4 ms·

Yes, some areas in particular the big box developments are almost a lost cause. What needs to happen to those first is large, dense development within the plaza

Yes, some areas in particular the big box developments are almost a lost cause. What needs to happen to those first is large, dense development within the plazas. Build residential on top of the mall, remove parking lots (or move them underground), and densify first. Once you move that needle, you can focus on active transport options. The type of development I describe is happening (two examples in my Canadian city). Ultimately the evolution of a poorly built model.

mytailorisrich 3y ago
"Densification" can eaily lead to poorer quality of life and oppressive housing, though. There is a middle ground, I think. I like individual houses with gardens (most people do, I think) with a size such that convenience stores are viable and reacheable on foot. It's like that in my area (England): good size houses but it's dense enough that I can walk to 2-3 different convenience stores when I need a few things, with a Post Office counter in one of those stores. In Europe there are also plenty of small scale 'appartment buildings', say 3 to 5 floors surrounded by some greenery and a small carpark, which I think works well, too. A random example in France (near a world famous tourist site): https://goo.gl/maps/avKMYuRAfgxq3gvM9 https://goo.gl/maps/avKMYuRAfgxq3gvM9 (that area is also built around a big shopping centre, which is therefore within walking distance). The bigger it gets the higher the likelihood that it becomes shit.
- Lukas_Skywalker 3y ago
  In the parts of Europe I lived in (France, Switzerland, Sweden) there is one additional important thing: there is usually at most one parking space per apartment. This makes everything already a lot denser.
- foxyv 3y ago
  > "Densification" can eaily lead to poorer quality of life and oppressive housing, though. Where I lived, there used to be tons of orange groves, beautiful natural areas, trails, and fields to ride your bike through. They all turned into suburban houses. Tracts of homes with huge offsets. Cars zooming by at 60 mph on streets so wide it takes half a minute to cross them on foot, all while dodging cars. Some people try to make it sound like densification will lead to Soviet era buildings or everyone living in Skyscrapers. But it mostly just leads to the city staying in the city instead of spreading out like a cancerous tumor across farmland and nature.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  What is your definition of a convenience store? To me, a convenience store sells candy, snacks, beverages, sometimes coffee and rather nasty hot prepared food, vapes and tobacco products. 95% of what a convenience store sells is stuff that you really should not be eating. Perhaps they'll have a small basket of apples or bananas, but they are a far cry from the small grocery stores I've seen in European neighborhoods that stock a reasonable selection of produce as well as meat, dairy, and dry goods. In the USA, I think many people would view having a "convenience store" in their neighborhood as a negative thing. I know I would.
  - redwall_hp 3y ago
    A konbini (convenience store) in Japan serves the purposes of a fast food restaurant and small grocery store. New York bodegas are often similar.
  - circlefavshape 3y ago
    I was on holidays in Sardinia 15 years ago, and around the corner from the place I was staying was a corner shop that sold the usual sweets and tobacco products and wine and bread ... and a zillion other things, including live fish (for eating).
  - sleepybrett 3y ago
    Outside of major cities and very rural areas maybe. NYC lives and breathes on bodegas. Many very small towns will probably ONLY have a 'convenience' store, with an actual grocery store being many miles away. My family's mountain cabin is 5 miles from a convenience store, but 25 miles from a grocery store. In these situations Convenience stores probably have a very small section of fairly durable produce, maybe some frozen meat but probably some lunchmeat, certainly things like toilet paper, bread, cheese, eggs, snack foods, household cleaners. Certainly not the kind of selection you'll get out of your kroger's but enough to get by. (the place near my family cabin also has a small selection of fly fishing gear during the 'season' swap for some wintery items during the winter)
