3 ms·

> By allowing journeys into crowded cities to become ever more expensive, financially and otherwise, we would force better solutions in terms of how we plan our

> By allowing journeys into crowded cities to become ever more expensive, financially and otherwise, we would force better solutions in terms of how we plan our residential, business and recreational spaces. Perhaps. I mean, it certainly seems to be working so far - anecdotally people are stuffing themselves into smaller and smaller apartments, flat shares, etc, naturally. I'm biased so it's difficult for me to really conceptualise it. In that scenario, I would (and in fact have) just nope out entirely and move to the country because I can afford it. It seems unfair to tell everyone who can't to just suck it up and live in a shoebox.

Silhouette 7y ago
I'm sure you're right about the smaller and smaller accommodations, but I think the argument I heard before was intended to be a little longer-term than that. Our starting position is that a lot of employment is very centralised in big cities or industrial areas, sometimes for historical reasons that aren't necessarily as relevant today. With better planning of future cities, with an emphasis on keeping everyday services like schools, shops, basic medical care and sports facilities more local to where people live, both the provider and the consumer have less need to make routine long journeys that overlap lots of other people's routine long journeys. There will always be a need to centralise certain key facilities more, say hospitals that need to respond to a diverse range of serious conditions very quickly but also serve a wide area because fortunately there aren't many people with each condition at any given time. However, there is no need for your dentist or optician to be based 10 miles away in the nearest city centre when there are more than enough patients who need that sort of care within a one mile radius anyway. In my country (the UK) we do this much better in some respects than others. Schooling is usually relatively local in the early years, for example. Most kids don't have to travel silly distances to reach secondary school (ages around 11-18) either. Some places have much better routine medical facilities available locally than others. This is definitely an area where we could improve. Shopping in bricks and mortar stores is so bad now that we're increasingly seeing our traditional high streets turning into deserted wastelands, far too expensive and time-consuming to reach for a quick visit when you just want to buy a new shirt for the weekend or toy for your child. Online stores and huge, car-friendly out-of-town shopping centres with almost exactly the same 100 brands as all the others are driving all the traditional, local, interesting shops out of business, sadly. More generally, far too many of our vanilla office jobs are based in city centres entirely unnecessarily. Their staff don't live nearby any more because they can't afford to, so what was once an advantage is now a disadvantage that causes big problems for and because of commuters. So I don't really think living in shoe boxes is the answer. Moving everything else so it's more readily accessible from good quality homes is the answer, according to this argument at least. Just to be clear, this isn't necessarily an argument for moving everything out to the suburbs or smaller, more rural towns. The same principles can also be applied in much larger cities, by better balancing residential, business and leisure facilities in each neighbourhood. The trouble is usually that historically this wasn't so well understood, so existing planning/zoning rules often aren't very effective but you can't just transplant everything overnight to where you'd ideally like it to be. Hence the desire to promote newer and better designed areas as a general trend, and in (lots of) time allow the older and less practical areas to be rearranged.
- majewsky 7y ago
  Your argument is basically sound, but IMO based on a wrong starting point. > Our starting position is that a lot of employment is very centralised in big cities or industrial areas, sometimes for historical reasons that aren't necessarily as relevant today. So first of all, I don't want to get stuck in a home office. I want to share an office with my coworkers and engage in normal human social behavior during the workday. A coworking space does not appeal to me either: I'm not comfortable spending my workday around strangers who appear and disappear every few weeks. But besides that, I think that work is only one part of the equation. There are other reasons why people live in big cities. I grew up in a German city with 100k inhabitants, and there was basically nothing I could do after 8PM once shops had closed. I now live in a larger city where there is a lot of stuff going on everyday in some place (tech meetups, concerts, etc.). You just don't have that in a village or small city. Another, smaller thing: I have some chronic ailments, so it's convenient to be living in a large city with a good coverage of specialist doctors and hospitals. A small city (say, 10k inhabitants) will have a couple GPs and probably an ophthalmologist, but will likely lack more niche specialists. There are more reasons. That's not to say that everyone wants to live, or should want to live, in a big city. But it's not a good idea to force everyone to live in small communities either.
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    So first of all, I don't want to get stuck in a home office. I want to share an office with my coworkers and engage in normal human social behavior during the workday. A coworking space does not appeal to me either: I'm not comfortable spending my workday around strangers who appear and disappear every few weeks. That's all fair enough. Everyone is going to have their own preferences for something like this. But why should the office be located in a hard-to-reach central area at all, if most or all of its staff live somewhere else? But besides that, I think that work is only one part of the equation. There are other reasons why people live in big cities. I grew up in a German city with 100k inhabitants, and there was basically nothing I could do after 8PM once shops had closed. Again, that's a fair point. I did acknowledge that there would always be a need for some facilities to be located more centrally and serve a wider area. Anyone wanting to use those facilities will also benefit if there are fewer unnecessary journeys competing for space with their private vehicles or overcrowding public transport, though. That's not to say that everyone wants to live, or should want to live, in a big city. But it's not a good idea to force everyone to live in small communities either. I agree, and this is the point I was trying to make in my final paragraph before. Sorry if it wasn't clear. The problem, IMHO, isn't having large cities. Many people prefer to have less personal living space but be nearer to a wider range of facilities, much as you described yourself. The problem, IMHO, is the design of many large cities today where there is a central area with most of the places people want to go, surrounded by suburbs with most of the places where people live. The geometry of such a design prevents it scaling well. As the city grows, the residential area spreads outwards. This means more people live further from the area with the services. Typically, the area available for the services also can't grow proportionately, creating a problem of where to put enough new services to meet the needs of the growing population. A less centralised design based on clusters that each combine residential accommodation, basic services for the local population, and possibly some sort of business district, has much more ability to grow without separating large numbers of people from their everyday needs, even if you then position large numbers of such clusters close together, introduce additional areas among the clusters for more specialised facilities, and form a big city.

