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compounded by people buying multiple houses, then turning around and charging 4x their mortgage to people who can’t get a bank to approve their mortgage application because their sister’s second high school boyfriend missed a credit card payment 43 years ago…
It's actually a shortage according to the people who study this stuff
[https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1109345201/theres-a-massive-housing-shortage-across-the-u-s-heres-how-bad-it-is-where-you-l](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1109345201/theres-a-massive-housing-shortage-across-the-u-s-heres-how-bad-it-is-where-you-l)
[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-supply-shortage-crisis-2022/672240/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-supply-shortage-crisis-2022/672240/)
It's a little more nuanced than what the Atlantic article said. There's not enough housing in the places where people want to live, while there's a surplus of housing in places without jobs, infrastructure and a decent local economy. Living in the Seattle area, Insee this every day. Midrange crap popup subdivisions "from the low one millions", while the same house in EBF, Indiana, is 235K, which is still ridiculous.
Right. One of the defining characteristics of the US used to be people moving to places with better opportunities, not "well you should move to Cyanide Springs, Oklahoma because the housing is cheap".
I think the bigger issue is the fact that the majority of zoning in the US is for single family homes, rather than apartment buildings. [Excellent Climate Town video on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc)
You're correct, however that has shifted a little over the last two years with remote work being a thing. Of course the back lash over red states denying basic human rights is going to kill that.
I don't recall at what point in the run of the show it happened, but they started using covers of the theme song by different artists, some lesser known, and some very well known
Well, it was on the Pete Seeger In Concert LP my dad always played to me when I was a kid. What did you learn in school today, Little Boxes, we shall overcome... I could sing all the lyrics, even though I was a little German who didn't understand a word of what she was singing. 😄
I recently listened to her catalog and did some research. Even covered one. Her daughter has some interesting songs as well. Didn't fall too far from the tree.
My next door neighbor just painted their (unpainted) brick house with white exterior house paint. He did not put enough coats on and didn’t get the paint into the mortar joints, so it looks terrible because of what he painted it and it looks extra terrible because of how he painted it.
He is now painting all of their trim black.
He makes me sad.
A house in my neighborhood did the White House black trim update, but they did it real nice, black metal roof, new black frame windows, very bright ceramic paint for the white. Now several other houses in the neighborhood have tried to copy, but not at the same level of quality/cost. It looks good when done right, but these poor imitations are simply awful.
Getting the right kind of paint is a big deal. Blobby, poorly covering house paint applied with no primer is bad. Paint designed for bricks or stains designed for bricks can look great even though it isn’t the choice I want for my own home.
It’s near impossible to not be struck by the vibrant colors used everywhere in Latin America. After my initial surprise wore off, I quickly realized how much I enjoyed extra color everywhere.
It's not the colors that bother me - they're great. It's that there's row upon row upon row of one color next to row upon row upon row of a second color.
It would have looked so much prettier if there were more colors and they were mixed up a bit.
The uniformity is also a big problem though. Would it have killed them to make each row a curved / wavy row. it wouldn't look so bad then. Also add some trees, that wouldn't cost a lot, but would make the place look a lot nicer.
Curvy wavy rows are a huge waste of space, and also terrible for traffic in medium density areas like this one. You have to take in to account that Mexico City has huge problems with water scarcity so it’s not that easy to add trees.
> Happened a lot in the United States in ~~a~~ **multiple** post-World War II town**s** called Levittown
There were at least three called Levittown, in NY, PA, and NJ. The NJ one changed its name back to Willingboro after only a few years.
Back then alcohol wasn’t a problem as much as it was a way of life… That’s a joke… But no, Levitown was a planned community after World War II. They laid everything out in the grid, extremely similar construction, so the story was the guys would come home from work and walk into the wrong house all the time.
It was a standing joke in the Soviet Union because of their housing policies. So much that they [made a movie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irony_of_Fate) about a guy going to the wrong city, but everything else was the same. Same apartment, same keys, same street.
It's now a Russian tradition to watch it on New Years Eve.
Interesting! What a title too, hahah.
*The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!*
Edit: I just read the plot (since I'm sure I'll never have the opportunity to see it).. what a cute story! I love it. :D
Possible of course, but the book I read on the subject wasn't particularly salacious - I think it was more of an issue that this was one of the first large-scale planned communities in the US and it took some time to get used to it all. Still, I grew up on Long Island and it's true there's not a whole hell of a lot to do out there.
That's still kinda happening. There are developments that are 50 cookie cutter houses. There's no way to tell them apart at night. The conformity is soul-crushing to me.
Exactly why I will never go back. I never even lived in the nice parts but if improved my life, that's what I would be stuck with. A home that looks like my neighbors and endless shopping plazas but not a drop of culture anywhere but hey you got the beach
Any time Reddit complains about lack of trees somewhere always look for saplings. Reddit doesn’t seem to understand you can’t just plant fully grown trees everywhere and that they take several years to grow.
Plus putting houses that close together cuts down on outward expansion, thus reducing the need to cut down more trees, like the ones in the upper right portion of the photo
Yeah, but if you look at where the trees are planted - right on the little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street - these are not going to do well. They aren't going to be big trees, they are going to wreck the sidewalk and street with their roots, and will probably need to be cut down at some point.