  - rjsw 3y ago
    At least in the UK and France, a fair proportion of "convenience stores" are owned by the big supermarket chains and stock a subset of the products that you get in a large store.
- thatfrenchguy 3y ago
  The USA already has those btw, they're called "streetcar suburbs". They're also some of the most expensive piece of real estate in America, because they're the nicest places to live in. If the goal is to diminish VMT, we need to be creative and add places to go to walking in suburban neighborhoods, as well as incentivizing people to walk/bike. It's not easy when all public meetings are at 2pm on a Tuesday and everyone who shows up is a 70 yold NIMBY who thinks that adding a bike lane will end the world.
- throwaway22032 3y ago
  The British terraced house to me is basically perfect urban development. Terraced housing allows places like London with a fully functioning public transport system whilst also allowing for a civilized home life, hobbies, gardening etc. It's one of the best things about UK cities IMO. I feel like people who are obsessed with towerblock apartments miss the forest for the trees.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    That looks exactly like the type of row houses that have become extremely popular in the US over the years. At least in my region. Especially close to light rail and bus lines.
johnea 3y ago
In this analysis, pickup trucks and SUVs are identical, in that they have high vertical grills that obstruct the driver's view of the area immediately in front of the vehicle. This vehicle configuration is the major cause of the increase in pedistrian accidents. However I was surprised the article didn't mention pedestrian behavior at all, which is clearly increasing the risk of pedistrian accidents in recent years. My experiences with pedistrian near misses have been when people step in front of my car while staring at their phone. The worst cases being mid-block, at night, while the pedestrian was wearing all black. Walkable cities are awesome! Unfortunately in the US the overwhelming majority of places offer very poor, or no, mass transit and cars are still the only practiucal means of transportation.
- cmh89 3y ago
  >My experiences with pedistrian near misses have been when people step in front of my car while staring at their phone Which means you failed to see the pedestrian a yield to them. You caused the near miss.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    "He was right, dead right, but just as dead as if he had been dead wrong." Outside of HN, in real life safety is a responsibility of everyone. You are careful when you drive, careful when you walk. You don't text while driving, you don't text while crossing the street. Everyone stays safer.
    - cmh89 3y ago
      The 'you can be right and dead' trope is so tired.Of course we should always be looking to mitigate dangerous and distracted drivers. >Outside of HN, in real life safety is a responsibility of everyone. The person driving the gas propelled two ton vehicle has more responsibility to avoid hitting things than pedestrians have to avoid getting hit. >. You are careful when you drive, careful when you walk. You don't text while driving, you don't text while crossing the street. Everyone stays safer. Pedestrians *should* be able to text while they cross the street. The only reason they can't/shouldn't is because American drivers are largely allowed to operate their machines in a negligent manner at all times. Walking is an inherently safe activity. Driving is an inherently dangerous activity. Drivers should have more a burden for safety than walkers. You, as a driver, should expect things to enter the road. That's why we have speed limits. That's you watch the road instead of playing on the road.
briandear 3y ago
So remove parking, then hope something comes in to fill the need for transport? Some of us like big vehicles and the freedom that enables. The last thing I want to do in a Houston summer is carry groceries to a bus stop in 102 degree temperatures and then spend 30 minutes riding a bus when a car does it in 10.
- p_j_w 3y ago
  You don't need a big vehicle to go grocery shopping.
  - mcv 3y ago
    In a city, supermarkets should be in walking distance.

