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Made me think of this paulg tweet/quote: "Cities that we think of as marvels from the past that we could not match were built by people much poorer than us."

Made me think of this paulg tweet/quote: "Cities that we think of as marvels from the past that we could not match were built by people much poorer than us." https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1199278650652286977 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1199278650652286977

preommr 7y ago
What does this even mean? I'd like to see an actual example of such a city for better context. What city do people think we can't build today better and faster? Who are the people that are poorer? Like the US is richer, but detroit got wrecked over time.
- carapace 7y ago
  > I'd like to see an actual example of such a city for better context. Rome? Athens? Merv was considered the most beautiful city in the world for centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv We have sent men to walk on the Moon but we suck at beautiful architecture.
- rhino369 7y ago
  Some of it is true, but that's because we paid in lives and human suffering. Safety and environmental restrictions multiply the cost of building infrastructure.
- Too 7y ago
  Compare older architectural styles such as colorful and elaborate Victorian or Renaissance, with newer ones like big gray concrete Brutalism or Functionalism. Why can't we build good looking and interesting buildings again, despite our better tools? Now there are modern glass buildings that can look really sleek also, but honestly they are a bit repetitive and featureless and don't really match those older ornate styles.
sneak 7y ago
Sometimes I ponder the fact that so much of the US lifestyle is utterly terrible only because single family homes, individual automobiles, strip malls, lack of mixed-use, and parking minimums are a “this is the way we’ve always done it” meme. Many people there literally can’t imagine any other way of doing it. There are few or no options for cheap, walkable, high-density city living in the US, and not because people don’t want it, because of what the TLS people call “ossification”: it’s illegal to build it in most places, even if it’s cleaner, easier, cheaper, and more desired by citizenry, simply due to (bad) tradition. (That and that fact that the upper classes really don’t seem to like living within walking distance of poor people.) I wonder if it’s possible to build new actual cities in the US. I know that due to things like restrictive covenants, much of the housing in the western half of the country makes it legally impossible to ever increase the density of existing cities. Subdivisions in master planned areas can’t individually decide to allow duplexes or mid-rises or corner stores, as they are sub-sub-subdivisions that are governed by decades-old associations. To build another New York or Hong Kong (in addition to needing 50-100 years) you’d probably need to start fresh; it couldn’t be grafted into an existing sprawl town.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  >(That and that fact that the upper classes really don’t seem to like living within walking distance of poor people.) More importantly, you want your children to go to a school in the district with the most affluent parents that you can afford to live near. That's why 20 somethings don't mind living near poorer people in NYC or SF, but unless they can afford to pay for very, very expensive private schools, they will move out to the most expensive suburb they can afford (i.e. the best school district they can afford) when they have kids.
  - sneak 7y ago
    I hadn’t thought of that, it’s a great point. I wonder what sort of workable solutions exist to this problem. Would eliminating all public schools and making a voucher-based system (with oversight/standardization for redeeming organizations) work to solve this? How do we overall reduce the number of everyday routine life person-meters travelled in large percentages of society?
jkmcf 7y ago
Those cities were also probably built by slaves/serfs/forced labor or with very cheap labor and with little to no societal regulation.

preommr 7y ago

What does this even mean? I'd like to see an actual example of such a city for better context. What city do people think we can't build today better and faster? Who are the people that are poorer? Like the US is richer, but detroit got wrecked over time.

carapace 7y ago
> I'd like to see an actual example of such a city for better context. Rome? Athens? Merv was considered the most beautiful city in the world for centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv We have sent men to walk on the Moon but we suck at beautiful architecture.
rhino369 7y ago
Some of it is true, but that's because we paid in lives and human suffering. Safety and environmental restrictions multiply the cost of building infrastructure.
Too 7y ago
Compare older architectural styles such as colorful and elaborate Victorian or Renaissance, with newer ones like big gray concrete Brutalism or Functionalism. Why can't we build good looking and interesting buildings again, despite our better tools? Now there are modern glass buildings that can look really sleek also, but honestly they are a bit repetitive and featureless and don't really match those older ornate styles.

sneak 7y ago

Sometimes I ponder the fact that so much of the US lifestyle is utterly terrible only because single family homes, individual automobiles, strip malls, lack of mixed-use, and parking minimums are a “this is the way we’ve always done it” meme. Many people there literally can’t imagine any other way of doing it. There are few or no options for cheap, walkable, high-density city living in the US, and not because people don’t want it, because of what the TLS people call “ossification”: it’s illegal to build it in most places, even if it’s cleaner, easier, cheaper, and more desired by citizenry, simply due to (bad) tradition. (That and that fact that the upper classes really don’t seem to like living within walking distance of poor people.) I wonder if it’s possible to build new actual cities in the US. I know that due to things like restrictive covenants, much of the housing in the western half of the country makes it legally impossible to ever increase the density of existing cities. Subdivisions in master planned areas can’t individually decide to allow duplexes or mid-rises or corner stores, as they are sub-sub-subdivisions that are governed by decades-old associations. To build another New York or Hong Kong (in addition to needing 50-100 years) you’d probably need to start fresh; it couldn’t be grafted into an existing sprawl town.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
>(That and that fact that the upper classes really don’t seem to like living within walking distance of poor people.) More importantly, you want your children to go to a school in the district with the most affluent parents that you can afford to live near. That's why 20 somethings don't mind living near poorer people in NYC or SF, but unless they can afford to pay for very, very expensive private schools, they will move out to the most expensive suburb they can afford (i.e. the best school district they can afford) when they have kids.
- sneak 7y ago
  I hadn’t thought of that, it’s a great point. I wonder what sort of workable solutions exist to this problem. Would eliminating all public schools and making a voucher-based system (with oversight/standardization for redeeming organizations) work to solve this? How do we overall reduce the number of everyday routine life person-meters travelled in large percentages of society?

jkmcf 7y ago

Those cities were also probably built by slaves/serfs/forced labor or with very cheap labor and with little to no societal regulation.