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We expect a much stronger focus at the neighbourhood level will deliver very high social, environmental and economic returns from small outlays. But, for this t

We expect a much stronger focus at the neighbourhood level will deliver very high social, environmental and economic returns from small outlays. But, for this to be achieved, much greater urgency is needed. This strikes me as a "pushing a boulder uphill" approach and that tends to do poorly. A "water runs downhill, so let's try to be downhill" approach is vastly better. Instead of arguing that "We need more bus service and it's a pittance compared to trains" make a stronger case. A budgetary argument of that sort is a pretty weak argument. It's not compelling. It's essentially manipulative and it tends to not work. Instead of decrying the urgency of the case, give people easy steps to take in the here and now. Tell individuals what they can do as individuals to participate in the growth of 20-minute neighborhoods. Tell businesses what they can do. The article indicates that the suburbs in question are already densifying and then follows up with a defeatist attitude along the lines of "...but we are still so very, very far away from what needs to happen, boo hoo hoo!" instead of saying "This is already happening to some degree and here are some easy steps to take to help reach the critical tipping point and make this happen!" The writing is not that compelling. The approach to the problem space is not that compelling. The arguments aren't that strong. A better approach would be to profile cities and neighborhoods that have achieved this, even if it was a long time ago. What were the ingredients? How can you add just a little something to existing infrastructure to make this pop? This isn't hard. You just need to give people the answers they already mostly want. You need a recipe for how to make this happen and then a lot of people will be all over it like gang busters. If people are failing to make it happen, it's because they don't have the information or mental models or solutions they need. If you give them that, a lot of people will run with this.

freeone3000 6y ago
You really can't add little things to existing infrastructure because you can't smoosh buildings closer. People want 3000 sq ft homes on an acre of land on a quiet street and to drive to their shopping and to drive to their walmart, and no bus service can service a neighborhood like this because either the stops are so far apart it's a 5 minute walk to each one, or it stops so frequently that it takes an hour to get across town, or a compromise of both, leading situations where driving is nicer than taking the bus. And even then, a bus service is not going to reach everywhere you want to go, because house-to-house travel is the absolute longest possible. Even on a decent feeder system, going from the suburbs to a normal part of the city takes forty-five minutes to get into the metro because of all the parking lots, for all the cars, that people own, because the bus service takes too long to get anywhere. The only way to start is to build a dense neighborhood where people can live and work within it, as a new neighborhood, with collective parking and minimal concessions to car traffic. It has to work as a system, or it doesn't work at all.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Before life got in the way, I wanted to be an urban planner. There are always relatively small projects you can do to improve walkability, encourage use of bicycles, etc. The reality is "planned neighborhoods" of the sort you are talking about typically fail. That's not how good neighborhoods come into being. Good neighborhoods grow organically out of good policies that foster such neighborhoods and they evolve over time. Jane Jacobs said something about the big developments that get all built in one go along the lines of "It was always dead, but no one noticed until the body began to smell." Yes, it has to work as a system. No, it doesn't need to get "born" all at once, like a human child or something. The book "How buildings learn" brilliantly documents that wonderful old buildings are typically wonderful precisely because they are old and that means they've had time to adapt and evolve. They weren't usually brilliantly designed from the get go. They had a lot of wonderful touches added to them over time in most cases. This tends to also be true at the larger scale of neighborhoods and cities.

freeone3000 6y ago

You really can't add little things to existing infrastructure because you can't smoosh buildings closer. People want 3000 sq ft homes on an acre of land on a quiet street and to drive to their shopping and to drive to their walmart, and no bus service can service a neighborhood like this because either the stops are so far apart it's a 5 minute walk to each one, or it stops so frequently that it takes an hour to get across town, or a compromise of both, leading situations where driving is nicer than taking the bus. And even then, a bus service is not going to reach everywhere you want to go, because house-to-house travel is the absolute longest possible. Even on a decent feeder system, going from the suburbs to a normal part of the city takes forty-five minutes to get into the metro because of all the parking lots, for all the cars, that people own, because the bus service takes too long to get anywhere. The only way to start is to build a dense neighborhood where people can live and work within it, as a new neighborhood, with collective parking and minimal concessions to car traffic. It has to work as a system, or it doesn't work at all.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
Before life got in the way, I wanted to be an urban planner. There are always relatively small projects you can do to improve walkability, encourage use of bicycles, etc. The reality is "planned neighborhoods" of the sort you are talking about typically fail. That's not how good neighborhoods come into being. Good neighborhoods grow organically out of good policies that foster such neighborhoods and they evolve over time. Jane Jacobs said something about the big developments that get all built in one go along the lines of "It was always dead, but no one noticed until the body began to smell." Yes, it has to work as a system. No, it doesn't need to get "born" all at once, like a human child or something. The book "How buildings learn" brilliantly documents that wonderful old buildings are typically wonderful precisely because they are old and that means they've had time to adapt and evolve. They weren't usually brilliantly designed from the get go. They had a lot of wonderful touches added to them over time in most cases. This tends to also be true at the larger scale of neighborhoods and cities.