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That concept has already been implemented. Urban planners who practice it call it "new urbanism". It has been a mixed bag, but is better than the "malls-connec

That concept has already been implemented. Urban planners who practice it call it "new urbanism". It has been a mixed bag, but is better than the "malls-connected-by-highways" approach of many suburban development s.

jimmaswell 9y ago
Too much density decreases the quality of life. Overcrowdedness, very long waiting times at every establishment or government office, increased ease of pickpockets etc. to "disappear into the crowd", higher prices. You already see all this in many existing cities; you want that, but worse? I'll take malls connected by highways over that any day. Malls are nice and cars are a better experience than transit/walking in every facet besides the fact of not being able to web browse on a phone while doing it.
- davidw 9y ago
  Malls and freeways aren't really financially tenable, long term. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/1/7/americas-suburban-experiment https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/1/7/americas-suburb...
- kuschku 9y ago
  More density allows more establishments and offices to exist, and of more different kinds. In a city with 10x the people, you can have 10x more shops, restaurants, etc, and you’ll as result also get 10x more variation.
  - oftenwrong 9y ago
    ...and a [shop, street, park, restaurant, school, etc] will have 10x as many people that are living within walking distance. This point is made well in this article: http://newworldeconomics.com/how-to-make-a-pile-of-dough-with-the-traditional-city-5-the-new-new-suburbanism/ http://newworldeconomics.com/how-to-make-a-pile-of-dough-wit... >Our basic goal, in all this, is to deliver roughly triple the density as this “New Urbanist” model, while still preserving what looks very much like a “traditional Small Town America single family house,” including a nice backyard and lush, tree-lined streets. This is what gets us from 8,000 people per square mile, for a typical Los Angeles suburb (with 5000sf plots), to maybe 10,000 for the New Urbanist example and more like 25,000-30,000 for our example. We have already seen how our basic house plot shrinks from 4000sf to 2000sf, which doubles the density right there. We even have some smaller house plots of 1,250sf and 625sf. Then, we have a huge amount of land now being consumed by vastly excessive roadways and associated Green Space, that we can replace with Really Narrow Streets, thus freeing up more land for houses. For example, if the house plot/total land area ratio rises from 50% to 75%, that is a 50% increase in density right there. The combination of half the lot size plus a 50% increase in density due to reduction in land used for streets/Green Space/parking lots gives us our triple density bogey. Triple the density means that every store or restaurant now has 30,000 people who are within an easy walk of 15 minutes or so, which means that they can have a viable business without a parking lot. It means that every school now has three times as many students that are within an easy walk. No more chauffering your kids to school. No more school buses. At 30,000 people per square mile, and if 15% of the people are school age (6-17), that means 4500 kids are within walking distance of the school. It means that the four-year high school would have about 1500 students, all within a half-mile walk of the school. It means that, if a train station is introduced later, three times as many people will be able to walk there as well. In short, everything becomes a lot more “walkable.” By making it walkable, we thus eliminate the need for cars unless travelling outside the immediate neighborhood, which eliminates auto traffic and also makes the neighborhood much more peaceful, quiet, and suitable for kids, families, and seniors.
    - lqdc13 9y ago
      The way i see it you are basically describing south Brooklyn with the 30k/square mile. Something like Bensohurst (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.620487,-74.0093661,3a,75y,203.3h,82.97t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sWz0YExKENBxfdPbTt4h18g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DWz0YExKENBxfdPbTt4h18g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D226.5%26pitch%3D-3%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@40.620487,-74.0093661,3a,75y,20...) or Western part of San Francisco. I think the issue with this approach is it doesn't take away individualism. Everything is still too far away. Most people still have cars and look for parking for hours. The parks are few and something like 30 minute walk away. Your friends and gym are also going to be 30 minutes walk away. It's not dense enough for subways everywhere and buses stop on every block so it makes just as much sense to walk. Nobody walks anywhere besides their neighborhood and there is usually nothing in their neighborhood. So it's really worse than suburbs and worse than city center that has buildings. Worse than city with buildings because you don't share common resources so everyone is still for themselves. You also don't get nice things like common public playgrounds and parks. It's worse than the suburbs because you still get the same problems of it being difficult to get places but now it's even harder. You still get "what's mine is mine and I don't want public things" but now you have less of your own stuff and fewer public things because real estate is expensive. You also don't get the diversity of food or clothes that you would get in a city. I think the ideal is 90k/sq mile in the places where people live with 4-6 story buildings.
      - oftenwrong 9y ago
        I do see your point. The author is modelling this as a transitional form of a suburban neighbourhood that could later be intensified. Additionally, it should be read with understanding of his previous writing on cities [1]. You'll see he capitalizes a lot of terms (e.g. Really Narrow Street) which are intended as references to concepts he has fleshed-out in other posts. A major component of his vision for cities is the idea that (most) streets should be pleasant, attractive Places (as opposed to Non-Places) to spend time, and should be public spaces in their own right. Rather than have urbanites "get away" from the city by visiting parks, he would have the city be a place that people do not need to "get away" from. A street could [1] http://newworldeconomics.com/category/traditional-city-post-heroic-materialism/ http://newworldeconomics.com/category/traditional-city-post-... He has written a lot on cities. Unabashedly opinionated, but compelling. I especially like his extensive use of photos.
