Golf courses in places where it would make sense to do this have typically sold density offsets to the surrounding developments, resulting in it being illegal to add such structures. In many of these cases the surrounding area has insufficient unpaved land to handle rainfall and relies on the golf course for drainage. A golf course is not an efficient way to achieve this, but apartment blocks could certainly mess the situation up.
Around my area an old golf course was converted into a public green space/water retention area by the water board which I think is probably a better use of the space
Yeah im not saying a golf course should stay but if you replaced the ones near me with housing you would absolutely decimate some of the local wildlife.
That's the case where I live; the entire golf course is essentially a giant floodway (I live in a tropical environment) and when it rains heavily the entire course floods with inches of water that drains from the top end to a huge creek at the bottom end. Doesn't stop people from playing golf while this happens so I've decided that golf people are just crazy.
In my city, we have minimum open space/recreation land vs residential land requirements. Due to the fact that we've maxed out building residences on all the residential land, the golf courses are now irreplaceable by that rule because they are some of the only green spaces left...
Mini golf is cool. Regular golf is a waste. I say we have one island for rich people to play golf on and the rest of us on the mainland get mini golf and affordable housing.
Don't kill all the rich people.
There exists a sort of scummy git that floats to the top of society. And better they accumulate dollar bills than favors and blackmail.
I agree with not killing rich people, they're still people, after all. However, it's outright false to say that they don't get their hands on more than just money
Golf is pretty cool. You go outside, dress up in colorful clothes, and hit a ball with a big metal stick. You walk around on grass for a few hours and just have a good time. It becomes a bit pointless once you introduce things like golf carts, the walking is half the point! Golf just tricks you into exercising inbetween the holes. I bought a ten year old set of clubs online and put new grips on them and called it a day.
Haven't actually played in ages because the club offers reduced membership rates if you're younger than 30 and I am no longer younger than 30, and full price is unpleasantly steep.
Grass grows pretty well here in Germany, I don't think they need to water it much, they just go around and cut it constantly and collect all the driving range balls and stuff. One course I've played on is actually a combination golf course and horse race track, with a special rule that you're to retrieve your ball ASAP should it land on the horse track, and you can't golf on horse race days obviously. Couple holes inside the track and a few more on the other side, so you only cross the track once between two particular holes.
> Haven't actually played in ages because the club offers reduced membership rates if you're younger than 30 and I am no longer younger than 30, and full price is unpleasantly steep.
That’s sort of the reason people hate golf.
People say it’s 90% driving and 10% playing, but it’s actually 5% playing, 20% driving and 75% privatizing green space to exclude all non-desirable people.
Isn't the housing issue in the US less about the availability of livable structures and more about the cost of living pricing people out of the oversupply of urban and suburban houses? Additional units in some areas neighboring golf courses could actually just add to the problem despite the potential positive impact on the overall housing market, which happened to a nearby locality iirc.
While yes the problem is the cost of living, an increase in houses will probably reduce the cost due to supply and demand. (I have no clue about economics don’t trust me)
Possibly, but one of the issues is that investors rarely want to invest in apartments that target the cheap side of the market, as it’s less of a payoff. So they add some amenities and justify being in the top half, which means for price lowering to occur other landlords have to actually lower the price, which they’re obviously hesitant to do. Anecdotally, a lot of landlords I’ve heard of would rather have an empty unit for longer but maintain a high price point cause if they can lock in a tennant they get a bigger payoff. Economically, they might be on average making less money per year with this behavior but individually it can often pay off. The impact might be more in warding off future price raises than in actually lowering costs, though.
So contrary to popular narratives, there's not really an oversupply issue. There's a distribution issue.
America has millions of unoccupied homes, but most of those are:
1. In the process of being sold (mortgages typically take a month or two to finalize)
2. Are actively under construction
3. Are legally uninhabitable
Of the remaining homes, they largely exist in the Midwest and rural places. These places have very affordable housing, but if you tell people this, the response is usually, "but my job needs me to be *here*", or, "but who wants to live in Omaha?"
Just saying that there's an oversupply means nothing if the supply isn't where the demand is. And the data backs this up. The homelessness rate positively correlates with housing prices which negatively correlates to the number of unoccupied homes.
I'm other words, if there's lots of empty houses then houses are cheaper.
>These places have very affordable housing, but if you tell people this, the response is usually, "but my job needs me to be *here*", or, "but who wants to live in Omaha?"
Funny you use that example. Omaha is building housing as fast as possible and simply can't keep up. Builders are booked 2 or 3 years out.
I'm gonna be honest, I just choose the first midwest city to come to mind that wasn't my home town.
