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I think Denver (I live here) is an example of our horrible zoning. We have entirely focused our cities (especially Denver and RTD (Regional Transportation Distr
by mattcantstop 8mo ago
I think Denver (I live here) is an example of our horrible zoning. We have entirely focused our cities (especially Denver and RTD (Regional Transportation District)) around people commuting in for work.
This is one of the main principles of BAD design, where you create an entire area around close to a single use (offices). That creates a very fragile city. This "single use" zoning that the US proliferated makes us really fragile to changes like working from home vs in-office work.
Another point is that cities are rather hostile for families. We create cities so they need to be fled as soon as people have kids. We have streets entirely of concrete and 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. If we want cities to be more resilient we need to rethink them. We need streets that have greenspace as a fundamental part of the infrastructure. We need permeable surfaces.
I went to Park am Gleisdreieck in Berlin and stayed in a multi-family unit right along the park. There were tons of families with kids playing in the park, people riding bikes for transportation along the park bike paths, adults playing ping pong on outdoor tables together. It was wonderful. It made me rethink what a city can look like.
Denver needs to take notes. We don't need a single use city and a light rail system that only goes into that city. We made an incredibly fragile city. We can build better cities.
- Glyptodon 8mo agoDenver does have some neighborhoods that almost are good in some of the respects you mention, or at least I remember some development that seemed similar in the vicinity of the Millennium Bridge - it's just insanely expensive (and I'm remembering pre-pandemic times).
- renewiltord 8mo agoWhat size of home would you be willing to raise your children in? The average 3 br is 1000 sq. ft. in Berlin. US norms are for much larger homes.
- estearum 8mo agoSquare footage matters less than configuration.
- jmward01 8mo agoAnd location. While going to school my family lived in a 2 bedroom that was, I think, just under 600 square feet. The fridge was in the living area. The kitchen was a space so small you could touch every surface/cabinet if you stood in the middle of it. But we were right in the middle of amazing services. A park was a 3 minute walk away. My first class was visible from my bedroom window as was the shared play area of the apartments around me so I could let my 6yo 'go to the park' and play but still watch him if I wanted to. All the shopping was local and actual businesses that did actual things were in walking distance. We had many friends that lived/worked/played/shopped all within walking distance and that tiny apartment didn't feel small at all because the real living room was the city.
- fwip 8mo agoI grew up (as the oldest of 5 siblings) in a split-level home about 1200 sqft. It was fine, we just shared bedrooms. Based only on anecdotal evidence, we grew up closer than other families I knew where each kid has their own bed and bathroom.
- renewiltord 8mo agoSo did I. But I think the median American acts to not raise their child like that.
- pixelatedindex 8mo agoWell it’s time to rethink that then. Necessity is the mother of all invention, and at one point it’ll be a necessity to downsize if you want an affordable home.
- phatfish 8mo agoHow much space does a kid staring at an iPad all day really need?
- lotsoweiners 8mo agoOr move somewhere with bigger homes at a more affordable price.
- citrin_ru 8mo agoA typical 3 bedroom flat/house in the UK has similar area. IMHO in terms of house sizes the US (with large houses) is an outlier, not Berlin.
- wing-_-nuts 8mo agoAs someone who lives in a 700 sq ft 1bd apartment, I guess maybe you could pack in another two bedrooms in with 300 more sq ft (my bedroom is ~ 120-130 sqft w ~ 25 sqft of closet space). You wouldn't have a whole lot of elbow room. Still makes more sense than the 2500+ sqft monstrosities we regularly build in the states.
- estearum 8mo agoEven 2500sqft is modest by modern American new build standards. It's pretty challenging to find a "nice" home that's <3,000 sqft in most markets, and basically impossible to find a truly high end home that's <4,000.
- pixelatedindex 8mo agoHow much space do you really need to raise a child? I’m genuinely curious because Americans act like you need a mansion to raise kids. A 3 bed with 1K sq ft still gives you like a 10x10 room - more than enough space for a crib and a queen bed. And you have two other bedrooms to spare. As they get older and need space to run around and stuff, there’s no shortage of parks / trails / fields.
- disgruntledphd2 8mo ago> How much space do you really need to raise a child? It definitely depends on climate. I live in Ireland (in a relatively small house in the suburbs) and in the summer, there's absolutely no problem as we can take the kids out pretty regularly. However, in the winter when it's dark at 5pm and wet and windy, I definitely feel like we don't have enough space. I do think the US houses seem absurdly large to me, but then lots of the more recent houses built in ireland are of a similar size.
