14 ms·

City Layout Design: A programmer's perspective

68 points by nikhilalmeida 15y ago

rmah 15y ago
Read "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander. http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199 http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Constructio...
- enf 15y ago
  And also Carfree Cities by J.H. Crawford, which advocates a form of linked neighborhoods similar to what is described here. http://www.carfree.com/book/ http://www.carfree.com/book/
- nikhilalmeida 15y ago
  Thanks for this. I have just drawn what I felt from a traffic congestion avoidance perspective. I should give it a thought from an environmental perspective also and try to re-iterate on the design. Thanks for the feedback.
- kylemathews 15y ago
  And "Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed" - http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Like-State-Institution-University/dp/0300078153 http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Like-State-Institution-Universi...
  - nooneelse 15y ago
    Does it mention Disney's grand vision for Epcot? Addendum: I realized on the way home that this comment was rather too content-free for HN. So... More specifically, I was curious if the book you mention has some narrative or historical details on why the grand Epcot vision fell apart/was stymied.
  - paganel 15y ago
    Great book! That's actually the book that got me interested in the recent history of my city, which suffered major changes (most say for the worst) that seem to have been taken up from the book's chapters on mdoernist urban development. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceau%C5%9Fima http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceau%C5%9Fima)
- scarmig 15y ago
  Interestingly, "A Pattern Language" directly inspired the GoF book. It has similar flaws, as well. It should be considered descriptive, not prescriptive--and Christopher Alexander is not nearly as careful around that distinction as the GoF.
- Turing_Machine 15y ago
  For a short and directly on-point piece by Alexander, see: http://www.patternlanguage.com/archives/alexander1.htm http://www.patternlanguage.com/archives/alexander1.htm For some commentary on that piece, see: http://contraterrene.com/wiki/index.php/Commentary_on_%22A_City_is_Not_a_Tree%22_by_Christopher_Alexander http://contraterrene.com/wiki/index.php/Commentary_on_%22A_C... tl,dr: designing cities as hierarchical trees, while perhaps efficient in the sense of transportation links, is a bad idea from the standpoint of making a cohesive city.
ajaymamtura 15y ago
wont the city center become a bottle neck?
pilom 15y ago
Its interesting seeing some of the similarities between the OP and Washington DC. There aren't the mini cities the same way (maybe Reston or Arlington would qualify) but the Beltway is the major highway for cars that circles the city with designated bus lanes on most of the in/out spokes. Large subway/lightrail network with MASSIVE parking structures at the perimeter to encourage public transportation. Fairly walkable downtown areas (especially the national mall area). And yet even despite these advances driving in DC is a terrible experience.
- ImprovedSilence 15y ago
  Agreed, another problem with DC is the self imposed limit on population density in the inner circle. Buildings in DC must be less than 3/4 high as the the street is wide, or something like that? I don't know the exact rule. Then look across the river at Arlington, and how they smartly designed for urban growth, and you've got some taller buildings, mixed in with vibrant neighborhoods, and single family homes just a few blocks away form the skyscrapers. It really is a kinda nice.
  - bane 15y ago
    Buildings can't be taller than the Washington Monument or 555 feet.
    - pchristensen 15y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Washington,_D.C.#Building_heights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Washington,_D.C.#B... To preserve the grandeur of the National Mall, the White House, the Capitol, and various other key locations, the entire city is subject to strict building height limits. This limitation was placed in effect just prior to the 20th century when government officials realized that structural steel "skyscrapers" could overwhelm the city. In 1899, Congress enacted a height limit for the District prohibiting private buildings from rising more than 130 feet. Contrary to popular belief, no law has ever restricted buildings to the height of the United States Capitol or Washington Monument.[20][21] A revised height law in 1910 did away with that fixed maximum. The newer legislation, still in effect today, states that no new building may be more than 20 feet taller than the width of the street in front of it.[22] The current law is codified as D.C. CODE ANN. § 6-601.05. Thus, Washington has a relatively modest skyline in comparison to the majority of American cities. However the District is ringed by high-rise buildings in many nearby suburbs like Arlington, Silver Spring, and Bethesda.
WildUtah 15y ago
"Let's Kick Around Carfree.com" by New World Economics contains worthwhile criticisms of this design idea. http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2009/111509.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2009/111509.html Another worthwhile article is "Let's Take a Trip to Suburban Hell." http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2010/030710.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2010/030710.html