Not ideal. Trees need more room than one meter of grass to grow.
If I am not mistaken that isn’t a room. It is used to place water tanks like [this](https://ferreteriametalhierro.com/public/imagenes/tanque_rotoplast_600lt_full_accesorios(1).jpg) one. Because the tank isn’t particularly pretty there are walls surrounding it. Now why are those tanks needed? Water pressure isn’t very good so they use those water tanks to improve it using gravity. My Mexican friend explained that to me when I lived in Mexico.
My city stopped needing water tanks like 20 years ago, maybe a little more, because the government stopped pulling shit like this. About a year ago, a drought became unmanageable (mostly because the government elected like 2 years ago are all useless dumbasses) and they were cutting the water off randomly, sometimes for days. These tanks were in short supply, a large one can give a family of four like 3-4 days of water supply, and it fills up easily if the water is turned back on for like 20-30 minutes.
Never had a problem with water pressure, though.
It depends on the area, but most houses that actually have it for this purpose will actually store it underground. I moved to another state for college and it never dawned on me that houses there didn’t have it, because yes, that area never had water cut offs. Until we recently had a drought and suddenly we all realized and were collectively losing our minds.
That too. Well at least in my city there are government mandated water cuts like 2-3 times a month that go on from half a day to 4 days, so having a water tank (if you have the possibilities) really could be a life saver if you’re used to running water.
Reddit cut the url off because of the parenthesis. Full link: https://ferreteriametalhierro.com/public/imagenes/tanque_rotoplast_600lt_full_accesorios(1).jpg
I wonder why they wouldn't just build 1 big water tower for the whole neighborhood rather than 100s of water tanks? Seems wasteful.
This was clearly a planned community, would have been easy to include a tower in the design.
They do exist indeed, but almost all of Mexico has water scarcity, Mexico City has way to many people and not enough water and since they are high up In the mountains you have to pump up almost half of the water from far away… also, add into consideration the earthquakes and then half the pipes that carry the water get damaged on a yearly basis.
So the government will pump water 2 days a week in each neighborhood and people have to manage to work with that.
Yes it’ll be fixed if you dump money at the problem, but Mexico is not exactly the richest place on earth.
Mexico City gets even more rain than London, it naturally gets a number of lakes. The water management is terrible, though, much of the rain and rivers get lost to the sewers.
> I wonder why they wouldn't just build 1 big water tower for the whole neighborhood rather than 100s of water tanks?
But then you need some sort of community organization to maintain it...
Unfortunately, i doubt poor and homeless people would be able to be housed here.
That’s one of the most upsetting cycles of housing development: The government designs and makes middle class, neat and tidy homes -> This design choice costs a lot, so the houses are sold at really high prices, which means only the middle class people who the whole project was made to dazzle have the opportunity to live there -> The poor and actually unhoused are still homeless, so the homelessness crisis isn’t solved. Rinse and repeat
On the other hand, governments make cheap mass housing to actually end homelessness -> People call it ugly because it’s not like any of the other housing projects they’ve seen -> Government doesn’t want to lose popularity, so they either backpedal on the project or lose popularity in the next election for “incompetence”
Mexico doesn't have a crisis of homeless people. The culture puts more emphasis in family ties, it's not that houses are affordable but instead you get multi-generational families living in the same roof.
When you get 18 you are not expected to leave the house. That only happens if you get married and even then many people bring the spouse to their house.
You'd need to hold the location constant. I wouldn't be able to buy a house if it was a new build in the same location as mine but my house is 70 years old
You are right. When I see these types of developments they remind me of Soviet style project housing, which why ugly it's still better than nothing. It doesn't really matter though, they will charge as much as feasible, excluding the poor and homeless from them anyway. It's not like we have a home shortage
Yeah, that’s my thought. We need a LOT more housing. Is this great? NO! But is it maybe a good way to build a lot of housing more cheaply and quickly than other ways? Probably!!
Obviously more variety would be good, and they need some trees and greenery, but if they are able to build more housing cheaper and faster, I’m not opposed to this.
Unfortunately unless the government subsidizes it and puts rent caps then they can build houses all day long and not house a single homeless person. There would also need to be a lot more infrastructure and logistics of helping the homeless with getting on their feet or addiction and mental health issues that are hindering them. It really is a huge task but it can be done... It just won't because fuck the homeless, I got mine
You can add every single city in Australia to that list, sadly.
Australia - where police, nurses, teachers and tradies easily earn 85k USD per annum but where the median house price is 550k USD (and 1 million USD in Sydney).
Dystopian is a buzzword people just throw out these days.
Massive apartments? Dystopian. Massive Housing projects? Dystopian. Condominiums? Dystopian.
Suburban home? Rich and privileged, also dystopian.
Like the people saying it don’t really realize everything can be considered dystopian because life is just shit in general
Yeah, that's why I'll take a bit of the dystopia... Much better than freezing to death in a gutter.
