#my two children united by the third task time trip going wrong

[spicynoodlehouse]

my two brain cells rn.

[translations-by-aiimee]

Dig a Grave to Dig Out a Ghost - Chapter 24

Original Title: 挖坟挖出鬼

Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter Index

Chapter 24 - Inside Story

"Sorry." Lin Yan mumbled to the boy's back. He wasn't sure why. No one could see Xiao Yu, which always made him a little anxious. Lin Yan hesitated and for the first time took the initiative to reach out and touch Xiao Yu's statue-like fingers and whispered, "It's lonely, isn't it? Of all the people in the world, I'm the only one who can see you and I treat you badly."

Lin Yan stared at the endless highway outside the window and sighed: "Sometimes I think that, if a person walks down the street but seems invisible, desperately waving and no one responds, desperately shouting and no one hears, this feeling will definitely drive a person crazy. When I sit alone in the study room, I often feel that everyone’s excitement has nothing to do with me. I can’t wait to rush into the crowd and shout that I’m dying alone. If there is a person, no matter who he is, just that he's willing to listen to me patiently, I would have held on to him with a death grip; a sad, loving and even desperate grip."

"But I can't tell anyone. No one wants to admit that they're lonely. They always put on a show to satisfy their pride. They show off their awesome life to others while crying behind closed doors. People are such strange creatures."

Xiao Yu lowered his eyes and grabbed Lin Yan's hand. He put it to his lips and kissed lightly, as if comforting.

Lin Yan turned his head silently. The children at the snack bar were making noise, and the street shop windows were covered with small heart-shaped papers of various colours. Lin Yan looked through a few of them, and some of them were written in highlighter about who they love and who they're waiting for. Some wrote blessings to pass the exam. They were notes of immaturity and youthfulness, the purest and most beautiful wishes.

Everyone had their own wish, whether it was simple or complicated. Their dissatisfaction with their lives making them write out their wishes on paper, hoping that one day the gods can see them. Lin Yan thought silently, people who don't know each other always shine brightly, but only when they are familiar with them do they know their weaknesses. Just look at him, his family was well-off and well educated, but he had never dared to admit that he didn't like girls; look at Yin Zhou, he's from a perfect family but only willing to be a prince in the virtual world; then there's A-Yan, who can't even be a normal person in the eyes of others. Lin Yan gave a wry smile, who would listen to their prayers?

Probably because of the high school student's whistleblower, a group of children at the next table were pointing at him. Someone said something about being a psychopath. Lin Yan smiled indifferently. He took a note from his pocket and wrote a line: "I hope I can successfully help Zhou Jintian find his father." He put the note under a piece of fluorescent paper with a heart drawn on it.

He heard about a child's wish today.

He, Yin Zhou, and A-Yan had snuck into the morgue to search for answers after finding the boy’s record. The old man at the door was basically deaf. Lin Yan yelled the three syllables of the kid's name so loudly and the old man didn’t hear him. A nurse doing some cleaning suddenly intervened and asked him if the child hadn't left yet. He put down the broom and said pitifully.

"I know that kid, his grandma and I are neighbours. His mother died a few years ago. His father was too busy with work to care for him. The child lived with his grandma. One time Jintian had a severe fever and his father came back to see him. Jintian never forgot about it. One day while his grandmother was not there, he fell off of a balcony on the third floor, thinking that his father would be able to accompany him to see a doctor if he fell. As a result, the child lived a short life. His internal organs ruptured and caused heavy bleeding, and he passed away after a few days after being sent to the hospital."

"The ashes are buried in the most expensive cemetery in our city. I went there on the day of the funeral. It's a pity that his father was on a business trip abroad. He didn't rush back to collect the body until two days after his son's death. He didn't see him in the end." The nurse sighed. "I heard that the child kept asking about why his father wasn't coming in his confusion. The doctor lied to him that he was already on his way. As a result, the child lay on the bed and looked out the window every day, and even kept his eyes open when he died."