- ekoontz 15y ago
  Thanks, interesting site!
- anthonyb 15y ago
  That site is full of vitriol and hyperbole: "I know this is difficult, especially for retards, so you may want to consult your local Professor of Urban Studies before proceeding." And he blasts carfree's "green space", but then lists a whole bunch of things which the green space could be (yards, parks, sports fields). I can't help but feel that he's deliberately missing the point. There's also a fairly detailed discussion on carfree.com as far as "how to get there from here": http://carfree.com/conv_lyon.html http://carfree.com/conv_lyon.html so it's hardly billed as a 'build it from scratch' ethos either.
fendrak 15y ago
When I read I have structured my city into smaller circular satellite cities (C1 to C6) which in turn are placed within a circle *with the airport at the center.* I found myself wondering how happy the inhabitants would be about constant overhead air traffic, not to mention the crash risk for the immediately surrounding buildings.
- nikhilalmeida 15y ago
  The center radius can be quite large say 8 miles. I currently live 3 miles from LAX and never hear a plane. But yes another idea would be to have most of the warehouses towards the center, which will make distribution easier.
- jacques_chester 15y ago
  I live in small city wrapped around an airport (Darwin, Australia). It's not loud because the runway approaches have been kept clear and the airport itself is very large.
aphyr 15y ago
I don't understand why the author chose to kink the subways to preserve the same orientation in each satellite. Those corners are going to slow down trains and impose more wear, which means more failures. It also adds a huge amount of track (and associated road crossings, safety infrastructure, maintenance personnel, etc.) and trip time. This plan already abandons the rectilinear grid system in favor of circular roads; I don't see a reason to preserve the rail system's north-south axis in every city. [edit] I should mention that overall, I quite like the design. It looks to me like you've arranged the space at a livable scale and with careful attention to the work/live/play cycle of its inhabitants.
- nikhilalmeida 15y ago
  the major reason was to keep the city structure simple and repeatable, so as to reduce learning. This is one of the issues I found when my parents (even friends) visited NYC, the subway maps were too intimidating.
  - aphyr 15y ago
    But simultaneously, the subcities are not repeatable in that the relationship between the intercity roads and the local infrastructure will be kinked; you need to adapt the circular intercity infrastructure (both the subway and local roads) to the rectilinear grid in three different ways over six satellite cities. That kind of variance may be desirable, but it will make it more difficult to memorize the layout and could introduce awkward kinks. Sometimes the circular perimeter roads will contact the principal city axis; in other cities they won't.
ghurlman 15y ago
Was anyone else reminded of the early conceptual drawings and plans for EPCOT Center?
- larrydag 15y ago
  Walt Disney had a vision for the city/habitat of the future. Is there any website or archive that shows all of those visions and plans? It would be an interesting read since he was such a visionary.
  - mrlogic 15y ago
    Crockford showed a video of it: http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2010/12/07/video-crockford-projectfuture/ http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2010/12/07/video-crockford-proje...
  - nooneelse 15y ago
    The short film he made talking about it is in three parts on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkT2iLetCTc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkT2iLetCTc It really gets going in part 2.
  - dredmorbius 15y ago
    He built it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida http://architecture.about.com/od/plannedcities/ss/celebration.htm http://architecture.about.com/od/plannedcities/ss/celebratio...
dpkendal 15y ago
Orbital routes (such as the proposed circular roads) don't work well in practice because slight delays tend to propagate easily and quickly all the way around the circle, with no recovery time at either end of the route (because there is no end). This is why the Circle line of the London Underground was changed a few years ago into a spiral shape, and why the M25 motorway gets congested so easily. A better configuration would be three spiral shapes, giving the route defined start- and end-points to allow recovery time for delays.
lojack 15y ago
This bears a striking resemblance to Canberra. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inner-canberra_01MJC.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inner-canberra_01MJC.png It would also be worth checking out New Urbanism, which has very similar goals for the designs of cities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism
malkia 15y ago
LA is spread-out and almost flat, due to the earthquake active zone.
- trafficlight 15y ago
