I hate, hate, hate the phrase "housing reform". It's not the housing that needs reforming you fucks. We don't need to gut safety standards to the bone and kill even more people so the poor landleeches can make more money and escape responsibility, we don't need micro-homes made out of shipping containers, we don't need special home loans for minority business owners who own and operate a successful business for 3 years in an underprivileged community.

It's a way of smuggling in lowering the quality of life with ridiculously small living spaces that aren't adequately insulated or connected to utilities, lowering safety standards as in here, lowering already low accountability for slumlords. Anyone who utters this is an enemy of humanity.

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 38 points 3 days ago

geordi-no Housing reform

geordi-yes mao-shining Land reform

[–] supplier@hexbear.net 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Honestly. Who tf honestly believes "developers" would take the savings from a single stairwell per building and turn it into more housing? Anyone who's rented an apartment can tell you they'll just line their fat fucking pockets

[–] spectre@hexbear.net 10 points 3 days ago

It's not about cost savings, it has to do with the architecture and floorplanning that can be severely limited by these standards. It's a large enough effect that is worth discussing, but I am not well read enough to outline the whole situation here.

[–] FettermansFinalStroke@hexbear.net 31 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Not to be that guy but there is some validity to this. Having multiple staircases makes it almost impossible to have units that are more than 1 bed 1 bath or studios, keeping families from moving into higher density housing. Here is a very good video on this.

(Vox journalists are still the most annoying people)

[–] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

[–] baaaaaaaaaaah@hexbear.net 24 points 3 days ago (6 children)

Why has the US ended up with such strict fire safety rules? Like I'm not necessarily opposed, just surprised if anything.

[–] tocopherol@hexbear.net 28 points 3 days ago

Before these codes, in the late 19th/early 20th centuries there were several high profile fires that caused a lot of death and damage, such as the San Francisco fires in 1906, Great Chicago Fire in 1871, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, and a few others.

[–] SovietBeerTruckOperator@hexbear.net 23 points 3 days ago

Other countries enacted codes relating to building materials to combat urban fires, like requiring buildings to be made of stone. The US was expanding rapidly at the time and so kept using timber construction but compensated but requiring more shit like extra means of egress.

[–] FettermansFinalStroke@hexbear.net 22 points 3 days ago

Europe solved the problem by requiring buildings to be made out of fire resistant materials. Amerikkka was growing rapidly at the time and used timber to build housing because it was cheaper and quicker so they had to implement other ways to keep people from burning alive.

[–] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 26 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Just a guess, but I wonder if the way our houses are built makes them more flammable then houses elsewhere.

[–] FloridaBoi@hexbear.net 17 points 3 days ago

Possibly. Building codes come about often when enough people die so it’s possible that not having easy access to a stairwell in an emergency killed a lot of people at some point

[–] ClimateStalin@hexbear.net 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I want to add on top of what everyone else said that in most of North America you don’t want to build houses out of stone/brick/concrete.

North America has more tornadoes than anywhere else on earth, by a lot. Tornadoes do not give a fuck what you made your house out of, they will pick it up and throw it at you. And if you’re gonna have to dig yourself out from under what used to be your house, you’d rather it be pretty light.

A good chunk of the area where tornadoes don’t happen, the west coast, earthquakes happen regularly and again, you do not want to build houses out of hard materials, you want buildings that can shake and sway and not fall down.

Cost is certainly a factor too, historically the US has had more access to cheap lumber than Europe has because the Roman’s didn’t chop down all our trees 2000 years ago.

Taking all that into account wood frame construction totally makes sense here, but does have the problem of making things more flammable, and so we have to take other precautions for that. Looking up some stats right now, the US does have more building fires than most other countries, but how likely you are to die in one of those fires is far lower, and it evens out to the US being right in the middle as far as fire deaths go.

[–] Horse@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 3 days ago (2 children)

A good chunk of the area where tornadoes don’t happen, the west coast, earthquakes happen regularly and again, you do not want to build houses out of hard materials, you want buildings that can shake and sway and not fall down.

just to gently push back on this, most other places with more earthquakes do make their buildings out of concrete and brick

[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 11 points 3 days ago

Yeah even Japan, a place with a ton of earthquakes and traditional wood construction, at this point mostly uses reenforced concrete for their buildings. And they perform well, as shown by the 2011 earthquake, a magnitude 9.1 quake that was one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. The overwhelming majority of the destruction was caused by the tsunami, not the quake, and these reenforced concrete structures performed well even with an earthquake of that magnitude.

[–] ClimateStalin@hexbear.net 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I stand gently corrected. I do believe my point still stands for the tornadoes part though, which is a problem basically everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains aside from Maine

Also it is cheaper, and since we have figured out how to manage wooden buildings in a way that gives us a very average number of fire deaths, I see no reason to switch. It does mean we need to keep requirements like “two fire escape staircases” though.

[–] regul@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago

You'd have to control for fire deaths just in multi-unit buildings, though.

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

probably some combination of tall buildings, stupid electrification standards, and dangerous weather (#1 tornado capital of the world baby!) making house fires worse and more common

[–] ClimateStalin@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago

I looked at some stats because I was curious after this, more common yes, worse no. The US has a very high number of house fires, but a very low number of deaths per fire, and ends up pretty average on fire deaths per capita.

Presumably this is because we’ve taken these measures to make sure people can get out when fires do happen.

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 18 points 3 days ago

Pictured: Two developers talk about housing reform as a fire marshall looks on

[–] radio_free_asgarthr@hexbear.net 21 points 3 days ago

I was literally going to respond with that MildCuthbert tweet and you beat me to it! But it's true, I hate the neoliberal dumbasses at Vox so much.

[–] Cysioland@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 3 days ago

I wish I had a staircase down from my balcony here in Europe

[–] regul@hexbear.net 18 points 3 days ago

They're unnecessary.

[–] lorty@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 3 days ago (3 children)

There's only the fire stairs where I live. I don't understand why you would need another set of stairs considering everyone just uses the elevator.

[–] sweatersocialist@hexbear.net 23 points 3 days ago

in case there’s a fire on that set of stairs then you have a second option to get down safely

[–] Muinteoir_Saoirse@hexbear.net 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Because if that stairwell gets blocked by fire there is no way out.

[–] lorty@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 3 days ago (3 children)

But the second one has something different to stop the same problem from occuring? Or is it just the fact that there are two?

[–] Runcible@hexbear.net 17 points 3 days ago

It's just the fact that there are two. Redundancy is an incredibly common (and valuable) approach with safety critical features

[–] comrade_pibb@hexbear.net 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Maybe I'm built different, but I would simply not be prevented from evacuating an emergency situation

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 1 points 2 days ago

smuglord I would simply ~noclip on my way out of the building

[–] Muinteoir_Saoirse@hexbear.net 12 points 3 days ago

Are you being purposefully obtuse? The point being that if there is only one point of exit in an emergency then you are more likely to get into a situation where that exit is blocked. if there are two exits than it is more likely that at least one of the exits is safe to use.

[–] tocopherol@hexbear.net 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's recommended not to use an elevator if there is a fire, power could get cut or the car stuck from damage related to fire and you could get trapped.

[–] lorty@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 3 days ago

Yes, that's why there's the fire stairs