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The thing that drives me bonkers about OC and most California suburbs is the lack of town centers. On the East Coast home buyers have started to discover that

The thing that drives me bonkers about OC and most California suburbs is the lack of town centers. On the East Coast home buyers have started to discover that all these previously neglected walkable little colonial & 19th century towns and denser suburbs, often adjacent to rail lines, have a lot of value. The smarter municipalities have been taking the hint and zoning in denser development to grow out the town center naturally as it was intended. The east coast can start to regrow a lot of the character that was lost in the 20th century tract housing boom, and begin to resemble the old world in that way. On the West Coast, most of the small suburban cities never had a town center to begin with. They were designed by real estate developers using standardized high-profit low-density building plans, entirely focused on cars over walking anywhere. (God forbid you live somewhere that you can walk to buy groceries!) So you end up with these awkward community layouts where there are zero denser centers to grow out of naturally and permanently zoned that way. Nobody wants to take the plunge in having their house re-zoned and experiment with the costly home investment they're sitting on. Mixed use is still a dirty word. So no change occurs. All that seems to be getting done lately is locking down neighborhood zoning and building fancier and fancier shopping centers. Something in this is going to change eventually, but unless people voluntarily bulldoze their houses to make room for new town plans, I can't imagine what form it will take.

Mz 10y ago
On the West Coast, most of the small suburban cities never had a town center to begin with. They were designed by real estate developers using standardized high-profit low-density building plans, entirely focused on cars over walking anywhere. I don't know what you are talking about. I don't believe this to be true of California generally. It is somewhat true of the LA area, but it was always true of LA, before the cult of the car became a thing. In the case of the LA area, it was not possible to develop it without developing large tracts of land in one go because of the cost of bringing infrastructure to the desert. However, when it began, there were trolleys and the like and you could comfortably live without a car. You just used the trolley or other public transit. Also, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the few places in the US with population density comparable to parts of Europe. So it has relatively good public transit for the US. Yes, a lot of America has made it essentially against the rules to create the kind of walkable cities that we once had. The New Urbanism movement was all about trying to find a way to recreate that in spite of the current zoning and legal climate that has whored out development to the cult of the car. I don't know how to fix it, but I feel like you really don't know the history here that you are badmouthing. It is more complicated than that.
- TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
  You don't need to know the history to be frustrated with Californian infrastructure. Been living in southern California for most of my life and have hated most of it. I can't go anywhere without a car. The public transportation is terrible and I have to travel 3 miles for a fucking grocery store. This isn't just southern California and the LA area, but most of California from what I experienced. I'm excited for the day that I can leave, but I have no idea when that will be...
  - Mz 10y ago
    No, of course not. You don't need to know the history of anything at all to be frustrated with it or hate it. But being frustrated with it doesn't make inaccurate blanket statements about the history of the place more accurate. I was not arguing with your right to be frustrated. I was just pointing out that some of your blanket statements were not accurate. Even if it doesn't benefit you personally, I hope it benefits someone. Good luck getting out.
davidw 10y ago
I'm pretty happy with Bend from that point of view. It has a real downtown: https://goo.gl/maps/5om22cePPYy https://goo.gl/maps/5om22cePPYy It could go up a story or two in places, and grow some, but it seems to have come through the worst of the 20th century car era in decent shape. Not too bad for a place that only officially became a city in the early 1900s.
malyk 10y ago
This doesn't really ring true for most of northern california at the very least. San Mateo, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Albany, Pinole, Walnut Creek, Concord, Benicia, etc. all have downtowns. It's even more pronounced outside the bay area. Healdsburg, Sonoma, Napa, Calistoga, St. Helena, Sebastapol, etc. all have tight downtowns. Even in the valley and the sierra foothills have towns/cities with tight downtowns.
- rwhitman 10y ago
  I should have clarified this better but I'm talking more about "villages" really. Places that are too tiny to be classified as a city center (by my arbitrary east coast standards at least), but afford a little pocket of shopfronts and rental units amongst lower density residential housing. Of the cities you listed that I know well, Pinole is actually the best Norcal example I can point to. It's just 2 blocks of shopfronts and most of the residents could walk to the post office if they wanted to. A little 19th century main street that got attached to it's sprawling suburbs much later. Sure there's more places like this in Norcal than Socal, but it's overall pretty rare anywhere in CA to live in a low-density outer suburb and still comfortably walk to a legacy village center rather than a strip mall or gas station. By contrast most 'burbs in the Northeast have these pockets of villages available to incorporate into mixed use zoning plans (but seriously fail at appreciating their potential). Just an unfortunate roadblock in the way of balancing suburban housing density in Western states that I don't feel a lot of people are even fully aware of
sqeaky 10y ago
You just described west Omaha.

