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It doesn't help that most cities outside Manhattan have parking requirements and often quite high ones, to the point where the parking for an office building ta

by crzwdjk 10y ago

It doesn't help that most cities outside Manhattan have parking requirements and often quite high ones, to the point where the parking for an office building takes up as much floor space as the offices themselves. And since elevators can't really transport cars very efficiently, your 100 story building will need to be surrounded by 10 10-story parking garages (or, more typically, you'll have a 30 story building with lots of surface parking around). If you factor in all the surface parking, you don't end up with very much density in the end.

potatolicious 10y ago
> "If you factor in all the surface parking, you don't end up with very much density in the end." More important than the reduction in density (which IMO for the most is not actually particularly bad), is the disruption in the street graph that parking lots represent. Parking lots are awful places that are psychologically destructive on top of being literally hazardous to pedestrians. A parking lot is a good way to make sure you remove any trace of pedestrian travel in the area, and they represent black holes in the street. One thing I alluded to in the earlier post is that graph connectivity is tremendously more important than density. If the street graph is disconnected (or just too difficult or hazardous to traverse), people will stop doing so, and there goes your urban life. Small American towns (that resisted the suburban blight of the 50s) have very low density but manage to be extremely livable and functional by virtue of being well connected. Density is truly a red herring - livable, walkable spaces can be created at most densities short of completely rural. Some New Urbanist developments have moved towards a model where the buildings directly face the street with parking lot "courtyards" in the middle - this model works. It's still heavily dependent on car culture, which is unfortunate, but is tremendous more functional than the suburban American status quo that is the opposite arrangement, where parking lots face streets and there might as well be a cavernous canyon between the sidewalk and the building (if there even is a sidewalk).
- crzwdjk 10y ago
  Absolutely. One thing that I've noticed personally (and that studies confirm) is that the distance I am willing to walk depends a great deal on what walking is like: whether it's interesting, safe, etc. Parking lots are thus a double whammy, because the both push actual destinations apart, and reduce the distance that people are willing to walk. And if nobody's walking anywhere anyway, why bother building tall buildings in expensive city centers instead of cheaper ones in suburban office parks? Since you mention New Urbanism, have you heard of the Old Urbanist movement? New Urbanism is an attempt to return to 19th century American patterns, while the Old Urbanists advocate going back to an even older pattern of low-rise and mid-rise buildings on really narrow streets, which is a pattern that has worked well for millenia, and indeed still works well in places like Japan. The narrower streets mean there can be more of them for the same usage of land area, which can mean a much better connected network at a pedestrian scale.

by crzwdjk 10y ago

potatolicious 10y ago

> "If you factor in all the surface parking, you don't end up with very much density in the end." More important than the reduction in density (which IMO for the most is not actually particularly bad), is the disruption in the street graph that parking lots represent. Parking lots are awful places that are psychologically destructive on top of being literally hazardous to pedestrians. A parking lot is a good way to make sure you remove any trace of pedestrian travel in the area, and they represent black holes in the street. One thing I alluded to in the earlier post is that graph connectivity is tremendously more important than density. If the street graph is disconnected (or just too difficult or hazardous to traverse), people will stop doing so, and there goes your urban life. Small American towns (that resisted the suburban blight of the 50s) have very low density but manage to be extremely livable and functional by virtue of being well connected. Density is truly a red herring - livable, walkable spaces can be created at most densities short of completely rural. Some New Urbanist developments have moved towards a model where the buildings directly face the street with parking lot "courtyards" in the middle - this model works. It's still heavily dependent on car culture, which is unfortunate, but is tremendous more functional than the suburban American status quo that is the opposite arrangement, where parking lots face streets and there might as well be a cavernous canyon between the sidewalk and the building (if there even is a sidewalk).

crzwdjk 10y ago
Absolutely. One thing that I've noticed personally (and that studies confirm) is that the distance I am willing to walk depends a great deal on what walking is like: whether it's interesting, safe, etc. Parking lots are thus a double whammy, because the both push actual destinations apart, and reduce the distance that people are willing to walk. And if nobody's walking anywhere anyway, why bother building tall buildings in expensive city centers instead of cheaper ones in suburban office parks? Since you mention New Urbanism, have you heard of the Old Urbanist movement? New Urbanism is an attempt to return to 19th century American patterns, while the Old Urbanists advocate going back to an even older pattern of low-rise and mid-rise buildings on really narrow streets, which is a pattern that has worked well for millenia, and indeed still works well in places like Japan. The narrower streets mean there can be more of them for the same usage of land area, which can mean a much better connected network at a pedestrian scale.