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As a general matter, I think Utopianism is a bad idea, and I don’t think we should be sinking huge amounts of resources into giant leaps like this. I’d rather s

As a general matter, I think Utopianism is a bad idea, and I don’t think we should be sinking huge amounts of resources into giant leaps like this. I’d rather see incremental tweaks in the right direction first, as I think those are far more effective at bringing lasting change. Fundamentally, we’re really bad at predicting the future. Utopian projects involve making big bets on what the future might hold, which makes them high risk high reward. I think making smaller, incremental bets allows us to not only wager fewer resources, but to also begin getting feedback sooner on the outcome of our decisions rather than hoping that we’re spot on in 20 years. More specifically, I’d like to see a lot less “we built a city for autonomous cars and hyperloops” and more “we added some bike lanes and bike parking, and converted commercial streets to pedestrian only.” These are changes we can make today to improve our quality of life, and they practically cost very little.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
Accommodating cars is the most important variable in all places I see. Once you design for accommodating cars, everything is so spread out that it precludes a non-car oriented life. So while you can make commercial streets pedestrian, you can’t change the fundamental fact that everything is too far from everything else to have the necessary foot traffic to sustain businesses. Not to mention the political challenges that come with trying to design a place simultaneously compatible with cars and pedestrians/bicyclists. I’m convinced that there is no in between.
- aww_dang 6y ago
  Maybe people like their cars and choose to live in places that accommodate them? Personally, I am something of a bicycle extremist and have always found a way to navigate urban/suburban areas. It is something that comes with practice. Eventually you learn how to navigate these areas you felt were impassable. With practice you develop instincts for approaching new areas. I know it will be a bit unpopular at HN, but I think you need to be something of a self-starter and willing to take the plunge. I've been on planned bike lanes that felt less safe than just riding on the street with traffic. They can create the wrong expectations for both motorists and cyclists. Naturally you would encounter political problems in developing a "car-free" city, if your prospective residents want to use their cars. Especially if you are left using political leverage to impose your ideals upon the residents. If people truly loved cycling more than the convenience of automobiles, wouldn't they develop the similar techniques for navigating urban and suburban areas? That isn't to say that more can't be done to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians, but I disagree with your absolutist analysis.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    This doesn’t address the root issue of things being too far from each other. What about all the old, young, and otherwise less mobile people getting around? How does shopping happen when everyone has a 100ft+ setback and you need to carry your groceries and whatnot that much further, for each individual property. The proof of my statement is that you can see a marked difference in the lifestyle of urban Tokyo and London and other places where the layout was made pre automobile. You can make all the bike lanes you want, but as long as you’re still placing 4+ lane roads all over the place, it’s not going to bring you the type of day to day life you can experience in dense areas. >Maybe people like their cars and choose to live in places that accommodate them? I don’t think people like their cars, so much as the knock on effects of a car oriented lifestyle. Obviously, people like detached single family houses with garages and front and back yards. Who wouldn’t. The ideal would be having this in the middle of an urban core. Obviously that’s not realistic. But the real benefits of cars come with pricing out people you may not want you and your family to deal with. You can separate into various socioeconomic classes, make it uneconomical for homeless and panhandlers to hang around since everything is so far apart. It’s definitely a valid solution to the situation in NYC/SF/SEA/PDX. I myself don’t see any other solution for a person than moving to a car oriented suburb.
    - aww_dang 6y ago
      You make some reasonable points. I appreciate the catch-22. For me the absolute urban center is just too dense regardless of transportation options. It is nice to have a proximity to it, but even for a bicycle-centric life I prefer more open spaces. The solution IMHO is to cultivate a pedestrian culture, where individuals create a demand, rather than imposing it on them as a city planner. If it comes to it parking lots can easily be redeveloped. There's also the option of public transit, but that brings a proximity to the "undesirables" you mentioned. Above all strip malls, big box stores, modern bridges, overpasses and underpasses are all eyesores for me.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        >Above all strip malls, big box stores, modern bridges, overpasses and underpasses are all eyesores for me. They're an eyesore for everyone. But this is one of those situations where the local maxima for individuals results in a local minima as a society. Once you have a car, it makes no sense to not use it. And no one is going to beat big box stores on pricing. So I'm not going to spend 15% extra at my neighborhood store when I can save a ton of money by driving to Costco, with the car I already have. And I find that anything more than 30min away walking is basically not in walking distance, and in a suburb with large intersections where you have to wait 45+ seconds for light changes and cross large intersections, it's very easy to justify just driving. Especially for the old or those with little kids. I would like to think your solution would work, but I'm at the point of saying it's politically impossible (in a timeframe relevant to a voter's quality of life).
- Pick-A-Hill2019 6y ago
  Then you should take a look at a place in the UK called Milton Keynes. High speed roads (70mph limit) with pedestrians and cyclists seperated by 'Redways'. It comes pretty close to being both car and pedestrian friendly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes#Grid_roads_and_grid_squares https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes#Grid_roads_and_g...
fennecfoxen 6y ago
The fundamental problem with utopian vision usually isn't its bets on the future, it's the fact that there's no meaningful feedback loop. Typically, such a vision is the self-centered self-expression of some mogul or architect or politician who hopes to reshape the world, but does not understand the world and the people who live in the world, and will never bear the burden of the failures of his design. See, for instance, Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse, or even Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City.
niklasd 6y ago
I would argue that this is already happening. We have some new bike lanes, and a little less cars here in Berlin, at some places. And I do not suggest that every development should be utopian. But why not give some utopies a try within a certain scope, e.g. a new district of one town? Worst thing that could happen is we sink a lot of money, and we have a not so nice quarter, but one could argue that exactly this happend with the conservative approach at the HafenCity. Best case is we recognize that this is actually the way we want to live, and it serve as a role model for future developments.
hderms 6y ago
Presumably, even if one thought that utopian projects were a good idea, experimenting with incremental improvements first would likely inform utopian projects better. Provided a utopian project has little outright chance of success, deferring them until we have more information about what solutions work (as well as what problems we'll need to solve in the future as these things change) seems wise. There may be a break-even point where the efficacy of incremental improvements is too low, requiring us to make larger leaps to make progress, but we're clearly not there yet.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

Accommodating cars is the most important variable in all places I see. Once you design for accommodating cars, everything is so spread out that it precludes a non-car oriented life. So while you can make commercial streets pedestrian, you can’t change the fundamental fact that everything is too far from everything else to have the necessary foot traffic to sustain businesses. Not to mention the political challenges that come with trying to design a place simultaneously compatible with cars and pedestrians/bicyclists. I’m convinced that there is no in between.

aww_dang 6y ago
Maybe people like their cars and choose to live in places that accommodate them? Personally, I am something of a bicycle extremist and have always found a way to navigate urban/suburban areas. It is something that comes with practice. Eventually you learn how to navigate these areas you felt were impassable. With practice you develop instincts for approaching new areas. I know it will be a bit unpopular at HN, but I think you need to be something of a self-starter and willing to take the plunge. I've been on planned bike lanes that felt less safe than just riding on the street with traffic. They can create the wrong expectations for both motorists and cyclists. Naturally you would encounter political problems in developing a "car-free" city, if your prospective residents want to use their cars. Especially if you are left using political leverage to impose your ideals upon the residents. If people truly loved cycling more than the convenience of automobiles, wouldn't they develop the similar techniques for navigating urban and suburban areas? That isn't to say that more can't be done to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians, but I disagree with your absolutist analysis.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  This doesn’t address the root issue of things being too far from each other. What about all the old, young, and otherwise less mobile people getting around? How does shopping happen when everyone has a 100ft+ setback and you need to carry your groceries and whatnot that much further, for each individual property. The proof of my statement is that you can see a marked difference in the lifestyle of urban Tokyo and London and other places where the layout was made pre automobile. You can make all the bike lanes you want, but as long as you’re still placing 4+ lane roads all over the place, it’s not going to bring you the type of day to day life you can experience in dense areas. >Maybe people like their cars and choose to live in places that accommodate them? I don’t think people like their cars, so much as the knock on effects of a car oriented lifestyle. Obviously, people like detached single family houses with garages and front and back yards. Who wouldn’t. The ideal would be having this in the middle of an urban core. Obviously that’s not realistic. But the real benefits of cars come with pricing out people you may not want you and your family to deal with. You can separate into various socioeconomic classes, make it uneconomical for homeless and panhandlers to hang around since everything is so far apart. It’s definitely a valid solution to the situation in NYC/SF/SEA/PDX. I myself don’t see any other solution for a person than moving to a car oriented suburb.
  - aww_dang 6y ago
    You make some reasonable points. I appreciate the catch-22. For me the absolute urban center is just too dense regardless of transportation options. It is nice to have a proximity to it, but even for a bicycle-centric life I prefer more open spaces. The solution IMHO is to cultivate a pedestrian culture, where individuals create a demand, rather than imposing it on them as a city planner. If it comes to it parking lots can easily be redeveloped. There's also the option of public transit, but that brings a proximity to the "undesirables" you mentioned. Above all strip malls, big box stores, modern bridges, overpasses and underpasses are all eyesores for me.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      >Above all strip malls, big box stores, modern bridges, overpasses and underpasses are all eyesores for me. They're an eyesore for everyone. But this is one of those situations where the local maxima for individuals results in a local minima as a society. Once you have a car, it makes no sense to not use it. And no one is going to beat big box stores on pricing. So I'm not going to spend 15% extra at my neighborhood store when I can save a ton of money by driving to Costco, with the car I already have. And I find that anything more than 30min away walking is basically not in walking distance, and in a suburb with large intersections where you have to wait 45+ seconds for light changes and cross large intersections, it's very easy to justify just driving. Especially for the old or those with little kids. I would like to think your solution would work, but I'm at the point of saying it's politically impossible (in a timeframe relevant to a voter's quality of life).
Pick-A-Hill2019 6y ago
Then you should take a look at a place in the UK called Milton Keynes. High speed roads (70mph limit) with pedestrians and cyclists seperated by 'Redways'. It comes pretty close to being both car and pedestrian friendly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes#Grid_roads_and_grid_squares https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Keynes#Grid_roads_and_g...

fennecfoxen 6y ago

The fundamental problem with utopian vision usually isn't its bets on the future, it's the fact that there's no meaningful feedback loop. Typically, such a vision is the self-centered self-expression of some mogul or architect or politician who hopes to reshape the world, but does not understand the world and the people who live in the world, and will never bear the burden of the failures of his design. See, for instance, Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse, or even Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City.

niklasd 6y ago

I would argue that this is already happening. We have some new bike lanes, and a little less cars here in Berlin, at some places. And I do not suggest that every development should be utopian. But why not give some utopies a try within a certain scope, e.g. a new district of one town? Worst thing that could happen is we sink a lot of money, and we have a not so nice quarter, but one could argue that exactly this happend with the conservative approach at the HafenCity. Best case is we recognize that this is actually the way we want to live, and it serve as a role model for future developments.

hderms 6y ago

Presumably, even if one thought that utopian projects were a good idea, experimenting with incremental improvements first would likely inform utopian projects better. Provided a utopian project has little outright chance of success, deferring them until we have more information about what solutions work (as well as what problems we'll need to solve in the future as these things change) seems wise. There may be a break-even point where the efficacy of incremental improvements is too low, requiring us to make larger leaps to make progress, but we're clearly not there yet.