5 ms·

I wonder if there's a way to start from scratch. Build a planned city with a focus on having a dense urban environment and lots of public transportation. It mus

by ng12 8y ago

I wonder if there's a way to start from scratch. Build a planned city with a focus on having a dense urban environment and lots of public transportation. It must be more cost-efficient than trying to keep adding to existing cities that don't really want the growth.

cryptonector 8y ago
China tried this. SPOILER: It didn't work.
rgoulter 8y ago
Relevant: James Scott's "Seeing Like a State". https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like-a-state/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-lik... The general gist is that there are many benefits from the ways that cities have come to be, which careful planning and control doesn't consider.
paulddraper 8y ago
There's loads of places you could do this and not even have to do it "from scratch". But the network problem is immense. You're gonna build stuff that doesn't make sense for a small city with money you don't have and pray that it becomes a big city. China has housing shortages and also gobs of vacant planned cities because no one wants to live in an empty city. Cities with great transportation, layout, etc. are not pre-planned; they are hundreds of years old.
chrisco255 8y ago
Walt Disney thought a lot about this and came up with EPCOT. Unfortunately, he died before the vision could be realized and they turned the idea into another amusement park instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept)
- kingaillas 8y ago
  Celebration, FL [1] is a Walt Disney developer master planned community. I lived north of Orlando for a few years, only ever visited for sports events, and it was nice... if a bit sterile looking. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    Oh yeah it's a cool town but its nothing like what Walt was planning.
randomacct3847 8y ago
China does that
floatrock 8y ago
The world is littered with examples of this, mostly showcases of what urban planning of the time didn't understand. So much so it's a recurring theme on 99 PI: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/bijlmer-city-future-part-1/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/bijlmer-city-future-p... -- ended up as slums outside of Amsterdam https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/soul-city https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/soul-city -- a city for and by blacks https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/fordlandia/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/fordlandia/ -- ford's company town to build tires There's also Brasilia that was supposed to be full of monumental grand plazas, but they learned people don't want to walk 3/4 of mile through a grass field outside their apartment tower just to get to the local market bodega. Today I think Google is making one outside of Toronto, and I heard of someone doing something around Boulder. Economic Opportunity Zones (ie regional tax breaks for development) are kinda in this realm. Personally I'm waiting for Elon's planned city where he will MVP all his social and organizational concepts before blasting off for mars.
- ng12 8y ago
  > Personally I'm waiting for Elon's planned city where he will MVP all his social and organizational concepts before blasting off for mars. This is more what I'm thinking of. Most planned cities I'm aware of are more like planned suburbs. I'd be more interested a Manhattan without cars.
- jamestimmins 8y ago
  There's a good book called A History of Future cities that talks about historical examples of this. Although "success"is relative bc it was often the British forcing it on a country that was colonized. IIRC the cities discussed are St. Petersburg, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Dubai. The biggest takeaway is that this is a lot easier if you're an autocrat with an army.
  - ng12 8y ago
    > The biggest takeaway is that this is a lot easier if you're an autocrat with an army. I'd believe it. I've often heard that a lot of the most recognizable features of Paris came from Napoleon's renovations.
thorwasdfasdf 8y ago
Employers determine where people go because everyone needs a job. People may want new cities, but employers don't care: it's not their problem. So, when a new city pops up, employers don't need to move there, and therefore no one else does either. You'd need to have some kind of big tax advantages to make this happen, then employers will gladly move there.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
schwax 8y ago
The economist Paul Romer has done a lot of work on the idea of charter cities. https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer
- simonebrunozzi 8y ago
  Unfortunately he has stopped working on Charter Cities a while ago.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I wonder if there's a way to start from scratch. Build a planned city with a focus on having a dense urban environment and lots of public transportation. It must be more cost-efficient than trying to keep adding to existing cities that don't really want the growth. The kind of geography suitable for city building hasn't really changed that much since the dawn of civilization, and while the specific spots with that Geographic do change over time somewhat, the best places (and everything pretty far down the list) are taken. Starting from scratch most likely means starting with a big location disadvantage, unless you are exploiting some recent change that has created newly-suitable land.
simonebrunozzi 8y ago
Man. This has been my dream since childhood. I mean a serious dream, with countless hours thinking, dreaming, reading, etc. ~17 years ago I wrote a novel set in the future, in the imaginary city that I hoped I could build one day. More recently, I founded a company with the idea to eventually build it; we ended up building a software platform to digitize real estate, had some friendly disagreements with the other founders, and left ~3 months ago. I still have that dream. I'm not alone either: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/02/27/how-to-create-reality/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/02/27/how-to-create-real...

