources to help the homeless, but the homeless have to be willing to accept the help. Most shelters are drug free, so addicts don’t want to stay there and they won’t accept people whose mental illness makes them violent.

                You can’t force a person to take their medicine or stop doing drugs unless you want to start building more prisons.

                Again, I was never saying that all homelessness is a choice, but a lot of people choose not to accept the help that’s available.

                Source: My wife has her masters in the field and used to work with these populations as an addiction counselor, in Texas, so I know that resources exist at a state level even in a state that clearly hates it’s citizens.

      • @irmoz@reddthat.com
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        122 years ago

        Of course people would rather homeless people have housing instead of living in tent cities everywhere. But they also don’t have any desire to pay for it when it comes time to do something and of course make moral arguments against the homeless.

        These are two different groups of people

        The first, who are on board with state housing projects, are the common people who still have empathy for their fellow people

        The second, who are totally on board with homelessness because the housing projects are “too expensive”, belong to the political and economic elite

              • @irmoz@reddthat.com
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                22 years ago

                Most people aren’t pieces of shit and don’t want people to be homeless, but then they’re unwilling to do anything to solve it because it requires money and effort.

                Dishonest framing. The average worker has nothing to do with this issue. They are not the people we’re asking to solve this. Like I already said, it’s the political and economic elite. Capitalists. The state. Where is the worker’s money supposed to be sent? On what is their effort to be put?

                We also have internalized that a lot of homeless people “did something wrong” to get there, which doesn’t help.

                Yep, neoliberal chuds, as I said

                You’re trying to oversimplify a complex cultural issue

                How? What variables have I abstracted into a black box, here? What few mechanisms have I reduced the issue to? To me, “people want affordable housing but don’t wanna pay for it” sounds extremely oversimplified.

                I have no idea why you’re picking an argument with someone who probably largely agrees with you.

                I’m not “picking an argument with you” lol. I’m just correcting what I see as a defeatist, “what can we even do” attitude.

                That’s not what cognitive dissonance means. It’s a question of willpower/desire to actually help. No one wants people to be homeless but they also aren’t willing to do anything about it. That’s not cognitive dissonance.

                Sounds like semantic fudging to me. “These people need homes! No, stop building homes, it’s too expensive!!” sounds like cognitive dissonance to me.

          • @irmoz@reddthat.com
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            62 years ago

            That’s just a cop out. Of course it’s complex. No reason to just throw your hands in the air and say “it’s too hard, let’s just leave it to the market”. We already tried that. It led to this.

            Also, no one is saying, literally, “building more houses will fix homelessness alone, nothing else needed, DURRR”. That’s just a strawman.

            What we also need is a complete end to landlording. But this of course won’t happen under the current system, because capitalism fucking worships private property.

            • The entire post is about low income housing as a solution to people sleeping in tents. Building more apartments won’t stop people from living in tents.

              Pointing out that it’s a complex issue that isn’t solved by more houses is pretty much the opposite of a strawman

              • @irmoz@reddthat.com
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                No, that is not the point it’s making. It’s making the point that neoliberal chuds would prefer to see homeless people than affordable housing. It doesn’t say that building housing itself is the sole solution. Hell, it doesn’t say anything at all about building. We don’t see any construction in that picture, the blocks are just there. You could read it as saying that already built flats should just be given to people.

    • Maven (famous)
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      172 years ago

      That low income housing is good but people like when homeless people suffer.

    • Sentient Loom
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      52 years ago

      I think it’s a confused message. Not the best meme.

      But the basic idea is that homelessness is caused by people preferring houses (“urban sprawl”) rather than apartment complexes.

    • @anonono@lemmy.world
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      32 years ago

      seems like it’s trying to imply that homeless people are homeless because houses are too expensive.

      as if the guys in the bottom pic could afford a department in the top picture, but have to live in a tent because housing is expensive.

      I think what the meme does say is that OP is mentally 12.

  • @w2qw@aussie.zone
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    52 years ago

    This more because of the local planning in a lot of western countries. Authoritarian countries force housing through much easier

    • @Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
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      2 years ago

      I think what they’re trying to say in thr meme is that the building is government funded. In the US, we also a made some government funded buildings, “projects” but it did not go very well (combination of bad optics, and supposedly bad funding) . So the US basically said fuck public funding for housing, the free market will fix everything. And instead of the “ugly” buildings that Russia has (the idea pushed onto Americans) , we ended up with a large number of unhoused people because of spiraling out of control housing costs

      • @Gork@lemm.ee
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        42 years ago

        300 million homeless in China? What the hell, that’s like almost the entire population of the US.

      • @knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de
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        52 years ago

        Depending on how one defines homelessness, China has either a very tiny homeless population or an extremely large one. Compared to other countries, there very few vagrants: people living on the streets of China’s cities without means of support. But if one counts the people who migrated to cities without a legal permit (hukou), work as day laborers without job security or a company dormitory, and live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on the edge of cities, there are nearly 300 million homeless

        The source of your source

      • @jackoid@lemm.ee
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        12 years ago

        Yeah no. There is no way 20% of the Chinese population is homeless. Your source is a US government website, I’m sure they’re not biased about China.