- crispyambulance 9y ago
  > Too much density decreases the quality of life. Too much of anything decreases quality of life. Everyone has their own taste, but generally speaking, if every journey out of your home has to begin and end with a parking space because you live in a pedestrian-hostile environment, that will certainly damage quality of life and the social fabric of that place as a "town".
  - closeparen 9y ago
    The strength of the social fabric / level of community engagement in suburbs is way higher. Not even close.
    - tabeth 9y ago
      Any data to back that up? I'd be curious to know what the ideal density is.
    - oftenwrong 9y ago
      There is some debate on that point: https://books.google.com/books?id=Xk06al1sAmUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA172#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=Xk06al1sAmUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA... Passage begins on page 171 but I can't link to it via Google Books.
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    What do you mean by the social fabric of the town? It doesn't sound like something I'd care much about. I just go to work and sometimes the grocery store, maybe a restaurant once in a while.
    - crispyambulance 9y ago
      > It doesn't sound like something I'd care much about. That's OK. It's a free country you can live where and how you want. But recognize that many, especially increasing numbers of millennials, feel differently and this is now reshaping the demographics of cities.
- supplied_demand 9y ago
  >Malls are nice and cars are a better experience than transit/walking in every facet This isn't even remotely true. You are forgetting the time spent finding a parking spot, the opportunity cost of having a parking lot instead of more housing or commercial space, transit/walking also provides exercise, which matters in an epidemically obese society. This doesn't even get into the pollution aspect of driving or the costs of car ownership/maintenance. Cars become a depreciating asset as soon as you buy them, should we be encouraging that type of investment?
  - vkou 9y ago
    Not to mention how many people cars kill each year.
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    >time spent finding a parking spot Not a lot of time at all in my experience, certainly less than waiting for public transit or an uber to arrive. >opportunity cost To me it's worth it. >exercise You walk inside the mall. And what about people with certain disabilities? Do they get left out of this walking-only city? >pollution Emissions are improving all the time, and electric cars are on the rise. >depreciating asset So? Along with almost everything? Buy a used car if you're so concerned about your "asset" depreciating. You get value from it when you use it.
    - supplied_demand 9y ago
      >Certainly less than waiting for public transit or an uber to arrive. I can track train, bus or Uber/Lyft arrival on my phone. >To me it's worth it. You made that clear. For the rest of society, higher rents, heat capture and poor rainwater drainage make parking lots a net negative. >You walk inside the mall. And what about people with certain disabilities? Do they get left out of this walking-only city? I see plenty of disabled people on public transit and using sidewalks in my city. I'm not sure what cities your experience comes from, but my experience is different. I also don't see many obese people on public transit, but I do when walking around suburban malls. >Emissions are improving all the time, and electric cars are on the rise. Transportation (cars and trucks) is the biggest contributor to CO2 emissions in the US as of the past two years. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/11/16874696/greenhouse-gas-co2-target-2017-paris-trump https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/11/1687469... >Along with almost everything? Buy a used car if you're so concerned about your "asset" depreciating. Except education, real estate, stocks and other large purchases people make. I actually can't think of something other than cars that people routinely pay over $10k (in December, the average new car in US sold for $36,495) for and expect it to decline in value immediately. Used cars are as much a depreciating asset as new ones. Typically the more used a car is, the more you will pay for upkeep.
- Dirlewanger 9y ago
  If density is so awful, why have malls been closing left and right for years? Why have so many people been flocking to more dense neighborhoods?
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    I'd guess because of the economy. The high paying/skilled jobs are there so people were forced to move. Outside of this strange vocal minority that shows up here, very few people would actually prefer to live in an urban area instead of a small town or suburb or whatever given the choice.
    - gcampbell 9y ago
      Do you have stats to back that up? A lot of the recent polling I've seen implies the opposite, especially for younger generations.
    - ef4 9y ago
      > Outside of this strange vocal minority that shows up here, very few people would actually prefer to live in an urban area If that was really true it would create a huge arbitrage opportunity for people to make billions of dollars by building their businesses out in cheaper areas. > The high paying/skilled jobs are there Yes, but the question is why? If most people don't want to be in cities as you say, that would also include business owners, who could save a ton of money by moving their businesses into cheaper areas and paying lower rents and wages. But that's not happening, on net. We're seeing the reverse. Businesses that fled to the suburbs 60 years ago are steadily moving back into cities. https://www.economist.com/news/business/21706285-lots-prominent-american-companies-are-moving-downtown-leaving-city https://www.economist.com/news/business/21706285-lots-promin... http://fortune.com/2011/07/14/companies-head-back-downtown/ http://fortune.com/2011/07/14/companies-head-back-downtown/ https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/business/economy/why-corporate-america-is-leaving-the-suburbs-for-the-city.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/business/economy/why-corp... Many of these are sober, fortune 500 companies that wouldn't be moving if they didn't see a clear economic reason to do it. It's not some "strange vocal minority" position. We are returning to the long-term average for civilization since the first cities began 6000 years ago: cities are the centers of economic activity and power. America went through a weird inversion for two generations where that wasn't true. We're now reverting to the mean.
