I think the thing to keep in mind here is that those midrise mixed use buildings are housing, and can help the housing supply issue. The issue with them is often that wealthier neighborhoods and suburbs resist them so much that they end up being new expensive housing in the areas that were already doing the heavy lifting housing supply-wise.

Near where I live there is an estimated housing supply deficit of literally several hundred thousand units. My city, a medium city in the Metropolitan area of a big city, has built more than 50 of these buildings in the last decade, but wealthier suburbs a little farther out have gone to absurd lengths to prevent more than one or two token multi-family units from being built in them. The metro area cities, who’s inhabitants feel the rise in housing price most sharply, cannot possibly build hundreds of thousands of units, there needs to also be significant building in suburban areas nearby if we want to hit that number and move the needle on housing.

tldr: Those housing units are fine, we just need to get wealthier less densely developed suburbs to build them too. Oh and build a fucking train station there while you’re at it.

I recently heard somewhere that the joke in India is that in western tech company’s “AI” stands for “Absent Indians”.

it’d be a great place to grow some weed.

Money is a means of determining the distribution of resources. It doesn’t matter if stuff costs less or if people make more money, what matters is that nessecities, at a minimum, are more equitably distributed. You can make that end goal take different forms. Money is a little awkward for that end because you use money to purchase both food and nice cars.

tomato, tomatoe. Not that I’d ever put tomatoes in a cucumber salad. That’s heathen shit.

I’m not your boss. Do it up, man.

If i chop up a cucumber and throw it in a bowl with some vinegarette, I call it a cucumber salad.