7 ms·

These superblocks are also used a bunch in china in newer cities. When subway's come to the edge of the superblock where you live its pretty nice -- you basical

by xt00 5y ago

These superblocks are also used a bunch in china in newer cities. When subway's come to the edge of the superblock where you live its pretty nice -- you basically never interact with cars or potentially once or twice even though you live in the middle of a huge city (Shanghai for example in certain areas). After work you see tons of families walking around, people on dates, dancing, etc doing whatever in the central squares between the big apartment buildings that surround the area. And since many other superblocks have their own area like this, typically the park area is not overcrowded.. vs. like going to golden gate park in the evening or weekends in the summer.

moltar 5y ago
Is there a commercial aspect there too? Are there “shop houses” on the first floor? To me the ultimate superblock is one that has everything needed for day to day. Like a small family grocer, barber, bank, etc.
- xt00 5y ago
  Yes -- on the perimeter of the main square there is all of that exactly -- its pretty convenient for sure but having stores / shops like that on each of these super blocks I imagine works when you have tons of people living around there. Many of these complexes have say 20 buildings and each building houses probably 100 people.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  It sounds like it's a small town. Why not make small towns outside of cities feasible again? With remote work it should be doable.
  - LeanderK 5y ago
    Small towns are not for everyone. It's hard to escape small towns, everybody knows you and the cultural activities are just very limited. I feel quite trapped in my small student-city, there's just nothing new anymore and I am quite bored of the usual activities. In those superblocks you are still living in the city and it's easy reach other parts. But you don't have to for your day-to-day needs.
    - mark_l_watson 5y ago
      I am starting to think that living in a small town is not for me either. My wife and I have been living in a beautiful small town in the mountains in Central Arizona for 20 years. It is beautiful here, and we get a million tourists a year to verify that. What I miss is culture, things like music, museums, lots of ethnic food, stage productions, etc. Without success so far, I am trying to talk my wife into permanently renting our home, and downsizing to living out of 7 or 8 steamer trunks that could be shipped efficiently. To start with, I would like to live in apartments for about 6 months each in Quebec, Santa Barbara, near family in Rhode Island, etc., etc. I figure we could do that until we are ready for moving into an nice assisted living place.
      - moltar 5y ago
        Montreal definitely ticks all your boxes!
  - jltsiren 5y ago
    Satellite towns have made sense for a long time. They are the best trade-off for those who want affordable housing, urban lifestyle, and access to a decent job market. Remote work doesn't change the situation much, because most jobs still require human contact. The recipe for a satellite town is simple. Create a fast and frequent rail connection to the central city and build dense mixed-use areas around the station, with lower-density areas farther away. The rail connection is the key. Car-centric satellite towns create too much traffic and often can't reach sufficient density to support local services.
  - L_Rahman 5y ago
    Yes, but it's nice to live in a small town that just happens to be embedded in a great world city and all the amenities and concentration of interesting people that comes with it.
space_rock 5y ago
Richer Asian cities often have good quality of life in the cities. Walkable and good transportation. It's true in many parts of China and all over developed Asia
- ertian 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't feel like this is something China lacks. Most of the cities I've been to were mixed-zoning (or, well, maybe just un-zoned?), such that you could go for a quick walk from most apartments and quickly find convenience stores, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, etc.
Aeolun 5y ago
Maybe leave out the central block? I enjoy having some sunlight too.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  some of the superblock will have sun at any given moment. parks are tricky. if they are not busy enough they can at best become a dead zone no one wants to stay around in, and at worst degenerate into a haven for unsavory activities, since no one is keeping an eye on it. parks are basically force multipliers for activity, but it can be a positive or negative relationship.
- jankcorn 5y ago
  In Japan, properties have "sunlight rights", so that neighboring properties above a certain height are not allowed to shade them (causing lots of sloped, north-facing roofs). In addition, height of buildings is determined by the width of the fronting street: tall buildings are allowed on trunk roadways, buildings in areas between trunk roads are limited to 3 stories or so. All it all, it makes Tokyo into a large 'collection of small towns', much like Berlin seems to be. Quite pleasant place to live.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    > Quite pleasant place to live. I completely agree.
ZYinMD 5y ago
The US could have some of these nice things too if the zoning law didn't ban all business in residential areas. It baffles me how the US has no shops / restaurants / convenience stores in residential areas and nobody questioned it over half a century.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  There is no "the zoning law," it is all local government and many places don't have those kinds of laws.
  - ertian 5y ago
    Many places do. It was very much the norm as cities were expanding rapidly in the 20th century. Something like 75+% of land in major metropolitan areas in North America are zoned for single-family housing only[1]. And of course that's not evenly distributed between cities, and much of the remaining 25% is still zoned as exclusively residential or commercial. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities-across-america-question-single-family-zoning.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities...
  - cowsandmilk 5y ago
    > many places don't have those kinds of laws. Even in places without zoning codes, you’ll find plenty of restrictions that shape what is built and what it looks like from setbacks to parking minimums. See Houston for example https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2020/01/09/no-zoning-in-Houston-there-are-workarounds https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2020/01/09/no-zoning-in-Ho...
    - jmkb 5y ago
      Many Houston neighborhoods are quite livable on foot and bike, if you don't mind a little perspiration. There are shops and restaurants scattered all around, sidewalks, even some multiuse trails. The mainstream culture is still overwhelmingly automobile-centric, though. Travel to your place of work, or to any particular shop/restaurant, will likely require a car. ...Somewhat related: In Houston I lived within walking distance of two grocery stores, Kroger and Fiesta. A lot of customers walked to these stores, and they'd often use the store's shopping carts to transport purchases back home. So naturally the stores were always losing carts. Kroger solved this problem by installing an electronic geofence and a wheel lock mechanism on each shopping cart, so they couldn't leave the parking lot. Fiesta hired a man in a pickup truck to cruise the neighborhood and bring the empty carts back. And customers cooperated by leaving the carts near the road. IIRC different Fiesta stores marked their carts with different bright neon colors, so they could be returned to the correct store if they wandered afield. Anytime I wanted to buy more than I could carry, of course, I'd go to Fiesta. (This was years ago; it's probably all razed for condo development now.)
qwertox 5y ago
New Cairo [0] in Egypt is a good example of it, which is being built in part by the Chinese. Also scroll around to the east, north-east, to get a feeling for the size of the entire project. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/place/New+Cairo+City,+Cairo+Governorate,+Egypt/@30.0294426,31.4588831,14390m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x14583fa60b21beeb:0x79dfb296e8423bba!2sCairo,+Cairo+Governorate,+Egypt!3b1!8m2!3d30.0444196!4d31.2357116!3m4!1s0x145822cffcd270e7:0x98b73d687889fd8!8m2!3d30.0074133!4d31.4913225 https://www.google.com/maps/place/New+Cairo+City,+Cairo+Gove...