- red-iron-pine 8mo agoi'm in a city in Canada and it's -18C today. plenty of kids playing outside, just heavily bundled and for short stints. and we still have 3rd Places nearby, like community centers
- disgruntledphd2 8mo agoYeah, the cold would bother me less than the rain and darkness, tbh. > for short stints. This is the issue though, we have a 2.5 year old who's just super active, and it's much easier to tire him out when the weather is better and there's more light. Like, right now in Ireland it's still completely dark by 5.30 which means it's hard to tire him out in the winter. > and we still have 3rd Places nearby, like community centers That's cool, we have those too but they're mostly kid friendly in the mornings and afternoons and used for adult stuff in the evenings.
- red-iron-pine 8mo agowhy do I need a big home when the school is 3 blocks away or there is a park across the street? the mall is 10 minutes walking, as is the subway do fatass americans just need more space to function?
- mixmastamyk 8mo agoYup. Every time I hear someone complaining online about a lack of parking I think, this person has never been to Europe, or even Washington, DC. If you’ve never seen anything but stroads and power lines, I guess it makes sense.
- bigstrat2003 8mo agoI also live in Denver. The biggest problem with downtown isn't zoning (though that may be a part), it's the homeless people. Who's going to want to go hang out on 16th when there's a dude asking you for money on every street corner? I don't know what the solution is, but it seems clear to me that revitalizing downtown starts with removing the "I'm going to have to deal with vagrants" factor.
- coderc 8mo agoWhen I worked off of 16th street, years ago, many of those homeless people had jobs with the Denver VOICE, selling newspapers. I even bought a few. Are they still around?
- mixmastamyk 8mo agoSolution, 1) abundance of cheap housing. 2) effective mental health treatment with mandatory attendance when necessary. Of course this utopia would attract folks from other areas, so can’t be solved only locally. Needs national support.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- mw1 8mo agoThe only solution is to provide stable long-term housing and social support. Most else has been tried, but it doesn’t seem that you can punish people and make them less poor. Cops continue to sweep through and steal their belongings, but that clearly won’t solve the problem, and hasn’t. You can throw them all in jail, but that’s more expensive than providing non-jailed housing and rehabilitation services. You can forcefully or enticingly move them along with cops or free bus tickets, but that just shifts the problem elsewhere temporarily. As long as we continue to decide to solve this by increasing funds for cops above all other services in a city, this is the result we will get.
- ottah 8mo agoHomelessness is a choice that society has made. We have enough excess that we can feed and house these people. People are a lot less scary when they have some measure of security.
- browningstreet 8mo ago> I went to Park am Gleisdreieck in Berlin and stayed in a multi-family unit right along the park That's a favorite running spot of mine when I'm in Berlin. It's also along a great bus line, close to gyms, a technology museum, a bio market, Victoria Park and not far from Tempelhof. But that little park shines on its own. And the cars parked along the road are down a half level so you don't feel surrounded by parked cars. That's a pet peeve of mine in America, and especially the American west. We put outdoor seating for cafes and restaurants along busy streets or busy parking lots. Which downgrades the outdoor experience and supports the car priority mindset.
- ethbr1 8mo ago> And the cars parked along the road are down a half level so you don't feel surrounded by parked cars. Putting parks half a level above (or below) street level is a surprisingly easy hack for vastly improving the experience. I wish more places did this.
- insane_dreamer 8mo agoAmerican cities are built around cars, not people.
- browningstreet 8mo agoBerlin has too many cars too (so many parked cars), but it’s mostly flat, has great public transport, and generally slower streets. It also has a lot of people who aren’t scared of waking or riding bikes. And a ton of outdoor seating at cafes.
- jmward01 8mo agoEverything is part of an ecosystem, even office buildings. Nature shows us that a healthy ecosystem, one that survives shocks, is a diverse ecosystem. Diverse ecosystems find niches faster and niches grow over time to turn into major driving forces. They absorb shocks as new things enter since not all parts react the same or on the same timeline. Diversity is key to long term health. This is why monopolies are bad, this is why we should be looking for every kind of diversity we can in every problem. I have gotten to the point that when I see large scale problems I start looking for where the diversity is low and that is almost always the issue. Politics bad? Maybe if we had more than two choices things would be better. Housing bad? Maybe if we had more mixed use things would be better. Energy segment issues? Look at how fast the energy segment is improving now that renewables have finally been added to the ecosystem and we have more choices. Etc, etc etc.
