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Serious application for these tools: crowded countries like the UK often talk about building new towns rather than annoying everyone is existing towns by more a

Serious application for these tools: crowded countries like the UK often talk about building new towns rather than annoying everyone is existing towns by more and more building work. Unfortunately, new towns tend to be rather formulaic and dull. With tools like these, you could start with a medieval city generator and use algorithms to apply changes that would have happened over 500 years and then build the new town based on the result, something more organic and natural than something designed from scratch. They should have a competition for it!

gonzo41 8y ago
One problem. Cars! Unless you can lay down some serious infrastructure as a constraint first hand. Driving in these types of places is always insane. Just look at Italy. It'd be an easy problem to solve by pushing for a carless city or smaller car city paradigm. But folk will want their cars.
- ivanhoe 8y ago
  Medieval cities were limited by the size of the fortification walls, so streets had to be as narrow as possible to save the valuable space. You don't have such limits with this, so you can turn all streets into boulevards if you like...
  - 131012 8y ago
    please no :(
    - baud147258 8y ago
      Boulevards can be very nice if you put separated bike lanes and wide walkways (perhaps with trees to provide some shade during summer).
- markatkinson 8y ago
  I just spent some time driving in the Italian countryside. Dreadful if you are used to relatively newer infrastructure, but the people that are used to it don't seem to have an issue! It was terrifying.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Italy: driving down a windy, curvy, one-way road, about 5 inches narrower than the car itself, which ends at a dead end. No signage. "La dolce vita!"
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- CalRobert 8y ago
  So, don't drive?
- MayeulC 8y ago
  Well, this is really a two-way problem. Being mostly a pedestrian myself (I don't own a car, and only use one of them very occasionally to cover long distances or move furniture), I really enjoy old historic city centres, which are really easy to get around just walking. Being a pedestrian in a car-first environment can really be nightmarish (and dangerous!) at times. I think about large shopping centers or industrial complexes, but also about American-type suburbs. Getting around is impractical, public transport i often nonexistent. As a results, this only encourages car ownership, which encourages building this kind of environment. However, I also drive quite a bit at times, mostly in the countryside, yet I would take an easily accessible parking lot and public transit infrastructure in big cities over large roads. I don't really know about elsewhere, but it seems to me that car-less cities are pushed for in quite a number of places in Europe, and it doesn't seem like the opposite (making cities more car-friendly) pushes back that much in cities that were converted. Now, about the parent, this could be taken a step further by optimizing for a lot of variables (walking time, access to public transportation, parkings, roads, etc), instead of just making an "historic simulation".
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  You really need to grade-separate car traffic, public transit traffic, bicycles, and pedestrians. If you set your citywide story height to be 3.5m, you can put the automobile traffic at ground level, the pedestrian deck at +7m, and in the city center, also elevated bicycle lanes at +10.5m, and elevated trains at +14m. That allows for 1 or 2 stories of parking for each steel+concrete building, a double-height lobby level, with a bicycle-locker mezzanine, the possibility of double-height train stations built into buildings adjoining a mechanical floor, and "streets" that are narrower for walkers than for cars. I'd bet that the cost of putting a 7m deck over every road you pave, or at least an elevated walkway 2m wide, is easily saved by subtracting the sidewalk width from the ground-level road footprint, allowing greater building density. A 21.25m road footprint can fit 4 3.25m travel lanes, one 2.75m center turning lane, and two 2.75m right-turn/breakdown lanes. A 12m footprint can hold 2 3.25m travel lanes and 2 2.75m turn/breakdown lanes. Additionally, above the 7m vehicle clearance level, buildings can be cantilevered over the roadway, making the pedestrian "street" narrower than the road-for-cars below. In the US, the usual minimum acceptable neighborhood curb-to-curb street width is 8.5m, but then add sidewalks for a total footprint of 15.25m. Some neighborhoods allocate 18.25m for the right-of-way, with 12m for the road, then they add infuriating speed bumps. In Chicago[0], the major arterials are 30.5m wide, with at least 20% pedestrian width; minor arterials and collectors are 20m wide, with 33% for pedestrians. It's all based on the 66ft surveyor's chain. Stack the sidewalk over the street, and you give your city greater areal density and better use of available volume. [0] https://www.cityofchicago.org/dam/city/depts/cdot/StreetandSitePlanDesignStandards407.pdf https://www.cityofchicago.org/dam/city/depts/cdot/StreetandS...
gnode 8y ago
I don't think it's smart to build a medieval style city in this age, due to transportation concerns. But I think there's merit in using computation to plan and simulate a soulful city.
rileyphone 8y ago
The Prince of Wales is already on that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury

gonzo41 8y ago

One problem. Cars! Unless you can lay down some serious infrastructure as a constraint first hand. Driving in these types of places is always insane. Just look at Italy. It'd be an easy problem to solve by pushing for a carless city or smaller car city paradigm. But folk will want their cars.

