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It simply comes down to this - developers will build whatever people want AT THAT TIME. It ALWAYS made more sense to build homes in or around the central business district but people (as a general population) didn't WANT what makes sense. 20-30 years ago people exclusively wanted single family houses; they would sacrifice 2 hours in traffic every single day to have that 2-car garage, huge living room and yard to play in. Nobody wanted to be crammed in a tiny box with neighbors above and below them with living restrictions and high maintenance fees. However, over recent decades, people realized that sitting hours in traffic is excessively debilitating to their health, is extremely costly... but most importantly, robs them of precious time away from family and relaxation. People got a little smarter. People still want spacious homes and a 2-car garage and dread claustrophobia, super close neighbors and insane maintenance fees. But it has officially become much more desirable to deal with all the downsides of condo living if it can give them that precious time back.. Condos are not more popular today because the government has had any influence (or developers for that matter). People, over time, have evolved and gotten smarter... they realize that a daily 2-hour commute is completely absurd beyond comprehension and having a larger home simply is not worth the sacrifice. The suburbs have lost its appeal and people are moving back to town. This shift in thinking is happening globally and is by no means exclusive to Hawaii.
However, in the next 20 years, I predict high rise condos in Hawaii will once again lose their appeal as maintenance/upkeep costs of fancy condos spiral out of control and exceed what people find acceptable. Condos are built with all kinds of high-end amenities these days in order to lure buyers... but this will only become a maintenance death trap in the future. You cannot produce electricity in your condo to power your electric car. Electricity rates for condos will skyrocket as HECO loses revenue due to low rise buildings and single family homes going off the grid. In 30 years, only those working/living in high rise buildings will be buying the bulk of HECO-generated and distributed electricity. Everyone else will be (largely) producing their own power or buying power from neighbors next door. People living in high rise condos cannot produce power on site so they rely entirely on the grid for electricity - to power and air condition their condos and charge their electric cars. This will be a HUGE problem in the future especially once battery prices drop to $100/kWh and we start to see HECO customers fall off the radar completely. I personally plan to go off the grid completely within 5 years and I know others that will be doing it even sooner.
Evidence supports benefits to higher density and concentrated areas, though. Increase economic activity, technological progress, innovation, jobs (both white and blue collar). It also increases social connectivity due to increased diversity - it will seem less insular.
Downtown/Waikiki is an urban area. So it makes sense to make it more efficient, to concentrate development so it can support businesses that people want to support.
The world has changed. People live in cities and high rises. Oahu is an expensive place to live in as is any other desirable city. I think the concept of the rich 'other' as discussed over and over again on CD is outdated.
Hmmm correct me if im wrong and forgive me if i missunderstood you. But thats exactly the point.
29.9% of residents in Hawai`i earn over $100,000 per year. At the top of Hawaii’s income bracket, approximately 5.5% of residents reportedly earn in excess of $200,000 yearly.
But “income” doesn’t necessarily predict wealth. Whether or not they’re working, around 7,000 of Hawaii’s residents are reported to have a total asset value in excess of $2 million dollars.
1 in three earn 100,000 or more. Did you know 40 years ago it was 7.3 times less but the difference was the value of a dollar. In the start of the 70s in Oahu the value of a dollar was $7.76 today in 2010 - $1.05 and less.
Last edited by hawaiian by heart; 10-18-2014 at 12:13 PM..
I think the only real solution would be for us to put a limit on people having babies. However, can we do that and still call ourselves free?
I wouldn't say that is the only solution, telling people how many kids they can have is not a viable solution for our American way of life; however, limiting the handouts and the rewards for bad behavior is a viable solution to the population problems. People pop out kids, get more money while never lifting and finger working. This must stop, some people view having kids as a way to make sure they DON'T have to work, basically using them as an ATM machine for handouts, or as I see it rewarding bad decision-making. IF you cannot afford to have kids, don't have them. I think it's the height of human selfishness, and likely the behavior will be repeated in the future by the kids of those selfish parents.