This story made Lin Yan feel a little heartbroken, but A-Yan said that this kind of soul was easy to deal with. There was no resentment and didn't want to harm anyone. As long as he found the person he was obsessed with and burned paper in front of the grave and talked with him often, he should be gone. But the child’s ghost was the most simple and persistent. If that person didn't come, the child would turn into a grieving spirit after waiting for a long time, which was extremely difficult to deal with.

"G-Ghosts have more of a heart." A-Yan was rather lost when she said this.

Ding. Lin Yan's cell phone went off. Yin Zhou sent Zhou Mo's detailed address and contact information. He turned out to be a local, living in the most remote area of ​​the city, about a three-hour drive away. Lin Yan swallowed the last bite of his spicy and sour noodles and threw the nuts in the soup into his mouth. He curled his lips and said to Xiao Yu: "Let's go. This time, the task is to help the kid find his father. It is much easier than dealing with you."

As he spoke, he grabbed his wrist and walked out, and couldn't help but blow a whistle and laugh as he drove, thinking that if only all the troubles were like today. No matter how bad his luck was lately, his family was always warmly affectionate.

Zhou Mo's family was at the fine line between the urban and rural areas. When he arrived at the destination indicated on his GPS, Lin Yan thought he had gone to the wrong place. In front of him was a rather imposing villa with a sign on the door of a European-style courtyard: private residence, outdoor surveillance. Lin Yan couldn't help being secretly stunned. For a man who owns such a house in this rich city, even if his child is hospitalized in the United States, he was rich enough to go back and forth every day. How could he not even get back to see his child for the last time?

He parked the car outside the courtyard. Lin Yan woke up Xiao Yu, who was dazed in the passenger seat, coaxed him and said: "I know you're upset when I drive you away, but this is something I need to do well, so don’t make trouble later, alright?" He leaned on the cushions and said casually: "I really understand the little boy's mood. When I was a child, my parents were also busy. I only go home once a week. I would cook my own food and sleep on my own. I was afraid of the dark and I always wanted my parents to suddenly come back."

"But I know my parents also missed me. Although they were busy, they didn't forget to buy a bunch of delicious foods every time they went home." Lin Yan changed his position and lay on his side, catching a strand of Xiao Yu's hair. He circled it around his fingers and said excitedly: "Although people and ghosts are different, a father-son reunion is always something to look forward to, right?"

Xiao Yu nodded. He pecked his lips on Lin Yan's face, and slowly said, "Let's go."

"Young Master Xiao, you're finally willing to talk to me. It's so hard to please you." Lin Yan muttered and opened the car door.

The owner’s yard was very delicately maintained, with various seasonal flowers in full bloom. He could smell the warm fragrance floating in the summer night while he waited outside the door. Not far away, there were many koi squeezed close to each other in a shallow pool, the sound of water splashing when they shook their heads and tails making people feel unspeakably calm and relaxed.

Lin Yan waited for a few minutes. A woman dressed as a nanny ran out of the villa and looked at him vigilantly through the hollow courtyard gate. Lin Yan explained that he had come because of Zhou Jintian, and the nanny ran back again. This time it took a full 20 minutes for the door to open. Lin Yan adjusted his shirt and walked across a path paved with pebbles. He rang the doorbell of the small building.

With a squeak, the Victorian-style heavy wooden door opened a gap, and a middle-aged man poked his head out of the door and hesitated: "You are?"

Lin Yan smiled politely: "My name is Lin Yan, a student at X University. You're Mr. Zhou, I came for your son Zhou Jintian." He said respectfully and handed over his student card. The owner checked in confusion, and after confirming that there was no problem, he opened the door a bit wider, but still had no intention of letting him in.

"My son just passed away some time ago. What do you want?"