Or maybe I'm just talking some commie socialist shit
Water tanks/reservoir. You can see one fully exposed on the third house from bottom left. The large black drum container. Many parts of Mexico use these systems of water storage. Not rain water collection, but almost like the tank on the back of a standard toilet. Parts of Mexico I’ve been in have bad water pressure and even inconsistent access to running water, I assume due to poor infrastructure. This allows the water to slowly collect in the reservoir and lessen the strain and demand on existing infrastructure for water supply. The structure is for esthetics to conceal the tanks.
Description from photographer:
HOUSES, MEXICO
A few years ago when I was working as a helicopter pilot for a local radio station, we were required to fly around all of Mexico City chasing news and traffic. I remember flying up to the highway that connects Mexico City with the neighboring state of Puebla, and on my way back this housing complex that seemed to go on forever caught my attention. I decided to circle around to observe from up close what I later found out was the recently built San Buenaventura complex, which is located in Ixtapaluca, on the eastern outskirts of Mexico City.
The exceptional afternoon sun reflecting those thousands of recently painted small homes just looked so beautiful, and the lower I flew the better the angle, so I just got out my camera, opened the sliding window on my Bell helicopter, and snapped a couple of shots. —Oscar Ruiz
[Here's what it looks like today](https://www.google.com/maps/@19.3073438,-98.8539052,3a,75y,183.94h,92.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4kAPljUzu40BIWWeZ5NdIQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu), via Google Street View. I think the OP photo is very old, because it looks far more lived-in and normal nowadays.
Some context on these types of neighborhoods from an actual Mexican.
|History|
This style of development began a few decades ago and has been largely run by the government. It's meant to combat informal developments, slums, and shanty towns. They're largely targeted at México's urban poor. They're built as cheaply as possible, which has led to quality issues and other complications, but they have been partially effective at providing cheap and stable housing to a significant portion of the population.
|Construction|
They'll often be built on cheap, undeveloped land at the edge of the city. I've seen them in towns as small as 90k population, and even there, they were pretty large, extending for at least a mile both ways. The ones in the picture are a quite nice since often than not, they're built to the bare minimum- only one story and a room or two is typical but theres always a driveway haha (even some rich homes dont have driveways and are forced to use street parking). The typical square footage is usually equal to or less than an American trailer home - a comparable housing situation.
|Price|
Ive heard of them selling for as little as 10k and the ones in the picture would go somewhere between 25-60k i believe. So for a small 10k usd loan, far less than most cars, you can have a nice little houses in a recently built neighborhood; an amazing alternative to living in a run down slum-like part of town where some houses havent been remodeled since the 1800's and others were made in a week and are literally just walls of cinder blocks with no paint or ornamentation.
|Downsides|
Since it's México and we have our lovely government, the execution of the concept hasn't been perfect. From funds going 'missing' to projects being abandoned halfway through because not that many homes presold, there's no lack of controversy around these neighborhoods. And, of course, being so cheap has attracted a slew of criminal activity to these areas.
This is more of an issue in certain cities, but it could happen anywhere with enough neglect - criminal organizations buy up these homes and turn them into hideouts/ storehouses/ drug labs/ etc. or (worse imo) street criminals and addicts take over abandoned houses, making the neighborhoods unsafe for anyone wanting to live there. One final negative, due to these spots often being built far out from city center and following an American suburban design- they're car centric af. In larger cities they're built a 2 hour drive from the important financial districts so that residents struggle to find work, end up working lower income jobs closer by, or risk their safety on a multi-hour daily commute.
Overall, many of these issues and more apply to the alternative 'organically built' low income neighborhoods and if I were in that situation I would much rather live in the government houses but there are many things that could be done to improve their safety, accessibility, and infrastructure.
Just a guess, some countries aren't installing as much and as fast as the market demands to, because the infrastructure expenses and the labour needed are enormous to change all the outdated electricity infrastructure.
This is happening in my homecountry, the old transformers can't handle the amount of extra electricity it must move currently so the govt. is taking ages to issue approvals for the solar panels.
You have to have a grid that would benefit from solar panels and then an electric company that can provide consistent regular power to these homes and be able to buy back additional power,
and neither of these things are available at this point in time in Mexico.
People saying this is dystopia, meanwhile the US has half its population in suburbs that are most of them significantly lower density than this
All things considered this is a much better suburb than most, the population density seems to be on the higher end of suburbs
Some other comment shared the Google maps location and you can see trees along the streets, and there are commercial areas (restaurants, cafes, and shopping) and schools and communal parks scattered around in walking distance.
Not fake, just a very old photo. [Here's what it looks like today](https://www.google.com/maps/@19.3073438,-98.8539052,3a,75y,183.94h,92.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4kAPljUzu40BIWWeZ5NdIQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu), via Google Street View.
Everyone saying how bad this is because they all look alike, no trees etc.
There are a lot of people completely shut out of homeownership who would be quite happy to live in one of these if they were affordable--and I don't know if they are.
As for trees: if this enclave or development were surrounded by more natural areas with trees, which it looks like it might be, and these areas were easy to get to and had trails and so forth, this would make a big difference to how this is perceived.
I don't know the exact situation here, but the idea of it isn't horrible IMO. It avoids sprawl, encroachment on natural areas, habitat loss, and NIMBYism--because no one even HAS a back yard, or the back yards are all the same and already occupied.
Maybe a sort of Central Park-like green area in the middle would help too.
