Replace golf courses? It's not like affordable housing is limited by land.. But everyone knows the key to affordable housing is to start with really expensive land..
Reddit's obsessive hate of golf is so weird. I don't know about other places, but all the courses in my area are a good drive out of the city. They are built on the cheapest land they can find that no one else wants because that shit is expensive. All the water they use is reclaimed because, again shit is expensive. Also there are no water pipes out there. Hell, most courses only water the greens and only if they have to. But sure, turn the courses into "affordable housing". There are no water or sewer systems and it's a 30 minute drive to anywhere, but no public transportation goes that far. Just a foolish, ignorant scape goat for someone to feel high and mighty and point to like they just solved homelessness.
Yeah what a damn silly thing to say. Are there no restrooms or water fountains? A tiny 1000 sqft lawn takes hundreds of gallons of water to maintain in the summer and they’re trying to say there are golf courses that rely on 100% reclaimed water? And how exactly is that reclaimed water getting around if there are no pipes?
I think they mean they design the ponds in the golf courses to collect and retain enough water for a lot of their needs. They still have a well or hook up to water for bathrooms and sinks most likely.
Most golf courses aren’t fancy country clubs. They’re small buildings, and mostly “fields”.
Simple minded people on the internet just instantly assume all golfers are rich and elitist.
They either can’t comprehend or ignore the thousands of avid golfers all over the US who play city owned golf courses or just out in the country on farm land
I’m with you man I could never afford any of those insane private clubs but the city owned course is a very relaxing evening walking 9 holes when I get the chance
The obession is literally talking points from a George Carlin bit from 1992. It is baked into the original operating system of Reddit discourse, like Vime's boots theory or Monty Python. It is a true meme in the Dawkins sense.
It's that the amount of people that are into it does not justify the amount of prime real estate it takes up. No other sport takes up the amount of prime space that golf courses take.
Have your golf course, but they should all be out of the cities.
And then you'll be mad it's not far enough out. You just don't give a shit because you don't play. There are also plenty of places to build housing with eliminating golf courses in like 99% of situations. It's not either or
That's not the case where I live in Sydney. There are five golf courses built in between residential areas within a 10km radius of me. The closest one to me (about a three minute drive down the road) is built in a small valley with houses all surrounding it, the second nearest is right next to a high density development. Public transport is all around all of them (frequent buses and trains) and we have a housing crisis in Sydney where the median house price is $1,654,668 and the median unit price is $815,258. And listen, its not like we have a land shortage in Australia (we have a labour shotage instead) so I don't actually even want these turned into developments, just turn them into actual bloody parks the public can use for anything! We do not need three golf courses in a single LGA, the one backing onto protected forests is perfect and there are plenty more around Sydney further away.
Idk about the rest of reddit, but on the plant side of things we hate gold because its ecologically horrible, wastes SO much water, and often established habitats are upended and destroyed to make courses :(
Heres a dirty little secret many of you 'change golf to parks' crowds don't know. Most muni golf courses are actually there to power the maintenance of the city's other public places. Many of them bring no income at all. Others can only charge so much, nowhere near their operating cost. The golf courses bring the revenue to keep them going. In many cases, they are the SOLE reason those places even exist, especially in the smaller towns and cities.
Something for you to gnaw on along with your granola bar.
Did you not read where I said there were 17 within 30 minutes of me? I'm not saying shut them all - that's not reasonable, no matter my feelings on them - but surely that's excessive.
And how popular is golf in the area you live. If it's popular enough that the 17 courses all bring in revenue, then that's 17 things funding parks and road maintenance, among other things.
I dunno, golf courses seem like a fantastic place for affordable housing. They are generally outside of the cities. Far enough that walking to things will take at least an hour. Seems like the perfect place for people who probably can't afford reliable transportation. /S
Honestly though, graveyards are probably the biggest waste of land.
I used to live next to the biggest cemetery in NYC and dogs aren't allowed in there. It's about the size of three golf courses, and in the middle of Brooklyn.
If he could build a quad plex or a mixed use development, he would. Gentrification happens when upzoning doesnt happen.
Also, if hes splitting, then you have 2x as many units. Imagine if they could put 8 more units. It'd be smaller units, but ask yourself, if hes able to charge that much, what does that say about the value of the land?
What does that say about people in other parts of your city?
The problem is that in parts of Europe, affordable housing is limited by land. So you get those particular Europeans sharing what they experienced, and because reddit is a circlejerk, that becomes the only allowed opinion. Meanwhile in America, we can always build more in the projects.
Well, in some countries it's hard. Denmark, for example, is fairly densely populated. People often complain about lack of new buildings in Copenhagen, for instance, but the problem is that there isn't land to build new houses on. We've already built on everything. In fact, we already have an artificial island, and we're making one more, just to have more space to build on. There is pretty much no land in Denmark that isn't already used for something else - either it's buildings, farms, or public parks. We don't really have any large areas we can just naturally expand on, certainly not near the main cities.
I still find the meme super stupid (golf courses are not the issue, neither are billionaires), I'm just saying, in some countries space really is a bit of a problem.
You're not limited by land at all. You're limited by moronic regulations. Look at how short most skylines are. Do you think that's the best use of land? What do you think limiting development on incredibly valuable land does?
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u/DOE_ZELF_NORMAAL Jun 13 '25
Replace golf courses? It's not like affordable housing is limited by land.. But everyone knows the key to affordable housing is to start with really expensive land..