ivanhoe 8y ago
Medieval cities were limited by the size of the fortification walls, so streets had to be as narrow as possible to save the valuable space. You don't have such limits with this, so you can turn all streets into boulevards if you like...
- 131012 8y ago
  please no :(
  - baud147258 8y ago
    Boulevards can be very nice if you put separated bike lanes and wide walkways (perhaps with trees to provide some shade during summer).
markatkinson 8y ago
I just spent some time driving in the Italian countryside. Dreadful if you are used to relatively newer infrastructure, but the people that are used to it don't seem to have an issue! It was terrifying.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
Italy: driving down a windy, curvy, one-way road, about 5 inches narrower than the car itself, which ends at a dead end. No signage. "La dolce vita!"
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
CalRobert 8y ago
So, don't drive?
MayeulC 8y ago
Well, this is really a two-way problem. Being mostly a pedestrian myself (I don't own a car, and only use one of them very occasionally to cover long distances or move furniture), I really enjoy old historic city centres, which are really easy to get around just walking. Being a pedestrian in a car-first environment can really be nightmarish (and dangerous!) at times. I think about large shopping centers or industrial complexes, but also about American-type suburbs. Getting around is impractical, public transport i often nonexistent. As a results, this only encourages car ownership, which encourages building this kind of environment. However, I also drive quite a bit at times, mostly in the countryside, yet I would take an easily accessible parking lot and public transit infrastructure in big cities over large roads. I don't really know about elsewhere, but it seems to me that car-less cities are pushed for in quite a number of places in Europe, and it doesn't seem like the opposite (making cities more car-friendly) pushes back that much in cities that were converted. Now, about the parent, this could be taken a step further by optimizing for a lot of variables (walking time, access to public transportation, parkings, roads, etc), instead of just making an "historic simulation".
logfromblammo 8y ago
You really need to grade-separate car traffic, public transit traffic, bicycles, and pedestrians. If you set your citywide story height to be 3.5m, you can put the automobile traffic at ground level, the pedestrian deck at +7m, and in the city center, also elevated bicycle lanes at +10.5m, and elevated trains at +14m. That allows for 1 or 2 stories of parking for each steel+concrete building, a double-height lobby level, with a bicycle-locker mezzanine, the possibility of double-height train stations built into buildings adjoining a mechanical floor, and "streets" that are narrower for walkers than for cars. I'd bet that the cost of putting a 7m deck over every road you pave, or at least an elevated walkway 2m wide, is easily saved by subtracting the sidewalk width from the ground-level road footprint, allowing greater building density. A 21.25m road footprint can fit 4 3.25m travel lanes, one 2.75m center turning lane, and two 2.75m right-turn/breakdown lanes. A 12m footprint can hold 2 3.25m travel lanes and 2 2.75m turn/breakdown lanes. Additionally, above the 7m vehicle clearance level, buildings can be cantilevered over the roadway, making the pedestrian "street" narrower than the road-for-cars below. In the US, the usual minimum acceptable neighborhood curb-to-curb street width is 8.5m, but then add sidewalks for a total footprint of 15.25m. Some neighborhoods allocate 18.25m for the right-of-way, with 12m for the road, then they add infuriating speed bumps. In Chicago[0], the major arterials are 30.5m wide, with at least 20% pedestrian width; minor arterials and collectors are 20m wide, with 33% for pedestrians. It's all based on the 66ft surveyor's chain. Stack the sidewalk over the street, and you give your city greater areal density and better use of available volume. [0] https://www.cityofchicago.org/dam/city/depts/cdot/StreetandSitePlanDesignStandards407.pdf https://www.cityofchicago.org/dam/city/depts/cdot/StreetandS...

gnode 8y ago

I don't think it's smart to build a medieval style city in this age, due to transportation concerns. But I think there's merit in using computation to plan and simulate a soulful city.

rileyphone 8y ago

The Prince of Wales is already on that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury