8 ms·

Cities exist to serve people's needs. The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past: suburbia with long car commutes to downtown, and dense cities

Cities exist to serve people's needs. The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past: suburbia with long car commutes to downtown, and dense cities built around facilitating mass daily movement to the office through subway/public transportation. Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods catering to different lifestyles and needs (some higher density and walkable, others still car-centric but encouraging shorter car rides) with limited need for long car rides or large investments in mass public transportation.

kkfx 4y ago
The modern (now past) city model was about economy of scale: competing business in a small area means innovation, lower prices and specialization. Since such model do not exists substantially anymore cities have almost no purposes anymore. Suburbs where people live but do not have services also suffer. As a result the classic Riviera model where people live spread, but also find local spread small services survive and flourish. At that point who want to be in cities or suburbs? I fail to see ANY purposes to "convert offices to residential buildings".
Swizec 4y ago
> The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past: suburbia with long car commutes to downtown, and dense cities built around facilitating mass daily movement to the office through subway/public transportation I’ve been traveling Europe this month and visited several towns and cities both large and small. From tiny villages of a few hundred to 4,000,000+ people monsters. One thing that struck me as vastly different than how USA does things was the mixed zoning. Every city, no matter the size, feels alive. People live there. They don’t sleep in one area then go live in another. Everything happens organically near where the people are and the city/town/neighborhood/village never feels empty. > Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods catering to different lifestyles and needs This is exactly what Europe feels like. A high street is never far, even when you’re in a sleepy residential neighborhood. At the very least there’s a small grocery store and bar on the corner.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  If you travel or stay long enough you'll find there's plenty of bedroom communities in Europe - you just didn't go to them because why would a tourist go to them? The typical layout is town->multi-family housing surrounding the town that is walkable->larger housing (mix of multi/attached and detached ) that is not walkable. Older parts of the USA (pre-war) are very similar in that there's lots of mixed zoned areas where people live among the shops and services local to them.
  - talideon 4y ago
    Even those bedroom communities are a lot more livable than their US equivalents, because they have local amenities, meaning you're not forced to go to some big-box store or strip mall for stuff like you do in the US. They function as small towns, not just vast swathes of houses, which makes them more sustainable.
    - nemo44x 4y ago
      I agree that it's weird that people want to live in places where there's nowhere to walk to and the landscape is houses with nearly no landscaping except for lawns and some shrubs. Not even trees - just a lawn desert of isolated homes. It's not even a cost thing in many cases as the homes are not cheap or small, etc.
    - selectodude 4y ago
      Carrefour is one of the largest retailers on earth utilizing a big box model. They’re all over bedroom communities in suburban Paris.
      - wott 4y ago
        > Carrefour is one of the largest retailers on earth utilizing a big box model. In the 70s already, the one near Toulouse was for some time perhaps the largest superstore in the world (at least the largest in Europe).
    - 4y ago
synu 4y ago
Where are you referring to where there are only two city types? I live in the Netherlands, neither of the two existing models you describe sound familiar in any countries around here, although our cities were certainly designed in a low tech past.
- courgette 4y ago
  Thanks for remembering about most of humanity.
  - cryptonector 4y ago
    It's all local. u/danielrpa was referring to local conditions, and so was u/synu.
    - danielrpa 4y ago
      I was referring to the United States, but you can adapt the principle to other places, but with updated descriptions.
- ido 4y ago
  A lot of the Ruhrpott[0] resembles that example and is considered a kinda shitty place to live in by a lot of Germans. A friend of mine who came here (Berlin) from there summed it up as “you spend a lot of time in your car”. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr an area in Germany close to the Dutch border
- kulahan 4y ago
  Are context clues no longer a thing? This is a story about American cities. Why would you assume he is also referring to all non-American cities?
  - synu 4y ago
    People here often talk make statements expanding on the original article and I was curious, but in any case thanks for confirming this is a US-only thing. Makes sense.
mavelikara 4y ago
> The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past: Both the factors you mention - cars, and mass transportation - were huge technological advances of their times. Technology has progressed since, so we might see different models evolve. But don't mistake those models to be permanent either.
TuringNYC 4y ago
I'm a life-long New Yorker, born and raised. Even I gave up on the city and moved out, despite all the desire to live with low carbon-impact and live a moderate lifestyle w/o cars. At some point, the pain factor becomes too much. I'll give you some examples - Approximately 5-6yrs ago the transit quality in the outer-boroughs (not Manhattan) became so bad that you could spend 2hrs hours switching multiple trains if you were going into Brooklyn. Trains would mysteriously not arrive, would run express, would claim they have arrived on official apps but the station was closed, etc. Then you think -- in 2hrs I could have commuted into the suburb and lived in a beautiful home for half the price and have a huge garden. And lots of people did exactly that. - When metros didnt work, you'd Uber, but then punitive fees were added onto Uber rides to discourage that even. It was as if you'd be squeezed from every direction. - For some minority groups (eg Asian women), crime became a huge problem. There wasnt much care from law enforcement (not to punish, but even just to be present at subway stations and cars). Many of my Asian friends moved out of the city for this reason. You'd see groups of 5-6 cops chatting together at the center of a station rather than be distributed across platforms across a station. - Numerous metro steps had non-working elevators and non-working escalators, making travel with strollers dangerous or impossible. Good luck of you are on a wheelchair. Ridiculous ideas would be proposed where bicycles were somehow the magical solution to all...as if I could jump on a ride-share bicycle with two kids. - Schooling was increasing byzantine. You could own a home but not be guaranteed a seat at your local public school. You had to use "connections" just to make it on the list, or your child would end up half way across the Borough at a different public school. You could have two kids zoned to the same public school, but end up in two different public schools, making school drops impossible. Test-driven systems were changed, making things even harder. "Leadership" based public school application systems were proposed, which is a euphemism for "rich people" get accepted. Ultimately cities are competing against suburbs, and from what I saw in my particular case the city option failed. Even I couldnt stomach the pain anymore and I gave up.
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  > You could own a home but not be guaranteed a seat at your local public school. You had to use "connections" just to make it on the list, or your child would end up half way across the Borough at a different public school. I suspect this is an attempt to distribute students between schools so you don't end up with one school made up of students all from a rich neighborhood and another with students all from a poorer neighborhood. That's how a lot of the US does things and the poorer families consistently get the short end of the stick.
bobthepanda 4y ago
You need some kind of long distance transportation with enough capacity in cities still, because people just don’t stay in their little neighborhoods, they want to try the new restaurant in neighborhood A, catch up with a friend in neighborhood B, go to the sale in neighborhood C and before you know it all these little trips add up really fast. This wouldn’t happen if our neighborhoods were clones, but that would be terrible. Tokyo is a carpet of self-sufficient, dense neighborhoods, and yet people still travel all over the place in large numbers.
mmarq 4y ago
> Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods catering to different lifestyles and needs What you are describing is a random continental European city (that is Europe minus UK and Ireland)