by ng12 8y ago

cryptonector 8y ago

China tried this. SPOILER: It didn't work.

rgoulter 8y ago

Relevant: James Scott's "Seeing Like a State". https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like-a-state/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-lik... The general gist is that there are many benefits from the ways that cities have come to be, which careful planning and control doesn't consider.

paulddraper 8y ago

There's loads of places you could do this and not even have to do it "from scratch". But the network problem is immense. You're gonna build stuff that doesn't make sense for a small city with money you don't have and pray that it becomes a big city. China has housing shortages and also gobs of vacant planned cities because no one wants to live in an empty city. Cities with great transportation, layout, etc. are not pre-planned; they are hundreds of years old.

chrisco255 8y ago

Walt Disney thought a lot about this and came up with EPCOT. Unfortunately, he died before the vision could be realized and they turned the idea into another amusement park instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept)

kingaillas 8y ago
Celebration, FL [1] is a Walt Disney developer master planned community. I lived north of Orlando for a few years, only ever visited for sports events, and it was nice... if a bit sterile looking. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida
- chrisco255 8y ago
  Oh yeah it's a cool town but its nothing like what Walt was planning.

randomacct3847 8y ago

China does that

floatrock 8y ago

The world is littered with examples of this, mostly showcases of what urban planning of the time didn't understand. So much so it's a recurring theme on 99 PI: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/bijlmer-city-future-part-1/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/bijlmer-city-future-p... -- ended up as slums outside of Amsterdam https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/soul-city https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/soul-city -- a city for and by blacks https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/fordlandia/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/fordlandia/ -- ford's company town to build tires There's also Brasilia that was supposed to be full of monumental grand plazas, but they learned people don't want to walk 3/4 of mile through a grass field outside their apartment tower just to get to the local market bodega. Today I think Google is making one outside of Toronto, and I heard of someone doing something around Boulder. Economic Opportunity Zones (ie regional tax breaks for development) are kinda in this realm. Personally I'm waiting for Elon's planned city where he will MVP all his social and organizational concepts before blasting off for mars.

ng12 8y ago
> Personally I'm waiting for Elon's planned city where he will MVP all his social and organizational concepts before blasting off for mars. This is more what I'm thinking of. Most planned cities I'm aware of are more like planned suburbs. I'd be more interested a Manhattan without cars.
jamestimmins 8y ago
There's a good book called A History of Future cities that talks about historical examples of this. Although "success"is relative bc it was often the British forcing it on a country that was colonized. IIRC the cities discussed are St. Petersburg, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Dubai. The biggest takeaway is that this is a lot easier if you're an autocrat with an army.
- ng12 8y ago
  > The biggest takeaway is that this is a lot easier if you're an autocrat with an army. I'd believe it. I've often heard that a lot of the most recognizable features of Paris came from Napoleon's renovations.

thorwasdfasdf 8y ago

Employers determine where people go because everyone needs a job. People may want new cities, but employers don't care: it's not their problem. So, when a new city pops up, employers don't need to move there, and therefore no one else does either. You'd need to have some kind of big tax advantages to make this happen, then employers will gladly move there.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

schwax 8y ago

The economist Paul Romer has done a lot of work on the idea of charter cities. https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer

simonebrunozzi 8y ago
Unfortunately he has stopped working on Charter Cities a while ago.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> I wonder if there's a way to start from scratch. Build a planned city with a focus on having a dense urban environment and lots of public transportation. It must be more cost-efficient than trying to keep adding to existing cities that don't really want the growth. The kind of geography suitable for city building hasn't really changed that much since the dawn of civilization, and while the specific spots with that Geographic do change over time somewhat, the best places (and everything pretty far down the list) are taken. Starting from scratch most likely means starting with a big location disadvantage, unless you are exploiting some recent change that has created newly-suitable land.

simonebrunozzi 8y ago

Man. This has been my dream since childhood. I mean a serious dream, with countless hours thinking, dreaming, reading, etc. ~17 years ago I wrote a novel set in the future, in the imaginary city that I hoped I could build one day. More recently, I founded a company with the idea to eventually build it; we ended up building a software platform to digitize real estate, had some friendly disagreements with the other founders, and left ~3 months ago. I still have that dream. I'm not alone either: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/02/27/how-to-create-reality/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/02/27/how-to-create-real...