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Cities and universities serve very different populations. A university typically has four groups it serves: students, faculty, administration, and staff. Each o

Cities and universities serve very different populations. A university typically has four groups it serves: students, faculty, administration, and staff. Each of these groups tend to have only small variations in needs within their group. If you can design for the needs of these four groups, you're doing well. A city on the other hand may have hundreds or even thousands of different groups of differing conflicting needs. Even a smallish city with a population of 20,000 is going to have more complexity than a large university with 40,000 students plus several thousand in the other three groups.

mc32 6y ago
Also they aren’t considering Stanford which has one of the largest campuses by Area and you need shuttles to get from one area to another (even excluding the nature preserves).
- timzaman 6y ago
  Stanford is probably not a great example. It's exactly because the campus is and has always been so big that it's setup wide and grand.
  - legerdemain 6y ago
    Stanford is a perfectly fine example. I used to visit Stanford several times a week. Walking briskly, you can cross the core of campus, where most of the instructional buildings are, in about 15 minutes from one end to another. The athletic center and undergraduate dorms are located around the periphery of this core. I assume students don't typically go back to their dorms multiple times per day. The engineering campus is pretty compact. The medical complex is, yes, another brisk ten-minute walk, but I doubt many students need to go between the hospital and the rest of campus more than once a day. If your daily schedule takes you from the dorms to the core of campus, and then to the hospital, and then to the campus gym, and then to the student union or the main library, then yes, maybe you'll choose to take a shuttle. But for an able-bodied person, these are very reasonable distances to travel on foot, and certainly on a bicycle or scooter. For comparison, I went to a university with a much smaller campus, and it was still at least a ten-minute walk from one end to another. And it was fine.
sine_reality 6y ago
Could you elaborate on a few of the hundreds of different groups you are referring to within a city, as well as their conflicting needs?
- SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
  I'm interested to find out what makes these groups so different that being a walkable area is incompatible between them.
  - pjm331 6y ago
    i'll take a stab at what the author of that comment might have meant - how I understood it at least there are 2 ways you can define "walkable" 1. it is physically possible to walk there - e.g. there are paved sidewalks 2. it is convenient to walk from the place you are to the place you need to be i think that the misunderstanding here might be that you and the comment above are thinking about 1 while the problem is actually 2 to pull a quote from the article: "students who live in dormitories are able to work, eat and worship all within walking distance of their homes" there's also a link to this concept of a "15 minute neighborhood"[1] where everyone can walk to their basic daily needs w/in 15 minutes, or beautifully summarized as “Put the stuff closer together so it's easier to get to the stuff.” so the proposed problem is that the set of things w/in that "daily needs" category, AKA the "stuff", might grow, due to the increasing diversity of the population you're servicing, to a point where its not possible to give that to everyone [1]https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/6/7-rules-for-creating-15-minute-neighborhoods https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/6/7-rules-for-cre...
- falcolas 6y ago
  Small retail shops. Huge retail shops (Wallmarts/Targets). Non-profit retail (Goodwill). Restaurants (Coffee shops, family restaurants, Olive Gardens) Utility buildings. Utility Workers. Housing; low- medium- high- and no income. Plus some for the 0.01%. Schools; Pre- elementary- middle- high-schools and College. Office space. Pools. Gyms. Hospitals. Doctor offices. Animal shelters. Green spaces. Cinemas. Amusement parks. Fire departments. Police departments. Community centers. Jails. Courthouses. City/County/State/Country centers. Temporary housing (From hotels to short-term rentals) Commercial shipping (by rail, road, and sea) Car storage (travel between distant cities) And perhaps most importantly, competition (that is, alternatives) for all of the above; since campuses tend to be monopolies for many offerings.
paul_f 6y ago
Faculty and staff rarely live on campus. Often they live in suburban enclaves and drive to campus. They also tend to have spouses with jobs elsewhere and children who don't go to school on campus. Faculty parking can be one of the most contentious issues for any college or University. This idyllic myth of presented a college campus is only true for the students.
throw0101a 6y ago
> Cities and universities serve very different populations. As Jane Jacobs observed many decades ago: you don't live in a city, you live in a neighbourhood. * https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/jane-jacobs-street-smarts https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/jane-jacobs-st... You design the urban environment where, with-in a fifteen minute walk, you have grocery stores, butchers, coffee shops, dry cleaners, pubs, a library, dentists, doctor offices, elementary school, bakery, flower shops, etc. It's not that hard: we were doing it for a long-time before WW2. You can have big houses: * https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Westminster+Ave,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Westminster+Ave,+Toron... And small houses in it: * https://www.google.com/maps/place/100+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/100+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+... All with backyards and (laneway) garages. Throw in some (medium-rise) apartment buildings while you're at it: * https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Fermanagh+Ave,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Fermanagh+Ave,+Toronto... High enough density for pubic transit, which makes car ownership optional and not a necessity.
- ulucs 6y ago
  Toronto is a bad example for sane housing, you have to pay over a thousand dollars for a single room that gets sunlight and the prices just kept rising until covid
  - ghaff 6y ago
    The parent also mentioned Jane Jacobs who a lot of people like to remember for getting highway construction blocked and, as they say, supported walkable neighborhoods that were communities. I would also guess that Jacobs would also have been perfectly fine with Wet Village "NIMBYs" blocking high-rise residential construction if they didn't want it. Livable neighborhoods probably correlate better to high housing prices than low.
    - throw0101a 6y ago
      Is high-rise (>10 storeys) really needed? Or would mid-rise (5-10) be sufficient? Certainly some areas could use high (near major transit hubs), but towers don't have to be planted everywhere.