@HBH Large skyscrapers are not the problem, in fact they offer a solution as has been mentioned in this thread. People obviously have no plans of changing their behaviors, and Hawaii simply isn't set up to be a large urban sprawl the way LA is, so clustering people in large volumes in a relatively small footprint (just think of how many single-family homes and land would be needed to house X amount of people living in an area the size of one two city blocks) is the only solution that is practical at this stage in our human technological evolutionary lives. I must say, as a former student of engineering, albeit electrical, the amount of innovation and elegant design/engineering that goes into some of these modern skyscrapers is simply mind blowing. You would be truly amazed at how little energy and "carbon footprint" (as much as I hate those terms) these massive engineering projects produce vs. the amount of construction needed to house that many people in several hundred single-family homes. Hell, some of the new projects in the works actually CLEAN the air around them, these kinds of innovations provide seamless and sophisticated solutions to problems every city faces.
Of course I can understand the flip side of this issue, but we cannot always scoff our noses at change and progress, it's necessary to evolve or we die; simple as that. Skyscrapers and towers don't have to be "Com-blok" menaces with no form and all function, they can be aesthetically-pleasing and destinations in themselves. In other large cities some even work in the same buildings where they reside, talk about an easy commute! Hawaii does offer unique natural wonders and I can empathize with the desire to not change it, but the fact remains that it HAS changed and it will continue to change, so why not make it a change for the better?
I wouldn't say that is the only solution, telling people how many kids they can have is not a viable solution for our American way of life; however, limiting the handouts and the rewards for bad behavior is a viable solution to the population problems. People pop out kids, get more money while never lifting and finger working. This must stop, some people view having kids as a way to make sure they DON'T have to work, basically using them as an ATM machine for handouts, or as I see it rewarding bad decision-making. IF you cannot afford to have kids, don't have them. I think it's the height of human selfishness, and likely the behavior will be repeated in the future by the kids of those selfish parents.
@HBH Large skyscrapers are not the problem, in fact they offer a solution as has been mentioned in this thread. People obviously have no plans of changing their behaviors, and Hawaii simply isn't set up to be a large urban sprawl the way LA is, so clustering people in large volumes in a relatively small footprint (just think of how many single-family homes and land would be needed to house X amount of people living in an area the size of one two city blocks) is the only solution that is practical at this stage in our human technological evolutionary lives. I must say, as a former student of engineering, albeit electrical, the amount of innovation and elegant design/engineering that goes into some of these modern skyscrapers is simply mind blowing. You would be truly amazed at how little energy and "carbon footprint" (as much as I hate those terms) these massive engineering projects produce vs. the amount of construction needed to house that many people in several hundred single-family homes. Hell, some of the new projects in the works actually CLEAN the air around them, these kinds of innovations provide seamless and sophisticated solutions to problems every city faces.
Of course I can understand the flip side of this issue, but we cannot always scoff our noses at change and progress, it's necessary to evolve or we die; simple as that. Skyscrapers and towers don't have to be "Com-blok" menaces with no form and all function, they can be aesthetically-pleasing and destinations in themselves. In other large cities some even work in the same buildings where they reside, talk about an easy commute! Hawaii does offer unique natural wonders and I can empathize with the desire to not change it, but the fact remains that it HAS changed and it will continue to change, so why not make it a change for the better?
I agree about limiting handouts for those that shouldn't be having kids. I firmly believe you need one or two solid generations of families suffering before you start seeing any changes in family size for low income/poorly educated families. Unfortunately, that level of suffering will never be allowed. The overbreeding of low income, poorly educated families will be a never-ending problem similar to the homeless problem. It will never be solved simply because humans will not allow the suffering required to permanently change habits.
I do, however, respectfully disagree with you regarding high rise condos as being viable options for sustainable living. Despite what everyone says, there is absolutely nothing sustainable about high rise buildings. Anything over 6 or 7 stories should not even be built. You can pack people in like sardines in 600+ foot concrete monstrosities but you will still need ancillary land to provide water, food and energy for those that reside there. But instead of that land being WHERE YOU RESIDE, it is somewhere usually far away. Distribution of water, food and energy is extremely inefficient, energy intensive and expensive. People say when solar panels become dirt cheap electricity prices will plummet. That is pure hogwash. Lower electricity prices have very little to do with the energy generation itself, the costliest part of your electric bill is cost of distributing and delivering that electricity. Very few people know 10% of our island's electricity comes from burning coal. And the cost of the energy from that coal plant? A measly 3 cents/kWh. HECO only pays AES 3 cents per kWh for the electricity they generate... and then sells it to you for 35 cents+. Batteries will allow the distribution and delivery costs of electricity to go to ZERO and when that happens, HECO will be in very deep trouble and those living in high rise buildings will be the only ones keeping HECO barely afloat with $1,000/mo electric bills.
High rise condos can only generate a small fraction of the building's energy needs. In most cases, covering all surface areas with reasonable sun exposure utilizing the highest efficiency panels will only cover the demands of the common areas themselves... elevators, common area lighting, fire systems, HVAC, pools, etc etc. So they are forced to buy power from "the grid". Not being able to produce your own power onsite, collect rainwater to cover a portion of your needs or have land for growing of edibles, is NOT sustainable. High rise condos use MUCH more power per SF than SFHs. Because in a SFH, you can shut everything off at night... when you go to sleep... or aren't home. In a condo, you have thousands of kilowatts consumed daily to light the garages, common areas, power pumps, HVAC systems, etc etc etc. The highest electricity bills are for those living in these new high rise buildings... and those bills are only to cover the individual units... not the condo structure itself (i.e. common areas). That can easily be another $100/unit or more.
Further, the cost of maintaining high rise structures is not sustainable. Concrete spall alone will force condo owners to sell their units in the next 10 years to cover the costs of forever bandaid patching the buildings. Then comes window wall/curtain wall, plumbing and electrical retrofits.. and eventually the steel in the foundation will be compromised via corrosion forcing the entire building to be demolished. You can essentially forever rehabilitate a SFH; a high rise condo will eventually need to be torn down and replaced completely at an insanely high replacement cost that is at least 4X that of a new SFH for the same yield in square footage. Yacht Harbor Tower owners got whacked with $100K+ special assessments to repair plumbing and replace failing windows. That is OK for the wealthy that own in that building... but what about the other buildings that don't have nothing but millionaires living in them? These people will lose their homes.
i love the area. but its like hitting the shops in disneyland its so very far removed from reality i feel well, empty being there.
the only thing real in hawaii are the locals fishing and growing vegetables. the impossibly rich americans there are like people camping out on the moon. all the plantations are full of weeds they dont even grow sugar cane and pineapple anymore.
ala moana is out of touch with reality like most play grounds of the rich.
I love the Japanese department store there, felt just like being in Japan (real Japan, not Okinawa). I never thought I'd see takoyaki again and that's awesome stuff. The "beer gardens" there brought visions of frat parties, or flower festivals in Hiroshima. No matter what you need, it's there. I really loved that place. We didn't go there enough.
That's what I think of when I think of Ala Moana.
I love the Japanese department store there, felt just like being in Japan (real Japan, not Okinawa). I never thought I'd see takoyaki again and that's awesome stuff. The "beer gardens" there brought visions of frat parties, or flower festivals in Hiroshima. No matter what you need, it's there. I really loved that place. We didn't go there enough.
That's what I think of when I think of Ala Moana.
Let just hope all the asian type places remain after gentafication. I also loved Shirokiya and Don Quijote type places, crackseed is also asian. The true blending of cultures is what makes an area exciting. Unfortantly gentafication or mainlandfication of the islands doesn't account for diversity as much as class and profits.
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