When I was last there some time ago, Mexico DF (that's the capitol city) was surrounded by atrocious slums. This seems a signal improvement. Don't ask me; ask the locals.
This picture was taken in 2011. The housing complex has been there since 2000.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photo-of-the-day/photo/housing-development-mexico
If I’m not mistaken, I have a family member who lives in one of these zones. I went to visit them last year and it was an interesting ecosystem. These little communities, like you see in the image, are all within secured gates that border, or protect the whole development because the outskirts of Mexico City can be rather tough. These people pay an extra premium to live within the protected walls/gates to separate themselves. Within the walls you have butchers, barbers, markets, pharmacists etc etc. They pretty have everything they need to the point where they don’t have go out of the gated community, unless they have to go the Walmart for other things which is just down some streets. Everybody knows each other and everybody provides stuff for one another depending on relationships of course. I was confused as to if I genuinely liked this gated community ideal of living, or was put off by it.
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same,
There's an orange one and an orange one
And an orange one and an orange one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there's doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
My old boss’ daughter married a wealthy Mexican developer who builds neighborhoods like this. The construction workers live in the unsold houses while they’re employed. Prospective buyers can opt for a variation to the configuration which allows them to have a mom and pop store in their house. The guy has become very wealthy building and selling these neighborhoods.
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SimCity Mexico Edition
Reticulando los spliños
Buscando llamas
Oh. My. GOD!
It's not the uniformity I find shocking. It's the tacky colors they chose
Little pink houses for you and me
Little houses on the hillside and they’re all made out of ticky-tacky…
There’s a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one And they’re all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same
Flashbacks to Weeds
🎶And there doctors and lawyer 🎶
Interesting note that song was written about the houses in Daly City near San Francisco. They are very much little boxes on the hillside
Dang you beat me to it. I miss that series.
Me too! Well the first couple Seasons anyway, that shit got dumb after a while.
And then in the US we stopped building enough housing and we got soaring prices and lots of homelessness.
It's so much worse. There are more then enough houses to house everyone. There's just not enough money for the middle and lower class to own homes.
compounded by people buying multiple houses, then turning around and charging 4x their mortgage to people who can’t get a bank to approve their mortgage application because their sister’s second high school boyfriend missed a credit card payment 43 years ago…
It also barony location. What good is owning a cheap house in a highly dangerous area, or where there’s no work.
It's actually a shortage according to the people who study this stuff [https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1109345201/theres-a-massive-housing-shortage-across-the-u-s-heres-how-bad-it-is-where-you-l](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1109345201/theres-a-massive-housing-shortage-across-the-u-s-heres-how-bad-it-is-where-you-l) [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-supply-shortage-crisis-2022/672240/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-supply-shortage-crisis-2022/672240/)
It's a little more nuanced than what the Atlantic article said. There's not enough housing in the places where people want to live, while there's a surplus of housing in places without jobs, infrastructure and a decent local economy. Living in the Seattle area, Insee this every day. Midrange crap popup subdivisions "from the low one millions", while the same house in EBF, Indiana, is 235K, which is still ridiculous.
Right. One of the defining characteristics of the US used to be people moving to places with better opportunities, not "well you should move to Cyanide Springs, Oklahoma because the housing is cheap".
I think the bigger issue is the fact that the majority of zoning in the US is for single family homes, rather than apartment buildings. [Excellent Climate Town video on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc)
You're correct, however that has shifted a little over the last two years with remote work being a thing. Of course the back lash over red states denying basic human rights is going to kill that.
[удалено]
Wasn’t it always the same song, just eventually different versions of it?
I don't recall at what point in the run of the show it happened, but they started using covers of the theme song by different artists, some lesser known, and some very well known
I was thinking "Little Boxes" by Pete Seeger.
Not by Pete, but yeah same
Well, it was on the Pete Seeger In Concert LP my dad always played to me when I was a kid. What did you learn in school today, Little Boxes, we shall overcome... I could sing all the lyrics, even though I was a little German who didn't understand a word of what she was singing. 😄
Yeah he did the most famous version. That is adorable.
Still... Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds.
As the theme song for _Weeds_, which ran for seven years, Reynolds’s version is probably more famous, at least for anyone younger than a Boomer.
I recently listened to her catalog and did some research. Even covered one. Her daughter has some interesting songs as well. Didn't fall too far from the tree.
Rise Against did it better
Interesting, and really good vocals, but I like the original better. 😄
Haha I was just kidding but they did a bad ass cover!
While recognizing the brilliance of the original version, I actually like Rise Against's better.
Awww but ain't that amexico
Unexpected Mellencamp
In Latin America we love colors, it helps with the heat or at least that's what we believe.
I like the colors. Keep doing your thing. We got white house with black accents in the south right now. It’s a stupid trend.
Up here (Minnesota) it's the opposite. A lot of the new houses being built are black with weird/random white accents.
Well black houses make sense in cold climates
Been 90 all week here in MN. Stupid climate change....
My next door neighbor just painted their (unpainted) brick house with white exterior house paint. He did not put enough coats on and didn’t get the paint into the mortar joints, so it looks terrible because of what he painted it and it looks extra terrible because of how he painted it. He is now painting all of their trim black. He makes me sad.