mc32 6y ago

Also they aren’t considering Stanford which has one of the largest campuses by Area and you need shuttles to get from one area to another (even excluding the nature preserves).

timzaman 6y ago
Stanford is probably not a great example. It's exactly because the campus is and has always been so big that it's setup wide and grand.
- legerdemain 6y ago
  Stanford is a perfectly fine example. I used to visit Stanford several times a week. Walking briskly, you can cross the core of campus, where most of the instructional buildings are, in about 15 minutes from one end to another. The athletic center and undergraduate dorms are located around the periphery of this core. I assume students don't typically go back to their dorms multiple times per day. The engineering campus is pretty compact. The medical complex is, yes, another brisk ten-minute walk, but I doubt many students need to go between the hospital and the rest of campus more than once a day. If your daily schedule takes you from the dorms to the core of campus, and then to the hospital, and then to the campus gym, and then to the student union or the main library, then yes, maybe you'll choose to take a shuttle. But for an able-bodied person, these are very reasonable distances to travel on foot, and certainly on a bicycle or scooter. For comparison, I went to a university with a much smaller campus, and it was still at least a ten-minute walk from one end to another. And it was fine.

sine_reality 6y ago

Could you elaborate on a few of the hundreds of different groups you are referring to within a city, as well as their conflicting needs?

SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
I'm interested to find out what makes these groups so different that being a walkable area is incompatible between them.
- pjm331 6y ago
  i'll take a stab at what the author of that comment might have meant - how I understood it at least there are 2 ways you can define "walkable" 1. it is physically possible to walk there - e.g. there are paved sidewalks 2. it is convenient to walk from the place you are to the place you need to be i think that the misunderstanding here might be that you and the comment above are thinking about 1 while the problem is actually 2 to pull a quote from the article: "students who live in dormitories are able to work, eat and worship all within walking distance of their homes" there's also a link to this concept of a "15 minute neighborhood"[1] where everyone can walk to their basic daily needs w/in 15 minutes, or beautifully summarized as “Put the stuff closer together so it's easier to get to the stuff.” so the proposed problem is that the set of things w/in that "daily needs" category, AKA the "stuff", might grow, due to the increasing diversity of the population you're servicing, to a point where its not possible to give that to everyone [1]https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/6/7-rules-for-creating-15-minute-neighborhoods https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/6/7-rules-for-cre...
falcolas 6y ago
Small retail shops. Huge retail shops (Wallmarts/Targets). Non-profit retail (Goodwill). Restaurants (Coffee shops, family restaurants, Olive Gardens) Utility buildings. Utility Workers. Housing; low- medium- high- and no income. Plus some for the 0.01%. Schools; Pre- elementary- middle- high-schools and College. Office space. Pools. Gyms. Hospitals. Doctor offices. Animal shelters. Green spaces. Cinemas. Amusement parks. Fire departments. Police departments. Community centers. Jails. Courthouses. City/County/State/Country centers. Temporary housing (From hotels to short-term rentals) Commercial shipping (by rail, road, and sea) Car storage (travel between distant cities) And perhaps most importantly, competition (that is, alternatives) for all of the above; since campuses tend to be monopolies for many offerings.

paul_f 6y ago

Faculty and staff rarely live on campus. Often they live in suburban enclaves and drive to campus. They also tend to have spouses with jobs elsewhere and children who don't go to school on campus. Faculty parking can be one of the most contentious issues for any college or University. This idyllic myth of presented a college campus is only true for the students.

throw0101a 6y ago

> Cities and universities serve very different populations. As Jane Jacobs observed many decades ago: you don't live in a city, you live in a neighbourhood. * https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/jane-jacobs-street-smarts https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/jane-jacobs-st... You design the urban environment where, with-in a fifteen minute walk, you have grocery stores, butchers, coffee shops, dry cleaners, pubs, a library, dentists, doctor offices, elementary school, bakery, flower shops, etc. It's not that hard: we were doing it for a long-time before WW2. You can have big houses: * https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Westminster+Ave,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Westminster+Ave,+Toron... And small houses in it: * https://www.google.com/maps/place/100+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/100+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+... All with backyards and (laneway) garages. Throw in some (medium-rise) apartment buildings while you're at it: * https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Fermanagh+Ave,+Toronto,+ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Fermanagh+Ave,+Toronto... High enough density for pubic transit, which makes car ownership optional and not a necessity.

ulucs 6y ago
Toronto is a bad example for sane housing, you have to pay over a thousand dollars for a single room that gets sunlight and the prices just kept rising until covid
- ghaff 6y ago
  The parent also mentioned Jane Jacobs who a lot of people like to remember for getting highway construction blocked and, as they say, supported walkable neighborhoods that were communities. I would also guess that Jacobs would also have been perfectly fine with Wet Village "NIMBYs" blocking high-rise residential construction if they didn't want it. Livable neighborhoods probably correlate better to high housing prices than low.
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    Is high-rise (>10 storeys) really needed? Or would mid-rise (5-10) be sufficient? Certainly some areas could use high (near major transit hubs), but towers don't have to be planted everywhere.