Mz 10y ago

On the West Coast, most of the small suburban cities never had a town center to begin with. They were designed by real estate developers using standardized high-profit low-density building plans, entirely focused on cars over walking anywhere. I don't know what you are talking about. I don't believe this to be true of California generally. It is somewhat true of the LA area, but it was always true of LA, before the cult of the car became a thing. In the case of the LA area, it was not possible to develop it without developing large tracts of land in one go because of the cost of bringing infrastructure to the desert. However, when it began, there were trolleys and the like and you could comfortably live without a car. You just used the trolley or other public transit. Also, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the few places in the US with population density comparable to parts of Europe. So it has relatively good public transit for the US. Yes, a lot of America has made it essentially against the rules to create the kind of walkable cities that we once had. The New Urbanism movement was all about trying to find a way to recreate that in spite of the current zoning and legal climate that has whored out development to the cult of the car. I don't know how to fix it, but I feel like you really don't know the history here that you are badmouthing. It is more complicated than that.

TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
You don't need to know the history to be frustrated with Californian infrastructure. Been living in southern California for most of my life and have hated most of it. I can't go anywhere without a car. The public transportation is terrible and I have to travel 3 miles for a fucking grocery store. This isn't just southern California and the LA area, but most of California from what I experienced. I'm excited for the day that I can leave, but I have no idea when that will be...
- Mz 10y ago
  No, of course not. You don't need to know the history of anything at all to be frustrated with it or hate it. But being frustrated with it doesn't make inaccurate blanket statements about the history of the place more accurate. I was not arguing with your right to be frustrated. I was just pointing out that some of your blanket statements were not accurate. Even if it doesn't benefit you personally, I hope it benefits someone. Good luck getting out.

davidw 10y ago

I'm pretty happy with Bend from that point of view. It has a real downtown: https://goo.gl/maps/5om22cePPYy https://goo.gl/maps/5om22cePPYy It could go up a story or two in places, and grow some, but it seems to have come through the worst of the 20th century car era in decent shape. Not too bad for a place that only officially became a city in the early 1900s.

malyk 10y ago

This doesn't really ring true for most of northern california at the very least. San Mateo, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Albany, Pinole, Walnut Creek, Concord, Benicia, etc. all have downtowns. It's even more pronounced outside the bay area. Healdsburg, Sonoma, Napa, Calistoga, St. Helena, Sebastapol, etc. all have tight downtowns. Even in the valley and the sierra foothills have towns/cities with tight downtowns.

rwhitman 10y ago
I should have clarified this better but I'm talking more about "villages" really. Places that are too tiny to be classified as a city center (by my arbitrary east coast standards at least), but afford a little pocket of shopfronts and rental units amongst lower density residential housing. Of the cities you listed that I know well, Pinole is actually the best Norcal example I can point to. It's just 2 blocks of shopfronts and most of the residents could walk to the post office if they wanted to. A little 19th century main street that got attached to it's sprawling suburbs much later. Sure there's more places like this in Norcal than Socal, but it's overall pretty rare anywhere in CA to live in a low-density outer suburb and still comfortably walk to a legacy village center rather than a strip mall or gas station. By contrast most 'burbs in the Northeast have these pockets of villages available to incorporate into mixed use zoning plans (but seriously fail at appreciating their potential). Just an unfortunate roadblock in the way of balancing suburban housing density in Western states that I don't feel a lot of people are even fully aware of

sqeaky 10y ago

You just described west Omaha.