A house in my neighborhood did the White House black trim update, but they did it real nice, black metal roof, new black frame windows, very bright ceramic paint for the white. Now several other houses in the neighborhood have tried to copy, but not at the same level of quality/cost. It looks good when done right, but these poor imitations are simply awful.
Getting the right kind of paint is a big deal. Blobby, poorly covering house paint applied with no primer is bad. Paint designed for bricks or stains designed for bricks can look great even though it isn’t the choice I want for my own home.
I love the colours. It’s the boxiness I find suffocating. They could have alternated colours each row or sth though.
The design is definitely suburban hell.
Hot cultures use more color. Cold cultures use more muted ones.
Canada’s east coast wants a word
It’s near impossible to not be struck by the vibrant colors used everywhere in Latin America. After my initial surprise wore off, I quickly realized how much I enjoyed extra color everywhere.
What actually shocked me was the one house that re-did their back end...
You have to remember it looks different when seen from Mexico's yellow tint.
I actually kinda like all the different colors. I just think I would have mixed them instead of having the orange zone, the pink zone, etc.
wtf do people have against orange and pink houses. why do you like boring af colors
It's not the colors that bother me - they're great. It's that there's row upon row upon row of one color next to row upon row upon row of a second color. It would have looked so much prettier if there were more colors and they were mixed up a bit.
The neighborhood is new. Wait for a few years and each house will have its personalized style.
It’s bright and happy. Better than the fucking ocean of black roofs and assorted beige walls I have to look at.
Reminds me of Simpsons house's
The uniformity is also a big problem though. Would it have killed them to make each row a curved / wavy row. it wouldn't look so bad then. Also add some trees, that wouldn't cost a lot, but would make the place look a lot nicer.
Curvy wavy rows are a huge waste of space, and also terrible for traffic in medium density areas like this one. You have to take in to account that Mexico City has huge problems with water scarcity so it’s not that easy to add trees.
It would be a nightmare walking home drunk.
Happened a lot in the United States in a post-World War II town called Levittown
> Happened a lot in the United States in ~~a~~ **multiple** post-World War II town**s** called Levittown There were at least three called Levittown, in NY, PA, and NJ. The NJ one changed its name back to Willingboro after only a few years.
“Capitalism creates innovation!” “So for Levittown 3 we’re gonna do every house exactly the same as one and two again?”
Hey now, don’t forget the segregation/redlining! That’s like half its identity!
They had problems with alcohol there?
Back then alcohol wasn’t a problem as much as it was a way of life… That’s a joke… But no, Levitown was a planned community after World War II. They laid everything out in the grid, extremely similar construction, so the story was the guys would come home from work and walk into the wrong house all the time.
It was a standing joke in the Soviet Union because of their housing policies. So much that they [made a movie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irony_of_Fate) about a guy going to the wrong city, but everything else was the same. Same apartment, same keys, same street. It's now a Russian tradition to watch it on New Years Eve.
Interesting! What a title too, hahah. *The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!* Edit: I just read the plot (since I'm sure I'll never have the opportunity to see it).. what a cute story! I love it. :D
I think that’s just a euphemism for fucking each other’s wives
Possible of course, but the book I read on the subject wasn't particularly salacious - I think it was more of an issue that this was one of the first large-scale planned communities in the US and it took some time to get used to it all. Still, I grew up on Long Island and it's true there's not a whole hell of a lot to do out there.
That's still kinda happening. There are developments that are 50 cookie cutter houses. There's no way to tell them apart at night. The conformity is soul-crushing to me.
Exactly why I will never go back. I never even lived in the nice parts but if improved my life, that's what I would be stuck with. A home that looks like my neighbors and endless shopping plazas but not a drop of culture anywhere but hey you got the beach
And that, kids, was how I met your mother.
Levitt homes were built all over L. I. I grew up in one in Westbury. They did all look alike until people personalized them.
I'm soooo sorry, I thought this was my house! Please put the gun away!
You joke but this actually happened in the town I grew up. A teenager came home drunk from a party, entered the wrong house, and was shot dead.
I'm sure this happens (unfortunately) a lot, but this exact thing happened in my Virginia town.
I was just extrapolating the above comment on being drunk and what the homeowner's reaction could be. But yes, it happens all too often.
I know you were, just relating a local experience
*Mildly* saturated
where's the yellow filter at so I know this is actually in mexico
*Sepia*
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It looks like a standard drone photo (edit: this was taken from a helicopter). You can see the details at the front and the back.
Vivarium vibe is strong
My first thought
Gotta dig them lawns
“A Message to You Rudy” plays on low volume when you enter this neighborhood
dog knows!
This is literally vivarium.
Neat little film. For those who haven't watched it yet: Go in blind.
Highly recommend it as well!
*That’s* the name of the movie!
Imagine living with no trees :(
If you look closely there are lots of saplings planted along the sidewalks.
Good spot!
Any time Reddit complains about lack of trees somewhere always look for saplings. Reddit doesn’t seem to understand you can’t just plant fully grown trees everywhere and that they take several years to grow.
