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Why don't we found new cities anymore? It's not like the pinnacle of urban design was reached centuries ago. Even if it's not doable to control everything, at

Why don't we found new cities anymore? It's not like the pinnacle of urban design was reached centuries ago. Even if it's not doable to control everything, at least you could lay out excellent infrastructure from the beginning with modern tools and methods.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> Why don't we found new cities anymore? It's not like the pinnacle of urban design was reached centuries ago. We do, but mostly peripheral cities around existing core cities, because there are geographical/resource things that make city building make sense, and -- other than with discovery of new resources (or technological/economic change making known but not economically exploitable resources exploitable), or some massive project that we have some reason to keep distant from existing settlement -- the places that make sense to build large population agglomerations already have them. Advances in urban design (or changes in urban design fashion) don't create new city locations, so they mostly lead to redevelopment, not new cities.
panick21_ 3y ago
In places where humans have been a long town you simply dont create new cities. In a place like Switzerland I could imagine what that would even look like. There are villages everywhere, some grew and became small cities, some slighly larger and do on. Founding city only happens if you move lots of people into a lightly lived in area or during a massive population boom due to agroculture. And you dont need new cities to build great infrastrucute. Look at Istanbul. One of the oldest cities and yet the are massivly building out public infrastructure. Copenhagen just added a totally modern subway. Amsterdam and co have totally revolutionized cycling in the last decades. The bones of a city arnt that different. People still happly live in 300 year old city houses just fine. There is little point rebuilding that stuff. There are cities that are 1000+ years old and feel totally modern. Its all about continual improvment and iteration. Most by design cities embrace a bunch of terrible hype ideas. And even in the very best case, like Australia for example, the result isnt better then the older cities. Cities are large enough that you can do large scale expermients within them. Transform one part of town with new methods.
ianburrell 3y ago
The main reason is that the developed world is developed. There are existing cities that attract new people. Cities need to have a reason, midsize ones have position and big ones are big. A new greenfield city has neither of those. The US has been making new cities, or at least growing smaller ones. Many of the metros in US like Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, and Orlando were small 50 years ago and barely existed before WW2. There are lots of new cities in China. Shenzhen was a village 50 years ago and has 17 million people today.

dragonwriter 3y ago

> Why don't we found new cities anymore? It's not like the pinnacle of urban design was reached centuries ago. We do, but mostly peripheral cities around existing core cities, because there are geographical/resource things that make city building make sense, and -- other than with discovery of new resources (or technological/economic change making known but not economically exploitable resources exploitable), or some massive project that we have some reason to keep distant from existing settlement -- the places that make sense to build large population agglomerations already have them. Advances in urban design (or changes in urban design fashion) don't create new city locations, so they mostly lead to redevelopment, not new cities.

panick21_ 3y ago

In places where humans have been a long town you simply dont create new cities. In a place like Switzerland I could imagine what that would even look like. There are villages everywhere, some grew and became small cities, some slighly larger and do on. Founding city only happens if you move lots of people into a lightly lived in area or during a massive population boom due to agroculture. And you dont need new cities to build great infrastrucute. Look at Istanbul. One of the oldest cities and yet the are massivly building out public infrastructure. Copenhagen just added a totally modern subway. Amsterdam and co have totally revolutionized cycling in the last decades. The bones of a city arnt that different. People still happly live in 300 year old city houses just fine. There is little point rebuilding that stuff. There are cities that are 1000+ years old and feel totally modern. Its all about continual improvment and iteration. Most by design cities embrace a bunch of terrible hype ideas. And even in the very best case, like Australia for example, the result isnt better then the older cities. Cities are large enough that you can do large scale expermients within them. Transform one part of town with new methods.

ianburrell 3y ago

The main reason is that the developed world is developed. There are existing cities that attract new people. Cities need to have a reason, midsize ones have position and big ones are big. A new greenfield city has neither of those. The US has been making new cities, or at least growing smaller ones. Many of the metros in US like Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, and Orlando were small 50 years ago and barely existed before WW2. There are lots of new cities in China. Shenzhen was a village 50 years ago and has 17 million people today.