mytailorisrich 3y ago

"Densification" can eaily lead to poorer quality of life and oppressive housing, though. There is a middle ground, I think. I like individual houses with gardens (most people do, I think) with a size such that convenience stores are viable and reacheable on foot. It's like that in my area (England): good size houses but it's dense enough that I can walk to 2-3 different convenience stores when I need a few things, with a Post Office counter in one of those stores. In Europe there are also plenty of small scale 'appartment buildings', say 3 to 5 floors surrounded by some greenery and a small carpark, which I think works well, too. A random example in France (near a world famous tourist site): https://goo.gl/maps/avKMYuRAfgxq3gvM9 https://goo.gl/maps/avKMYuRAfgxq3gvM9 (that area is also built around a big shopping centre, which is therefore within walking distance). The bigger it gets the higher the likelihood that it becomes shit.

Lukas_Skywalker 3y ago
In the parts of Europe I lived in (France, Switzerland, Sweden) there is one additional important thing: there is usually at most one parking space per apartment. This makes everything already a lot denser.
foxyv 3y ago
> "Densification" can eaily lead to poorer quality of life and oppressive housing, though. Where I lived, there used to be tons of orange groves, beautiful natural areas, trails, and fields to ride your bike through. They all turned into suburban houses. Tracts of homes with huge offsets. Cars zooming by at 60 mph on streets so wide it takes half a minute to cross them on foot, all while dodging cars. Some people try to make it sound like densification will lead to Soviet era buildings or everyone living in Skyscrapers. But it mostly just leads to the city staying in the city instead of spreading out like a cancerous tumor across farmland and nature.
SoftTalker 3y ago
What is your definition of a convenience store? To me, a convenience store sells candy, snacks, beverages, sometimes coffee and rather nasty hot prepared food, vapes and tobacco products. 95% of what a convenience store sells is stuff that you really should not be eating. Perhaps they'll have a small basket of apples or bananas, but they are a far cry from the small grocery stores I've seen in European neighborhoods that stock a reasonable selection of produce as well as meat, dairy, and dry goods. In the USA, I think many people would view having a "convenience store" in their neighborhood as a negative thing. I know I would.
- redwall_hp 3y ago
  A konbini (convenience store) in Japan serves the purposes of a fast food restaurant and small grocery store. New York bodegas are often similar.
- circlefavshape 3y ago
  I was on holidays in Sardinia 15 years ago, and around the corner from the place I was staying was a corner shop that sold the usual sweets and tobacco products and wine and bread ... and a zillion other things, including live fish (for eating).
- sleepybrett 3y ago
  Outside of major cities and very rural areas maybe. NYC lives and breathes on bodegas. Many very small towns will probably ONLY have a 'convenience' store, with an actual grocery store being many miles away. My family's mountain cabin is 5 miles from a convenience store, but 25 miles from a grocery store. In these situations Convenience stores probably have a very small section of fairly durable produce, maybe some frozen meat but probably some lunchmeat, certainly things like toilet paper, bread, cheese, eggs, snack foods, household cleaners. Certainly not the kind of selection you'll get out of your kroger's but enough to get by. (the place near my family cabin also has a small selection of fly fishing gear during the 'season' swap for some wintery items during the winter)
- rjsw 3y ago
  At least in the UK and France, a fair proportion of "convenience stores" are owned by the big supermarket chains and stock a subset of the products that you get in a large store.
thatfrenchguy 3y ago
The USA already has those btw, they're called "streetcar suburbs". They're also some of the most expensive piece of real estate in America, because they're the nicest places to live in. If the goal is to diminish VMT, we need to be creative and add places to go to walking in suburban neighborhoods, as well as incentivizing people to walk/bike. It's not easy when all public meetings are at 2pm on a Tuesday and everyone who shows up is a 70 yold NIMBY who thinks that adding a bike lane will end the world.
throwaway22032 3y ago
The British terraced house to me is basically perfect urban development. Terraced housing allows places like London with a fully functioning public transport system whilst also allowing for a civilized home life, hobbies, gardening etc. It's one of the best things about UK cities IMO. I feel like people who are obsessed with towerblock apartments miss the forest for the trees.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  That looks exactly like the type of row houses that have become extremely popular in the US over the years. At least in my region. Especially close to light rail and bus lines.

johnea 3y ago

In this analysis, pickup trucks and SUVs are identical, in that they have high vertical grills that obstruct the driver's view of the area immediately in front of the vehicle. This vehicle configuration is the major cause of the increase in pedistrian accidents. However I was surprised the article didn't mention pedestrian behavior at all, which is clearly increasing the risk of pedistrian accidents in recent years. My experiences with pedistrian near misses have been when people step in front of my car while staring at their phone. The worst cases being mid-block, at night, while the pedestrian was wearing all black. Walkable cities are awesome! Unfortunately in the US the overwhelming majority of places offer very poor, or no, mass transit and cars are still the only practiucal means of transportation.

cmh89 3y ago
>My experiences with pedistrian near misses have been when people step in front of my car while staring at their phone Which means you failed to see the pedestrian a yield to them. You caused the near miss.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  "He was right, dead right, but just as dead as if he had been dead wrong." Outside of HN, in real life safety is a responsibility of everyone. You are careful when you drive, careful when you walk. You don't text while driving, you don't text while crossing the street. Everyone stays safer.
  - cmh89 3y ago
    The 'you can be right and dead' trope is so tired.Of course we should always be looking to mitigate dangerous and distracted drivers. >Outside of HN, in real life safety is a responsibility of everyone. The person driving the gas propelled two ton vehicle has more responsibility to avoid hitting things than pedestrians have to avoid getting hit. >. You are careful when you drive, careful when you walk. You don't text while driving, you don't text while crossing the street. Everyone stays safer. Pedestrians *should* be able to text while they cross the street. The only reason they can't/shouldn't is because American drivers are largely allowed to operate their machines in a negligent manner at all times. Walking is an inherently safe activity. Driving is an inherently dangerous activity. Drivers should have more a burden for safety than walkers. You, as a driver, should expect things to enter the road. That's why we have speed limits. That's you watch the road instead of playing on the road.

briandear 3y ago

So remove parking, then hope something comes in to fill the need for transport? Some of us like big vehicles and the freedom that enables. The last thing I want to do in a Houston summer is carry groceries to a bus stop in 102 degree temperatures and then spend 30 minutes riding a bus when a car does it in 10.

p_j_w 3y ago
You don't need a big vehicle to go grocery shopping.
- mcv 3y ago
  In a city, supermarkets should be in walking distance.