Sounds like a great idea. My first thought when I visited a suburban neighbourhood in the states was “You can’t talk with your neighbour from one sidewalk to the other”, plenty of space but no human contact. Lots of “unused spaces”, voids separating houses, invisible barriers: isolated spaces without obstacles.
Mind you, I’m a non-driver (my vision is too bad for me to drive), but I can’t seriously believe that society as a whole is going to give up their cars or the streets designed for them. In fact, I somewhat fear for the concept of public transit as a whole given that when self-driving cars become mainstream, a lot of the traditional benefits of public transit (you can read or work while commuting) will be available to the owners of the self-driving cars.
Maybe not in general, no. But in my (admittedly brief) experience of driving in SF (and indeed, London and NY) - it’s not something you’d do anyway unless you had to. And all those cities seem to have good public transport.
As far as self driving cars go, won’t they be a bit more like pods, smaller, moving close together? Couldn’t they be municipally owned? If so, couldn’t they just be another form of public transport (without the icky “having to deal with other members of the public” bit)
I dunno… the whole “new urbanism” seems pretty obsessed with making cities walkable or bikable (is that a word?) at least. Could we politically engineer such a thing? I think having walkable cities in such a big country doesn’t completely eliminate the need for cars, just shifts their function a little bit - making your job, basic needs, etc walkable doesn’t mean you’ll never need a car.
In Atlanta, you need a car, even if you live inside the city. The public transit is pretty shit (compared to places like NYC, at least) and most people live in neighbor hoods that are pretty disconnected from shopping/restaurants/public spaces/their jobs. You can get around without a car, but it restricts where you can live, etc.
Yeah, I recently moved back to the DC area from San Diego because I was frustrated on how bad the San Diego transit scene is (to be fair, San Diego is trying to improve, but it will be at least a decade before their light rail “trolley” really is practical beyond the downtown area). I basically chose my apartment in San Diego based on the bus lines to the institute I worked at. And where I live in suburban DC as well, although Metro stops are more common than bus hubs in San Diego.
That’s actually a good idea. I wonder if any cities will be forward thinking enough to create a fleet of self-driving cars. I’m sure Uber (or its successor) will.
Yeah… I think getting more public transit is really a problem of creating the political will to make it feasible. No matter what, it’s not going to happen overnight. But the tide towards walkable cities does seem to be turning though.
I don’t know if I’m on board with self-driving cars. Will that replace public transit entirely? I’m worried this will create yet more isolation and atomization, more privatization of public spaces, ya know…
Interesting. Part of the reason Paris has wide boulevards is Napoleion 2(3?) got tired of the people easily blockading the narrow streets when protesting/trying to rise up. Not that a more pedestrian friendly city is bad, but I don’t think those in power are going to forget that history lesson.
Where do people with disabilities and mobility issues fit into this plan—or do they?
Yeah the 3rd. The idiot who picked a fight with Germany (well, Prussia). The thing about N III is while he was seen as a throwback to N I, etc. at the time, in many ways he was a precursor to modern dictators. He had a secret police, political prisons, everything.
I see a conspicuous lack of parking space in that design.
And not so easy access for emergency vehicles as well. I imagine the fire department would like to have more room to work if possible.
One other factor to consider: if you put tall buildings too close together you’re also going to reduce the amount of sunlight in the area (and that enters each building’s windows). A city made up of alleyways could be a gloomy place.
Yet another issue to consider is fire safety. In cities with closely-packed buildings, whole blocks tend to burn to the ground. Each burning building radiates enough heat to set the next one on fire, and if the space between is too narrow it’s not possible (or safe) to get hoses and firetrucks in between to fight the fire. Basically, wide boulevards act as fire breaks.
Yeah, yeah, cool. So, like, where’s the four-lane road? In a tunnel underneath the apartments? On top of the building? Where can I park my hummer? Waiiiit… is this for poor people or Europeans or something?
(Doomsday hat on). Cities including sf, LA, Manhattan, Moscow, London, and a few others will never, ever see the property prices recede. Which in reality means adding 14k, 140k, or 1.4million square feet won’t matter.
The reason?
Me.
There’s so much pent up demand for these locations the moment property prices slightly cool down, me and my workmates are buying flats in Chelsea. Or noho. Or pick one.
The marginalized are screeeewed. And like hashing an object, it is a one way function.
On the other hand, here are some nice places: any town on the way to Globe AZ, roseburg or, hawick Scotland, Missoula Montana, fort William Scotland, seahouses england, Taipei Taiwan, and a shit ton I can’t remember.
How many of those tightly-packed yet picturesque cities are in earthquake zones, for that matter? This, along with the other potential problems already listed in this thread, lead me to believe that this is a “solution” on a par with flying cars: one that the proposer wishes for himself and maybe for his friends but not really for most of his neighbors. You pack even more real estate in SF and you’ll probably just fill it with that many more dot-com workers, paying the same rents as today and putting even more of a burden on what remains of the public-transportation system.
Some of us like a little personal space.
Nail. Head. Impressive strike.