- FloorEgg 8mo agoI agree with you about ecosystems and many systems for that matter. Diversity in diet leads to diversity in gut microbiome leads to diversity in methods to absorb nutrients leads to longevity and health. Lots more example I could list. However I think there are contexts and levels of abstraction where diversity at one level prohibits diversity at another. An example of this would be standards. There is little diversity in shipping container sizes and designs and that standardization enables more shipment of goods. Standardization in web protocols enables larger diversity in website content. While I'm not an expert in biology, I'm pretty sure some of our organs have a lot less diversity in cell types than others. E.g. a healthy heart has little cellular diversity compared to a healthy gut. By standardizing money (limiting diversity in barter) enables a larger economy with greater diversity of products and services. A highly functional team will all share a core set of values, and if everyone had extremely diverse values the team wouldn't be able to function. For example some businessess thrive on a culture of internal competition, and some thrive on internal cooperation, but mixing these up can create dysfunction. At the same time, some diversity in values leads to better decision making, so again context matters. So my point is that diversity is a really important property that sometimes needs to be maximized, sometimes needs to be minimized, and sometimes needs to be balanced, in order to achieve the desired outcomes. I also think that in general maximizing global diversity is a good north star value, and I am acknowledging that to achieve it requires minimizing diversity in some narrow contexts.
- f1shy 8mo agoEverything has pros and cons. I lived in both setups, and the mixed residential/commertial/recreational can be very noisy. Also big parks, if not well illuminated, become unsafe for the families around.
- wing-_-nuts 8mo ago>mixed residential/commertial/recreational can be very noisy. I'd rather live in a somewhat 'noisy' vibrant neighborhood where I can walk to shops or restaurants than an absolutely dead residential cul-de-sac where I have to literally drive miles to the nearest amenity. If the noise bothers you at night, get a sound machine or install triple pane windows. I understand having industrial separate from everything else, but commercial and residential should always be blended IMHO, and SFH zoning should not exist. I would kill for reformed zoning standards like they have in Japan.
- f1shy 8mo agoI liked very much Japan or Buenos Aires. Sure. Just pointing out there are downsides also. Traffic is a mess, and that shows in times for ambulances and firefighters. I like things of both. I guess people should vote by choosing to live where they want
- wing-_-nuts 8mo agoTraffic is a mess in Tokyo? Ambulance response times are typically under 10m in japan, so not sure the relevance there. Also the entire point of living in a dense neighborhood is that one is able to address many of your day to day needs without driving. >I guess people should vote by choosing to live where they want I'd have no problem with this if dense, multi-use zoning were common. As it is, very few places in the US are as livable as much of Europe and the more developed parts of Asia.
- jmye 8mo ago… So live where you want. I do, and it’s a SFH neighborhood. We don’t all need to live in Kowloon City, just because that’s what you like. So tired of this strident bullshit (“and SFH zoning should not exist”) from people who can’t seem to figure out other people exist and have thoughts and preferences, too.
- xnx 8mo ago> I think Denver (I live here) is an example of our horrible zoning. I don't think urban planners will ever admit or apologize for the damage they've done.
- fowkswe 8mo ago> We have entirely focused our cities (especially Denver and RTD (Regional Transportation District)) around people commuting in for work. This isn’t Denver-specific at all. It’s how every US city was built. For ~100 years we planned cities around one assumption: work happens in a centralized office, five days a week. Transit, zoning, downtown land use, parking, even tax bases were optimized for the daily commute. Downtowns became office monocultures; neighborhoods became places you slept. Remote work broke that model. The result is cities that are now unfortunately organized around a behavior that no longer dominates daily life - and we’re still trying to operate them as if it does.
- ottah 8mo agoIs it actually badly zoned? There's also a lot of apartment buildings and first floor retail in downtown Denver. I do agree though, it's a concrete jungle, we really need more natural environments to feel human.
- jmye 8mo ago> There were tons of families with kids playing in the park, people riding bikes for transportation along the park bike paths, adults playing ping pong on outdoor tables together. It was wonderful. It made me rethink what a city can look like. Sure sounds like literally every major park in the city. The rest of your comment certainly describes downtown/RINO, but does not, at all, describe anything even half a mile away from downtown. I’m slightly confused by your descriptions. I’m more confused by how you think Denver ought to build transit that goes from the suburbs to other suburbs, or if you think we ought to just raze the whole thing? I’m not sure that would get voter support.