Although it was backlit, Lin Yan still saw the typical businessman expression on the middle-aged man’s face; snobbishness, arrogance, and calculating. He only wore a purple bathrobe with a belt tied loosely around his waist. His chest was exposed and his body was slightly fat, but he could see that he had a good foundation when he was young. Now there was a bit of fat under his ears, so he didn't like to exercise, or his only exercise was golf.

A rich man covered in his armour.

"I'm sorry about your son. It's like this. I have a relative who's hospitalized in L Hospital. . ." The crystal ceiling lamp in the main hall of the villa was shining and blinding. Lin Yan tried to organize the thoughts in his mind, but the middle-aged man suddenly interrupted him. "You work somewhere, right? I paid all the money that should be paid to the school, the hospital and the cemetery bills have also been settled, and I don't owe anything to the commissary, so what are you doing here?"

Lin Yan hurriedly explained: "No, no, you misunderstand. It's not about money. I know this sounds ridiculous and you might not believe it, but your son's ghost is still in the hospital and he's waiting for you to visit him."

The middle-aged man's expression grew strange, and he held the doorknob as if he was about to close the door: "You're sick. What about my son's ghost? Jintian was buried long ago."

Lin Yan frowned. How could such a father exist? Hearing something about his son, even if it wasn't reliable, there was no way he could just immediately disregard it.

"This is the case; do you know why Jintian had an accident? He always felt sorry that you didn't get to see him before he died. Up to now, his soul has been unwilling to move on. He's attached to my relative's daughter waiting for you to come back. You may not understand, but a little girl being possessed by a ghost is in a dangerous situation." Lin Yan gesticulated anxiously: "Just like in the movies."

"If you don't go, Jintian's ghost will never be able to reincarnate. After a long period of time, not only will he suffer, but he may also harm others. When that time comes, for the safety of my relatives and her daughter, I'll have to disperse your son's soul." Lin Yan was in a cold sweat while talking. If he had said this kind of stuff a month ago, he would've thought he had brain damage. He thought he was cheating him out of some money, but what else could he say? Your son’s strong brainwaves caused a disorder in the hospital’s electromagnetic field, causing an innocent thirteen-year-old girl to develop hallucinations and die?

The middle-aged man frowned. He pulled his right hand back from the door frame and tightened the belt of the bathrobe: "Tell you what, I know about this. I’ve been busy lately. You can contact my secretary. Tell him how much money you want to send Jintian away, and I'll ask him to write a check."

"I said this has nothing to do with money. If you don't meet him, no money in the world could fix this!" Lin Yan really got angry this time. Was there something wrong with this guy's brain? How could he only think of money when it comes to his son?!

"Dad, what are you doing? Mom is calling you!" A five or six-year-old boy suddenly ran out from behind the middle-aged man, hugged his waist and acted like a baby. He saw Lin Yan standing at the door and started sucking his thumb, looking at Lin Yan with a pair of black grape-like eyes wide open. The middle-aged man lovingly picked up the child and placed him on his shoulders. When he looked at Lin Yan again, he put on an impatient expression.

"Who the hell do you think you are? Some mage? You're at my doorstep at night, talking nonsense, and I'm calling the police if you don't leave!"

"Who's been at the door for so long? Another bill collector? I've got no money, tell him to go the same way he came." The door was suddenly yanked open and a young woman in the purple bathrobe stood in front of Lin Yan with an imposing attitude. Her figure was slim, snowy breasts hidden behind a lace corset, and her sharp eyes were like a blade scraping Lin Yan.

Lin Yan's argument had been completely disrupted by the battle in front of him and he stammered: "Uh, I, I'm here about your son, Zhou Jintian. . ."

Before he could finish, the woman instantly changed her face and said in a high voice: "There's no end to this. How much money has been spent on the seed left behind by that yellow-faced woman? From the best hospitals to the most expensive graves; his son cut his own life short and didn't fight to survive, yet he's still shoving his way into our lives?" After speaking, the little boy was shoved in front of Lin Yan: "Okay, this is my son, he's the only one!"

