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It's not just density, though that's part of it. A big part is walkability (and otherwise making the city not just car accessible). That can be done without inc

It's not just density, though that's part of it. A big part is walkability (and otherwise making the city not just car accessible). That can be done without increasing density, by for example, adding wide sidewalks and bike lanes, eliminating maze-like cul-de-sac-heavy street layouts, and decreasing speeds in commercial areas (i.e. enforcing a stronger divide between low speed streets meant for people and high speed roads meant for cars). Another part is mixed-use zoning, where small businesses are intermixed with homes instead of people relying on driving to megastores in shopping centers far from where they live. By decreasing the necessity of the car you decrease the cost of road maintenance and by making places more walkable you make businesses more accessible and therefore more successful. I would suspect that many neighborhoods could be kept at the same density and be significantly rethought in line with the Strong Towns ethos to be more comfortable places to live. Density increases might be necessary in high COL areas because those places are in high demand, but there's plenty of bad city design in places outside uber-expensive metropolitan areas. And there might be strong demand for missing middle[1] housing if only it were legal and frictionless to build it. [1] https://youtu.be/CCOdQsZa15o https://youtu.be/CCOdQsZa15o

nine_k 5y ago
Walkability is of course nice, but is much less practical if wherever you go, you need to walk a mile or two to reach it.
- tromp 5y ago
  Add bikeability. Anything to help getting people out of their car. There's something perverse about people using vehicles weighing 20x their own weight to move around such distances, where a vehicle weighing 1/5 their weight will do. Not to mention the ease of parking a bike.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - wallacoloo 5y ago
    > Not to mention the ease of parking a bike. True for places people visit frequently and for short durations (grocery stores, restaurants). But residential areas? pfft. And even if I could find a bike rack, I wouldn’t leave it overnight because of theft. Inevitably I find myself hauling my bike indoors whenever I visit friends. Whereas my friends with cars just parallel park without giving it any thought. I hardly have them beat here. But yes, I agree with your premise. Biking is way more enjoyable than driving in a city, when possible. And in the end that’s a huge piece of winning people over. Electric bikes are helping more people discover this, though ironically, electric bikes are even worse when it comes to parking (larger theft target; harder to haul up stairs/indoors).
    - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
      Underground Bicycle Parking Systems in Japan, 4min15secs [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcZSU40RBrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcZSU40RBrg I'd wish for them every few 100 meters at least ;-)
- occz 5y ago
  Bikes and public transportation solves this issue for the most part.
- CalRobert 5y ago
  That's the opposite of walkability.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  A mile or two is nothing if you are healthy. It may even keep you so.
BlackFly 5y ago
> eliminating maze-like cul-de-sac-heavy street layouts You can actually do the opposite. You make suburbs heavily maze like to slow traffic down. Instead, you build plenty of shortcuts for bikes and pedestrians: the direct routes. That is: the incentives to bike or walk (short direct route to nearby locations) should outweigh the incentive to drive (twisted path that might be kilometers winding around a crow's flight of 100m). Actually building separate paths for pedestrians and cyclists is a required ingredient in that recipe though.
- jabl 5y ago
  Yes, I'm not convinced that cul-de-sacs are necessarily bad, they prevent residential streets from becoming throughfares. What you propose with shortcuts for foot or bicycle traffic could be a good compromise.
- herbst 5y ago
  I was raised in a city that has one river that splits the city. Around this river is where all the biking centralises and cars are forbidden. The city is old and narrow too. Thing is you are nearly everywhere faster by bike. And so the far majority of people has and uses one. People whine about their traffic there, not realizing how lucky they are.
- atrettel 5y ago
  I have seen it argued that heavily-curved suburban streets are safer because drivers have to slow down to see around the bends, etc. Highly-curved suburban streets also tend to avoid 4-way intersections and prefer T intersections. In theory both of these should make the streets safer, but in practice the streets tend to be built to highway-like standards, making many people drive over 30 miles an hour anyway. I encounter that on a daily basis. I would instead prefer for designers to make the streets narrower and to provide prominent sidewalks and bike paths, since that sends a much clearer signal that drivers should slow down. Moreover, there is a second problem with these suburban street layouts. They tend to follow a hierarchical design. Each area is a separate "pod" that is disconnected from adjacent areas. To get to another area, you have to go through a limited number of "choke points" that feed you into a larger road or an even larger road or highway (traverse up the tree and then back down). This design choice inevitably leads to traffic at the choke points, since many drivers cannot possibly avoid these paths. A street grid avoids that since it operates in parallel; there are many equivalent routes. This is literally the same as running a program in serial versus parallel. So even drivers have good reasons to dislike typical suburban streets, since they do inevitably lead to traffic by design.