kkfx 4y ago

The modern (now past) city model was about economy of scale: competing business in a small area means innovation, lower prices and specialization. Since such model do not exists substantially anymore cities have almost no purposes anymore. Suburbs where people live but do not have services also suffer. As a result the classic Riviera model where people live spread, but also find local spread small services survive and flourish. At that point who want to be in cities or suburbs? I fail to see ANY purposes to "convert offices to residential buildings".

Swizec 4y ago

> The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past: suburbia with long car commutes to downtown, and dense cities built around facilitating mass daily movement to the office through subway/public transportation I’ve been traveling Europe this month and visited several towns and cities both large and small. From tiny villages of a few hundred to 4,000,000+ people monsters. One thing that struck me as vastly different than how USA does things was the mixed zoning. Every city, no matter the size, feels alive. People live there. They don’t sleep in one area then go live in another. Everything happens organically near where the people are and the city/town/neighborhood/village never feels empty. > Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods catering to different lifestyles and needs This is exactly what Europe feels like. A high street is never far, even when you’re in a sleepy residential neighborhood. At the very least there’s a small grocery store and bar on the corner.

nemo44x 4y ago
If you travel or stay long enough you'll find there's plenty of bedroom communities in Europe - you just didn't go to them because why would a tourist go to them? The typical layout is town->multi-family housing surrounding the town that is walkable->larger housing (mix of multi/attached and detached ) that is not walkable. Older parts of the USA (pre-war) are very similar in that there's lots of mixed zoned areas where people live among the shops and services local to them.
- talideon 4y ago
  Even those bedroom communities are a lot more livable than their US equivalents, because they have local amenities, meaning you're not forced to go to some big-box store or strip mall for stuff like you do in the US. They function as small towns, not just vast swathes of houses, which makes them more sustainable.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    I agree that it's weird that people want to live in places where there's nowhere to walk to and the landscape is houses with nearly no landscaping except for lawns and some shrubs. Not even trees - just a lawn desert of isolated homes. It's not even a cost thing in many cases as the homes are not cheap or small, etc.
  - selectodude 4y ago
    Carrefour is one of the largest retailers on earth utilizing a big box model. They’re all over bedroom communities in suburban Paris.
    - wott 4y ago
      > Carrefour is one of the largest retailers on earth utilizing a big box model. In the 70s already, the one near Toulouse was for some time perhaps the largest superstore in the world (at least the largest in Europe).
  - 4y ago

synu 4y ago

Where are you referring to where there are only two city types? I live in the Netherlands, neither of the two existing models you describe sound familiar in any countries around here, although our cities were certainly designed in a low tech past.

courgette 4y ago
Thanks for remembering about most of humanity.
- cryptonector 4y ago
  It's all local. u/danielrpa was referring to local conditions, and so was u/synu.
  - danielrpa 4y ago
    I was referring to the United States, but you can adapt the principle to other places, but with updated descriptions.
ido 4y ago
A lot of the Ruhrpott[0] resembles that example and is considered a kinda shitty place to live in by a lot of Germans. A friend of mine who came here (Berlin) from there summed it up as “you spend a lot of time in your car”. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr an area in Germany close to the Dutch border
kulahan 4y ago
Are context clues no longer a thing? This is a story about American cities. Why would you assume he is also referring to all non-American cities?
- synu 4y ago
  People here often talk make statements expanding on the original article and I was curious, but in any case thanks for confirming this is a US-only thing. Makes sense.

mavelikara 4y ago

> The 2 existing models are a relic of a low technology past: Both the factors you mention - cars, and mass transportation - were huge technological advances of their times. Technology has progressed since, so we might see different models evolve. But don't mistake those models to be permanent either.

TuringNYC 4y ago

I'm a life-long New Yorker, born and raised. Even I gave up on the city and moved out, despite all the desire to live with low carbon-impact and live a moderate lifestyle w/o cars. At some point, the pain factor becomes too much. I'll give you some examples - Approximately 5-6yrs ago the transit quality in the outer-boroughs (not Manhattan) became so bad that you could spend 2hrs hours switching multiple trains if you were going into Brooklyn. Trains would mysteriously not arrive, would run express, would claim they have arrived on official apps but the station was closed, etc. Then you think -- in 2hrs I could have commuted into the suburb and lived in a beautiful home for half the price and have a huge garden. And lots of people did exactly that. - When metros didnt work, you'd Uber, but then punitive fees were added onto Uber rides to discourage that even. It was as if you'd be squeezed from every direction. - For some minority groups (eg Asian women), crime became a huge problem. There wasnt much care from law enforcement (not to punish, but even just to be present at subway stations and cars). Many of my Asian friends moved out of the city for this reason. You'd see groups of 5-6 cops chatting together at the center of a station rather than be distributed across platforms across a station. - Numerous metro steps had non-working elevators and non-working escalators, making travel with strollers dangerous or impossible. Good luck of you are on a wheelchair. Ridiculous ideas would be proposed where bicycles were somehow the magical solution to all...as if I could jump on a ride-share bicycle with two kids. - Schooling was increasing byzantine. You could own a home but not be guaranteed a seat at your local public school. You had to use "connections" just to make it on the list, or your child would end up half way across the Borough at a different public school. You could have two kids zoned to the same public school, but end up in two different public schools, making school drops impossible. Test-driven systems were changed, making things even harder. "Leadership" based public school application systems were proposed, which is a euphemism for "rich people" get accepted. Ultimately cities are competing against suburbs, and from what I saw in my particular case the city option failed. Even I couldnt stomach the pain anymore and I gave up.

ryukafalz 4y ago
> You could own a home but not be guaranteed a seat at your local public school. You had to use "connections" just to make it on the list, or your child would end up half way across the Borough at a different public school. I suspect this is an attempt to distribute students between schools so you don't end up with one school made up of students all from a rich neighborhood and another with students all from a poorer neighborhood. That's how a lot of the US does things and the poorer families consistently get the short end of the stick.

bobthepanda 4y ago

You need some kind of long distance transportation with enough capacity in cities still, because people just don’t stay in their little neighborhoods, they want to try the new restaurant in neighborhood A, catch up with a friend in neighborhood B, go to the sale in neighborhood C and before you know it all these little trips add up really fast. This wouldn’t happen if our neighborhoods were clones, but that would be terrible. Tokyo is a carpet of self-sufficient, dense neighborhoods, and yet people still travel all over the place in large numbers.

mmarq 4y ago

> Instead, we need self-sufficient neighborhoods catering to different lifestyles and needs What you are describing is a random continental European city (that is Europe minus UK and Ireland)