After speaking, she didn't care about her husband's ugly face and slammed the door with a bang.

Lin Yan clenched his fists and stood in the dark doorway, chills in his heart.

He didn't know how he got back into the car, but when he looked out the window, he felt that the whole villa suddenly became ugly, and even the blooming roses in the yard looked like abscesses. He never believed that there were parents like this that existed. He thought that familial love was the warmest, strongest and most unshakable emotion in the world, but this time he really saw the indifference and coldness of the human heart.

Don’t test humanity, don’t, because it was simply unbearable. Lin Yan sat in the car seat and tried to slow his breathing, but his anger still grew, and all Xiao Yang's grieving and crying face appeared in front of him. How much did a child need to miss his father to have the courage to jump off of a third-story building? If his spirit in heaven knew what had unfolded here today, would he feel like his death was all for nothing?

Lin Yan slammed his fist heavily against the steering wheel.

A cold hand lightly touched his face. Lin Yan twisted his head and said hoarsely, "Xiao Yu, don't mess with me. I don't want to coax you now, I just want to beat someone up." He kicked the clutch hard and said: "Fuck this guy!"

Xiao Yu patiently tugged Lin Yan's wrist and wrenching his shoulder to make him face him. His eyes were vicious: "What do you want to do?"

"What can I do? Go back and let A-Yan find a way to make the little brat forget that he has a father!" Lin Yan gasped.

Xiao Yu shook his head, glanced at the outline of the villa in the night, and slowly said, "I'll do it."

"You mean. . ." Lin Yan looked at Xiao Yu blankly, and suddenly understood what he meant. After a long silence, he bit his lower lip and said, "Before this, I always thought I was kind, that there was nothing I couldn't bear, but. . ." Lin Yan stared at Xiao Yu: "I just want to be a fucking asshole! He deserves it!"

"Xiao Yu, I don't care what tactics you use. Before noon tomorrow, I want to see him come to the hospital to apologize to his son!" Lin Yan said viciously in the dark cab.

Xiao Yu squeezed his hand and whispered, "Don't worry."

[elliemarchetti]

Somewhere to Start (part 2)

Although the previous chapter was almost ignored, I still want to post the next part, because after the two chapters of my Red Queen fics, which all were but cheerful, I need a little lightheartedness.

Masterlist

Words: 1318

Despite what the article Andrei shown him said, Viktor continued to spend most of his free time in the library; it was the only time Hermione remained alone, though she never raised her eyes from the tomes she consulted. No Potter, no red-haired boy, yet Viktor couldn’t get close to talk to her. Perhaps it was the curious’ fault: giggling and sighing girls who were watching from behind the shelves appeared every time he thought he had found the courage necessary, irritating Hermione and making him even more nervous. The girl's annoyance was evident in every gesture and expression she made, and Viktor feared that in the end she would begin to hate the cause of all that noise too, which was him. One day, while Potter also tried to hide in the library, Hermione seemed so angry and looked at him so grimly that Viktor feared he had misunderstood the kindness with which she had treated him in the infirmary. He changed his mind the Friday before the first trial, when she approached him in the library, despite the large number of girls who had pursued him, holding a notebook. In the beginning, she wasn’t particularly polite, and Viktor was almost certain that she was using him for his popularity, but when he began to actually become interested in house elves’ rights, Hermione also seemed to soften.

"Will you really talk about it with your schoolmates?" Hermione asked, before leaving. Viktor nodded; if he had told Andrei why he was doing it, surely he would’ve joined, and the same was true for Poliakoff, if he had promised that he would’ve spent a good word for him with Karkaroff. Even Darina would’ve surely accepted: she loved to fight for the oppresseds’ rights  and had organized a signature collection to open Durmstrang also to the Muggleborn. On the other hand, he couldn’t put his hand on the fire for the others. But three was better than none, and he was sure Hermione would appreciate his gesture.

