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The one giant wart that makes this whole project depressingly not futuristic: 9000+ parking spaces. The amount of unproductive space devoted to the storage of

The one giant wart that makes this whole project depressingly not futuristic: 9000+ parking spaces. The amount of unproductive space devoted to the storage of cars is just mind boggling. Not much has changed in how people get to work. Single occupancy cars all burning fossil fuel and expelling C02. It may not be a fancy spaceship, but the 100 year old building I work at in downtown Chicago has indoor bike parking and allows me a nice 20 minute ride on my bike.

artursapek 9y ago
Biking to work in a big dense city like Chicago is a lot easier than biking to work from the sprawling suburbs in California. Probably a much shorter trip. I'm sure Apple's spaceship has space for bikes if people want it...
- exergy 9y ago
  That's kind of the point. What is the main achievement here? Just "nice design"? It is undoubtedly that. But it is the same sort of thought process I have when looking at gardens in Suburbia. Yes, the lawns are beautifully manicured, and satisfy my symmetry-seeking side. But a wild, freely growing forest also has beauty. An entire neighbourhood "nestled" in such an overgrowth, sustaining a healthy biome also is beautiful no? Perhaps Apple could have attained a best of both worlds? Do they have residences in close proximity? Maybe something akin to the Toyota city but more compact?
naravara 9y ago
That's not really up to Apple unfortunately. Cupertino has all sorts of regressive laws about parking minimums and zoning. I suppose Apple is a big enough wheel that they could have probably rewritten those laws if they wanted to, but they're an electronics company, not city planners. WTH would they know about decent zoning regs?
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  Well they probably don't know much about architecture either, that's why they hired Norman Foster.
dalbasal 9y ago
Not much has changed generally in how people get anywhere. Cars, trains, bikes, planes... the options are pretty similar to what they were 50 years ago. We've had some minor improvements in availability, cost, quality & such but it's basically the same choices. The resurgence of cycling is just different choices within the same set of constraints. Technology doesn't progress at the same pace across all fields. Innovation in the transport of people had a solid run from (well, dating these things is always a little arbitrary) from the age of sail to around the 1960s and then seemed to have stopped. The age of sail promoted Europe's rapid modernisation and industrialization. They dug huge canal systems in some countries. They rolled out empire-grade railroad systems. Before World war one, air travel meant novelty items like blimps and planes made from bicycles. By the 1960s we had modern airline systems, supersonic fighters that could still fight today...In the following 50 years, we've modernized and digitized what we already had in 1960 but it's not much cheaper, faster or more convenient. That's why I like the focus on transport. Self driving cars are such a cool technology they get some eyes onto transport. Uber gives us a transport unicorn, which gets investor and founder eyes onto transport. Ideas like hyperloop and Marsone are floating around as inspiration. Hopefully, we're going into a period of progress again.
gertef 9y ago
Biking in Chicago is so nice that at least, what, 7% of commuters choose that option?
komali2 9y ago
I find that better than this recent nugget I read in either Palo Alto times, or Mountain View Voice, I can't recall, and I'm also paraphrasing from memory: "When asked by city council about traffic issues and parking spaces for [some huge new google campus], [some google spokesperson] assuaged councilmembers with 'By the time it's done, we'll be bringing people in with self driving cars, and the local rail system in [Palo Alto / Mountain View] will have been built, so this will be a non-issue.'" Judging from the tone of the story, this was considered totally acceptable by the city council. Like, some suit from google just says "nah don't worry about it, 5 years from now is the future, and we all KNOW what the future will be like! Eh? Eh?" Seems remarkably irresponsible, though I am totally for new development! The more the better. Let the tech capital of the world remain so.

artursapek 9y ago

Biking to work in a big dense city like Chicago is a lot easier than biking to work from the sprawling suburbs in California. Probably a much shorter trip. I'm sure Apple's spaceship has space for bikes if people want it...

exergy 9y ago
That's kind of the point. What is the main achievement here? Just "nice design"? It is undoubtedly that. But it is the same sort of thought process I have when looking at gardens in Suburbia. Yes, the lawns are beautifully manicured, and satisfy my symmetry-seeking side. But a wild, freely growing forest also has beauty. An entire neighbourhood "nestled" in such an overgrowth, sustaining a healthy biome also is beautiful no? Perhaps Apple could have attained a best of both worlds? Do they have residences in close proximity? Maybe something akin to the Toyota city but more compact?

naravara 9y ago

That's not really up to Apple unfortunately. Cupertino has all sorts of regressive laws about parking minimums and zoning. I suppose Apple is a big enough wheel that they could have probably rewritten those laws if they wanted to, but they're an electronics company, not city planners. WTH would they know about decent zoning regs?

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
Well they probably don't know much about architecture either, that's why they hired Norman Foster.

dalbasal 9y ago

Not much has changed generally in how people get anywhere. Cars, trains, bikes, planes... the options are pretty similar to what they were 50 years ago. We've had some minor improvements in availability, cost, quality & such but it's basically the same choices. The resurgence of cycling is just different choices within the same set of constraints. Technology doesn't progress at the same pace across all fields. Innovation in the transport of people had a solid run from (well, dating these things is always a little arbitrary) from the age of sail to around the 1960s and then seemed to have stopped. The age of sail promoted Europe's rapid modernisation and industrialization. They dug huge canal systems in some countries. They rolled out empire-grade railroad systems. Before World war one, air travel meant novelty items like blimps and planes made from bicycles. By the 1960s we had modern airline systems, supersonic fighters that could still fight today...In the following 50 years, we've modernized and digitized what we already had in 1960 but it's not much cheaper, faster or more convenient. That's why I like the focus on transport. Self driving cars are such a cool technology they get some eyes onto transport. Uber gives us a transport unicorn, which gets investor and founder eyes onto transport. Ideas like hyperloop and Marsone are floating around as inspiration. Hopefully, we're going into a period of progress again.

gertef 9y ago

Biking in Chicago is so nice that at least, what, 7% of commuters choose that option?

komali2 9y ago

I find that better than this recent nugget I read in either Palo Alto times, or Mountain View Voice, I can't recall, and I'm also paraphrasing from memory: "When asked by city council about traffic issues and parking spaces for [some huge new google campus], [some google spokesperson] assuaged councilmembers with 'By the time it's done, we'll be bringing people in with self driving cars, and the local rail system in [Palo Alto / Mountain View] will have been built, so this will be a non-issue.'" Judging from the tone of the story, this was considered totally acceptable by the city council. Like, some suit from google just says "nah don't worry about it, 5 years from now is the future, and we all KNOW what the future will be like! Eh? Eh?" Seems remarkably irresponsible, though I am totally for new development! The more the better. Let the tech capital of the world remain so.