- matwood 9y ago
  > cars are a better experience than transit/walking in every facet I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion. There are plusses and minuses to both. IMO, the big plus with a car is freedom, but then there are many negatives like parking, traffic, and speed to destination. If I ever move again, it will be to a location where I do not have to own a car. I hate everything about driving, and realized it's a huge source of general stress for me personally.
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    Parking, traffic, and speed to destination depend on where you live and your specific situation, but for a lot of people, speed to destination is always faster in a car, including parking. My commute is only 5 minutes by car and it would take a lot longer on transit. Subjectively, I prefer being in my own space with personal temperature controls and music, and a bit of traffic would be worth it. Compared to transit, where it's often crowded, you have to look out for your stop coming up, the seats aren't generally as good, the ambient temperature is liable to be uncomfortable, etc. I've also found that I just like driving lately.
    - matwood 9y ago
      > depend on where you live and your specific situation So it's not better in every facet. It's better for your exact current situation. Most people do not have a 5 minute drive to work [1]. On the whole, I think if we took the best car situation and the best city/public transportation situation (some EU city like London for example), the car situation does not scale and lags behind the car situation. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/22/the-american-commute-is-worse-today-than-its-ever-been/?utm_term=.5b41ff6f7572 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/22/the-a...
    - trgn 9y ago
      Driving isn't bad. Depending on the trip I prefer a car trip with traffic jams over a transit trip without. I really do love driving and cars, but just the stuff they show you in the commercials. The long cross-state family trip, the leisurely drive in the country, hauling a dishwasher, ... But car culture in the aggregate has absolutely killed american cities. My city tore down its downtown to accommodate highways and parking lots. It's ghastly. Nobody wants to live in a place like that, nobody wants to visit a place like that. Traffic should be calmed in the city, so it's slow, predictable, quiet and safe. We'd get our towns back. Instead of building cities so they're convenient for cars, we should build them so they're convenient for pedestrians. We can still use the car for all the other fun stuff.
- stale2002 9y ago
  If quality of life is so bad, then why are prices high? If it sucks to live somewhere, you would expect it to be CHEAPER than living in the surrounding area. But thats not what we see. What we see is that prices in urban areas are pretty much universally higher than living in the surrounding, less dense area? Do you know what that means? That means that the market has spoken, and it proves that people want to live in these areas, as proven by the fact that they are willing to pay a lot more money to do so. When it is just as cheap to live in the city as it is to live in low density areas, THEN we can talk about relative demand and the benefits of low density.
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    You're oversimplifying the economics, elevating one aspect of it above all other considerations. Cost of living doesn't prove that people "want" to live in these areas. What about taxes? Different strictness of regulations? Parking fees? Some may want to, but how many are a captive audience due to their field of work? How many simply have family ties? How many can't afford to take the steps to move out because they're living paycheck to paycheck?
    - stale2002 9y ago
      I am sure that is true for some people, but is it true for MOST people? If anything, the examples you give mean that it is even more important to increase density. This is because, for all of those reasons you mentioned, there are people who need to live in certain areas, but they can't, because they are priced out of the area! The suburbs take up the majority of the world. If people want to live in low density areas, they can't live literally anywhere. The problem is that the demand for high density is unfulfilled. Cities take a very small amount of space, when compared to the rest of the living space. Thusly, there is nothing to lose. Don't want to live in a city? Then don't! You have 99% of the rest of the land to choose from.
- rsynnott 9y ago
  > Malls are nice and cars are a better experience than transit/walking in every facet besides the fact of not being able to web browse on a phone while doing it. This seems extremely subjective. I don't like malls very much, and won't set foot in one without good reason. I enjoy walking, and have no problem with public transport. I'd really have no interest in living somewhere where I couldn't either walk to work or take a short train/tram. Different people like different things.
- com2kid 9y ago
  Malls typically lack quality local retailers. Local artists renting out a store front to sell their works, local gyms, martial arts studios, dance studios, that small store stuffed to the brim with cute little decor items, clothing stores for local fashion designers, and of course small restaurants. Malls have none of those. Maybe a couple local jewelers, and everything else is large nation wide (or regional) chains. Density of construction drives down rents. Large parking lots are huge lost opportunity costs. They don't give much tax revenue, and they don't contribute to the economy, there is nothing on them. When I lived in an urban core, I was able to get everything I needed within a 5 minute walk. That included an outdoor mall, integrated into the walkable city, that was a mix of local stores and nationwide retailers. In contrast, the malls I drive to have none of that.
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    I've seen small local coffee shops and small restaurants do fine in malls. Especially "mini malls" which have a lot more variety on that front. Some of the parking lots by where I lived were used for flea markets on the weekends. Regardless, I think parking lots sprinkled with islands containing trees/greenery make the landscape look nicer than if that area were packed full of buildings.
  - lazerpants 9y ago
    Here's a really cool story about a mall that has almost all local retailers. https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/scenes-inside-houston-zombie-mall/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/scenes-inside-houst...
- luckydata 9y ago
  I don't know where you live, but you clearly never experienced a city the way it's being described by the others in this thread. I currently live in the US in a small town in the midwest after a long stint in California (socal first then bay area). Previously I lived for a few years in Madrid, an extremely dense city by western standards. I used to walk home from the office (roughly a mile and a half) when the weather was good, took metro and walked in bad weather. Bars and restaurants were all over the place, and it wasn't unusual I would walk by a store with something nice in the window and decide to go inside to see if I wanted to buy (young dude with a lot of disposable income, that was nice). Over time I got to create relationships with the owners of the stores I would visit more frequently, and it wasn't rare to meet coworkers randomly by getting a beer in a bar with a friend. We would join groups and my social circle would naturally change over time. Fast forward to now: I go from home to work, then back. I never meet anyone I haven't made plans to meet. I buy everything online. I haven't made a new friend in 3 years, and the variability of my social circle is also very limited. I'm bored all the time, and I eat too much and watch too much tv because I have no idea what to do with some of my free time. It sucks, and I wish I could go back to that lifestyle because it was a lot more fun than anything I experienced in the US.
  - lazerpants 9y ago
    To play devil's advocate, I have a lot of your current problems and live in NYC in a pretty dense area. Back when I lived in a far more suburban city I was able to play golf with friends, go hiking, and take road trips to see places and people. Restaurants were much more affordable and I rarely needed a reservation, stores weren't completely swarmed with people during the times I could visit them (which makes buying everything online easier). Everyone had a washer and dryer. People invited friends over for BBQs in their backyards. On weekends it was actually faster to go places than on weekdays, so I could visit people who lived in faraway parts of town and it was no big deal (in NYC I barely get to see my friends in Queens, it takes forever to get there). After dealing with so many people and broken down subways a lot of days I'm just tired and want to go home, so I end up just being home a lot. Now, there are a lot of reasons I like living in NYC and choose to do so, but there are serious trade offs to living in a very dense environment and there are some awesome things about living in a low density environment.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Have you been to a mall recently? One that isn't dying? Where is it?
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    The Galleria at Crystal Run in Middletown, NY, the Poughkeepsie Gallerie in Poughkeepsie, NY, the Newburgh Mall in Newburgh, NY, and the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, NY are all some that I've been to either within the past months or few years and they were all doing fine.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      It's been some time since I was in that general area, but my impression is that many people in those suburbs commute via train for their employment. Surely those malls, if they are indeed thriving, owe some of their success to the rest of the NYC metro area, which is noted for being the most transit-oriented location in USA? Malls in the transit-free hinterlands you seemed to prefer, are not thriving.
      - jimmaswell 9y ago
        >Surely those malls, if they are indeed thriving, owe some of their success to the rest of the NYC metro area I suppose, but I'm not sure this proves your point. If anything, it shows that these commuters are choosing to go to the mall up there instead of window shopping in the city. I never said I prefer "transit-free hinterlands"? That general area is actually the specific example I had in mind all along.
  - Kephael 9y ago
    When I went to the Bellevue Square mall it was crowded beyond belief, it was like going back in time to before eCommerce.
  - DrScump 9y ago
    In a region with multiple malls within a 30-minute drive, the strong will survive (longer, at least) but the weak are dying. The most upscale in a region is probably doing fine. Near SV, for example, Stanford Shopping Center and Santana Row are fine for now. In contrast, Westgate and Vallco are mere shadows of what they once were.
- so33 9y ago
  I feel like I have talked about cars and transit quite a bit, and everyone else has covered this down thread. But I'd like to address your other comments: > Overcrowdedness Again - when we are talking about increasing density we are not talking about forcing people to get rid of their car or making a sleepy suburb look like Manhattan. Townhouses, for instance, increase residential density a lot compared to the tract housing popular in American suburbs and, if well-built, have very little downside. > very long waiting times at every establishment or government office Maybe to line up at a nightclub or an exceptionally popular restaurant. But the beauty of increased density is choice - if a place is busy, just walk to a less busy one. >increased ease of pickpockets etc. to "disappear into the crowd" Notorious pickpocketing hotspots in Paris or Barcelona mainly prey on tourists who are confused and disoriented and jet lagged. Keeping aware of your belongings at all times will greatly lower your chance of being pickpocketed. Also, I'd argue that if a crime occurs in a less dense area, there might not be anyone else who was there to witness or report the crime.

jimmaswell 9y ago

Too much density decreases the quality of life. Overcrowdedness, very long waiting times at every establishment or government office, increased ease of pickpockets etc. to "disappear into the crowd", higher prices. You already see all this in many existing cities; you want that, but worse? I'll take malls connected by highways over that any day. Malls are nice and cars are a better experience than transit/walking in every facet besides the fact of not being able to web browse on a phone while doing it.

davidw 9y ago
Malls and freeways aren't really financially tenable, long term. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/1/7/americas-suburban-experiment https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/1/7/americas-suburb...
kuschku 9y ago
More density allows more establishments and offices to exist, and of more different kinds. In a city with 10x the people, you can have 10x more shops, restaurants, etc, and you’ll as result also get 10x more variation.
- oftenwrong 9y ago
  ...and a [shop, street, park, restaurant, school, etc] will have 10x as many people that are living within walking distance. This point is made well in this article: http://newworldeconomics.com/how-to-make-a-pile-of-dough-with-the-traditional-city-5-the-new-new-suburbanism/ http://newworldeconomics.com/how-to-make-a-pile-of-dough-wit... >Our basic goal, in all this, is to deliver roughly triple the density as this “New Urbanist” model, while still preserving what looks very much like a “traditional Small Town America single family house,” including a nice backyard and lush, tree-lined streets. This is what gets us from 8,000 people per square mile, for a typical Los Angeles suburb (with 5000sf plots), to maybe 10,000 for the New Urbanist example and more like 25,000-30,000 for our example. We have already seen how our basic house plot shrinks from 4000sf to 2000sf, which doubles the density right there. We even have some smaller house plots of 1,250sf and 625sf. Then, we have a huge amount of land now being consumed by vastly excessive roadways and associated Green Space, that we can replace with Really Narrow Streets, thus freeing up more land for houses. For example, if the house plot/total land area ratio rises from 50% to 75%, that is a 50% increase in density right there. The combination of half the lot size plus a 50% increase in density due to reduction in land used for streets/Green Space/parking lots gives us our triple density bogey. Triple the density means that every store or restaurant now has 30,000 people who are within an easy walk of 15 minutes or so, which means that they can have a viable business without a parking lot. It means that every school now has three times as many students that are within an easy walk. No more chauffering your kids to school. No more school buses. At 30,000 people per square mile, and if 15% of the people are school age (6-17), that means 4500 kids are within walking distance of the school. It means that the four-year high school would have about 1500 students, all within a half-mile walk of the school. It means that, if a train station is introduced later, three times as many people will be able to walk there as well. In short, everything becomes a lot more “walkable.” By making it walkable, we thus eliminate the need for cars unless travelling outside the immediate neighborhood, which eliminates auto traffic and also makes the neighborhood much more peaceful, quiet, and suitable for kids, families, and seniors.
  - lqdc13 9y ago
    The way i see it you are basically describing south Brooklyn with the 30k/square mile. Something like Bensohurst (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.620487,-74.0093661,3a,75y,203.3h,82.97t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sWz0YExKENBxfdPbTt4h18g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DWz0YExKENBxfdPbTt4h18g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D226.5%26pitch%3D-3%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@40.620487,-74.0093661,3a,75y,20...) or Western part of San Francisco. I think the issue with this approach is it doesn't take away individualism. Everything is still too far away. Most people still have cars and look for parking for hours. The parks are few and something like 30 minute walk away. Your friends and gym are also going to be 30 minutes walk away. It's not dense enough for subways everywhere and buses stop on every block so it makes just as much sense to walk. Nobody walks anywhere besides their neighborhood and there is usually nothing in their neighborhood. So it's really worse than suburbs and worse than city center that has buildings. Worse than city with buildings because you don't share common resources so everyone is still for themselves. You also don't get nice things like common public playgrounds and parks. It's worse than the suburbs because you still get the same problems of it being difficult to get places but now it's even harder. You still get "what's mine is mine and I don't want public things" but now you have less of your own stuff and fewer public things because real estate is expensive. You also don't get the diversity of food or clothes that you would get in a city. I think the ideal is 90k/sq mile in the places where people live with 4-6 story buildings.
    - oftenwrong 9y ago
      I do see your point. The author is modelling this as a transitional form of a suburban neighbourhood that could later be intensified. Additionally, it should be read with understanding of his previous writing on cities [1]. You'll see he capitalizes a lot of terms (e.g. Really Narrow Street) which are intended as references to concepts he has fleshed-out in other posts. A major component of his vision for cities is the idea that (most) streets should be pleasant, attractive Places (as opposed to Non-Places) to spend time, and should be public spaces in their own right. Rather than have urbanites "get away" from the city by visiting parks, he would have the city be a place that people do not need to "get away" from. A street could [1] http://newworldeconomics.com/category/traditional-city-post-heroic-materialism/ http://newworldeconomics.com/category/traditional-city-post-... He has written a lot on cities. Unabashedly opinionated, but compelling. I especially like his extensive use of photos.
crispyambulance 9y ago
> Too much density decreases the quality of life. Too much of anything decreases quality of life. Everyone has their own taste, but generally speaking, if every journey out of your home has to begin and end with a parking space because you live in a pedestrian-hostile environment, that will certainly damage quality of life and the social fabric of that place as a "town".
- closeparen 9y ago
  The strength of the social fabric / level of community engagement in suburbs is way higher. Not even close.
  - tabeth 9y ago
    Any data to back that up? I'd be curious to know what the ideal density is.
  - oftenwrong 9y ago
    There is some debate on that point: https://books.google.com/books?id=Xk06al1sAmUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA172#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=Xk06al1sAmUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA... Passage begins on page 171 but I can't link to it via Google Books.
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  What do you mean by the social fabric of the town? It doesn't sound like something I'd care much about. I just go to work and sometimes the grocery store, maybe a restaurant once in a while.
  - crispyambulance 9y ago
    > It doesn't sound like something I'd care much about. That's OK. It's a free country you can live where and how you want. But recognize that many, especially increasing numbers of millennials, feel differently and this is now reshaping the demographics of cities.
supplied_demand 9y ago
>Malls are nice and cars are a better experience than transit/walking in every facet This isn't even remotely true. You are forgetting the time spent finding a parking spot, the opportunity cost of having a parking lot instead of more housing or commercial space, transit/walking also provides exercise, which matters in an epidemically obese society. This doesn't even get into the pollution aspect of driving or the costs of car ownership/maintenance. Cars become a depreciating asset as soon as you buy them, should we be encouraging that type of investment?
- vkou 9y ago
  Not to mention how many people cars kill each year.
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  >time spent finding a parking spot Not a lot of time at all in my experience, certainly less than waiting for public transit or an uber to arrive. >opportunity cost To me it's worth it. >exercise You walk inside the mall. And what about people with certain disabilities? Do they get left out of this walking-only city? >pollution Emissions are improving all the time, and electric cars are on the rise. >depreciating asset So? Along with almost everything? Buy a used car if you're so concerned about your "asset" depreciating. You get value from it when you use it.
  - supplied_demand 9y ago
    >Certainly less than waiting for public transit or an uber to arrive. I can track train, bus or Uber/Lyft arrival on my phone. >To me it's worth it. You made that clear. For the rest of society, higher rents, heat capture and poor rainwater drainage make parking lots a net negative. >You walk inside the mall. And what about people with certain disabilities? Do they get left out of this walking-only city? I see plenty of disabled people on public transit and using sidewalks in my city. I'm not sure what cities your experience comes from, but my experience is different. I also don't see many obese people on public transit, but I do when walking around suburban malls. >Emissions are improving all the time, and electric cars are on the rise. Transportation (cars and trucks) is the biggest contributor to CO2 emissions in the US as of the past two years. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/11/16874696/greenhouse-gas-co2-target-2017-paris-trump https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/11/1687469... >Along with almost everything? Buy a used car if you're so concerned about your "asset" depreciating. Except education, real estate, stocks and other large purchases people make. I actually can't think of something other than cars that people routinely pay over $10k (in December, the average new car in US sold for $36,495) for and expect it to decline in value immediately. Used cars are as much a depreciating asset as new ones. Typically the more used a car is, the more you will pay for upkeep.
Dirlewanger 9y ago
If density is so awful, why have malls been closing left and right for years? Why have so many people been flocking to more dense neighborhoods?
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  I'd guess because of the economy. The high paying/skilled jobs are there so people were forced to move. Outside of this strange vocal minority that shows up here, very few people would actually prefer to live in an urban area instead of a small town or suburb or whatever given the choice.
  - gcampbell 9y ago
    Do you have stats to back that up? A lot of the recent polling I've seen implies the opposite, especially for younger generations.
  - ef4 9y ago
    > Outside of this strange vocal minority that shows up here, very few people would actually prefer to live in an urban area If that was really true it would create a huge arbitrage opportunity for people to make billions of dollars by building their businesses out in cheaper areas. > The high paying/skilled jobs are there Yes, but the question is why? If most people don't want to be in cities as you say, that would also include business owners, who could save a ton of money by moving their businesses into cheaper areas and paying lower rents and wages. But that's not happening, on net. We're seeing the reverse. Businesses that fled to the suburbs 60 years ago are steadily moving back into cities. https://www.economist.com/news/business/21706285-lots-prominent-american-companies-are-moving-downtown-leaving-city https://www.economist.com/news/business/21706285-lots-promin... http://fortune.com/2011/07/14/companies-head-back-downtown/ http://fortune.com/2011/07/14/companies-head-back-downtown/ https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/business/economy/why-corporate-america-is-leaving-the-suburbs-for-the-city.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/business/economy/why-corp... Many of these are sober, fortune 500 companies that wouldn't be moving if they didn't see a clear economic reason to do it. It's not some "strange vocal minority" position. We are returning to the long-term average for civilization since the first cities began 6000 years ago: cities are the centers of economic activity and power. America went through a weird inversion for two generations where that wasn't true. We're now reverting to the mean.
