New Urbanism vs urban sprawl

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Interestingly, if the physical area of metro LA were built and occupied at the density of Hong Kong, it could support well over 6 billion people.

[Q-Gadgetry 4]

Date: 12/17/2004 5:34:00 PM
Author: Baro
Why does a city have to grow OUT?

The 'argument' between sprawl and real growth is like the 'argument' between fitness and sickness. A city is a living organism. Like nature, it should strive to be compact and muscular, not a cancer ridden pile of lazy fat. When a person is 500 pounds, they pay for it. It's hard to move, they are full of sickness, and they are horrible to look at. Just like a sprawling city, hard to move, full of crime, and horrible to look at.

It's interesting how cities often so closely match the people that build them. In europe and japan, you have healthy people with efficient resource use and a sense of community, and their cities match. In north america you have fat people building fat cities, with their diet matching their construction methods, unhealthy.

quote>

Love that analogy about a city being compared to a person

I live in Houston, a drive-only city, if you don't have a car, you're pretty much going nowhere, sure there are buses, and the new light-rail in downtown, but because Houston is a newer city built using the urban sprawl method, which I believe many newer cities were built on, mainly because it's easier. It's really becoming the new Los Angeles, right now, there's a lot of boom and construction, and Houston is growing at a fast rate. I'm afraid that with all of the efforts the city is trying to use to encourage pedestrians, it's going to be too late, everywhere I go, I see street malls with parking, I see housing, and development based on the automobile. There are no sidewalks for people to walk, just empty land next to concrete.

Houston is really becoming the concrete desert

[radenskloof 0]

Date: 12/23/2004 2:53:34 PM
Author: zilfondel
Interestingly, if the physical area of metro LA were built and occupied at the density of Hong Kong, it could support well over 6 billion people.

quote>


There, just imagine that!
All the people on the planet could live in one place, and we could leave the rest of the world to do its own thing without us having to **** it all up.

I sometimes like to imagine a world like that... kind of futuristic, high density living with a green Ag zone around the city to support its inhabitants, and vast areas left to the wilderness.

Just imagine the world with 10% of the population; 600 million instead of 6b.

That would give us more breathing room.

[ACEfanatic 7]

From the design/planning standpoint, New Urbanism is definately superior to regular sprawl.

 

I find only one problem with it.  The architecture used in most of the New Urbanist communities I've seen is... well, ugly.  One exception that I've seen is Kentlands.

 

Simply put, the whole arcade/balcony concept that's forced onto the architects takes away from the look of the facade.  Sure, I'm all for street-wall, but not balconies on all five floors of a townhouse.

 

So, in theory, New Urbanism is great.  Still, there is a bit of work to do before you can refine the actual practice of it.  When that happens, it's bound to catch on.

 

-ACE

[burtos 0]

as seen from an outside point of view coming from a reasonable sized town in wales. many american cities are sprawled out over vast areas with empty vacant buildings all over the place. i don't know if anyone lives right in the middle of the city like we do in the uk. or do you have zones of commerical in the middle, industrial in the outskirts in one or more designated places and residential spread around like a patch work quilt. don`t get me wrong some of your architecture is superb but seeing large malls miles from any where reminds me of when the uk went through a phase of out of town shopping buildings which killed of the inner town which ended up with alot of boarded up and run down shops. but now the government and local councils are slowly addresing the problem and encouraging shops and people to move back into the middle of towns and cities.

[skyscraper_man 1]

K k....I love the idea of just surburban areas and then all of a sudden you look over the next hill and theres the Down Town.....I just think that is sweet.... i kinda like the idea of the new version i suppose...but then again i am American..that may be why....most of our major cities..have A DOWNTOWN...and then the outskirts

[kansashindles 0]

I think the real issue most suburbanites have with public transportation is that it is a public resource. You have to rub shoulders with the underclasses. I remember reading Edge City quite a while back discussing how and why private spaces (malls) were replacing public ones (CBDs). I think when gas prices become unsustainable you will see private mass transportation become the normative middle class choice with public transportation operating as a soothe our conscience service.

Another thing I don't get is why the Federal government spends so much on air travel which is one of the most fuel inefficient mass transit methods out there. High speed rail or maglev can be made much less oil dependent and doesn't require such a huge land mass for terminals.

[Schleifer 0]

I would prefer new urbanism. But i'mfrom an city where 110.000 people work in just one factory. In my region every city is producind steel cars big trucks paper etc.. Sometimes you have to use the sprawl method. My city (Wolfsburg in Germany) has been foundet in the WWII so everything is planed and everxthing deals with this factory. Because we had been very succesful in producing cars (and we still are) the city had grown very fast in the last 50 years. Here are big settlements made of concrete in which only the workers from other countries live and suburbs for the more european population. This has led to an very bad situation. The russians had lived in their own parts of the city. The Germans heve their parts and the polish people have also their own. Thats wouldnt be so bad if there wouldnt be just one point: The russians are speaking russianthe germans german and so on... For me this is an very important point for urbanism. A mix of all cultures is an plus for every city.
In the last years a lot of things have changed. more thann 20000 workplaces have moved from the scientific facillities in the factory to new commercial parks in the subburbs. The downtown has been cleaned of all traffic. In the better suburbs the state has build big social buildings. They content apartments for imigratet people and workplaces for some of them. The city has startet to build an high-speed-railway-system. It will connect all cities with an population of more than 25000 people. Every ten minutes you have a train to 8 cities in a radius of 50 kilometers and you reach them much faster than with the car. And these trains don't stop at the railway station. They are driving straight to the city's centre and to all the commercial and industrial zones in south-east-lower-saxony. More than 60% of all workers are driving with public transport systems. I don't know if everything i have said is in the right place in this tread but i think everyone should use mass-transport or walk on feet. Today our region is under the ten top regions of europe in the categories flexability economical future and ecological protecture. It's really irony that in a city that produces more than 2.5 mio cars per year people hate driving them.

[dudyconstructor 46]

i live 45 minutes from downtown LA, i dont think mass transit is used really well, but yes new urbanism vs urban sprawl is always dealing with infrastructure and zonning.

[wearesinking46 0]

wouldn't new urbanism make the houses reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeealy undesireable 'cause I found that peple hate living next to industry
they look like this: and then there gone nope sprawl but lots of public transport then they come in their tousands










thile the N.U sims then

[Schleifer 0]

Not all workingplaces are in the industrial sector. If someone would live next door to a bureau or a workshop he wouldnt turn: If they would life near a big chemical industry this would look different. But its not possible to build new-urbanism settlements around factories with thousands of workers. In big industrial nations most workinplaces are in companies with 50-300 workers. So you can use new urbanism on 75% of all industry- and bussiness- companies without the negative side effects of montane industry.

[gil_mnogueira 0]

I find that the cities should be organized in way to its growth to be viable. For example: an European city, as G

[uncrazycooper13 0]

I've noticed some people have commented about not wanting to rub shoulders with the underclass Well we feel that way because of urban sprawl. We don't live with people unlike us. In one subdivision you've got the rich white people in another you've got the poor black people, in another you've got the asians and so on. We're afraid of other people. Thats why we don't want to walk outside the subdivision because we're afraid that some other type of person is going to show up and hurt us or ask us for money. Through urban sprawl and the use of car we have become isolated from everyone else. This helps keep racism alive and also allows us to ignore poverty because if you're in a subdivision and you only leave to go to work and stores, in cars you don't have to see the poor people living in other areas of the city. My dad says this Anyone who works in downtown should be able to live in downtown meaning the CEO of a company should be able to find a place to live downtown and a janitor or a street musician should be able to find a place to live downtown. Ponder that for a while.

-uncrazycooper

[gil_mnogueira 0]

I think that the people who go by car to work aren

[Schleifer 0]

It is absolutely unlogical that economy would collaps if everybody could buy a flat in the downtown. There is no other country than the US which has this high rents in the city-centre. Your opinion seems to be as old sa it's inventor Adam Smith. 280 years old and has been replaced hundrets of years ago by mor logical and better working economy theories.