On Saturday before the first task, all students from the third year on had the permission to go on a trip to Hogsmeade. Hermione told Harry that it would’ve do him good to get away from the castle for a while, but she was actually just terrified of meeting Krum. How was she supposed to behave after that morning three of his schoolmates had asked for her and joined her association? A simple thank you wouldn’t have been enough.

Harry, fortunately, was easy to convince, but he immediately asked about Ron.

“Don’t you want to go with him?" he asked, making her blush. The previous year Hermione hadn’t really made a secret of her crush on him, but things had changed a little since the Durmstrang ship’s arrival.

"We could meet there." she answered, vague. She didn’t want to admit that she hadn’t thought, at least for twenty-four hours, about the quarrel between her two best friends.

"No," Harry said dryly, leading her to wonder what was wrong with the boys. Was it so hard to apologize? Why did they persist in behaving like children who were acting up? It was such a stupid thing... She certainly didn’t mean to act like their mother, but it bothered her anyway. In part, she regretted her decision: perhaps, if she had gone to the library as usual, she would’ve done her Honeydukes tour with Krum and not with Harry hidden under the invisibility cloak.

The Three Broomsticks was a tremendous place, small and crowded, but Viktor's mood changed radically when he saw Hermione lined up at the counter, desperately trying to be noticed by the innkeeper. He broke away from his group of friends and approached her, flaunting a security that he didn’t really have: anyway, he was taller by at least four inches and had a face so well known that the innkeeper immediately noticed him.

“Two Butterbeers.” he said, and smiled at her when she raised her head to look at him. She looked embarrassed and Viktor didn’t understand why: they talked so long, the day before...

"I think I have to thank you." she said, but Viktor's only reply was a confused look.

"This morning, three of your friends joined S.P.E.W." she added. With a smile partly satisfied and partly proud, he turned to Andrei and the others, who were staring at him without restraint. Darina greeted him shaking her hand and Poliakoff showed him the thumbs up, winking at him and snatching both him and Hermione an embarrassed laugh.

"They are my biggest supporters." Viktor explained, trying to ignore the heat that he felt expanding from his ears to his cheeks. He wasn’t used to talking about his private life: everyone wanted to know about the athlete, but even without asking, Hermione had immediately looked at the boy and not the character.

The two beers arrived and Viktor handed one to Hermione, who thanked him with a smile and insisted on repaying it until they arrived at a secluded, miraculously empty table. They passed by her red-haired friend, who sat with two identical boys who looked like him in a disquieting way and another dark-skinned student who seemed to faint when he passed by. Viktor looked away uneasily, but he noticed that only the twins greeted Hermione.

"Did you and your friend had a fight?" he asked, when they finally sat down. Evidently uncomfortable, Hermione avoided the question, urging him to sit next to her.

"It's so full that I cannot even hear what you're saying." she added, immediately afterwards, a slight blush that made its way to her cheeks. Viktor tried to hold back a smile and did as he was told.

"You were saying?" she asked, moving away slightly with her chair, but still holding her arms on the table. Even Viktor did the same, hoping to put her more at ease.

"I asked how it’s going with S.P.E.W." he lied. If she didn’t want to talk to him about her friend, he would respect her limits. So Hermione began to tell, asking for advice, exposing the possible proposals to which she had thought. He liked the way her eyes lit up when she deeply cared about the subject. He was about to tell her that he would willingly help her create the leaflets to hang in the village when a half-giant approached them and greeted Hermione in a thundering voice. He was with Alastor Moody and it made Viktor very uncomfortable. Fortunately, they didn’t entertain themselves for long.

He took Hermione back to the castle just before dinner. They greeted each other at the entrance to the Common Room, yet it was evident that neither was ready to declare ended that afternoon.

"Today, at Three Broomsticks, I heard you when you asked about me and Ron." she admitted.

"You don’t have to tell me anything, if you don’t want to." he reassured her, but Hermione shook her head.