by xt00 5y ago

moltar 5y ago

Is there a commercial aspect there too? Are there “shop houses” on the first floor? To me the ultimate superblock is one that has everything needed for day to day. Like a small family grocer, barber, bank, etc.

xt00 5y ago
Yes -- on the perimeter of the main square there is all of that exactly -- its pretty convenient for sure but having stores / shops like that on each of these super blocks I imagine works when you have tons of people living around there. Many of these complexes have say 20 buildings and each building houses probably 100 people.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
It sounds like it's a small town. Why not make small towns outside of cities feasible again? With remote work it should be doable.
- LeanderK 5y ago
  Small towns are not for everyone. It's hard to escape small towns, everybody knows you and the cultural activities are just very limited. I feel quite trapped in my small student-city, there's just nothing new anymore and I am quite bored of the usual activities. In those superblocks you are still living in the city and it's easy reach other parts. But you don't have to for your day-to-day needs.
  - mark_l_watson 5y ago
    I am starting to think that living in a small town is not for me either. My wife and I have been living in a beautiful small town in the mountains in Central Arizona for 20 years. It is beautiful here, and we get a million tourists a year to verify that. What I miss is culture, things like music, museums, lots of ethnic food, stage productions, etc. Without success so far, I am trying to talk my wife into permanently renting our home, and downsizing to living out of 7 or 8 steamer trunks that could be shipped efficiently. To start with, I would like to live in apartments for about 6 months each in Quebec, Santa Barbara, near family in Rhode Island, etc., etc. I figure we could do that until we are ready for moving into an nice assisted living place.
    - moltar 5y ago
      Montreal definitely ticks all your boxes!
- jltsiren 5y ago
  Satellite towns have made sense for a long time. They are the best trade-off for those who want affordable housing, urban lifestyle, and access to a decent job market. Remote work doesn't change the situation much, because most jobs still require human contact. The recipe for a satellite town is simple. Create a fast and frequent rail connection to the central city and build dense mixed-use areas around the station, with lower-density areas farther away. The rail connection is the key. Car-centric satellite towns create too much traffic and often can't reach sufficient density to support local services.
- L_Rahman 5y ago
  Yes, but it's nice to live in a small town that just happens to be embedded in a great world city and all the amenities and concentration of interesting people that comes with it.

