5 ms·

Cars or bikes are great because vehicle + roads = a fairly robust network [if done well, no single points of failure]. That's not usually the case for public t

by wrsh07 10y ago

Cars or bikes are great because vehicle + roads = a fairly robust network [if done well, no single points of failure]. That's not usually the case for public transit. [Agreed about real estate. Although dense cities are very eco-friendly, it might be hard to motivate dense cities when real estate isn't super expensive. Manhattan grows upward because it's expensive to grow any other direction]

epistasis 10y ago
Bikes may be great but cars are terrible for cities. They take a ton of space and require massive amounts of restrictions on non-car traffic. Space is the biggest premium in a city. If a fraction of the space that was devoted to car traffic was instead devoted to public transit, public transit would be far more efficient and robust than cars.
- rtkwe 10y ago
  Maybe in denser cities or downtown but where I live and work if I wanted to take a bus my easy 9 mile 20 minute drive becomes 60 to 90 minutes with 3 bus changes. That's a lot of ground to make up.
  - zanny 10y ago
    I hope the aspiration for new cities would start with the presumption of density. An experiment like this should be trying to solve a problem, not just add more urban sprawl, and you don't get a city culture off preplanned road infrastructure and zoning laws.
    - epistasis 10y ago
      It's an interesting question: how does one maximize the potential interconnections between people and places? I know that when I'm in a dense city, it definitely feels like there are a lot more places and things I can visit than when I'm in a suburban area with a car. But that needs to be balanced with the desires of some to have fewer connections, but perhaps more yard. And some people honestly desire to have fewer connections and live further away from others. However, what if the suburban area was more varied in locations: smaller businesses and corner markets mixed in with residential areas? Right now most suburban development consists square miles of nothing but residential cul-de-sacs peppered with massive clusters of big box stores that require huge parking lots and must serve large numbers of people to survive. People want the big box stores because they think they save money, but the same savings are possible with lots of small stores as long as there's a real market and clever people running small businesses. With that type of sparse use of land, greater distances between things on average but with the speed of cars, would that allow more interconnections than density? I think that over the past few decades, that those that desire the yard, and those that desire fewer interconnections have been able to prevent those that want density from building it. There's a clear undersupply of dense locations and a clear oversupply of sparse locations. I think the key is to have lots of diversity so that many experiments can be tried. Right now there have been few styles that have been tried with cars, and though I personally consider it a failure in that I don't want to live like that, there are plenty of people that consider density to be a failure and would never want to live like that. Any solution(s) to cities should be able to meet everybody's desires.
      - kuschku 10y ago
        Look at developments in Europe, they show often well how it’s done. This is a development from 2005, started as pure residential suburb: https://maps.here.com/?map=54.3557,10.07057,17,satellite https://maps.here.com/?map=54.3557,10.07057,17,satellite Look at the street planning, look at how the foot paths exist, and look at that one odd park on the one side. Over the next decades and centuries, the houses will be replaced with denser ones again and again, and it will slowly develop to something like https://maps.here.com/?map=54.33864,10.14098,17,satellite https://maps.here.com/?map=54.33864,10.14098,17,satellite and then something like https://maps.here.com/?map=54.31908,10.12497,17,satellite https://maps.here.com/?map=54.31908,10.12497,17,satellite You notice how they get more and more pedestrian friendly over time – but the first one is already bikable, walkable, has a bus line cutting through it, and is still usable by car. This is what the initial stage looks like: http://i.imgur.com/P0T2DaG.jpg http://i.imgur.com/P0T2DaG.jpg http://i.imgur.com/DHhjSQ8.jpg http://i.imgur.com/DHhjSQ8.jpg This is a typical residential suburb – but, as you might have noticed on bing maps, at several points, stores and services and small businesses already popped up. A dentist, two physiotherapy and a logotherapy practice, a small bakery and shop. Currently there are discussions about a small supermarket coming into the area. Maybe later some more stores, and some buildings might be replaced with new ones that have on the lowest floor businesses instead.
    - rtkwe 10y ago
      I think that any prosperous city will end up with some level of sprawl as people who prefer more space or businesses that need more space move to the area. Part of the goal will be to make sure that doesn't force the city center into becoming like every other with poor walking access.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    ...my easy 9 mile 20 minute drive becomes... Such a drive is likely not stable. 9 mile 10 minute drives, in rural areas, are stable. But unless your economy is moribund, once that's up to 20 minutes, chances are good that ten years from now that same drive will be 45 minutes.
    - rtkwe 10y ago
      Eh looking just at those numbers maybe, I'm kind of in an odd area the most direct way is via mostly slow residential streets. If I swing wide to the longer highway route it's 2 minutes faster but further (11 miles ~18 minutes) and more annoying dealing with traffic (where I merge onto 40 I have to get over 4 lanes in a short time) so I usually take the slower but more pleasant route. It was far worse at my old apartment 5 miles in 11 minutes became 50 minutes if I took the bus. I'm in RTP which is far from moribund but Durham where I live is getting the least new residents it seems.