        • Bernie Ecclestoned
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          2 years ago

          Yes. Well spotted…

          The author is Zhaohui Su who is Chinese and works for:

          a School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210009, China

          b Center on Smart and Connected Health Technologies, Mays Cancer Center, School of Nursing, UT Health San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA

    • @minorninth@lemmy.world
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      82 years ago

      Sure they do. Look at all of the posts from my neighbors on Facebook and Nextdoor every time a developer tries to build an apartment building instead of a single family home in our neighborhood.

    • BarqsHasBite
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      82 years ago

      It’s not far off what many think. Many think apartments are, oh so many adjectives, dirty, poor, unsanitary, inhumane, cruel, unusual, etc.

        • BarqsHasBite
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          2 years ago

          Go to/watch any planning or proposal meeting and watch the pearl clutching and nimbyism. I think you know this but you want to demand “studies” instead of engaging in good faith.

          • @Fosheze@lemmy.world
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            42 years ago

            you want to demand “studies” instead of engaging in good faith.

            Said the ocean gate sub captain.

            • BarqsHasBite
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              12 years ago

              Second reply from user nutandcross for posterity;

              I went to a planning meeting in my neighborhood and it wasn’t like that at all. Why did you lie about that?

              Also, why don’t you value scientific research and evidence? Because they don’t corroborate your perverted worldview?

              I think this is one of those communists who can’t be bothered to actually read or live by anything. The meeting was full of shouting communists, whose side I’m on, regarding a city golf course and it’s removal. You were way off. Why did you act like you knew what was going to happen? I’m not mad I’m just confused like, did you really think it was going to be like how you prejudged it or are you towing the disinformation line?

              This is why it’s never good to engage with adolescents as someone with an intellectual conscience, and not just some wishful-idea-drunk autist that can’t tell human faces apart.

            • BarqsHasBite
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              12 years ago

              This is the response from user nutandcross for posterity, read to the end:

              “instead of engaging in good faith”

              So facts and good faith ethics are mutually exclusive?

              I just got back from a planning meeting and it was nothing like how you said it would be. Why would you lie to me about that?

              Why are you just constantly just lying to people from your room on the Internet? It’s it because when you die, you’ll just vanish and leave a bodily mess because you never became anything, never understood what it meant to be a human? Because you’ve turned yourself over to bad ideas cause your own were worse and now you’re some pimpled Putin puppet.

              Communism, fascism, Jordan Peterson, Trumpist demagogues thrive on weak 14-year-old minds hungry to assert their powerful opinion on something they’ve have no actual experience with

              I urge you to visit these Utopias, maybe move there. There you won’t be called parasite, you will experience the insouciant freedom of the lodged and suckling tick. Maybe the reason you feel so bad is that you don’t belong in a free nation because you’re too chickenshit to exist on your own merit.

              They also recruit and weaponize mentally vulnerable people like young autistic men (4chan, Bannon, cp forums), here’s just a couple I’m sure you can can find commie versions of these stories you can stomach (you can use these to strengthen your good faith arguments):

              https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/18/steve-bannon-learned-harness-troll-army-world-warcraft/489713001/

              https://www.npr.org/2018/11/21/669509554/in-china-the-communist-partys-latest-unlikely-target-young-marxists

              You’re all George Santos wannabes in five years, too. Fucking garbage. My family didn’t fight and die so a bunch of little kids could run around with Hitler mustaches telling me which way to think is the correct way to think according to the correct men. Everyone can see how sweaty and dangerous and anti-social utopian philosophies really are except the fevered adherent who always ends up dead or in a cell. You’d shit your pants in a fight.

    • We’re not building homes, we’re not focussing on density. But apparently our elected officials have no problem letting people set up shanty towns. Where do you think the priorities lay?

      • @BB69@lemmy.world
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        12 years ago

        What do you mean we’re not building homes? I have plenty of homes and apartments being built in my city that cater to lots of strata of incomes.

    • @ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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      712 years ago

      In the United States at least, your local government’s public hearings for new housing developments kinda begs to differ.

      People will demand the homeless be eliminated from their area while simultaneously opposing development of housing or shelters for the homeless in their area.

      So maybe you’re right though: they don’t hate the apartments more, they simply can’t make up their mind on which they hate more.

          • BOMBS
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            122 years ago

            Aside from zoning laws, there’s the lack of a unified federal intervention. This prevents any one area from addressing the local homeless issue because any area that takes steps to address it will consequently absorb more homeless individuals from other places in the country. For example, if a city in California develops a program to house any homeless individuals, then homeless individuals from other cities and states will be more likely to go to said city to get housed. Even worse, there are states that would actually pay for their transportation. What would happen is that either the city would have to solve a much larger homeless problem as new homeless move into town, or the initial wave of homeless people will be house while the new arrivals and homeless will stay homeless, leaving a continued homeless problem.