  I think LA's automobile and subsequent parking lot history has a lot more to do with it's incredibly low density than potential earthquake damage. http://www.lamag.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1568281 http://www.lamag.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1568281
AceJohnny2 15y ago
Somewhat relevant, a guy designed the ultimate city, Magnasanti, in Simcity 4. Here's his video [1] and an interview [2]. Choice quote from the interview: Vice: I think most people’s natural inclination after watching your video would be awe, followed by fear. Vincent: I am in agreement. That was part of the intent of the video, for those that know, play, and love the game. Introversion, an indie game company in the UK who created hacker favorites like Uplink has unfortunately shelved their game project played in a fully procedurally generated city, from the major neighbourhoods down to the individual floors of the buildings. You could get a demo of the city generator from the recent Humble Bundle. There are still some fascinating videos to find on their blog [3] or on youtube [4] [1] http://youtu.be/NTJQTc-TqpU http://youtu.be/NTJQTc-TqpU [2] http://www.vice.com/read/the-totalitarian-buddhist-who-beat-sim-city http://www.vice.com/read/the-totalitarian-buddhist-who-beat-... [3] http://www.introversion.co.uk/subversion/ http://www.introversion.co.uk/subversion/ [4] http://youtu.be/J30i0gABfS8 http://youtu.be/J30i0gABfS8 [edit]: better link for the Subversion video
- ekianjo 15y ago
  Cool that you mentioned Subversion. It looked great but it was a way too ambitious project for the limited resources of Introversion's team. And there was somehow a lack of consistency between the heist concept and the need to have this huge procedural city out there. But they had a bunch of great ideas altogether - maybe worth several games, not only one.
shalmanese 15y ago
The fundamental premise that this is starting out with is flawed which is that cities can be successfully designed upfront. This is what we painfully learned with our grand experiment with the modernist architecture movement. The argument is roughly the same as the one against waterfall development in software engineering which is that it's impossible to know until actual implementation & use what is successful or not. Instead, successful cities are evolved and mixed use, with a mix of new and old buildings, strong social fabric and buildings built to be adaptable to changing needs. See: How Buildings Learn, The Death and Life of Great American Cities and A Pattern Language for more context on this.
- nikhilalmeida 15y ago
  Thanks for the resources. Good analogy with software engineering. I would say that deciding the layout and large infrastructure would be analogous to selecting the technology stack. Allowing the buildings and neighborhoods to evolve would be the learn/evolve as you go, agile approach.
- harrylove 15y ago
  And I would add, regarding Alexander, at least, start with his most recent series on The Nature of Order. Then, if you want more, go back and read The Timeless Way of Building, followed by A Pattern Language. But really, his most recent stuff is the most compelling, and the most profound.
  - praptak 15y ago
    I recommend the totally reversed order. First, A Pattern Language - the concrete examples presented there are IMHO the most compelling. Then The Timeless Way of Building since it actually builds upon "A Pattern Language". There are quite a lot of references to particular patterns there, so you minimize forward references this way. The Nature of Order series generalize even more, so I'd read them after that. They rather independent from the TWoB and APL but I believe the way from the concrete examples (APL) to the generalizations is a better one. Here it's rather a matter of preference than one of forward-dependency.
- 15y ago
replax 15y ago
Surprisingly, I found it rather similar to Tokyo actually. Tokyo, too, has multiple sub centres which are mostly self-sufficient. They are connected by a train running around in a circle and have central hubs where trains depart into the suburbs. Stations are largely accommodated with large bicycle parking lots to facilitate train usage. However, even though Tokyo is one magnitude bigger than NYC, the transportation fees are fairly high, too. Also, the Japanese solved the parking space problem, by making it a requirement to have a parking space in order to be able to buy a car.
- ekianjo 15y ago
  Tokyo's fees are not so expensive for public transportation if you have ever been to other cities in Japan. In fact, it is probably the city where you travel a very long distance with a reasonnable fee, something like 1.5 dollar or so. In other Japan cities for the same distance, the fee can double or triple, so Tokyo is rather cheap in that aspect. The parking space problem is only solved because everyone is using the train to go to work everyday, mostly. If this were to change, they would face major parking space issues, as the innards of the city are not designed to park a great amount of car. The parking space you mentioned is usually the one you reserve in your building when you get a car, but that does not mean there is space available at your destination. It is quite inefficient to travel in Tokyo altogether. While not too expensive, it takes a lot of time and in the train you cannot seat most of the time because it is overcrowded. I would not pick Tokyo as an example of a city where things work well - it just works, but it's already over-capacity.