[Q-Gadgetry 4]

Well, neither one would be good if it were just that one. I feel that there needs to be both new urbanism and urban sprawl in a community to make it work.

[gil_mnogueira 0]

I can't agree with you, Schleifer. I think that you are living in a very distant future or you are the Lenine's fan number 1. In the civilized countries we have to work and to be lucky to get money. So, it's injsust tinking that a street singer can live at the same house of Bill Gates. I'm not devaluating the work that the poor people have.

Who is... Adam Smith?

[rewright 804]

New Urbanism vs. urban sprawl

What works in some places doesn

[Schleifer 0]

I feel sorry for you because Adam Smth deems to be your twin. He was the most important supporter an one of the first inventors of capitalism. Everywhere in the world you can find poor people living together with the rich ones. And imagine: They are working. Strange what? Im from an city where the government has build social apartments for poor people in the best and most expensive neighborhoods. Everyone is able to buy a flat in the downtown. We are today one of the economical most strenght and flexible cities in europe. we are less than 100000 people but we are producing more than 2.5 million cars and have the most effective and expansive science centres for cars. My community tries to integrate people whereas yours seems to divide people in categories. Who deserves a good life and who not just by looking at wheir cash.

[gil_mnogueira 0]

I have curiosity to know who Adam Smith was and I found a thing that i agree. his third book Wealth of Nations talk about the social stages. If I want to go to the commercial interdependence stage I have to pass the other stages. And, here in Portugal, if I can have all luxuries with money or whitout it, I don't have to fight to get more money and I'm not productive. Then, there is not much production. And then, it's the economic chaos.
And living in the downtown is a luxury in Portugal.

I'm not capitalist! Firt, the man, after, the money. But, unhappyly, the money moves the man. Your theory is possible in rich countries, like Japan, Finland or in your country (Germany, right?).

[freakpower 0]

Well, rewright, over here during the late 60's they showed that removing two hundred years of development was no problem when there were ugly concrete housing projects to build. Now painted in pastel colours because they looked so bad in bare concrete.

Gil_Mnogueira - Adam Smith wrote a book called Wealth of Nations.

He could probably be called the Marx' of capitalism (but I dunno).

However, I'm not following you. Why would it be unjust if a street singer lived in the same house as Bill Gates? Oh no. Bill Gates has to share his huge (how huge? HUGE) house/mansion with one more person. The world is coming to an end. Bill Gates, one of the richest, if not the richest, men on the planet has to SHARE? Silly thought! I mean... Equality? What's that good for? Freedom? Uh no thanks. Women's liberation? Bah!

Let's just go back to the Roman Empire so people can learn their places!

Number two. Why would economic chaos break out if people got homes downtown? Because all of a sudden people wouldn't need to work? I don't get this. People would still HAVE to work, because there's RENT to pay, there are BILLS to pay, they have to eat something as well, and if they're really lucky, have something more at the end of the day to buy pointless stuff like... Computers.

Number three. This is all my opinion. (Of course it is, I wrote it.)

[sfjohnson 0]

Date: 12/27/2004 8:03:22 PM
Author: rewright

Would it be feasible to reconstruct 50 years of construction? At what cost? Besides, people drive cars because they like to. They like the freedom to make side trips and to come and go on their own schedule.

New Urbanism in most of North America will most likely be a hybrid of our current patterns; including personal vehicles and some traditional mass transit. The truth is that the automobile is our mass transit.

quote>

I've got to say that all the New Urbanism is rather old. When I lived in Philadelphia, I worked in Center City and just outside the city. I hated living outside the city, and this is from someone who loves to drive - I love to drive for pleasure, I hate commuting in an automobile. So, I drove about 4 miles to the nearest train station and rode the train into Philly - while I was there, I could get anything I wanted within a 10 minute walk of my office - there is a huge mall taking up the first 2 floors of Liberty Place, Suburban Station had all the restraunts and small retail you could want, plus wonderful culture.
Given my choice, I'd put my car in the garage and save it for weekend drives across the countryside and live in the city - more culture, friendlier people (I live in NC now - in a car dependent city - and am convinced that southern hospitality is a myth).