      • BarqsHasBite
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        122 years ago

        I agree but want to say everyone jumps to homeless. There are a ton of normal people that are suffering from high rent, lack of options, etc. We need to think about way more than homeless.

          • BarqsHasBite
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            2 years ago

            Most people think homeless as jobless, etc. But when we have people with entirely ok jobs that can’t afford rent (see people living in their cars), addressing basic normal housing addresses both for a startling amount.

    • Kichae
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      1012 years ago

      Not explicitly, maybe, but implicitly, absolutely, and in multiple ways:

      • Supporting the system that creates one over the other
      • Having ‘bootstrap’ attitudes about the poor
      • Worrying about property value over utilization
      • Complaining about the homeless rather than the lack of action on housing
      • Voting against people who run on public housing

      In so, so many ways, people say they prefer the latter over the former. Usually just with the caveat that the homeless people also be invisible.

        • Neuromancer
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          122 years ago

          I think a simple law that if there is a building, it must be in a repaired state.

          In St. Louis a person opened large portions of the city where they’ve let the holes decay.

          He should have to keep them in a proper upkeep or tear them down.

          • AgentOrangesicle
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            22 years ago

            Fuck anyone that uses money to buy things and let them rot. That’s a purposefully broad statement.

            • Neuromancer
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              32 years ago

              I agree. I wish I could find an article on this guy but he is just hoarding and letting it rot. Has something to do with taxes.

      • Franzia
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        152 years ago

        I wonder who is doing this voting? Oh, it’s people who live in the areas we can’t afford to live in. And capitalists add lobbying power to those voters selfish interests.

  • @Nurgle@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    This is kinda like saying we need more farms to solve hunger.

    The cost of housing is very detached from supply. For rentals, companies bought up housing and just jacked up the price, because renters are a semi captive client base.

    New construction sometimes doesn’t even help, when developers knocks down an old affordable 12 unit apartment building and build a luxury 36 unit building, you’ve created -12 units of affordable housing.

    Even for home buyers, they’re facing a major up hill battle going against existing home owners who have access to the capital of their current homes, and even worse corporate home buyers.

    This isn’t to say supply isn’t an issue and we can ignore it, but we need to stop housing from just being an investment vehicle. Otherwise we’re just going to get garbage housing at prices no one can afford.

    • @outstanding_bond@mander.xyz
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      102 years ago

      New construction sometimes doesn’t even help, when developers knocks down an old affordable 12 unit apartment building and build a luxury 36 unit building, you’ve created -12 units of affordable housing.

      The argument I hear against this is that the 36 people who move into the luxury apartments moved from somewhere, and so 36 other apartments become available. The reduced demand for the vacated apartments then drives their prices down.

      Of course, housing as a market is super distorted for a bunch of reasons so this effect is muddled. But I think it would be a net negative to fully disregard supply and demand in a market-based economy and preserve 12 affordable units in favor of 36 luxury ones.

      Largely agree with all your other points though.

      • @Nurgle@lemmy.world
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        92 years ago

        I get that argument and I think there’s some merit to it since like you said this whole thing is muddled. But the counter point is often those vacated units are in another town or city. So in the way overly simplified scenario, if 36 “programmers” move to the city, the vacated units through out the country don’t help the “bus drivers” who are tied to the area.

        Again we largely agree, I just wanted to illustrate even the simple assumptions like building more is good isn’t always that straight forward in this fucked up system.

      • @crispy_kilt@feddit.de
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        22 years ago

        Rich people don’t really move into these luxury apartment. They buy it as an investment, use it as a holiday home, etc.

      • @Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        32 years ago

        The obvious and immediate flaw with the 36 people moving into luxury apartments is, that’s not usually how luxury apartments work. Particularly in certain markets, it’s more and more common for luxury housing to be temporary homes, vacation homes that are turned into investments the rest of the year, e.g. air BNB. So a lot of the time, you get 36 regular homes destroyed, for 12 luxury apartments that get bought up by either people or companies that either then rent them out or keep them empty most of the year, with no increase in available housing.

    • @kameecoding@lemmy.world
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      222 years ago

      it’s not detached from supply at all, single house zoning and mandatory minimum parking make for a whole lot of trouble in the US

      • @Nurgle@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Again I’m not saying supply isn’t an issue, and zoning is def a major problem in many states. But if the issue was only supply, rent would be growing more or less in line with the population not at the astronomical rate that it is.

        • @kameecoding@lemmy.world
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          12 years ago

          yeah but due to immigration the population is growing in the USA, AFAIK, also you need to account for the trend of Urbanization (somewhat offset by move to WFH)

      • @dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 years ago

        When Vanguard and Blackrock own half of the supply, then it’s not a free market. Also, you said it’s not detached from supply at all, but then proceeded to list reasons detached from supply that affect cost.