"There's not much to say, he and Harry had a fight and they’re a little tense with me too."

Viktor's tongue knotted in embarrassment. What was right to say, in such situations?

"I'm sure everything will settle in. Before the names were extracted, you seemed very united."

A flash of perplexity crossed Hermione's eyes and Viktor wanted to tear off his tongue; he had looked like a stalker. Hermione, however, asked him if they would see each other in the library, after dinner, and it reassured him a little. They said goodbye again, then Hermione turned away from him, spoke the password in a whisper, and entered, leaving him alone to meditate about the hours they had spent together.

"With Krum?! Really?!" exclaimed Potter, beyond the wall. The idea of the interrogation that awaited her tore Viktor a smile that lasted all the way to the ship, where Andrei and the others were waiting for their dose of questions.

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

May 23, 2021

My weekly roundup of things I am up to. Topics include the age of civilization and three aspects of urban density: environmental, affordability, and lifestyle.

How Old is Civilization?

Samo Burja has another good piece on Palladium this week, Why Civilization Is Older Than We Thought. In it he makes the claim that in the coming years, we will find evidence that what we think of as civilization, including cities, goes back tens of thousands of years farther than currently believed. He may have been inspired by a recent trip to Göbekli Tepe, a site in modern-day Turkey that predates by about 5000 years the city-states in Mesopotamia that were once regarded as the first cities.

In the same vein, there is a recent paper, which I found through Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution blog, that finds widespread evidence of large scale cooperation--that is, cooperation among weakly related or unrelated individuals--in forager societies, including those of the deep Paleolithic. The authors, Boyd and Richardson, find evidence of cooperation in hunting drivelines, trap fishing, warfare, diplomacy, and other areas.

The prevailing view, at least as I understand it, of large scale cooperation is that humans are not equipped for it, only for small scale cooperation based on kin ties and personal relationships, limited by Dunbar’s Number of about 150 for the size of cooperative ventures. Going past this limit requires various forms of social technology, most of which were developed shortly after agriculture, such as currency, writing, and legal codes. Since humans are not biologically equipped for large scale cooperation, the technologies that foster it create an evolutionary mismatch.

As Boyd and Richardson themselves admit, the evidence in their paper is not conclusive. But it does provide an intriguing case against the evolutionary mismatch view. Since widespread cooperation dates back perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, there is enough time for evolution, rather than just social technology, to make it a natural behavior for humans.

As Burja points out in his piece, our understanding of history, including prehistory, has unavoidable political implications for the present. In recent years, evolutionary psychology explanations have been marshaled behind nationalism, partisan politics, and other kinds of “tribal” behavior on the grounds that they tap into natural human behaviors of prehistory. I have some problems with the evolutionary psychology explanations, in that they tend to be “just so” explanation of current behavior, and they can easily fall into the appeal to nature fallacy. Add to that list of problems the fact that many basic questions about prehistoric human societies and human evolution remain unsettled.

Considering the Case for Urban Density - the Environmental Argument

I’ve written a lot about cities, and density in particular, in recent weeks, as this is the current project I am tasked to do in my work. This time I thought I would take a step back and look at the broader case for density, as well as its weaknesses.

There are many facets to the debate, but I see three main points for the pro-density case. First is the environmental argument that, all else being equal, denser living arrangements tend to have smaller environmental impacts. Second is financial: that by putting more people into a given space, we can lower the cost of housing. Third is lifestyle, that density, at least if done the right way, supports a better lifestyle than suburban living. I’ll address each of these points in turn.

Regarding the environmental effects, it seems to me that there is indeed an environmental case to higher density, though the case isn’t as much of a slam dunk as some advocates believe. For every doubling of urban density, if paired with other good design decisions, total driving should be reduced by up to 40%. Smaller units, and especially apartments that share walls, tend to have lesser heating and cooling needs, and density enables district heating and cooling systems that tend to be much more efficient than stand-alone units. Where the ambiguity comes into play is that people in denser living arrangements often make up their energy and emissions in other ways, such as more air travel. For obvious reasons, denser cities save habitat as well.

