4 ms·
> One thing that was striking to me when I started to travel throughout bits of the rest of the world is how abruptly cities just...stop. Seoul is a perfect ex
by atom-morgan 11y ago
> One thing that was striking to me when I started to travel throughout bits of the rest of the world is how abruptly cities just...stop.
Seoul is a perfect example. If you take a train going out of the city you feel like you jump back in time 100 years in a matter of a few minutes.
- bane 11y agoYeah, it's really weird, huge apartment buildings and then just greenery and farms. If you look back at the final row of buildings it looks like a realization of some sort of "the inevitable wave of progress" metaphor.
- dba7dba 11y agoS Korea implemented whats called Green Belt decades ago. Basically large swaths of land where you basically cannot build anything. They were not designated such because of some specific species or such. They just wanted to ensure there is some unpaved land. Great planning looking back.
- cmurf 11y agoSome U.S. cities and counties do this, it's called open space. Thing is that it restricts the future growth of the tax base. Cities want more tax base, even to the degree they'll approve building permits when city doesn't have the funds for years or decades for things like flood management in those newly zoned areas. And then cities are also beholden to the existing voters who, by and large, are intractable in the U.S. when it comes to building high density housing, especially when it needs to go vertical.