by wrsh07 10y ago

epistasis 10y ago

Bikes may be great but cars are terrible for cities. They take a ton of space and require massive amounts of restrictions on non-car traffic. Space is the biggest premium in a city. If a fraction of the space that was devoted to car traffic was instead devoted to public transit, public transit would be far more efficient and robust than cars.

rtkwe 10y ago
Maybe in denser cities or downtown but where I live and work if I wanted to take a bus my easy 9 mile 20 minute drive becomes 60 to 90 minutes with 3 bus changes. That's a lot of ground to make up.
- zanny 10y ago
  I hope the aspiration for new cities would start with the presumption of density. An experiment like this should be trying to solve a problem, not just add more urban sprawl, and you don't get a city culture off preplanned road infrastructure and zoning laws.
  - epistasis 10y ago
    It's an interesting question: how does one maximize the potential interconnections between people and places? I know that when I'm in a dense city, it definitely feels like there are a lot more places and things I can visit than when I'm in a suburban area with a car. But that needs to be balanced with the desires of some to have fewer connections, but perhaps more yard. And some people honestly desire to have fewer connections and live further away from others. However, what if the suburban area was more varied in locations: smaller businesses and corner markets mixed in with residential areas? Right now most suburban development consists square miles of nothing but residential cul-de-sacs peppered with massive clusters of big box stores that require huge parking lots and must serve large numbers of people to survive. People want the big box stores because they think they save money, but the same savings are possible with lots of small stores as long as there's a real market and clever people running small businesses. With that type of sparse use of land, greater distances between things on average but with the speed of cars, would that allow more interconnections than density? I think that over the past few decades, that those that desire the yard, and those that desire fewer interconnections have been able to prevent those that want density from building it. There's a clear undersupply of dense locations and a clear oversupply of sparse locations. I think the key is to have lots of diversity so that many experiments can be tried. Right now there have been few styles that have been tried with cars, and though I personally consider it a failure in that I don't want to live like that, there are plenty of people that consider density to be a failure and would never want to live like that. Any solution(s) to cities should be able to meet everybody's desires.
    - kuschku 10y ago
      Look at developments in Europe, they show often well how it’s done. This is a development from 2005, started as pure residential suburb: https://maps.here.com/?map=54.3557,10.07057,17,satellite https://maps.here.com/?map=54.3557,10.07057,17,satellite Look at the street planning, look at how the foot paths exist, and look at that one odd park on the one side. Over the next decades and centuries, the houses will be replaced with denser ones again and again, and it will slowly develop to something like https://maps.here.com/?map=54.33864,10.14098,17,satellite https://maps.here.com/?map=54.33864,10.14098,17,satellite and then something like https://maps.here.com/?map=54.31908,10.12497,17,satellite https://maps.here.com/?map=54.31908,10.12497,17,satellite You notice how they get more and more pedestrian friendly over time – but the first one is already bikable, walkable, has a bus line cutting through it, and is still usable by car. This is what the initial stage looks like: http://i.imgur.com/P0T2DaG.jpg http://i.imgur.com/P0T2DaG.jpg http://i.imgur.com/DHhjSQ8.jpg http://i.imgur.com/DHhjSQ8.jpg This is a typical residential suburb – but, as you might have noticed on bing maps, at several points, stores and services and small businesses already popped up. A dentist, two physiotherapy and a logotherapy practice, a small bakery and shop. Currently there are discussions about a small supermarket coming into the area. Maybe later some more stores, and some buildings might be replaced with new ones that have on the lowest floor businesses instead.
  - rtkwe 10y ago
    I think that any prosperous city will end up with some level of sprawl as people who prefer more space or businesses that need more space move to the area. Part of the goal will be to make sure that doesn't force the city center into becoming like every other with poor walking access.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  ...my easy 9 mile 20 minute drive becomes... Such a drive is likely not stable. 9 mile 10 minute drives, in rural areas, are stable. But unless your economy is moribund, once that's up to 20 minutes, chances are good that ten years from now that same drive will be 45 minutes.
  - rtkwe 10y ago
    Eh looking just at those numbers maybe, I'm kind of in an odd area the most direct way is via mostly slow residential streets. If I swing wide to the longer highway route it's 2 minutes faster but further (11 miles ~18 minutes) and more annoying dealing with traffic (where I merge onto 40 I have to get over 4 lanes in a short time) so I usually take the slower but more pleasant route. It was far worse at my old apartment 5 miles in 11 minutes became 50 minutes if I took the bus. I'm in RTP which is far from moribund but Durham where I live is getting the least new residents it seems.