Silhouette 7y ago

I'm sure you're right about the smaller and smaller accommodations, but I think the argument I heard before was intended to be a little longer-term than that. Our starting position is that a lot of employment is very centralised in big cities or industrial areas, sometimes for historical reasons that aren't necessarily as relevant today. With better planning of future cities, with an emphasis on keeping everyday services like schools, shops, basic medical care and sports facilities more local to where people live, both the provider and the consumer have less need to make routine long journeys that overlap lots of other people's routine long journeys. There will always be a need to centralise certain key facilities more, say hospitals that need to respond to a diverse range of serious conditions very quickly but also serve a wide area because fortunately there aren't many people with each condition at any given time. However, there is no need for your dentist or optician to be based 10 miles away in the nearest city centre when there are more than enough patients who need that sort of care within a one mile radius anyway. In my country (the UK) we do this much better in some respects than others. Schooling is usually relatively local in the early years, for example. Most kids don't have to travel silly distances to reach secondary school (ages around 11-18) either. Some places have much better routine medical facilities available locally than others. This is definitely an area where we could improve. Shopping in bricks and mortar stores is so bad now that we're increasingly seeing our traditional high streets turning into deserted wastelands, far too expensive and time-consuming to reach for a quick visit when you just want to buy a new shirt for the weekend or toy for your child. Online stores and huge, car-friendly out-of-town shopping centres with almost exactly the same 100 brands as all the others are driving all the traditional, local, interesting shops out of business, sadly. More generally, far too many of our vanilla office jobs are based in city centres entirely unnecessarily. Their staff don't live nearby any more because they can't afford to, so what was once an advantage is now a disadvantage that causes big problems for and because of commuters. So I don't really think living in shoe boxes is the answer. Moving everything else so it's more readily accessible from good quality homes is the answer, according to this argument at least. Just to be clear, this isn't necessarily an argument for moving everything out to the suburbs or smaller, more rural towns. The same principles can also be applied in much larger cities, by better balancing residential, business and leisure facilities in each neighbourhood. The trouble is usually that historically this wasn't so well understood, so existing planning/zoning rules often aren't very effective but you can't just transplant everything overnight to where you'd ideally like it to be. Hence the desire to promote newer and better designed areas as a general trend, and in (lots of) time allow the older and less practical areas to be rearranged.

majewsky 7y ago
Your argument is basically sound, but IMO based on a wrong starting point. > Our starting position is that a lot of employment is very centralised in big cities or industrial areas, sometimes for historical reasons that aren't necessarily as relevant today. So first of all, I don't want to get stuck in a home office. I want to share an office with my coworkers and engage in normal human social behavior during the workday. A coworking space does not appeal to me either: I'm not comfortable spending my workday around strangers who appear and disappear every few weeks. But besides that, I think that work is only one part of the equation. There are other reasons why people live in big cities. I grew up in a German city with 100k inhabitants, and there was basically nothing I could do after 8PM once shops had closed. I now live in a larger city where there is a lot of stuff going on everyday in some place (tech meetups, concerts, etc.). You just don't have that in a village or small city. Another, smaller thing: I have some chronic ailments, so it's convenient to be living in a large city with a good coverage of specialist doctors and hospitals. A small city (say, 10k inhabitants) will have a couple GPs and probably an ophthalmologist, but will likely lack more niche specialists. There are more reasons. That's not to say that everyone wants to live, or should want to live, in a big city. But it's not a good idea to force everyone to live in small communities either.
- Silhouette 7y ago
  So first of all, I don't want to get stuck in a home office. I want to share an office with my coworkers and engage in normal human social behavior during the workday. A coworking space does not appeal to me either: I'm not comfortable spending my workday around strangers who appear and disappear every few weeks. That's all fair enough. Everyone is going to have their own preferences for something like this. But why should the office be located in a hard-to-reach central area at all, if most or all of its staff live somewhere else? But besides that, I think that work is only one part of the equation. There are other reasons why people live in big cities. I grew up in a German city with 100k inhabitants, and there was basically nothing I could do after 8PM once shops had closed. Again, that's a fair point. I did acknowledge that there would always be a need for some facilities to be located more centrally and serve a wider area. Anyone wanting to use those facilities will also benefit if there are fewer unnecessary journeys competing for space with their private vehicles or overcrowding public transport, though. That's not to say that everyone wants to live, or should want to live, in a big city. But it's not a good idea to force everyone to live in small communities either. I agree, and this is the point I was trying to make in my final paragraph before. Sorry if it wasn't clear. The problem, IMHO, isn't having large cities. Many people prefer to have less personal living space but be nearer to a wider range of facilities, much as you described yourself. The problem, IMHO, is the design of many large cities today where there is a central area with most of the places people want to go, surrounded by suburbs with most of the places where people live. The geometry of such a design prevents it scaling well. As the city grows, the residential area spreads outwards. This means more people live further from the area with the services. Typically, the area available for the services also can't grow proportionately, creating a problem of where to put enough new services to meet the needs of the growing population. A less centralised design based on clusters that each combine residential accommodation, basic services for the local population, and possibly some sort of business district, has much more ability to grow without separating large numbers of people from their everyday needs, even if you then position large numbers of such clusters close together, introduce additional areas among the clusters for more specialised facilities, and form a big city.