There are two major problems with the environmental argument. First, most of the environmental objectives of density can be better accomplished by other means. A concerted effort at increasing density in the United States would, over 50 years, reduce driving by what I estimate to be maybe 10%, or 20% if we’re really being generous. We could reduce emissions from cars more and faster by promoting electric vehicles and low-emissions power, both of which I expect will be widespread in 50 years. Greater land use savings are possible through cultured meat, greenhouses, and hydroponics than through density.

Safety comes up a lot, though I’m not sure how strong the safety case is for greater density, given that biking is a relatively dangerous form of travel, even if separated from cars. In the time it takes for any pro-density policy to have a major effect, I would expect self-driving cars to be common, and that should do much more than the reduction in driving in promoting safety. Aside from that, we could do a lot of simpler things like better traffic enforcement, use of pedestrian overpasses, and other measures to promote safety.

My second problem is when people hear about the environmental benefits of density, it sounds like--whether or not the speaker intend it--“you have to give up your lawn for the planet”. Sacrifice for environmental causes is bad politics and goes against what I believe in.

For these reasons I tend to deemphasize the environmental case when talking about density.

Urban Density -- the Affordability Argument

It sounds very intuitive, and urbanists like Brent Toderian make this argument all the time. Urban space is expensive and a premium resource, so the more people who can fit in a city, the lower housing prices should be through the magic of supply and demand. Therefore, zone for small houses and apartments, reduce the amount of space for cars in favor of housing, and housing prices should go down.

The main flaw with this argument is that it treats urban space as a fixed commodity. There tends to be a tradeoff between space and speed in transportation. By speed I mean how far a person can get in a fixed amount of time, so the “speed” of buses and rail would account for the time that a person spends waiting. Cars take up more space per traveler, but they allow a person to go farther, compared to other modes of travel. Car-oriented cities tend to be spatially bigger than transit-oriented cities, but they can support about the same number of people. Greater populations are possible when all modes are combined, which is why almost every large city in the world has a mix of modes.

There is a good case for cutting back on zoning regulation, which in many cities has become excessive and serves an explicitly nativist purpose. But cutting back on zoning regulation also entails liberalizing the spatial growth controls that are also common. It also means addressing environmental reviews and labor restrictions on new roads and rail, since infrastructure is necessary to allow cities to grow and infrastructure should be available at a reasonable price.

It’s not just urbanists who are a fault. Joel Kotkin, among others, makes a cargo cult argument that since suburbs tend to be cheaper than inner cities, more zoning restrictions should lower prices.

Urban Density -- the Lifestyle Argument

Environmental and affordability issues aside, I think the real animating force behind much modern urbanism is lifestyle. To many urbanists, the well-designed density of London, Rome, or Paris is much to be preferred to the dreary nondescript suburbs that characterize the fringes of American cities, or the dazzling skyscrapers of Hong Kong or Singapore provide much more excitement and opportunity than alternatives.

There is nothing wrong with this argument per se, and I am sympathetic to it as well. But people like the aforementioned Kotkin will make similar arguments about suburbs. Suburban life offers the space and privacy necessary for happiness, especially for children, that is unavailable in dense cities. Suburbs generally offer less crime, less pollution, better schools, and otherwise better metrics on most quality of life factors.

The problem is that I don’t know what principle to appeal to to distinguish between the above arguments. Thus so many decisions about urban planning devolve into a “he said/she said” situation that is basically unresolvable.

If we had a truly free market in cities, that would be one thing. People can sort themselves out by preference, and truly inferior arrangements will die by market discipline. But most urban planning decisions are made through political processes, and for a variety of reasons individuals can’t just pack up and leave easily for better living.

I suspect that density is the wrong question to be asking about urban planning. Density or sprawl are the result of good planning, not the objectives of planning.