graywh 15y ago
This reminds me of http://carfree.com/ http://carfree.com/
yason 15y ago
Satellites emerge in big cities too, they're called neighbourhoods. The extent of how far people are willing to walk in their daily lives will scope the size of a neighbourhood and that also pressures people to concentrate their daily activities within the same neighbourhood. Public transit will lift the limit somewhat: people are willing to spend only so much time commuting or going to/from hobbies but with good public transit people will frequent other neighbourhoods on a regular basis. Public transit will be cheap as long as densities are high enough and that's why big cities are dense and have public transit. Large car-based "cities" aren't actually cities, they're just glorified urban office parks with people living in the suburbs: public transit will never work there efficiently. The reason why you can't design a city is that a meaningful city can only grow organically based on whatever people happen to make of it. Commerce will surface when the place and time are right. Predesigning a neighbourhood will result in either a lot of dead space or a preformed area that nobody will consider their own.
- nikhilalmeida 15y ago
  The problem with organically grown neighborhoods is that it is difficult to build efficient public transportation that connect them, hence I was going for planned ones. More than half the cities population will live in the satellite areas, there by making it cheap and efficient to run subway lines 24x7. Also I believe the dead space problem will take care of itself as demand for space increases.
  - yason 15y ago
    The problem with organically grown neighborhoods is that it is difficult to build efficient public transportation that connect them, hence I was going for planned ones. This is false, though. The method of growing doesn't affect the feasibility of public transport: the density of the areas in question does. And no matter how the areas grew, an economically growing public transport network will naturally connect the most dense parts of a city together. That is, provided there are dense areas. Think London's 100+ year history of the Underground where underground railway companies, as soon as funding was secured, built little stretches that made the most economic sense. Also I believe the dead space problem will take care of itself as demand for space increases. It doesn't if the environment doesn't lend itself to grow, change, and adapt as needed which is a big problem with designed areas. An area also needs both old and new lots and buildings to offer space for businesses that wouldn't survive with market rents. This is something nobody can design.
ajuc 15y ago
I like Oskar Hansen idea - it's called Continuous Linear Form, and it says problems of cities arise from radial growth - city starts in the center and grows outwards in every direction. So transport routes, parkings have to go throught the city, dividing it, using up space, making everybody go further and further to do anything, and isolating people in the center of the city from the nature. So he imagined cities that are like lanes - growing from the center in only 2 directions. Everybody will have nature near, between such urbanised lanes will be villages, roads, etc - so transport will go throught wilderness, making it cheaper, and safer. These lanes should be continious, and areas of different functions should be placed repeatedly, in small distances, so nobody will have to go too far from home to servicing areas. Of course - it's a little utopian idea, but still, I like it. Some more info about Oskar Hansen, and his architecture: http://tnn.pl/Oskar_Hansen,2969.html http://tnn.pl/Oskar_Hansen,2969.html One of the districts he designed (he had to make compromises, so it's not really LCF, but still, it's nice district for its time). http://tnn.pl/uploaded/zdjecia/200806191346500.hansen_041.jpg http://tnn.pl/uploaded/zdjecia/200806191346500.hansen_041.jp...
- bane 15y ago
  Reminds me of driving on 19 in the New Port Richey/Bayonet Point area in Florida. The only place I know where you can drive for 40 or 50 miles on one road and see continuous strip malls the entire time. Every 4 or 5 miles the scene will basically repeat. The same set of stores, in virtually the same order, arranged in their various strip malls in virtually the same way. It felt like you were driving in a Zoetrope. Go a mile or two off that and you're in the Gulf of Mexico or in a swamp if you go the other way. It was an interesting city plan, but it felt miserable to me (other than the close proximity of nature).
SimHacker 15y ago
Check out some of the circular city patterns around Amersfoort, Netherlands -- and of course Amersfoort itself is circular but older and more organic: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Amersfoort,+Utrecht,+The+Netherlands&hl=en&ll=52.196165,5.379782&spn=0.023885,0.0315&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=62.057085,64.511719&geocode=Fc_WGwMdMzZSAA&hnear=Amersfoort,+Utrecht,+The+Netherlands&t=h&z=15 http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Amersfoort,+Utrecht,+The+Nethe...

68 points by nikhilalmeida 15y ago

rmah 15y ago

Read "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander. http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199 http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Constructio...

enf 15y ago
And also Carfree Cities by J.H. Crawford, which advocates a form of linked neighborhoods similar to what is described here. http://www.carfree.com/book/ http://www.carfree.com/book/
nikhilalmeida 15y ago
Thanks for this. I have just drawn what I felt from a traffic congestion avoidance perspective. I should give it a thought from an environmental perspective also and try to re-iterate on the design. Thanks for the feedback.
kylemathews 15y ago
And "Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed" - http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Like-State-Institution-University/dp/0300078153 http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Like-State-Institution-Universi...
- nooneelse 15y ago
  Does it mention Disney's grand vision for Epcot? Addendum: I realized on the way home that this comment was rather too content-free for HN. So... More specifically, I was curious if the book you mention has some narrative or historical details on why the grand Epcot vision fell apart/was stymied.
- paganel 15y ago
  Great book! That's actually the book that got me interested in the recent history of my city, which suffered major changes (most say for the worst) that seem to have been taken up from the book's chapters on mdoernist urban development. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceau%C5%9Fima http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceau%C5%9Fima)
scarmig 15y ago
Interestingly, "A Pattern Language" directly inspired the GoF book. It has similar flaws, as well. It should be considered descriptive, not prescriptive--and Christopher Alexander is not nearly as careful around that distinction as the GoF.
Turing_Machine 15y ago
For a short and directly on-point piece by Alexander, see: http://www.patternlanguage.com/archives/alexander1.htm http://www.patternlanguage.com/archives/alexander1.htm For some commentary on that piece, see: http://contraterrene.com/wiki/index.php/Commentary_on_%22A_City_is_Not_a_Tree%22_by_Christopher_Alexander http://contraterrene.com/wiki/index.php/Commentary_on_%22A_C... tl,dr: designing cities as hierarchical trees, while perhaps efficient in the sense of transportation links, is a bad idea from the standpoint of making a cohesive city.

ajaymamtura 15y ago

wont the city center become a bottle neck?

pilom 15y ago

Its interesting seeing some of the similarities between the OP and Washington DC. There aren't the mini cities the same way (maybe Reston or Arlington would qualify) but the Beltway is the major highway for cars that circles the city with designated bus lanes on most of the in/out spokes. Large subway/lightrail network with MASSIVE parking structures at the perimeter to encourage public transportation. Fairly walkable downtown areas (especially the national mall area). And yet even despite these advances driving in DC is a terrible experience.

ImprovedSilence 15y ago
Agreed, another problem with DC is the self imposed limit on population density in the inner circle. Buildings in DC must be less than 3/4 high as the the street is wide, or something like that? I don't know the exact rule. Then look across the river at Arlington, and how they smartly designed for urban growth, and you've got some taller buildings, mixed in with vibrant neighborhoods, and single family homes just a few blocks away form the skyscrapers. It really is a kinda nice.
- bane 15y ago
  Buildings can't be taller than the Washington Monument or 555 feet.
  - pchristensen 15y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Washington,_D.C.#Building_heights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Washington,_D.C.#B... To preserve the grandeur of the National Mall, the White House, the Capitol, and various other key locations, the entire city is subject to strict building height limits. This limitation was placed in effect just prior to the 20th century when government officials realized that structural steel "skyscrapers" could overwhelm the city. In 1899, Congress enacted a height limit for the District prohibiting private buildings from rising more than 130 feet. Contrary to popular belief, no law has ever restricted buildings to the height of the United States Capitol or Washington Monument.[20][21] A revised height law in 1910 did away with that fixed maximum. The newer legislation, still in effect today, states that no new building may be more than 20 feet taller than the width of the street in front of it.[22] The current law is codified as D.C. CODE ANN. § 6-601.05. Thus, Washington has a relatively modest skyline in comparison to the majority of American cities. However the District is ringed by high-rise buildings in many nearby suburbs like Arlington, Silver Spring, and Bethesda.

WildUtah 15y ago

"Let's Kick Around Carfree.com" by New World Economics contains worthwhile criticisms of this design idea. http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2009/111509.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2009/111509.html Another worthwhile article is "Let's Take a Trip to Suburban Hell." http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2010/030710.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2010/030710.html

ekoontz 15y ago
Thanks, interesting site!
anthonyb 15y ago
That site is full of vitriol and hyperbole: "I know this is difficult, especially for retards, so you may want to consult your local Professor of Urban Studies before proceeding." And he blasts carfree's "green space", but then lists a whole bunch of things which the green space could be (yards, parks, sports fields). I can't help but feel that he's deliberately missing the point. There's also a fairly detailed discussion on carfree.com as far as "how to get there from here": http://carfree.com/conv_lyon.html http://carfree.com/conv_lyon.html so it's hardly billed as a 'build it from scratch' ethos either.

fendrak 15y ago

When I read I have structured my city into smaller circular satellite cities (C1 to C6) which in turn are placed within a circle *with the airport at the center.* I found myself wondering how happy the inhabitants would be about constant overhead air traffic, not to mention the crash risk for the immediately surrounding buildings.

nikhilalmeida 15y ago
The center radius can be quite large say 8 miles. I currently live 3 miles from LAX and never hear a plane. But yes another idea would be to have most of the warehouses towards the center, which will make distribution easier.
jacques_chester 15y ago
I live in small city wrapped around an airport (Darwin, Australia). It's not loud because the runway approaches have been kept clear and the airport itself is very large.

aphyr 15y ago

I don't understand why the author chose to kink the subways to preserve the same orientation in each satellite. Those corners are going to slow down trains and impose more wear, which means more failures. It also adds a huge amount of track (and associated road crossings, safety infrastructure, maintenance personnel, etc.) and trip time. This plan already abandons the rectilinear grid system in favor of circular roads; I don't see a reason to preserve the rail system's north-south axis in every city. [edit] I should mention that overall, I quite like the design. It looks to me like you've arranged the space at a livable scale and with careful attention to the work/live/play cycle of its inhabitants.

nikhilalmeida 15y ago
the major reason was to keep the city structure simple and repeatable, so as to reduce learning. This is one of the issues I found when my parents (even friends) visited NYC, the subway maps were too intimidating.
- aphyr 15y ago
  But simultaneously, the subcities are not repeatable in that the relationship between the intercity roads and the local infrastructure will be kinked; you need to adapt the circular intercity infrastructure (both the subway and local roads) to the rectilinear grid in three different ways over six satellite cities. That kind of variance may be desirable, but it will make it more difficult to memorize the layout and could introduce awkward kinks. Sometimes the circular perimeter roads will contact the principal city axis; in other cities they won't.

ghurlman 15y ago

Was anyone else reminded of the early conceptual drawings and plans for EPCOT Center?

larrydag 15y ago
Walt Disney had a vision for the city/habitat of the future. Is there any website or archive that shows all of those visions and plans? It would be an interesting read since he was such a visionary.
- mrlogic 15y ago
  Crockford showed a video of it: http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2010/12/07/video-crockford-projectfuture/ http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2010/12/07/video-crockford-proje...
- nooneelse 15y ago
  The short film he made talking about it is in three parts on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkT2iLetCTc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkT2iLetCTc It really gets going in part 2.
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  He built it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida http://architecture.about.com/od/plannedcities/ss/celebration.htm http://architecture.about.com/od/plannedcities/ss/celebratio...

dpkendal 15y ago

Orbital routes (such as the proposed circular roads) don't work well in practice because slight delays tend to propagate easily and quickly all the way around the circle, with no recovery time at either end of the route (because there is no end). This is why the Circle line of the London Underground was changed a few years ago into a spiral shape, and why the M25 motorway gets congested so easily. A better configuration would be three spiral shapes, giving the route defined start- and end-points to allow recovery time for delays.

lojack 15y ago

This bears a striking resemblance to Canberra. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inner-canberra_01MJC.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inner-canberra_01MJC.png It would also be worth checking out New Urbanism, which has very similar goals for the designs of cities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism

malkia 15y ago

LA is spread-out and almost flat, due to the earthquake active zone.

trafficlight 15y ago
I think LA's automobile and subsequent parking lot history has a lot more to do with it's incredibly low density than potential earthquake damage. http://www.lamag.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1568281 http://www.lamag.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1568281

AceJohnny2 15y ago

Somewhat relevant, a guy designed the ultimate city, Magnasanti, in Simcity 4. Here's his video [1] and an interview [2]. Choice quote from the interview: Vice: I think most people’s natural inclination after watching your video would be awe, followed by fear. Vincent: I am in agreement. That was part of the intent of the video, for those that know, play, and love the game. Introversion, an indie game company in the UK who created hacker favorites like Uplink has unfortunately shelved their game project played in a fully procedurally generated city, from the major neighbourhoods down to the individual floors of the buildings. You could get a demo of the city generator from the recent Humble Bundle. There are still some fascinating videos to find on their blog [3] or on youtube [4] [1] http://youtu.be/NTJQTc-TqpU http://youtu.be/NTJQTc-TqpU [2] http://www.vice.com/read/the-totalitarian-buddhist-who-beat-sim-city http://www.vice.com/read/the-totalitarian-buddhist-who-beat-... [3] http://www.introversion.co.uk/subversion/ http://www.introversion.co.uk/subversion/ [4] http://youtu.be/J30i0gABfS8 http://youtu.be/J30i0gABfS8 [edit]: better link for the Subversion video

ekianjo 15y ago
Cool that you mentioned Subversion. It looked great but it was a way too ambitious project for the limited resources of Introversion's team. And there was somehow a lack of consistency between the heist concept and the need to have this huge procedural city out there. But they had a bunch of great ideas altogether - maybe worth several games, not only one.

shalmanese 15y ago

The fundamental premise that this is starting out with is flawed which is that cities can be successfully designed upfront. This is what we painfully learned with our grand experiment with the modernist architecture movement. The argument is roughly the same as the one against waterfall development in software engineering which is that it's impossible to know until actual implementation & use what is successful or not. Instead, successful cities are evolved and mixed use, with a mix of new and old buildings, strong social fabric and buildings built to be adaptable to changing needs. See: How Buildings Learn, The Death and Life of Great American Cities and A Pattern Language for more context on this.

nikhilalmeida 15y ago
Thanks for the resources. Good analogy with software engineering. I would say that deciding the layout and large infrastructure would be analogous to selecting the technology stack. Allowing the buildings and neighborhoods to evolve would be the learn/evolve as you go, agile approach.
harrylove 15y ago
And I would add, regarding Alexander, at least, start with his most recent series on The Nature of Order. Then, if you want more, go back and read The Timeless Way of Building, followed by A Pattern Language. But really, his most recent stuff is the most compelling, and the most profound.
- praptak 15y ago
  I recommend the totally reversed order. First, A Pattern Language - the concrete examples presented there are IMHO the most compelling. Then The Timeless Way of Building since it actually builds upon "A Pattern Language". There are quite a lot of references to particular patterns there, so you minimize forward references this way. The Nature of Order series generalize even more, so I'd read them after that. They rather independent from the TWoB and APL but I believe the way from the concrete examples (APL) to the generalizations is a better one. Here it's rather a matter of preference than one of forward-dependency.
15y ago

replax 15y ago

Surprisingly, I found it rather similar to Tokyo actually. Tokyo, too, has multiple sub centres which are mostly self-sufficient. They are connected by a train running around in a circle and have central hubs where trains depart into the suburbs. Stations are largely accommodated with large bicycle parking lots to facilitate train usage. However, even though Tokyo is one magnitude bigger than NYC, the transportation fees are fairly high, too. Also, the Japanese solved the parking space problem, by making it a requirement to have a parking space in order to be able to buy a car.

ekianjo 15y ago
Tokyo's fees are not so expensive for public transportation if you have ever been to other cities in Japan. In fact, it is probably the city where you travel a very long distance with a reasonnable fee, something like 1.5 dollar or so. In other Japan cities for the same distance, the fee can double or triple, so Tokyo is rather cheap in that aspect. The parking space problem is only solved because everyone is using the train to go to work everyday, mostly. If this were to change, they would face major parking space issues, as the innards of the city are not designed to park a great amount of car. The parking space you mentioned is usually the one you reserve in your building when you get a car, but that does not mean there is space available at your destination. It is quite inefficient to travel in Tokyo altogether. While not too expensive, it takes a lot of time and in the train you cannot seat most of the time because it is overcrowded. I would not pick Tokyo as an example of a city where things work well - it just works, but it's already over-capacity.

graywh 15y ago

This reminds me of http://carfree.com/ http://carfree.com/

yason 15y ago

Satellites emerge in big cities too, they're called neighbourhoods. The extent of how far people are willing to walk in their daily lives will scope the size of a neighbourhood and that also pressures people to concentrate their daily activities within the same neighbourhood. Public transit will lift the limit somewhat: people are willing to spend only so much time commuting or going to/from hobbies but with good public transit people will frequent other neighbourhoods on a regular basis. Public transit will be cheap as long as densities are high enough and that's why big cities are dense and have public transit. Large car-based "cities" aren't actually cities, they're just glorified urban office parks with people living in the suburbs: public transit will never work there efficiently. The reason why you can't design a city is that a meaningful city can only grow organically based on whatever people happen to make of it. Commerce will surface when the place and time are right. Predesigning a neighbourhood will result in either a lot of dead space or a preformed area that nobody will consider their own.

nikhilalmeida 15y ago
The problem with organically grown neighborhoods is that it is difficult to build efficient public transportation that connect them, hence I was going for planned ones. More than half the cities population will live in the satellite areas, there by making it cheap and efficient to run subway lines 24x7. Also I believe the dead space problem will take care of itself as demand for space increases.
- yason 15y ago
  The problem with organically grown neighborhoods is that it is difficult to build efficient public transportation that connect them, hence I was going for planned ones. This is false, though. The method of growing doesn't affect the feasibility of public transport: the density of the areas in question does. And no matter how the areas grew, an economically growing public transport network will naturally connect the most dense parts of a city together. That is, provided there are dense areas. Think London's 100+ year history of the Underground where underground railway companies, as soon as funding was secured, built little stretches that made the most economic sense. Also I believe the dead space problem will take care of itself as demand for space increases. It doesn't if the environment doesn't lend itself to grow, change, and adapt as needed which is a big problem with designed areas. An area also needs both old and new lots and buildings to offer space for businesses that wouldn't survive with market rents. This is something nobody can design.

ajuc 15y ago

I like Oskar Hansen idea - it's called Continuous Linear Form, and it says problems of cities arise from radial growth - city starts in the center and grows outwards in every direction. So transport routes, parkings have to go throught the city, dividing it, using up space, making everybody go further and further to do anything, and isolating people in the center of the city from the nature. So he imagined cities that are like lanes - growing from the center in only 2 directions. Everybody will have nature near, between such urbanised lanes will be villages, roads, etc - so transport will go throught wilderness, making it cheaper, and safer. These lanes should be continious, and areas of different functions should be placed repeatedly, in small distances, so nobody will have to go too far from home to servicing areas. Of course - it's a little utopian idea, but still, I like it. Some more info about Oskar Hansen, and his architecture: http://tnn.pl/Oskar_Hansen,2969.html http://tnn.pl/Oskar_Hansen,2969.html One of the districts he designed (he had to make compromises, so it's not really LCF, but still, it's nice district for its time). http://tnn.pl/uploaded/zdjecia/200806191346500.hansen_041.jpg http://tnn.pl/uploaded/zdjecia/200806191346500.hansen_041.jp...

bane 15y ago
Reminds me of driving on 19 in the New Port Richey/Bayonet Point area in Florida. The only place I know where you can drive for 40 or 50 miles on one road and see continuous strip malls the entire time. Every 4 or 5 miles the scene will basically repeat. The same set of stores, in virtually the same order, arranged in their various strip malls in virtually the same way. It felt like you were driving in a Zoetrope. Go a mile or two off that and you're in the Gulf of Mexico or in a swamp if you go the other way. It was an interesting city plan, but it felt miserable to me (other than the close proximity of nature).

SimHacker 15y ago

Check out some of the circular city patterns around Amersfoort, Netherlands -- and of course Amersfoort itself is circular but older and more organic: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Amersfoort,+Utrecht,+The+Netherlands&hl=en&ll=52.196165,5.379782&spn=0.023885,0.0315&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=62.057085,64.511719&geocode=Fc_WGwMdMzZSAA&hnear=Amersfoort,+Utrecht,+The+Netherlands&t=h&z=15 http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Amersfoort,+Utrecht,+The+Nethe...