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"Over-populated ant farms" is a pretty strong phrase, and is usually more the result of bad policy than density in and of itself. San Francisco has about 6000 p
by jmknoll 9y ago
"Over-populated ant farms" is a pretty strong phrase, and is usually more the result of bad policy than density in and of itself. San Francisco has about 6000 people/square km, and feels crowded. Paris has about 20,000 people/square km, and to me feels less crowded.
In Paris, they've taken the general development policy of building everything up to 6-8 stories, with commercial on the ground floor and residential above. Strikes me as a good way to pack in a lot of people without things feeling too crowded.
- SwellJoe 9y agoThe US is, by and large, absolutely insane in how it plans cities. "Mixed use" is a total novelty in most cities...only now being considered for a small percentage of development. Most cities still have city plans and zoning that enforce huge suburban neighborhoods with no commercial development within them. It leads to disastrously bad neighborhoods with disastrously bad traffic going into and out of the places where people are doing things like have jobs or shop. Even hip/progressive cities are this way. It's really a big deal when a development happens that steps out of it, and people in surrounding housing usually raise holy hell to keep it from happening. Americans are mostly goddamned idiots who hate nice things, is what I'm trying to say. (And, have the nerve to complain about traffic in the same breath as demanding nothing other than single-family homes be allowed within miles of their single-family home.)
- s2g 9y ago> Americans are mostly goddamned idiots who hate nice things > their single-family home maybe they just like single family homes.