6 ms·

I see so many new urbanists saying we’ve made a tremendous mistake, and I agree. But how can we fix it? Tear down all the cities and start over?

quartesixte 4y ago
Basically, yes. In piecemeal. But yes. Major US population centers who are not New York should have, at the start of their explosive population growth, experienced a massive construction boom. There should be so many people employed making a city right now that the other problem we have with people not making a living wage because they are working jobs that weren’t designed to be life-sustaining careers might not be a problem! Tear down all the “historical homes” and build mid-sizes apartment buildings. Build more schools. Hire more teachers. The “character” and “flavor” of a city will come naturally and organically as an emergent property of trying to build a massive city to house millions. Cities if done right turn into quasi-perpetual motion machines that feed itself the economic activity to sustain itself. And because they are denser and more compact, resource consumption can be scaled to be more efficient. Oh and all the people who used to be sprawled out now concentrated? That frees up land to build industrial centers on the outskirts that feed more economic activity. This is an oversimplification that ignores a LOT of externalities to economic activity and histories of urban decay, but essentially: yes cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles essentially need to be rebuilt from the ground up and hopefully it will be as a result of conscious decisions and not a Great Fire of London/Earthquake of 1906 type disaster. The other problem is bureaucracy and that is actually a consequence of the way US regulations approach regulation. It will make everyone’s life easier if we had very perspective building regulations that can be just checklisted through instead of ambiguous, litigious wording.
mschuster91 4y ago
> But how can we fix it? Tear down all the cities and start over? No, that's not needed. There is one first start that is relatively easy to do, and many cities are experimenting with it all over the world: ban individual-transportation cars, only allow taxis, ambulances, delivery services, tradespeople's / construction vehicles and transportation for the disabled. Then, use the space on the suddenly free roads to introduce a solid 24/7 bus network and return the space that's not needed any more to the public by building green stripes, bicycle lanes and pedestrian stripes.
- otagekki 4y ago
  It's all fun and games until you have to transport 2 weeks worth of groceries with joint pain, or Ikea furniture in the street because the deliveryman couldn't access your street. It's all fun and games until you find out that you can't have as many customers as you thought to because people can't find a parking spot near your shop, also because your delivery area shrinks because your deliverymen use bicycles and won't drive uphill or more than 5 km from your place. Paris is implementing this and if you live in the suburbs, going out to Paris is a logistic nightmare. And no, taxis won't always accept to drive you to your hometown with no night time bus service. Not advocating for car culture, but failing to account for citizens' actual needs makes your city unliveable.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    Well, you can get almost everything delivered. The only challenge is second-hand stuff, but this can be addressed with car sharing
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > It's all fun and games until you have to transport 2 weeks worth of groceries with joint pain, or Ikea furniture in the street because the deliveryman couldn't access your street. The former case can be solved by either going shopping more regularly - or by making that possible in the first place by making sure there are grocery stores at regular walkable distances. If you have to use a car to transport your groceries or other regular (!) shopping, your community is underserved. The latter case can be solved by regulating delivery services to have enough staff and technology (i.e. pallet trucks) to be able to haul all the furniture from the nearest delivery drop-off point. > It's all fun and games until you find out that you can't have as many customers as you thought to because people can't find a parking spot near your shop Objective data from Berlin's experiment shows that this concern is relatively unfounded - they looked at anonymized cellphone tower data to determine a sizable increase in pedestrian traffic for the shops [1]. For stores selling stuff that is not easily transportable without a car (e.g. kitchens), there should be incentives to move these to a new location that is accessible with cars or by delivery services. > Paris is implementing this and if you live in the suburbs, going out to Paris is a logistic nightmare. Well, they are learning. The important thing was to get started in the first place. Now with real-world experiences they can adapt and improve. > And no, taxis won't always accept to drive you to your hometown with no night time bus service. Again, the answer of this is government regulation. In Germany, taxis are mandated by law to serve you. [1] https://efahrer.chip.de/news/friedrichstrasse-in-berlin-schmeisst-autos-raus-der-effekt-ueberrascht_107627 https://efahrer.chip.de/news/friedrichstrasse-in-berlin-schm...
apexalpha 4y ago
Scratch the minimum parking requirements and allow people to fill up those spaces with new buildings. Maybe require basement parking or multistory parking at least. Over time the city will grow denser and all other stuff like bike lanes and public transport will simply make sense.
goodpoint 4y ago
> we’ve made a tremendous mistake Yes. Move away from car culture.

