3 ms·

I was wondering the same thing. The office building I work in has the first four floors devoted to a parking garage, with floors 5 to 10 as office space. Why

by spc476 13y ago

I was wondering the same thing. The office building I work in has the first four floors devoted to a parking garage, with floors 5 to 10 as office space. Why couldn't the same be done for housing?

thrownaway2424 13y ago
Because it's hideous? People walking around don't want to walk past the blank walls or ventilation grates of parking garages. An attractive urban pedestrian environment needs to have something _different_ and _interesting_ every few dozen feet. That's why streets with many narrow storefronts are the most crowded with pedestrians.
- iyulaev 13y ago
  That's why streets with many narrow storefronts are the most crowded with pedestrians. Correlation != causation.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    Correlation + causal explanation gives you a pretty strong link, however. You can also directly compare regions in which monoliths break the flow small/frequent storefronts. The relationship, in my casual observation, holds very strongly. You can disrupt the pattern by providing street-level temporary equivalents, e.g., street fairs / farmer's markets, and the like. And obxkcd: http://xkcd.com/552/ http://xkcd.com/552/ "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."
- spc476 13y ago
  Here's the building I work in: https://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=26.200547,-80.149577&spn=0.009241,0.012252&t=m&z=17&vpsrc=6&layer=c&cbll=26.200361,-80.149577&panoid=5HmWm0fNWGVR0KLEjGk0kQ&cbp=12,276.97,,0,1.5 https://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=26.200547,-80.149577&spn... You can see the garage entrance to the left, and the garage wraps around behind the main entrance (a five story open air atrium) to the right hand side. It doesn't have to be hideous.
  - thrownaway2424 13y ago
    I take it you've never been to an actual city. Nobody cares what this building looks like because nobody would walk to or past it because it's in the middle of nowhere and there are literally no sidewalks. This article is about a real city where people walk to things. Here is a picture of it. https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=ballard+seattle&data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-122.384484!3d47.668657!2m2!1f299.14!2f78.3!4f75!2m4!1e1!2m2!1slkWUjACB9rUeHPvMV-OhRw!2e0!4m11!1m10!4m8!1m3!1d201878!2d-122.235328!3d37.7584754!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!17b1&fid=5 https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=ballard+seattle&data=...
drdaeman 13y ago
Not sure whenever it's true, but when I've asked similar question on why our city (a relatively small town in Russia) has problems with parking space but no building designs still include underground parking lots, I was told it's economically infeasible as office and living space costs much more than parking one.

by spc476 13y ago

I was wondering the same thing. The office building I work in has the first four floors devoted to a parking garage, with floors 5 to 10 as office space. Why couldn't the same be done for housing?

thrownaway2424 13y ago

Because it's hideous? People walking around don't want to walk past the blank walls or ventilation grates of parking garages. An attractive urban pedestrian environment needs to have something _different_ and _interesting_ every few dozen feet. That's why streets with many narrow storefronts are the most crowded with pedestrians.

iyulaev 13y ago
That's why streets with many narrow storefronts are the most crowded with pedestrians. Correlation != causation.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Correlation + causal explanation gives you a pretty strong link, however. You can also directly compare regions in which monoliths break the flow small/frequent storefronts. The relationship, in my casual observation, holds very strongly. You can disrupt the pattern by providing street-level temporary equivalents, e.g., street fairs / farmer's markets, and the like. And obxkcd: http://xkcd.com/552/ http://xkcd.com/552/ "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."
spc476 13y ago
Here's the building I work in: https://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=26.200547,-80.149577&spn=0.009241,0.012252&t=m&z=17&vpsrc=6&layer=c&cbll=26.200361,-80.149577&panoid=5HmWm0fNWGVR0KLEjGk0kQ&cbp=12,276.97,,0,1.5 https://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=26.200547,-80.149577&spn... You can see the garage entrance to the left, and the garage wraps around behind the main entrance (a five story open air atrium) to the right hand side. It doesn't have to be hideous.
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  I take it you've never been to an actual city. Nobody cares what this building looks like because nobody would walk to or past it because it's in the middle of nowhere and there are literally no sidewalks. This article is about a real city where people walk to things. Here is a picture of it. https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=ballard+seattle&data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-122.384484!3d47.668657!2m2!1f299.14!2f78.3!4f75!2m4!1e1!2m2!1slkWUjACB9rUeHPvMV-OhRw!2e0!4m11!1m10!4m8!1m3!1d201878!2d-122.235328!3d37.7584754!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!17b1&fid=5 https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=ballard+seattle&data=...

drdaeman 13y ago

Not sure whenever it's true, but when I've asked similar question on why our city (a relatively small town in Russia) has problems with parking space but no building designs still include underground parking lots, I was told it's economically infeasible as office and living space costs much more than parking one.