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Google "urban planning." The "dumb rules" may not be convenient for you or me in the short run, but they exist for a reason: water, sewage, traffic, pollution,

Google "urban planning." The "dumb rules" may not be convenient for you or me in the short run, but they exist for a reason: water, sewage, traffic, pollution, supporting a sustainable quality of living for the long term. I don't have the answer - and I notice that you don't really offer one - but I know that the answer is not to throw out all our laws in a short-sighted imitation of some polluted Chinese metropolis.

jseliger 14y ago
they exist for a reason: water, sewage, traffic, pollution Not really. See Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City, Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High, and Ryan Avent's The Gated City for more; pay particularly close attention to the sections about how urban life tends to be far more sustainable than alternatives.
- steventruong 14y ago
  I got these books simply because of this recommendation. Will check them out, thanks.
  - jseliger 14y ago
    You're welcome! They're all impressively researched while being relatively easy to read. If you want to add one more, Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic is good too. As all four books point out, there's basically no intellectual case to be made in favor of low height limits, strict parking requirements, and lot setbacks in urban or heavily urbanizing places. The only "case", such as it is, comes from NIMBYism and existing landlords or landowners who are seeking to nominally protect their perceived investment.
- medusa666 14y ago
  Hey, I (much) prefer urban life. Starting from the ground up, I wish they'd built Palo Alto and Menlo Park to be real cities. I wish I lived in a city with a real subway, and the people density to support it. And women. But all that's not the same thing as adding skyscrapers today's mid-Peninsula. Most of these responses are coming from an idealistic blank-sheet mindset. In the real world, we don't have the option to start from scratch.
otterley 14y ago
There are plenty of examples of cities that are prosperous, clean, and not stifled by pollution: Montreal, London, Paris, Zurich, Munich, Berlin, Vienna, and Sydney to name a few.
- zalew 14y ago
  Munich is the most polluted German city, also, fun fact, city with the slowest average speed in EU (at least some time ago) because of traffic jams.
- maurits 14y ago
  Zurich (and Geneve for that matter) consistently lead the list for the most expensive places on earth to live in not to mention that it is damn near impossible to find a place to live. Geneve's rental market currently has less than 2 promille vacancies.
- shin_lao 14y ago
  All of these cities you list are actually stifled by pollution and are (very) far from being clean. I happen to live in one of those and visit regularly others in the list. The problem is far from being solved. However, it's true that the pollution per inhabitant is much lower than in the Silicon Valley.
  - thrownaway2424 14y ago
    You must be crazy. You can lick the sidewalks in Zurich, although you'd probably be arrested. It's certainly the cleanest major city I've seen. And the tram come every minute.
  - enko 14y ago
    That's either a pretty silly troll or you haven't travelled much outside of affluent Western Europe. I've also been to most of those cities and can only say, if you think they're "stifled by pollution" then your first 10 minutes in Beijing are going to be rather eye-opening (or is that eye-watering).
tge789 14y ago
Google "Europe".
shin_lao 14y ago
No silver bullet, however with high density it's possible to find solutions for traffic and sewage more easily. For water, the problem is the same.
ChrisLTD 14y ago
It's not a binary situation. There is a medium between the high rises of Manhattan and the large single family homes of the suburbs. More to your point, dense cities can be much more sustainable than suburbs. Money spent on infrastructure benefits more people. People living in apartment buildings use less energy for heating and cooling. Commuting doesn't necessarily require a car so you use less fossil fuels.
gibsonf1 14y ago
Actually, they are "dumb" rules designed to create suburban sprawl. There is a new movement to create pedestrian friendly neighborhoods with higher density at transit nodes: SmartCode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartCode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartCode

jseliger 14y ago

they exist for a reason: water, sewage, traffic, pollution Not really. See Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City, Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High, and Ryan Avent's The Gated City for more; pay particularly close attention to the sections about how urban life tends to be far more sustainable than alternatives.

steventruong 14y ago
I got these books simply because of this recommendation. Will check them out, thanks.
- jseliger 14y ago
  You're welcome! They're all impressively researched while being relatively easy to read. If you want to add one more, Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic is good too. As all four books point out, there's basically no intellectual case to be made in favor of low height limits, strict parking requirements, and lot setbacks in urban or heavily urbanizing places. The only "case", such as it is, comes from NIMBYism and existing landlords or landowners who are seeking to nominally protect their perceived investment.
medusa666 14y ago
Hey, I (much) prefer urban life. Starting from the ground up, I wish they'd built Palo Alto and Menlo Park to be real cities. I wish I lived in a city with a real subway, and the people density to support it. And women. But all that's not the same thing as adding skyscrapers today's mid-Peninsula. Most of these responses are coming from an idealistic blank-sheet mindset. In the real world, we don't have the option to start from scratch.

otterley 14y ago

There are plenty of examples of cities that are prosperous, clean, and not stifled by pollution: Montreal, London, Paris, Zurich, Munich, Berlin, Vienna, and Sydney to name a few.

zalew 14y ago
Munich is the most polluted German city, also, fun fact, city with the slowest average speed in EU (at least some time ago) because of traffic jams.
maurits 14y ago
Zurich (and Geneve for that matter) consistently lead the list for the most expensive places on earth to live in not to mention that it is damn near impossible to find a place to live. Geneve's rental market currently has less than 2 promille vacancies.
shin_lao 14y ago
All of these cities you list are actually stifled by pollution and are (very) far from being clean. I happen to live in one of those and visit regularly others in the list. The problem is far from being solved. However, it's true that the pollution per inhabitant is much lower than in the Silicon Valley.
- thrownaway2424 14y ago
  You must be crazy. You can lick the sidewalks in Zurich, although you'd probably be arrested. It's certainly the cleanest major city I've seen. And the tram come every minute.
- enko 14y ago
  That's either a pretty silly troll or you haven't travelled much outside of affluent Western Europe. I've also been to most of those cities and can only say, if you think they're "stifled by pollution" then your first 10 minutes in Beijing are going to be rather eye-opening (or is that eye-watering).

tge789 14y ago

Google "Europe".

shin_lao 14y ago

No silver bullet, however with high density it's possible to find solutions for traffic and sewage more easily. For water, the problem is the same.

ChrisLTD 14y ago

It's not a binary situation. There is a medium between the high rises of Manhattan and the large single family homes of the suburbs. More to your point, dense cities can be much more sustainable than suburbs. Money spent on infrastructure benefits more people. People living in apartment buildings use less energy for heating and cooling. Commuting doesn't necessarily require a car so you use less fossil fuels.

gibsonf1 14y ago

Actually, they are "dumb" rules designed to create suburban sprawl. There is a new movement to create pedestrian friendly neighborhoods with higher density at transit nodes: SmartCode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartCode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartCode