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Serious question for #YIMBYTwitter: where height restrictions per se are the issue, why haven’t developers started building vertically but *down*, underground? I mean windowless apartments don’t sound ideal, but probably less bad than unaffordability and homelessness
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First of all, all soil is not created equal. In areas with shallow bedrock, digging out a large volume of space would be prohibitively expensive. In areas without bedrock, the walls have to be built very thick and deep to resist the pressure of the surrounding soil, see below.
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All that volume that is filled with soil within the walls is space that has to be excavated, and then refilled and compacted, layer by layer to make sure that there is no loose soil in between the walls. You could also use concrete between the walls, to resist the pressure...
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Are these problems significant if you just go down 1 extra level? In many places with severe winters, houses with 2 basement levels would seem to make sense to keep heating costs down.
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