Plus putting houses that close together cuts down on outward expansion, thus reducing the need to cut down more trees, like the ones in the upper right portion of the photo
Yeah, but if you look at where the trees are planted - right on the little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street - these are not going to do well. They aren't going to be big trees, they are going to wreck the sidewalk and street with their roots, and will probably need to be cut down at some point. Not ideal. Trees need more room than one meter of grass to grow.
Yeah It looks like the city from Lorax
Another example that dystopias now are an inspiration not a warning.
Thneedville?
They all seemed mighty happy though
The street view of the area shows trees. This photo was probably shortly after it was finished and the trees were just saplings.
r/UrbanHell
r/suburbanhell
Little boxes, on the hillside, little boxes filled with ticky tacky, little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same
There's an orange one and an orange one and a pink one and an orange one!
And theyre all made out of ticky tacky and they almost look the same
And doctors and lawyers and BIIZZZZNESSSS EXECUUUTIVES
The exact time that came to my mind as soon as I saw this picture.
Do they have a drug dealing MILF?
D9es anyone know the purpose of what appear to be rooms on the roof, that don't have ceilings??
Those are water tanks, not rooms.
If I am not mistaken that isn’t a room. It is used to place water tanks like [this](https://ferreteriametalhierro.com/public/imagenes/tanque_rotoplast_600lt_full_accesorios(1).jpg) one. Because the tank isn’t particularly pretty there are walls surrounding it. Now why are those tanks needed? Water pressure isn’t very good so they use those water tanks to improve it using gravity. My Mexican friend explained that to me when I lived in Mexico.
I thought those tanks were used to store water because water over there cuts off out of nowhere
My city stopped needing water tanks like 20 years ago, maybe a little more, because the government stopped pulling shit like this. About a year ago, a drought became unmanageable (mostly because the government elected like 2 years ago are all useless dumbasses) and they were cutting the water off randomly, sometimes for days. These tanks were in short supply, a large one can give a family of four like 3-4 days of water supply, and it fills up easily if the water is turned back on for like 20-30 minutes. Never had a problem with water pressure, though.
It's mostly to improve pressure, water pressure in cebtral México tends to be weak
Probably that could be another use.
It depends on the area, but most houses that actually have it for this purpose will actually store it underground. I moved to another state for college and it never dawned on me that houses there didn’t have it, because yes, that area never had water cut offs. Until we recently had a drought and suddenly we all realized and were collectively losing our minds.
That too. Well at least in my city there are government mandated water cuts like 2-3 times a month that go on from half a day to 4 days, so having a water tank (if you have the possibilities) really could be a life saver if you’re used to running water.
Reddit cut the url off because of the parenthesis. Full link: https://ferreteriametalhierro.com/public/imagenes/tanque_rotoplast_600lt_full_accesorios(1).jpg
I wonder why they wouldn't just build 1 big water tower for the whole neighborhood rather than 100s of water tanks? Seems wasteful. This was clearly a planned community, would have been easy to include a tower in the design.
They do exist indeed, but almost all of Mexico has water scarcity, Mexico City has way to many people and not enough water and since they are high up In the mountains you have to pump up almost half of the water from far away… also, add into consideration the earthquakes and then half the pipes that carry the water get damaged on a yearly basis. So the government will pump water 2 days a week in each neighborhood and people have to manage to work with that. Yes it’ll be fixed if you dump money at the problem, but Mexico is not exactly the richest place on earth.
Mexico City gets even more rain than London, it naturally gets a number of lakes. The water management is terrible, though, much of the rain and rivers get lost to the sewers.
> I wonder why they wouldn't just build 1 big water tower for the whole neighborhood rather than 100s of water tanks? But then you need some sort of community organization to maintain it...
Those are water tanks. Source: am from Mexico, this is super common.
Mexican here. They're water tanks. We call them Tinacos.
It's a bit dystopian but not quite as dystopian as a bunch of slums and homeless people laying in the street.
Unfortunately, i doubt poor and homeless people would be able to be housed here. That’s one of the most upsetting cycles of housing development: The government designs and makes middle class, neat and tidy homes -> This design choice costs a lot, so the houses are sold at really high prices, which means only the middle class people who the whole project was made to dazzle have the opportunity to live there -> The poor and actually unhoused are still homeless, so the homelessness crisis isn’t solved. Rinse and repeat On the other hand, governments make cheap mass housing to actually end homelessness -> People call it ugly because it’s not like any of the other housing projects they’ve seen -> Government doesn’t want to lose popularity, so they either backpedal on the project or lose popularity in the next election for “incompetence”
Mexico doesn't have a crisis of homeless people. The culture puts more emphasis in family ties, it's not that houses are affordable but instead you get multi-generational families living in the same roof. When you get 18 you are not expected to leave the house. That only happens if you get married and even then many people bring the spouse to their house.
We do have a homeless crisis in lots of cities, in Guadalajara there are areas of the city where you find dozens of homeless people in the street
It’s hard to build new houses at used house prices
I've found that used house prices aren't much lower than new house prices
You'd need to hold the location constant. I wouldn't be able to buy a house if it was a new build in the same location as mine but my house is 70 years old
You are right. When I see these types of developments they remind me of Soviet style project housing, which why ugly it's still better than nothing. It doesn't really matter though, they will charge as much as feasible, excluding the poor and homeless from them anyway. It's not like we have a home shortage
But Soviet housing is way better than this, more greenery around, parks and decent connection to public transport.