space_rock 5y ago

Richer Asian cities often have good quality of life in the cities. Walkable and good transportation. It's true in many parts of China and all over developed Asia

ertian 5y ago
Yeah, I don't feel like this is something China lacks. Most of the cities I've been to were mixed-zoning (or, well, maybe just un-zoned?), such that you could go for a quick walk from most apartments and quickly find convenience stores, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, etc.

Aeolun 5y ago

Maybe leave out the central block? I enjoy having some sunlight too.

bobthepanda 5y ago
some of the superblock will have sun at any given moment. parks are tricky. if they are not busy enough they can at best become a dead zone no one wants to stay around in, and at worst degenerate into a haven for unsavory activities, since no one is keeping an eye on it. parks are basically force multipliers for activity, but it can be a positive or negative relationship.
jankcorn 5y ago
In Japan, properties have "sunlight rights", so that neighboring properties above a certain height are not allowed to shade them (causing lots of sloped, north-facing roofs). In addition, height of buildings is determined by the width of the fronting street: tall buildings are allowed on trunk roadways, buildings in areas between trunk roads are limited to 3 stories or so. All it all, it makes Tokyo into a large 'collection of small towns', much like Berlin seems to be. Quite pleasant place to live.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > Quite pleasant place to live. I completely agree.

ZYinMD 5y ago

The US could have some of these nice things too if the zoning law didn't ban all business in residential areas. It baffles me how the US has no shops / restaurants / convenience stores in residential areas and nobody questioned it over half a century.

whatshisface 5y ago
There is no "the zoning law," it is all local government and many places don't have those kinds of laws.
- ertian 5y ago
  Many places do. It was very much the norm as cities were expanding rapidly in the 20th century. Something like 75+% of land in major metropolitan areas in North America are zoned for single-family housing only[1]. And of course that's not evenly distributed between cities, and much of the remaining 25% is still zoned as exclusively residential or commercial. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities-across-america-question-single-family-zoning.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/18/upshot/cities...
- cowsandmilk 5y ago
  > many places don't have those kinds of laws. Even in places without zoning codes, you’ll find plenty of restrictions that shape what is built and what it looks like from setbacks to parking minimums. See Houston for example https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2020/01/09/no-zoning-in-Houston-there-are-workarounds https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2020/01/09/no-zoning-in-Ho...
  - jmkb 5y ago
    Many Houston neighborhoods are quite livable on foot and bike, if you don't mind a little perspiration. There are shops and restaurants scattered all around, sidewalks, even some multiuse trails. The mainstream culture is still overwhelmingly automobile-centric, though. Travel to your place of work, or to any particular shop/restaurant, will likely require a car. ...Somewhat related: In Houston I lived within walking distance of two grocery stores, Kroger and Fiesta. A lot of customers walked to these stores, and they'd often use the store's shopping carts to transport purchases back home. So naturally the stores were always losing carts. Kroger solved this problem by installing an electronic geofence and a wheel lock mechanism on each shopping cart, so they couldn't leave the parking lot. Fiesta hired a man in a pickup truck to cruise the neighborhood and bring the empty carts back. And customers cooperated by leaving the carts near the road. IIRC different Fiesta stores marked their carts with different bright neon colors, so they could be returned to the correct store if they wandered afield. Anytime I wanted to buy more than I could carry, of course, I'd go to Fiesta. (This was years ago; it's probably all razed for condo development now.)

qwertox 5y ago

New Cairo [0] in Egypt is a good example of it, which is being built in part by the Chinese. Also scroll around to the east, north-east, to get a feeling for the size of the entire project. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/place/New+Cairo+City,+Cairo+Governorate,+Egypt/@30.0294426,31.4588831,14390m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x14583fa60b21beeb:0x79dfb296e8423bba!2sCairo,+Cairo+Governorate,+Egypt!3b1!8m2!3d30.0444196!4d31.2357116!3m4!1s0x145822cffcd270e7:0x98b73d687889fd8!8m2!3d30.0074133!4d31.4913225 https://www.google.com/maps/place/New+Cairo+City,+Cairo+Gove...