matwood 9y ago
> cars are a better experience than transit/walking in every facet I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion. There are plusses and minuses to both. IMO, the big plus with a car is freedom, but then there are many negatives like parking, traffic, and speed to destination. If I ever move again, it will be to a location where I do not have to own a car. I hate everything about driving, and realized it's a huge source of general stress for me personally.
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  Parking, traffic, and speed to destination depend on where you live and your specific situation, but for a lot of people, speed to destination is always faster in a car, including parking. My commute is only 5 minutes by car and it would take a lot longer on transit. Subjectively, I prefer being in my own space with personal temperature controls and music, and a bit of traffic would be worth it. Compared to transit, where it's often crowded, you have to look out for your stop coming up, the seats aren't generally as good, the ambient temperature is liable to be uncomfortable, etc. I've also found that I just like driving lately.
  - matwood 9y ago
    > depend on where you live and your specific situation So it's not better in every facet. It's better for your exact current situation. Most people do not have a 5 minute drive to work [1]. On the whole, I think if we took the best car situation and the best city/public transportation situation (some EU city like London for example), the car situation does not scale and lags behind the car situation. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/22/the-american-commute-is-worse-today-than-its-ever-been/?utm_term=.5b41ff6f7572 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/22/the-a...
  - trgn 9y ago
    Driving isn't bad. Depending on the trip I prefer a car trip with traffic jams over a transit trip without. I really do love driving and cars, but just the stuff they show you in the commercials. The long cross-state family trip, the leisurely drive in the country, hauling a dishwasher, ... But car culture in the aggregate has absolutely killed american cities. My city tore down its downtown to accommodate highways and parking lots. It's ghastly. Nobody wants to live in a place like that, nobody wants to visit a place like that. Traffic should be calmed in the city, so it's slow, predictable, quiet and safe. We'd get our towns back. Instead of building cities so they're convenient for cars, we should build them so they're convenient for pedestrians. We can still use the car for all the other fun stuff.
stale2002 9y ago
If quality of life is so bad, then why are prices high? If it sucks to live somewhere, you would expect it to be CHEAPER than living in the surrounding area. But thats not what we see. What we see is that prices in urban areas are pretty much universally higher than living in the surrounding, less dense area? Do you know what that means? That means that the market has spoken, and it proves that people want to live in these areas, as proven by the fact that they are willing to pay a lot more money to do so. When it is just as cheap to live in the city as it is to live in low density areas, THEN we can talk about relative demand and the benefits of low density.
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  You're oversimplifying the economics, elevating one aspect of it above all other considerations. Cost of living doesn't prove that people "want" to live in these areas. What about taxes? Different strictness of regulations? Parking fees? Some may want to, but how many are a captive audience due to their field of work? How many simply have family ties? How many can't afford to take the steps to move out because they're living paycheck to paycheck?
  - stale2002 9y ago
    I am sure that is true for some people, but is it true for MOST people? If anything, the examples you give mean that it is even more important to increase density. This is because, for all of those reasons you mentioned, there are people who need to live in certain areas, but they can't, because they are priced out of the area! The suburbs take up the majority of the world. If people want to live in low density areas, they can't live literally anywhere. The problem is that the demand for high density is unfulfilled. Cities take a very small amount of space, when compared to the rest of the living space. Thusly, there is nothing to lose. Don't want to live in a city? Then don't! You have 99% of the rest of the land to choose from.
rsynnott 9y ago
> Malls are nice and cars are a better experience than transit/walking in every facet besides the fact of not being able to web browse on a phone while doing it. This seems extremely subjective. I don't like malls very much, and won't set foot in one without good reason. I enjoy walking, and have no problem with public transport. I'd really have no interest in living somewhere where I couldn't either walk to work or take a short train/tram. Different people like different things.
com2kid 9y ago
Malls typically lack quality local retailers. Local artists renting out a store front to sell their works, local gyms, martial arts studios, dance studios, that small store stuffed to the brim with cute little decor items, clothing stores for local fashion designers, and of course small restaurants. Malls have none of those. Maybe a couple local jewelers, and everything else is large nation wide (or regional) chains. Density of construction drives down rents. Large parking lots are huge lost opportunity costs. They don't give much tax revenue, and they don't contribute to the economy, there is nothing on them. When I lived in an urban core, I was able to get everything I needed within a 5 minute walk. That included an outdoor mall, integrated into the walkable city, that was a mix of local stores and nationwide retailers. In contrast, the malls I drive to have none of that.
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  I've seen small local coffee shops and small restaurants do fine in malls. Especially "mini malls" which have a lot more variety on that front. Some of the parking lots by where I lived were used for flea markets on the weekends. Regardless, I think parking lots sprinkled with islands containing trees/greenery make the landscape look nicer than if that area were packed full of buildings.
- lazerpants 9y ago
  Here's a really cool story about a mall that has almost all local retailers. https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/scenes-inside-houston-zombie-mall/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/scenes-inside-houst...
luckydata 9y ago
I don't know where you live, but you clearly never experienced a city the way it's being described by the others in this thread. I currently live in the US in a small town in the midwest after a long stint in California (socal first then bay area). Previously I lived for a few years in Madrid, an extremely dense city by western standards. I used to walk home from the office (roughly a mile and a half) when the weather was good, took metro and walked in bad weather. Bars and restaurants were all over the place, and it wasn't unusual I would walk by a store with something nice in the window and decide to go inside to see if I wanted to buy (young dude with a lot of disposable income, that was nice). Over time I got to create relationships with the owners of the stores I would visit more frequently, and it wasn't rare to meet coworkers randomly by getting a beer in a bar with a friend. We would join groups and my social circle would naturally change over time. Fast forward to now: I go from home to work, then back. I never meet anyone I haven't made plans to meet. I buy everything online. I haven't made a new friend in 3 years, and the variability of my social circle is also very limited. I'm bored all the time, and I eat too much and watch too much tv because I have no idea what to do with some of my free time. It sucks, and I wish I could go back to that lifestyle because it was a lot more fun than anything I experienced in the US.
- lazerpants 9y ago
  To play devil's advocate, I have a lot of your current problems and live in NYC in a pretty dense area. Back when I lived in a far more suburban city I was able to play golf with friends, go hiking, and take road trips to see places and people. Restaurants were much more affordable and I rarely needed a reservation, stores weren't completely swarmed with people during the times I could visit them (which makes buying everything online easier). Everyone had a washer and dryer. People invited friends over for BBQs in their backyards. On weekends it was actually faster to go places than on weekdays, so I could visit people who lived in faraway parts of town and it was no big deal (in NYC I barely get to see my friends in Queens, it takes forever to get there). After dealing with so many people and broken down subways a lot of days I'm just tired and want to go home, so I end up just being home a lot. Now, there are a lot of reasons I like living in NYC and choose to do so, but there are serious trade offs to living in a very dense environment and there are some awesome things about living in a low density environment.
jessaustin 9y ago
Have you been to a mall recently? One that isn't dying? Where is it?
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  The Galleria at Crystal Run in Middletown, NY, the Poughkeepsie Gallerie in Poughkeepsie, NY, the Newburgh Mall in Newburgh, NY, and the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, NY are all some that I've been to either within the past months or few years and they were all doing fine.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    It's been some time since I was in that general area, but my impression is that many people in those suburbs commute via train for their employment. Surely those malls, if they are indeed thriving, owe some of their success to the rest of the NYC metro area, which is noted for being the most transit-oriented location in USA? Malls in the transit-free hinterlands you seemed to prefer, are not thriving.
    - jimmaswell 9y ago
      >Surely those malls, if they are indeed thriving, owe some of their success to the rest of the NYC metro area I suppose, but I'm not sure this proves your point. If anything, it shows that these commuters are choosing to go to the mall up there instead of window shopping in the city. I never said I prefer "transit-free hinterlands"? That general area is actually the specific example I had in mind all along.
- Kephael 9y ago
  When I went to the Bellevue Square mall it was crowded beyond belief, it was like going back in time to before eCommerce.
- DrScump 9y ago
  In a region with multiple malls within a 30-minute drive, the strong will survive (longer, at least) but the weak are dying. The most upscale in a region is probably doing fine. Near SV, for example, Stanford Shopping Center and Santana Row are fine for now. In contrast, Westgate and Vallco are mere shadows of what they once were.
so33 9y ago
I feel like I have talked about cars and transit quite a bit, and everyone else has covered this down thread. But I'd like to address your other comments: > Overcrowdedness Again - when we are talking about increasing density we are not talking about forcing people to get rid of their car or making a sleepy suburb look like Manhattan. Townhouses, for instance, increase residential density a lot compared to the tract housing popular in American suburbs and, if well-built, have very little downside. > very long waiting times at every establishment or government office Maybe to line up at a nightclub or an exceptionally popular restaurant. But the beauty of increased density is choice - if a place is busy, just walk to a less busy one. >increased ease of pickpockets etc. to "disappear into the crowd" Notorious pickpocketing hotspots in Paris or Barcelona mainly prey on tourists who are confused and disoriented and jet lagged. Keeping aware of your belongings at all times will greatly lower your chance of being pickpocketed. Also, I'd argue that if a crime occurs in a less dense area, there might not be anyone else who was there to witness or report the crime.