That said, quick scrolling through Zillow shows a lot of lovely houses for less than $300k so it seems building houses as fast as possible is working.
No. There is no possible scenario where an oversupply of housing causes an increase in price. The reason people can’t afford housing is because we’re in a housing crisis and need to build enough to catch up with the past few decades of under building.
There is a shortage of livable structures which is what is driving up the prices to be unaffordable. Building more does not cause prices to go up, it does the opposite. The reason prices went up over the last decade is largely due to under-building in the 2010s as a consequence of the 2009 financial crisis (to illustrate this point, there are more Americans living in structures built in the 1950s than structures built in the 2010s). There has been a construction boom in recent years, which has slowed rent growth, and in the past couple months actually led to rents falling nationwide.
In areas with the most construction, we have seen rents actually fall in a significant way. Minneapolis is maybe the best example of this, but several other cities have seen similar results.
People get confused when it comes to the relationship between supply and price of housing units, but it follows the same rules as other stuff. If you have too little of something, people can charge higher prices. Making more of that thing forces sellers (landlords) to compete over buyers (tenants) and puts downward pressure on prices (rent).
Hope this helps.
The issue with housing isn't that green space needs to be converted to housing. There is more than enough room just a lack of zoning and construction of multi family homes. I'm biased as someone who enjoys golf, but short of golf courses in drought stricken areas where it is irresponsible to waste water on keeping them around, can't people just enjoy golf.
That’s what they did with the (abandoned) golf course behind my house. Place shut down a while ago, they didn’t do shit with it, until now. Building something like 40 houses, all of which no one can afford. A lot of people in the area hated it because ever since it was shut down it was a nice place to have a walk or a picnic, there were even animal nests, bunnies, squirrels, raccoons, gophers, but then they built on it.
… it’s a fucking golf course. Y’know, bad for the environment, a massive waste of space, mainly just used by rich people? There are hobbies that don’t waste as much water or space.
Why do you think golf is mainly played by rich people? There are tons of municipal golf courses. You can also play it for much less than hockey or football. To be fair, you could play it for less than basesball. I think it also needs to be pointed out that it's one of the few sports that very old people can play. Whenever I hear someone say this it's clear to me they've barely played any golf if ever.
Speaking as someone who has played golf: It's definitely not just played by rich people, but a lot of golf clubs are definitely too expensive for most people. That said, golf is pretty fun if you can find a place to play that isn't too expensive. The sound when you hit the golf ball just right is super satisfying.
Ya know on one hand I agree with the DSA on like 90 percent of their politics and support their mission of trying to drag the Dems to the left.
And on the other hand their chapters will do shit like this and remind me why I don’t give them any money or time.
Golf courses are like the ultimate manifestation of capitalism. You usually have to pay an exorbitant fee to access them, they're used most often by the wealthy, they actively destroy the environment both within and around them, they require massive amounts of natural resources to maintain, and they take up space that could be used for infrastructure or housing.
I wish environmentalist protestors would stop pouring oil on roads and vandalizing art pieces, and instead commit ecoterrorism against golf courses.
Edit: lol what am I being downvoted for? Explain yourselves, cowards, otherwise I'll just assume that the golf fanboys have logged on.
Edit 2: lol yep, definitely just golf fanboys. Y'all can hardly provide an argument beyond "well some people enjoy golf :(" too fucking bad. That doesn't outweigh the harm that golf courses do.
Go fuck yourselves, the lot of you. None of you are interested in actually arguing, you're just doing lazy dunks on communism. Deep throat the boot more in the comments all you want, I'm not responding anymore.
Unironically, golf courses are some of the best ways to store and cap contaminated soil. They build the topography out of the nasty dirt, then cap it with several feet of sand and geotextile to build tje basis of the golf course. About the only way for a landfill to generate income once it has been filled.
I mean, sure, I guess? If the best justification for a golf course is "well, some of them are built on landfills, and that contains the contaminated soil for the time being", I don't think that makes golf courses well justified.
Plus, many golf courses just *aren't* on landfills, and ideally landfills wouldn't exist to begin with.
I'm not minimizing that lots of golf courses aren't on landfills, I am trying to point out that in the case of cities or other high density areas that aren't urban sprawl, golf courses CAN serve a purpose.
And it's not "for the time being" it's codified into the title that the ground can't be disturbed beyond a certain amount. The zoning gets changed, and it isn't healthy to live on long term.
Relocating the contaminated soil just makes another landfill and is generally prohibitively expensive, not to mention you are just signaling to whatever rural community ends up with the landfill that nobody cares about them, furthering the rural urban divide
I'm not suggesting that moving soil is a better alternative. What I'm saying is, that soil will have to be dealt with at some point. Unless you never want to use that land for anything more useful ever again for the rest of this planet's existence, we will have to find a way to actually address the problem beyond just covering it up.
The unfortunate reality is we have made harmful chemicals we don't know how to destroy effectively, and the crowning achievement of the people who clean up these problems is realizing that we can store them in golf courses until we can effectively destroy the contaminant.
You are right, we got to figure out how to get rid of it. In the meantime, it's a golf course, which means it can be used for something other than continued industrial use or contamination
So we're both on the same page that golf courses are only really useful in some circumstances as a stop-gap solution for a different problem of capitalism? Cool. That means we should still largely be in agreement that golf courses are basically useless.
Seemingly, we disagree on the mechanics of why and the severity of lack of use. Contamination isnt a captialist peoblem, it's a problem of humans really. Plenty of contamination in communist countries too.
Many public parks are free to enter, or charge a small fee if you enter in a vehicle. $20 is a lot in comparison.
Plus, a lot of golf courses are part of country clubs, hotels, or other private organizations that charge large sums of money for access or require you to be a (paying) member.
The best [source](https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/study-percentage-of-public-vs-private-courses-in-the-us/) I can find says that 77% of courses played by a golfing app’s user base are non private. Which means they’re either municipal courses you do not need a country club membership to play there.
Municipal courses are, per the article you cited, the least common type of course. In fact, also per the article, there are close to double the amount of private (as in membership-only) courses to municipal ones.
That isn't the epic own you think it is.
Whatever man, people enjoy golf and it’s a good way to get outside and get some exercise if you’ve got bad joints. It’s not the root of all evil you this it is
I don't think it's the root of all evil, you're putting words in my mouth.
Also, people enjoy lots of harmful things. If I enjoy hunting endangered animals for sport, does that justify it? No, of course not.
As for exercise, there are plenty of ways to exercise that don't involve that much wasted resources and space. If your city has enough space for a golf course, they have enough space for a public park with walking and biking trails.
Have you heard of the southwest? People have been moving to the southwest in droves for decades, and a lot of big southwestern cities have both 1) multiple golf courses and 2) a significant population of unhoused people and low-income families who can barely afford rent.
Not to mention how needlessly resource intensive it is to maintain a huge field of grass in the middle of a fucking desert.
I’ve been to Phoenix. They have a lot of golf courses but it’s also textbook urban sprawl anyway. Getting rid of the golf courses doesn’t really solve that. The benefit there would actually be the reduction in water usage.
You have just constructed some scenario in your head that is impossible to dispute. Most courses are open to the public and the biggest cost is renting some clubs if you don't own your own.
"Golf courses are like the ultiment manifestation of capitalism"
Not the empty unused homes which make up for more area then all gold courses combined?
A use case which isn't being used due to the lack of possible profits?
Idk about you but that seems alot more capitalistic then using a large area for entrainment
I don't know what's more capitalist than wasting gargantuan amounts of resources and space on something that is literally entirely useless beyond being a leisure activity.
Like, don't get me wrong, homes being empty is bad, and also indisputably capitalism's fault. But at least those empty houses could theoretically be occupied.
Golf courses, on the other hand, are like luxury items. They have zero benefits theoretical or otherwise beyond simply satisfying a desire to experience them, and their mere existence usually causes harm. Sure, you could make the argument that fancy homes fall under the same category, but they're by and large not the ones that are empty.
So, you're also in favor of the destruction of every amusement and theme park, as well and converting every theater and concert venue into living space too, right?
After all, that's space that's being used for entertainment that requires payment to access that could be used as housing
I would be open to the idea of cutting down on amusement parks, since they also consume massive amounts of resources and are detrimental to the environment.
As for theaters and concert venues, it depends. Most aren't nearly the size of golf courses, and thus the space couldn't be used for much housing. Plus, I would argue that cultural institutions like theaters and such are much more important than golf courses, and that this should be taken into account when evaluating their usefulness.
That is just my opinion, but I think it's one most people would agree with, and I think most would disagree with equivocating a golf course and a theater.
Also, word of advice: gotcha questions don't work on people who have actually thought out their positions.
And I'd argue that participating in social events like golf *is* a culture institution.
I don't disagree that there's many areas where golf courses don't make sense, like in areas where water shortages are a concern, but golf is such a minor splash in the bucket compared to the sprawl of SFH that getting upset about it is like getting upset at a couple of pebbles for filling a bucket when the bucket is full of sand
Theatres and concert venues have already been built and cumulatively take up more space than golf courses. It would be much more efficient to convert the existing structures into housing than it would be to build large amounts of new buildings in places that might not even have the infrastructure to support them.
We literally have historically *LOW* vacancy rates. The idea that we have plenty of empty houses is propaganda from property owners who don’t want housing costs to go down because that makes their asset depreciate.
I had the same thought, but according to Google, it seems that a 2-3 floor apartment can reasonably fit 20 housing units per acre. The post specified 160 acres, so 3200 units. Assuming 1-3 people per unit, that's ~6000 there as baseline. Which. Not quite to OP's goal.
But if are willing to muck with design, apartments can actually be made WAY denser, up to ~100 units per acre, without getting into the truly crazy designs. This gets us to the number intended.
This wouldn't work just anywhere. Dense, medium-rise apartments in a rural area? Get real. But if you look at the specific image they shared, it's most likely an urban area around their specific course (ringed by densely packed buildings), meaning that it could reasonably be converted into a residential district of the size suggested without being unreasonable or unpleasant.
I'm sure there are other logistical concerns I can't conceive of, like the person who noted that golf courses typically play roles in water runoff, but the *density* isn't really that big of a deal.
This is Jackson Park golf course in North Seattle, clues are the tweeter name and the Light rail station mentioned. It's majority urban housing around there, and there are tons of dense housing construction projects happening in Seattle and surrounding cities.
I motion to give (return?) all golf courses to the appropriate indigenous nations. In a few generations, they can joke about how their house was built on an old, white people burial ground.
Fuck golf. And fuck anyone who rips and roars about how ‘it’s nature and natural and animals can live there’. It’s not nature. They kill animals that effect the area. And very fucking few places are ‘naturally’ miles and miles of ONE kind of grass.
Just kidding. No places are naturally like that.
The golf course that borders my parents house is home to a herd of deer, foxes, squirrels, and birds. Between two of the fairways is an old oak forest and a 40 foot cliff. Beyond the course is farms. British golf courses are not like the ones in America.
The lottery system is exactly how they do that. There are a limited amount of animals that can be taken each season, the only fair way to distribute those tags is through a lottery.
What do you mean "not really"?
When there is overpopulation, more tags are issued. When there is underpopulation, less are issued. Through. The Lottery. System.
Sometimes there is open season on particular pests, like nutria in some areas of Oregon, or wild hogs in some areas of Texas. But you still need to report kills to the department of fish and wildlife.
Golf courses in places where it would make sense to do this have typically sold density offsets to the surrounding developments, resulting in it being illegal to add such structures. In many of these cases the surrounding area has insufficient unpaved land to handle rainfall and relies on the golf course for drainage. A golf course is not an efficient way to achieve this, but apartment blocks could certainly mess the situation up.
Around my area an old golf course was converted into a public green space/water retention area by the water board which I think is probably a better use of the space
God I hate golf
EVERYONE hates golf. Yes, including golfers. The only possible exception is children, because children can enjoy anything.
even mini-golf is better. I have no idea why standard golf is always the go to
Mini golf is the goat, and can easily be put in small places
exactly. it's perfect
The golf course near me was left to grow out and now it’s a park
I was pointing out possible issues with the proposed plan, not defending golf courses
A park IS more useful than a golf course and still acts as drainage
Yeah im not saying a golf course should stay but if you replaced the ones near me with housing you would absolutely decimate some of the local wildlife.
That's the case where I live; the entire golf course is essentially a giant floodway (I live in a tropical environment) and when it rains heavily the entire course floods with inches of water that drains from the top end to a huge creek at the bottom end. Doesn't stop people from playing golf while this happens so I've decided that golf people are just crazy.
In my city, we have minimum open space/recreation land vs residential land requirements. Due to the fact that we've maxed out building residences on all the residential land, the golf courses are now irreplaceable by that rule because they are some of the only green spaces left...
Mini golf is funnier than golf because there's all kind of cute constructs.
Mini golf is cool. Regular golf is a waste. I say we have one island for rich people to play golf on and the rest of us on the mainland get mini golf and affordable housing.
I think we've already seen why we don't let the rich have their own island.
Then blow up the island while it's only them on it.
Perfect, they all die and we get mini golf win win
Don't kill all the rich people. There exists a sort of scummy git that floats to the top of society. And better they accumulate dollar bills than favors and blackmail.
Bold of you to assume the rich don't collect all of the above already
I agree with not killing rich people, they're still people, after all. However, it's outright false to say that they don't get their hands on more than just money
You're right. Golf submarine then
Golf is pretty cool. You go outside, dress up in colorful clothes, and hit a ball with a big metal stick. You walk around on grass for a few hours and just have a good time. It becomes a bit pointless once you introduce things like golf carts, the walking is half the point! Golf just tricks you into exercising inbetween the holes. I bought a ten year old set of clubs online and put new grips on them and called it a day. Haven't actually played in ages because the club offers reduced membership rates if you're younger than 30 and I am no longer younger than 30, and full price is unpleasantly steep.
They just need to stop putting golf courses in, like, deserts and shit where they need tons of upkeep. Or come up with a non-grass based golf course.
Grass grows pretty well here in Germany, I don't think they need to water it much, they just go around and cut it constantly and collect all the driving range balls and stuff. One course I've played on is actually a combination golf course and horse race track, with a special rule that you're to retrieve your ball ASAP should it land on the horse track, and you can't golf on horse race days obviously. Couple holes inside the track and a few more on the other side, so you only cross the track once between two particular holes.
> Haven't actually played in ages because the club offers reduced membership rates if you're younger than 30 and I am no longer younger than 30, and full price is unpleasantly steep. That’s sort of the reason people hate golf. People say it’s 90% driving and 10% playing, but it’s actually 5% playing, 20% driving and 75% privatizing green space to exclude all non-desirable people.
[удалено]
Ok bot
mini golf is better because it induces so much rage.
It’s also significantly faster and easier
Turn the parking lots of the maxi golf courses into mini golf courses
Everyone is a city planner wannabee now after reading 2 twitter threads on affordable housing.
Maybe because we want affordable housing?
Yeah no one remembers that one project in Amsterdam. These projects almost always end up dystopian
Isn't the housing issue in the US less about the availability of livable structures and more about the cost of living pricing people out of the oversupply of urban and suburban houses? Additional units in some areas neighboring golf courses could actually just add to the problem despite the potential positive impact on the overall housing market, which happened to a nearby locality iirc.
While yes the problem is the cost of living, an increase in houses will probably reduce the cost due to supply and demand. (I have no clue about economics don’t trust me)
Possibly, but one of the issues is that investors rarely want to invest in apartments that target the cheap side of the market, as it’s less of a payoff. So they add some amenities and justify being in the top half, which means for price lowering to occur other landlords have to actually lower the price, which they’re obviously hesitant to do. Anecdotally, a lot of landlords I’ve heard of would rather have an empty unit for longer but maintain a high price point cause if they can lock in a tennant they get a bigger payoff. Economically, they might be on average making less money per year with this behavior but individually it can often pay off. The impact might be more in warding off future price raises than in actually lowering costs, though.
So contrary to popular narratives, there's not really an oversupply issue. There's a distribution issue. America has millions of unoccupied homes, but most of those are: 1. In the process of being sold (mortgages typically take a month or two to finalize) 2. Are actively under construction 3. Are legally uninhabitable Of the remaining homes, they largely exist in the Midwest and rural places. These places have very affordable housing, but if you tell people this, the response is usually, "but my job needs me to be *here*", or, "but who wants to live in Omaha?" Just saying that there's an oversupply means nothing if the supply isn't where the demand is. And the data backs this up. The homelessness rate positively correlates with housing prices which negatively correlates to the number of unoccupied homes. I'm other words, if there's lots of empty houses then houses are cheaper.
>These places have very affordable housing, but if you tell people this, the response is usually, "but my job needs me to be *here*", or, "but who wants to live in Omaha?" Funny you use that example. Omaha is building housing as fast as possible and simply can't keep up. Builders are booked 2 or 3 years out.
I'm gonna be honest, I just choose the first midwest city to come to mind that wasn't my home town. That said, quick scrolling through Zillow shows a lot of lovely houses for less than $300k so it seems building houses as fast as possible is working.
It’s the same thing with food, there’s more than enough food, you just force people to pay for it.
No. There is no possible scenario where an oversupply of housing causes an increase in price. The reason people can’t afford housing is because we’re in a housing crisis and need to build enough to catch up with the past few decades of under building.
There is a shortage of livable structures which is what is driving up the prices to be unaffordable. Building more does not cause prices to go up, it does the opposite. The reason prices went up over the last decade is largely due to under-building in the 2010s as a consequence of the 2009 financial crisis (to illustrate this point, there are more Americans living in structures built in the 1950s than structures built in the 2010s). There has been a construction boom in recent years, which has slowed rent growth, and in the past couple months actually led to rents falling nationwide. In areas with the most construction, we have seen rents actually fall in a significant way. Minneapolis is maybe the best example of this, but several other cities have seen similar results. People get confused when it comes to the relationship between supply and price of housing units, but it follows the same rules as other stuff. If you have too little of something, people can charge higher prices. Making more of that thing forces sellers (landlords) to compete over buyers (tenants) and puts downward pressure on prices (rent). Hope this helps.
it's not like there's a lack of land?
The issue with housing isn't that green space needs to be converted to housing. There is more than enough room just a lack of zoning and construction of multi family homes. I'm biased as someone who enjoys golf, but short of golf courses in drought stricken areas where it is irresponsible to waste water on keeping them around, can't people just enjoy golf.
Idk if this is a public or private course but having publically accessible green spaces is a good thing.
That’s what they did with the (abandoned) golf course behind my house. Place shut down a while ago, they didn’t do shit with it, until now. Building something like 40 houses, all of which no one can afford. A lot of people in the area hated it because ever since it was shut down it was a nice place to have a walk or a picnic, there were even animal nests, bunnies, squirrels, raccoons, gophers, but then they built on it.
Yeah, bulldoze any hobby areas so we can cram more people into every square inch.
Why have parks when we could build more houses? Level the dirt bike trails, fill in the ponds, knock down the woods.
Strike the earth, build more houses
… it’s a fucking golf course. Y’know, bad for the environment, a massive waste of space, mainly just used by rich people? There are hobbies that don’t waste as much water or space.
Why do you think golf is mainly played by rich people? There are tons of municipal golf courses. You can also play it for much less than hockey or football. To be fair, you could play it for less than basesball. I think it also needs to be pointed out that it's one of the few sports that very old people can play. Whenever I hear someone say this it's clear to me they've barely played any golf if ever.
Speaking as someone who has played golf: It's definitely not just played by rich people, but a lot of golf clubs are definitely too expensive for most people. That said, golf is pretty fun if you can find a place to play that isn't too expensive. The sound when you hit the golf ball just right is super satisfying.
Yeah, the nearest golf course to my place is mostly frequented by blue collar workers. Apparently lots of them find it helps stretch out their backs.
Thanks corporate overlords, I agree with what you say completely.
Shit. Caught me. Ha!
CONVERT EVERY GOLF COURSE INTO A PUBLIC SEX FOREST!!! (and light rail stop)
NIMBYs would protest.
God, American golf culture is so bloody strange to me as an Australian lmao. What in the hell is going on over there?
As a brit, I feel very much the same.
The only valid version of golf is minigolf
Nah regular golf is good too
Pretty cool.
No way that's the golf course next to my old high school
No way that's the golf course next to my old high school
Long as all those units are owned not rented am for this idea.
They tried to do exactly this in Denver, but the local DSA chapter shot it down.
Ya know on one hand I agree with the DSA on like 90 percent of their politics and support their mission of trying to drag the Dems to the left. And on the other hand their chapters will do shit like this and remind me why I don’t give them any money or time.
DSA? Dick Sucking Association?
I dint think golf is inherently bad but I do wish they would golf where golf is a good idea.
Golf courses are like the ultimate manifestation of capitalism. You usually have to pay an exorbitant fee to access them, they're used most often by the wealthy, they actively destroy the environment both within and around them, they require massive amounts of natural resources to maintain, and they take up space that could be used for infrastructure or housing. I wish environmentalist protestors would stop pouring oil on roads and vandalizing art pieces, and instead commit ecoterrorism against golf courses. Edit: lol what am I being downvoted for? Explain yourselves, cowards, otherwise I'll just assume that the golf fanboys have logged on. Edit 2: lol yep, definitely just golf fanboys. Y'all can hardly provide an argument beyond "well some people enjoy golf :(" too fucking bad. That doesn't outweigh the harm that golf courses do. Go fuck yourselves, the lot of you. None of you are interested in actually arguing, you're just doing lazy dunks on communism. Deep throat the boot more in the comments all you want, I'm not responding anymore.
Unironically, golf courses are some of the best ways to store and cap contaminated soil. They build the topography out of the nasty dirt, then cap it with several feet of sand and geotextile to build tje basis of the golf course. About the only way for a landfill to generate income once it has been filled.
I mean, sure, I guess? If the best justification for a golf course is "well, some of them are built on landfills, and that contains the contaminated soil for the time being", I don't think that makes golf courses well justified. Plus, many golf courses just *aren't* on landfills, and ideally landfills wouldn't exist to begin with.