quartesixte 4y ago

Basically, yes. In piecemeal. But yes. Major US population centers who are not New York should have, at the start of their explosive population growth, experienced a massive construction boom. There should be so many people employed making a city right now that the other problem we have with people not making a living wage because they are working jobs that weren’t designed to be life-sustaining careers might not be a problem! Tear down all the “historical homes” and build mid-sizes apartment buildings. Build more schools. Hire more teachers. The “character” and “flavor” of a city will come naturally and organically as an emergent property of trying to build a massive city to house millions. Cities if done right turn into quasi-perpetual motion machines that feed itself the economic activity to sustain itself. And because they are denser and more compact, resource consumption can be scaled to be more efficient. Oh and all the people who used to be sprawled out now concentrated? That frees up land to build industrial centers on the outskirts that feed more economic activity. This is an oversimplification that ignores a LOT of externalities to economic activity and histories of urban decay, but essentially: yes cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles essentially need to be rebuilt from the ground up and hopefully it will be as a result of conscious decisions and not a Great Fire of London/Earthquake of 1906 type disaster. The other problem is bureaucracy and that is actually a consequence of the way US regulations approach regulation. It will make everyone’s life easier if we had very perspective building regulations that can be just checklisted through instead of ambiguous, litigious wording.

mschuster91 4y ago

> But how can we fix it? Tear down all the cities and start over? No, that's not needed. There is one first start that is relatively easy to do, and many cities are experimenting with it all over the world: ban individual-transportation cars, only allow taxis, ambulances, delivery services, tradespeople's / construction vehicles and transportation for the disabled. Then, use the space on the suddenly free roads to introduce a solid 24/7 bus network and return the space that's not needed any more to the public by building green stripes, bicycle lanes and pedestrian stripes.

otagekki 4y ago
It's all fun and games until you have to transport 2 weeks worth of groceries with joint pain, or Ikea furniture in the street because the deliveryman couldn't access your street. It's all fun and games until you find out that you can't have as many customers as you thought to because people can't find a parking spot near your shop, also because your delivery area shrinks because your deliverymen use bicycles and won't drive uphill or more than 5 km from your place. Paris is implementing this and if you live in the suburbs, going out to Paris is a logistic nightmare. And no, taxis won't always accept to drive you to your hometown with no night time bus service. Not advocating for car culture, but failing to account for citizens' actual needs makes your city unliveable.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  Well, you can get almost everything delivered. The only challenge is second-hand stuff, but this can be addressed with car sharing
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > It's all fun and games until you have to transport 2 weeks worth of groceries with joint pain, or Ikea furniture in the street because the deliveryman couldn't access your street. The former case can be solved by either going shopping more regularly - or by making that possible in the first place by making sure there are grocery stores at regular walkable distances. If you have to use a car to transport your groceries or other regular (!) shopping, your community is underserved. The latter case can be solved by regulating delivery services to have enough staff and technology (i.e. pallet trucks) to be able to haul all the furniture from the nearest delivery drop-off point. > It's all fun and games until you find out that you can't have as many customers as you thought to because people can't find a parking spot near your shop Objective data from Berlin's experiment shows that this concern is relatively unfounded - they looked at anonymized cellphone tower data to determine a sizable increase in pedestrian traffic for the shops [1]. For stores selling stuff that is not easily transportable without a car (e.g. kitchens), there should be incentives to move these to a new location that is accessible with cars or by delivery services. > Paris is implementing this and if you live in the suburbs, going out to Paris is a logistic nightmare. Well, they are learning. The important thing was to get started in the first place. Now with real-world experiences they can adapt and improve. > And no, taxis won't always accept to drive you to your hometown with no night time bus service. Again, the answer of this is government regulation. In Germany, taxis are mandated by law to serve you. [1] https://efahrer.chip.de/news/friedrichstrasse-in-berlin-schmeisst-autos-raus-der-effekt-ueberrascht_107627 https://efahrer.chip.de/news/friedrichstrasse-in-berlin-schm...

apexalpha 4y ago

Scratch the minimum parking requirements and allow people to fill up those spaces with new buildings. Maybe require basement parking or multistory parking at least. Over time the city will grow denser and all other stuff like bike lanes and public transport will simply make sense.

goodpoint 4y ago

> we’ve made a tremendous mistake Yes. Move away from car culture.