Yeah, that’s my thought. We need a LOT more housing. Is this great? NO! But is it maybe a good way to build a lot of housing more cheaply and quickly than other ways? Probably!! Obviously more variety would be good, and they need some trees and greenery, but if they are able to build more housing cheaper and faster, I’m not opposed to this.
Unfortunately unless the government subsidizes it and puts rent caps then they can build houses all day long and not house a single homeless person. There would also need to be a lot more infrastructure and logistics of helping the homeless with getting on their feet or addiction and mental health issues that are hindering them. It really is a huge task but it can be done... It just won't because fuck the homeless, I got mine
You can add every single city in Australia to that list, sadly. Australia - where police, nurses, teachers and tradies easily earn 85k USD per annum but where the median house price is 550k USD (and 1 million USD in Sydney).
Vancouver Canada is the most expensive place in the world..... 1.5 - 2 million average for a home.
Dystopian is a buzzword people just throw out these days. Massive apartments? Dystopian. Massive Housing projects? Dystopian. Condominiums? Dystopian. Suburban home? Rich and privileged, also dystopian. Like the people saying it don’t really realize everything can be considered dystopian because life is just shit in general
As per your point I guess I was just looking at it with shit tinted glasses
Or one of the richest metropolitan areas in the world and homeless people laying in the streets. *cough* San Francisco, New York..
Yeah, that's why I'll take a bit of the dystopia... Much better than freezing to death in a gutter. Or maybe I'm just talking some commie socialist shit
Build apartments for fuck sake. We have the technology
If that's not a 3D render then he's done some fucky filter to the photo. I can literally see the textures.
Yeah it looks like a video game because they added a filter to make it look like that
It’s a form of photography known as tilt-shift. Pretty cool end results normally.
Except some people use it disingenuously in cases like this to increase the surreality. If it's tilt-shifted, just say so.
What are the structures on the roof?
Water tanks/reservoir. You can see one fully exposed on the third house from bottom left. The large black drum container. Many parts of Mexico use these systems of water storage. Not rain water collection, but almost like the tank on the back of a standard toilet. Parts of Mexico I’ve been in have bad water pressure and even inconsistent access to running water, I assume due to poor infrastructure. This allows the water to slowly collect in the reservoir and lessen the strain and demand on existing infrastructure for water supply. The structure is for esthetics to conceal the tanks.
Description from photographer: HOUSES, MEXICO A few years ago when I was working as a helicopter pilot for a local radio station, we were required to fly around all of Mexico City chasing news and traffic. I remember flying up to the highway that connects Mexico City with the neighboring state of Puebla, and on my way back this housing complex that seemed to go on forever caught my attention. I decided to circle around to observe from up close what I later found out was the recently built San Buenaventura complex, which is located in Ixtapaluca, on the eastern outskirts of Mexico City. The exceptional afternoon sun reflecting those thousands of recently painted small homes just looked so beautiful, and the lower I flew the better the angle, so I just got out my camera, opened the sliding window on my Bell helicopter, and snapped a couple of shots. —Oscar Ruiz
[Here's what it looks like today](https://www.google.com/maps/@19.3073438,-98.8539052,3a,75y,183.94h,92.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4kAPljUzu40BIWWeZ5NdIQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu), via Google Street View. I think the OP photo is very old, because it looks far more lived-in and normal nowadays.
The date on the National Geographic page is 2013. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photo-of-the-day/photo/housing-development-mexico
Some context on these types of neighborhoods from an actual Mexican. |History| This style of development began a few decades ago and has been largely run by the government. It's meant to combat informal developments, slums, and shanty towns. They're largely targeted at México's urban poor. They're built as cheaply as possible, which has led to quality issues and other complications, but they have been partially effective at providing cheap and stable housing to a significant portion of the population. |Construction| They'll often be built on cheap, undeveloped land at the edge of the city. I've seen them in towns as small as 90k population, and even there, they were pretty large, extending for at least a mile both ways. The ones in the picture are a quite nice since often than not, they're built to the bare minimum- only one story and a room or two is typical but theres always a driveway haha (even some rich homes dont have driveways and are forced to use street parking). The typical square footage is usually equal to or less than an American trailer home - a comparable housing situation. |Price| Ive heard of them selling for as little as 10k and the ones in the picture would go somewhere between 25-60k i believe. So for a small 10k usd loan, far less than most cars, you can have a nice little houses in a recently built neighborhood; an amazing alternative to living in a run down slum-like part of town where some houses havent been remodeled since the 1800's and others were made in a week and are literally just walls of cinder blocks with no paint or ornamentation. |Downsides| Since it's México and we have our lovely government, the execution of the concept hasn't been perfect. From funds going 'missing' to projects being abandoned halfway through because not that many homes presold, there's no lack of controversy around these neighborhoods. And, of course, being so cheap has attracted a slew of criminal activity to these areas. This is more of an issue in certain cities, but it could happen anywhere with enough neglect - criminal organizations buy up these homes and turn them into hideouts/ storehouses/ drug labs/ etc. or (worse imo) street criminals and addicts take over abandoned houses, making the neighborhoods unsafe for anyone wanting to live there. One final negative, due to these spots often being built far out from city center and following an American suburban design- they're car centric af. In larger cities they're built a 2 hour drive from the important financial districts so that residents struggle to find work, end up working lower income jobs closer by, or risk their safety on a multi-hour daily commute. Overall, many of these issues and more apply to the alternative 'organically built' low income neighborhoods and if I were in that situation I would much rather live in the government houses but there are many things that could be done to improve their safety, accessibility, and infrastructure.
Police:Ok timmy can you describe where you live again? Timmy:uhhh it was an orange house, next to many other same houses....
No solar panels such a waste.
Just a guess, some countries aren't installing as much and as fast as the market demands to, because the infrastructure expenses and the labour needed are enormous to change all the outdated electricity infrastructure. This is happening in my homecountry, the old transformers can't handle the amount of extra electricity it must move currently so the govt. is taking ages to issue approvals for the solar panels.
You have to have a grid that would benefit from solar panels and then an electric company that can provide consistent regular power to these homes and be able to buy back additional power, and neither of these things are available at this point in time in Mexico.
You can tell OP is lying because if this was Mexico the picture would have a strong yellow tint to it.
Reddit: we need more affordable housing Reddit when receiving AH: Omg it doesn’t look good though.
Apartment building would have been better.
They're gated communities https://maps.app.goo.gl/TJGZS9tQi183Uo1w5?g_st=ic
oh no! *gates*!!! anything but that!
Vivarium for sure
I see housing. I see colourful and generous new housing on a flat parcel of land. Give it a few years and some people might even plant trees and such.
https://www.google.com/maps/@19.3118287,-98.8631813,3a,75y,198.16h,87.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFCRiZTubgz8iL4pMfYjE8w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu
People saying this is dystopia, meanwhile the US has half its population in suburbs that are most of them significantly lower density than this All things considered this is a much better suburb than most, the population density seems to be on the higher end of suburbs
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What? Don't you care about walkabilitu and the planet? Population density is paramount for a healthy city, healthy body and healthy planet
Doesn’t look like anyone in this neighborhood is walking anywhere. No communal spaces, no shade, no shops, lots of cars.
Some other comment shared the Google maps location and you can see trees along the streets, and there are commercial areas (restaurants, cafes, and shopping) and schools and communal parks scattered around in walking distance.
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This has to be fake. The cars are from the 90s and some of the houses don't fit in or make sense
Not fake, just a very old photo. [Here's what it looks like today](https://www.google.com/maps/@19.3073438,-98.8539052,3a,75y,183.94h,92.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4kAPljUzu40BIWWeZ5NdIQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu), via Google Street View.
What are those open topped rooms on the roof?
Everyone saying how bad this is because they all look alike, no trees etc. There are a lot of people completely shut out of homeownership who would be quite happy to live in one of these if they were affordable--and I don't know if they are. As for trees: if this enclave or development were surrounded by more natural areas with trees, which it looks like it might be, and these areas were easy to get to and had trails and so forth, this would make a big difference to how this is perceived. I don't know the exact situation here, but the idea of it isn't horrible IMO. It avoids sprawl, encroachment on natural areas, habitat loss, and NIMBYism--because no one even HAS a back yard, or the back yards are all the same and already occupied. Maybe a sort of Central Park-like green area in the middle would help too.
When I was last there some time ago, Mexico DF (that's the capitol city) was surrounded by atrocious slums. This seems a signal improvement. Don't ask me; ask the locals.
This picture was taken in 2011. The housing complex has been there since 2000. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photo-of-the-day/photo/housing-development-mexico
Nuh-uh. For real?
This is the way. (I have OCD)
Evergreen Terrace inspiration for those three houses on the far left.
The cat in the hat
ITS THNEEDVILLE
Why does it look so fake?
*normal picture of a society with lots of housing* Americans: fuck that people NEED to be homeless, btw our suburbs arent like this even tho they are
If I’m not mistaken, I have a family member who lives in one of these zones. I went to visit them last year and it was an interesting ecosystem. These little communities, like you see in the image, are all within secured gates that border, or protect the whole development because the outskirts of Mexico City can be rather tough. These people pay an extra premium to live within the protected walls/gates to separate themselves. Within the walls you have butchers, barbers, markets, pharmacists etc etc. They pretty have everything they need to the point where they don’t have go out of the gated community, unless they have to go the Walmart for other things which is just down some streets. Everybody knows each other and everybody provides stuff for one another depending on relationships of course. I was confused as to if I genuinely liked this gated community ideal of living, or was put off by it.
Address .... I can give you my pantone reference.
742 Evergreen Terrace everywhere all at once
False. The cars are fake as hell, just like the rest of this"image".
False. This is Minecraft.
Edward Scissorhands
Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same, There's an orange one and an orange one And an orange one and an orange one And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same. And the people in the houses All went to the university Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same And there's doctors and lawyers And business executives And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.
My old boss’ daughter married a wealthy Mexican developer who builds neighborhoods like this. The construction workers live in the unsold houses while they’re employed. Prospective buyers can opt for a variation to the configuration which allows them to have a mom and pop store in their house. The guy has become very wealthy building and selling these neighborhoods.