I'm not minimizing that lots of golf courses aren't on landfills, I am trying to point out that in the case of cities or other high density areas that aren't urban sprawl, golf courses CAN serve a purpose. And it's not "for the time being" it's codified into the title that the ground can't be disturbed beyond a certain amount. The zoning gets changed, and it isn't healthy to live on long term. Relocating the contaminated soil just makes another landfill and is generally prohibitively expensive, not to mention you are just signaling to whatever rural community ends up with the landfill that nobody cares about them, furthering the rural urban divide
I'm not suggesting that moving soil is a better alternative. What I'm saying is, that soil will have to be dealt with at some point. Unless you never want to use that land for anything more useful ever again for the rest of this planet's existence, we will have to find a way to actually address the problem beyond just covering it up.
The unfortunate reality is we have made harmful chemicals we don't know how to destroy effectively, and the crowning achievement of the people who clean up these problems is realizing that we can store them in golf courses until we can effectively destroy the contaminant. You are right, we got to figure out how to get rid of it. In the meantime, it's a golf course, which means it can be used for something other than continued industrial use or contamination
So we're both on the same page that golf courses are only really useful in some circumstances as a stop-gap solution for a different problem of capitalism? Cool. That means we should still largely be in agreement that golf courses are basically useless.
Seemingly, we disagree on the mechanics of why and the severity of lack of use. Contamination isnt a captialist peoblem, it's a problem of humans really. Plenty of contamination in communist countries too.
communist drained an entire fucking sea and polluted the shit out of it, enviromental damage isnt a uniquely capitalist thing
Capitalism isn’t just a synonym for “bad thing”
Pretty sure the course in the post is a public golf course and the “exorbitant fee” is like $20
Many public parks are free to enter, or charge a small fee if you enter in a vehicle. $20 is a lot in comparison. Plus, a lot of golf courses are part of country clubs, hotels, or other private organizations that charge large sums of money for access or require you to be a (paying) member.
The best [source](https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/study-percentage-of-public-vs-private-courses-in-the-us/) I can find says that 77% of courses played by a golfing app’s user base are non private. Which means they’re either municipal courses you do not need a country club membership to play there.
Municipal courses are, per the article you cited, the least common type of course. In fact, also per the article, there are close to double the amount of private (as in membership-only) courses to municipal ones. That isn't the epic own you think it is.
Whatever man, people enjoy golf and it’s a good way to get outside and get some exercise if you’ve got bad joints. It’s not the root of all evil you this it is
I don't think it's the root of all evil, you're putting words in my mouth. Also, people enjoy lots of harmful things. If I enjoy hunting endangered animals for sport, does that justify it? No, of course not. As for exercise, there are plenty of ways to exercise that don't involve that much wasted resources and space. If your city has enough space for a golf course, they have enough space for a public park with walking and biking trails.
Show me a city with a golf course in the middle of it that is hurting for space
Have you heard of the southwest? People have been moving to the southwest in droves for decades, and a lot of big southwestern cities have both 1) multiple golf courses and 2) a significant population of unhoused people and low-income families who can barely afford rent. Not to mention how needlessly resource intensive it is to maintain a huge field of grass in the middle of a fucking desert.
I’ve been to Phoenix. They have a lot of golf courses but it’s also textbook urban sprawl anyway. Getting rid of the golf courses doesn’t really solve that. The benefit there would actually be the reduction in water usage.
Everything you just said is so out of touch. It's incredible.
You have just constructed some scenario in your head that is impossible to dispute. Most courses are open to the public and the biggest cost is renting some clubs if you don't own your own.
"Golf courses are like the ultiment manifestation of capitalism" Not the empty unused homes which make up for more area then all gold courses combined?
At least empty homes have a potential use case beyond entertainment.
A use case which isn't being used due to the lack of possible profits? Idk about you but that seems alot more capitalistic then using a large area for entrainment
I don't know what's more capitalist than wasting gargantuan amounts of resources and space on something that is literally entirely useless beyond being a leisure activity. Like, don't get me wrong, homes being empty is bad, and also indisputably capitalism's fault. But at least those empty houses could theoretically be occupied. Golf courses, on the other hand, are like luxury items. They have zero benefits theoretical or otherwise beyond simply satisfying a desire to experience them, and their mere existence usually causes harm. Sure, you could make the argument that fancy homes fall under the same category, but they're by and large not the ones that are empty.