nine_k 5y ago

Walkability is of course nice, but is much less practical if wherever you go, you need to walk a mile or two to reach it.

tromp 5y ago
Add bikeability. Anything to help getting people out of their car. There's something perverse about people using vehicles weighing 20x their own weight to move around such distances, where a vehicle weighing 1/5 their weight will do. Not to mention the ease of parking a bike.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wallacoloo 5y ago
  > Not to mention the ease of parking a bike. True for places people visit frequently and for short durations (grocery stores, restaurants). But residential areas? pfft. And even if I could find a bike rack, I wouldn’t leave it overnight because of theft. Inevitably I find myself hauling my bike indoors whenever I visit friends. Whereas my friends with cars just parallel park without giving it any thought. I hardly have them beat here. But yes, I agree with your premise. Biking is way more enjoyable than driving in a city, when possible. And in the end that’s a huge piece of winning people over. Electric bikes are helping more people discover this, though ironically, electric bikes are even worse when it comes to parking (larger theft target; harder to haul up stairs/indoors).
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    Underground Bicycle Parking Systems in Japan, 4min15secs [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcZSU40RBrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcZSU40RBrg I'd wish for them every few 100 meters at least ;-)
occz 5y ago
Bikes and public transportation solves this issue for the most part.
CalRobert 5y ago
That's the opposite of walkability.
LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
A mile or two is nothing if you are healthy. It may even keep you so.

BlackFly 5y ago

> eliminating maze-like cul-de-sac-heavy street layouts You can actually do the opposite. You make suburbs heavily maze like to slow traffic down. Instead, you build plenty of shortcuts for bikes and pedestrians: the direct routes. That is: the incentives to bike or walk (short direct route to nearby locations) should outweigh the incentive to drive (twisted path that might be kilometers winding around a crow's flight of 100m). Actually building separate paths for pedestrians and cyclists is a required ingredient in that recipe though.

jabl 5y ago
Yes, I'm not convinced that cul-de-sacs are necessarily bad, they prevent residential streets from becoming throughfares. What you propose with shortcuts for foot or bicycle traffic could be a good compromise.
herbst 5y ago
I was raised in a city that has one river that splits the city. Around this river is where all the biking centralises and cars are forbidden. The city is old and narrow too. Thing is you are nearly everywhere faster by bike. And so the far majority of people has and uses one. People whine about their traffic there, not realizing how lucky they are.
atrettel 5y ago
I have seen it argued that heavily-curved suburban streets are safer because drivers have to slow down to see around the bends, etc. Highly-curved suburban streets also tend to avoid 4-way intersections and prefer T intersections. In theory both of these should make the streets safer, but in practice the streets tend to be built to highway-like standards, making many people drive over 30 miles an hour anyway. I encounter that on a daily basis. I would instead prefer for designers to make the streets narrower and to provide prominent sidewalks and bike paths, since that sends a much clearer signal that drivers should slow down. Moreover, there is a second problem with these suburban street layouts. They tend to follow a hierarchical design. Each area is a separate "pod" that is disconnected from adjacent areas. To get to another area, you have to go through a limited number of "choke points" that feed you into a larger road or an even larger road or highway (traverse up the tree and then back down). This design choice inevitably leads to traffic at the choke points, since many drivers cannot possibly avoid these paths. A street grid avoids that since it operates in parallel; there are many equivalent routes. This is literally the same as running a program in serial versus parallel. So even drivers have good reasons to dislike typical suburban streets, since they do inevitably lead to traffic by design.