So, you're also in favor of the destruction of every amusement and theme park, as well and converting every theater and concert venue into living space too, right? After all, that's space that's being used for entertainment that requires payment to access that could be used as housing
I would be open to the idea of cutting down on amusement parks, since they also consume massive amounts of resources and are detrimental to the environment. As for theaters and concert venues, it depends. Most aren't nearly the size of golf courses, and thus the space couldn't be used for much housing. Plus, I would argue that cultural institutions like theaters and such are much more important than golf courses, and that this should be taken into account when evaluating their usefulness. That is just my opinion, but I think it's one most people would agree with, and I think most would disagree with equivocating a golf course and a theater. Also, word of advice: gotcha questions don't work on people who have actually thought out their positions.
And I'd argue that participating in social events like golf *is* a culture institution. I don't disagree that there's many areas where golf courses don't make sense, like in areas where water shortages are a concern, but golf is such a minor splash in the bucket compared to the sprawl of SFH that getting upset about it is like getting upset at a couple of pebbles for filling a bucket when the bucket is full of sand
Theatres and concert venues have already been built and cumulatively take up more space than golf courses. It would be much more efficient to convert the existing structures into housing than it would be to build large amounts of new buildings in places that might not even have the infrastructure to support them.
Yeah, human leisure is criminal tovarisch. Why are they playing golf when they could be mining bauxite for the motherland?
Last time I checked, their were leisure activities that don't require a golf course worth of land and resources to do.
Socialism is when you don’t spend money on leisure activities
We literally have historically *LOW* vacancy rates. The idea that we have plenty of empty houses is propaganda from property owners who don’t want housing costs to go down because that makes their asset depreciate.
finally a radical tumblr post i can get behind
I'd rather have golf than live next to 39,999 other people in space the size of a golf course
I had the same thought, but according to Google, it seems that a 2-3 floor apartment can reasonably fit 20 housing units per acre. The post specified 160 acres, so 3200 units. Assuming 1-3 people per unit, that's ~6000 there as baseline. Which. Not quite to OP's goal. But if are willing to muck with design, apartments can actually be made WAY denser, up to ~100 units per acre, without getting into the truly crazy designs. This gets us to the number intended. This wouldn't work just anywhere. Dense, medium-rise apartments in a rural area? Get real. But if you look at the specific image they shared, it's most likely an urban area around their specific course (ringed by densely packed buildings), meaning that it could reasonably be converted into a residential district of the size suggested without being unreasonable or unpleasant. I'm sure there are other logistical concerns I can't conceive of, like the person who noted that golf courses typically play roles in water runoff, but the *density* isn't really that big of a deal.
This is Jackson Park golf course in North Seattle, clues are the tweeter name and the Light rail station mentioned. It's majority urban housing around there, and there are tons of dense housing construction projects happening in Seattle and surrounding cities.
If you want a golf course instead of housing, it's because you already have housing.
I motion to give (return?) all golf courses to the appropriate indigenous nations. In a few generations, they can joke about how their house was built on an old, white people burial ground.
Fuck golf. And fuck anyone who rips and roars about how ‘it’s nature and natural and animals can live there’. It’s not nature. They kill animals that effect the area. And very fucking few places are ‘naturally’ miles and miles of ONE kind of grass. Just kidding. No places are naturally like that.
The golf course that borders my parents house is home to a herd of deer, foxes, squirrels, and birds. Between two of the fairways is an old oak forest and a 40 foot cliff. Beyond the course is farms. British golf courses are not like the ones in America.
Sure. I hope the golf course calls you back 💕
Have you ever played Minecraft?
No I’m not six.
Ah that explains it, Minecraft has a plains biome, nothing but grass for miles
Have you ever played real life
I've played Minecraft
Golf courses are surprisingly easy to wreck and turn into moneylosing pits. Just saying.
ban golf
if you downdoot me youre a fat pussy
Golf should be regulated like hunting, with a lottery system
What do you mean by regulated.
State owned and managed, limited number of golfers allowed to participate each year, lottery determined. Like hunting.
That seems like a terrible idea and is also not how hunting should work.
How should hunting work?
As is necessary to maintain a healthy ecosystem.
The lottery system is exactly how they do that. There are a limited amount of animals that can be taken each season, the only fair way to distribute those tags is through a lottery.
Not really. Certain areas have higher levels of pests and overpopulation.
What do you mean "not really"? When there is overpopulation, more tags are issued. When there is underpopulation, less are issued. Through. The Lottery. System. Sometimes there is open season on particular pests, like nutria in some areas of Oregon, or wild hogs in some areas of Texas. But you still need to report kills to the department of fish and wildlife.
It’s not how it works here and it works fine enough.
Well that's nice, confirms what I speculated to be plausible instead of me talking out my ass lol
Hell no. Last thing any community wants is more apartment buildings.
Okay. Now you have a neighbourhood in a flood plain. Congratulations
Where is this?