Anyway, sorry to ramble, just thought I'd chime in

[Schleifer 0]

I'm really interested where you all from because to me it seems always that americans enjoy their centralized system and the europeans prefer the urbanistic solution. Also it seems to me that more capitalistic oriented people like the american way. (unnessessary to say) The more left-touched people enjoy the idea of an homogen mixed up culture.
I'm from germany and vote for the greens and the reds. It's funny that we don't call our partys with their names. Capitalists are black, liberals are yellow, racists are brown (we dont have such a party) socialists.... and the greens dont need any explanaition.

[gil_mnogueira 0]

First: Bill Gates has the right of share his house with he wants. The street singer doesn't work 12 hours per day and he had not invented the DOS. But, if the singer starts to be famous and rich and Microsoft declare insolvent, the singer has not to share his HUGE house with Bill Gates.

Second: if i agree with something that Adam Smith said, i have not to be a capitalist. For example, i can say that Chelsea plays well, but chelsea can not be my team.

Third: freakpower, the marxism has never resulted very well. I've read a text about it a few days ago and I transcribe it here: Marx was the creator of one political and economical system implanted by his followers in many countries of the European East and in Asia, with lots of bloody revolutions. However, his system shown quickly be defective and inefficacious, and lead to the bankruptcy all the countries that adopted it, except China. If you

Forth: Every man and woman have the same rights and duties, and i agree with that. In Portugal is like i say. and every european countries have to respect this situation.

Fifth: freakpower, with how many people you share your house,probably better than the houses of the majority of the european people?

[freakpower 0]

I live in northern Europe (not germany). I don't know, but don't the majority of the European people live with their families or alone? That's the way it's up here. I live with my family. Mother, father and little brother.

In this apartment.

First: Bill Gates has the right of share his house with he wants.
I agree. He does have the right to share his house with whoever he wants. On the other hand you could probably discuss whether or not the house is actually his (he didn't build it and so on).

The street singer doesn't work 12 hours per day and he had not invented the DOS.
Somehow I doubt Bill Gates works 12 hours per day but I'll let that pass. However, Bill Gates didn't invent MS-DOS himself. He bought it from someone else (can't remember who), reworked it a bit and published it.

Third: freakpower, the marxism has never resulted very well. I've read a text about it a few days ago and I transcribe it here: Marx was the creator of one political and economical system implanted by his followers in many countries of the European East and in Asia, with lots of bloody revolutions. However, his system shown quickly be defective and inefficacious, and lead to the bankruptcy all the countries that adopted it, except China. If you
A-hem. I never claimed Marxism was good. I know about all the killings and such. I mentioned Marx because I felt justified in comparing him to Smith, both having written down the basics for political ideologies and both being dumb.

Can't say anything about your fourth statement since I agree with that

Fifth: freakpower, with how many people you share your house,probably better than the houses of the majority of the european people?
See above.

[Schleifer 0]

First. I also dont remember the name of this inventor but i know that he has killed himseld after he heard that Bill Gates has gained his first Billion. Bill Gates hasn't done anything but he has more than 50 billion dollars. Fair? Even the hardest capitalist has to admit that this seems to be a little bit unlogical.

Second: I can only agree. I agree to a lot of things from diferent political systems but i'm not a fan of radical systems like capitalism or communism.

Third: There are enourmous differences between marxism socialism communism and the bolshewik system. There has never been a marxism. Never! What Marx has written was miles away of bolshewism. The communisticdiktatures have caused millions of victims. I have lost nearly my whole family because they faught for their freedom. But it was not the communism that has caused this victims. It was the soviet regime that was guilty.
I am very proud that you have called me a Leninist. Lenin was a man who has seen the problems of the bolshewik system and tried to delete them.

Fourth: I can only agree with you. But i think that people should have more duties than they have today. The fact that in some countries rich pewople dont have to support people in bad situation. Because you live in Portugal you should agree with me. The few big industrial and rich nations in europe support poor countries.

Fifth: I#m sorry. What do you mean?

[kefka 3]

I like where I live alot.  I live in detroit, in an area that was building in the 1950's.

Detroit is a grid system, with named avenues going north and south, and numbered (8 mile, 9 mile, ect.) going east and west (counting upward, traveling northward of downtown).  with occasional diagonal avenues so that people aren't driving in zig zags (that's what the 'wheel' design is).  The avenues have stores along them (almost all 1 story).  some of them are even pre-depression buildings, sporting some spiffy architecture.

 

I live between 8 and 9 mile.  I can walk to a mom and pop ice cream parlor (although it's closed most the time since it's michigan).  2 different churches, a bulk food store (bakeing ingredients, bulk candy, bulk food in general), my haircut place.  all within 5 minutes.  all of these places it takes the same amount of time to drive there and park as it does to walk there.  middle school, elementry school, and high school can be walked to in about 7-15 minutes depending on which one youre going to.  so as far as that goes, it's nice.

 

but on the other hand, most everyday things need to be driven to.  meijers, media play, best buy, circuit city, guitar center (although there is a walkable music store, but it's not good).  there is a big mall within 5 minutes.  but all these things need a car anyways since you are buying in large, uncarriable amounts.  these are out in the sprawl.  Both my parents work in detroit, one in downtown, the other not in downtown.

 

 

anyways, like the other people from detroit said, urban sprawl is killing detroit, and since i live inbetween the city and the suburbs, I'm living the concequences.  There is actualy alot of new growth being built.  but violence at my school is increasing becuase certain inner city kids are moving here becuase other people are moving to the suburbs.

 

alot of dinner conversations lead to detroits situation (since I'm a detroit history and architecture buff) and detroit will be happy if any of us win the lottery or if nay of us rule the planet.

 

well I could ramble about detroit and urban sprawl for a long time, but in short, if you live in detroit (a victim of urban sprawl) and you think urban sprawl is ok, you're either ignorant, stupid, or you know what you're contributing to and you don't mind supporting it.

[UnrealScorpion 0]

The big city I live nearest to is saint louis, and it has an interesting situation. The big city itself is transitioning from a sprawl-like setup to more of a urbanism setup. There's exceptions, as high traffic areas like the Edward Jones Dome, Busch Stadium, and Anaheiser-Busch Breweries aren't gonna leave their road-friendly setup, but the rest of the main city is ready to transition. I've noticed a lot more busses going in and they have been having talks of some sort of rail system.

In case you didn't know, St Louis lost population every year from 1990 to 2003, in the 90s it had the sharpest decline in population of any city in the US, it lost over 40% of it's population! Only recently has this population loss plateaued, with a slight incline. Everybody moved to one of the many smaller cities surrounding Saint Louis. Just to contrast this figure, not only does Missouri have the city with the sharpest population decline of the 90s, but it also has the city with the sharpest increase. Earth City, about 20 miles or so from Downtown Saint Louis, is America's fastest growing city.

I remember when I was a little kid when it was just a relaxed suburb, and now it feels like it is a part of the city. Even though the population hasn't changed in the area much overall, it seems like the actaul size of the city really has grown, as a lot of small suburbs just took off. I guess you could say that St Louis is a big victim of America's rush to the 'burbs. St Louis's thick, gritty downtown of the old, with it's dangerous project folk is no more in some spots of the city, because there's nobody there

[cammo2003 20]

People moving downtown isn't bad. It has happened here in Sydney. One of the tallest buildings in Sydney, World Tower, is actually a residential building. It's not cheap to live in the city. But it sure is convenient. Everything's within walking distance (in fact the World Square shopping centre is about to start progressively opening up, and this is pretty much at the base of World Tower.

However Sydney too has succumb to the disease of (sub)urban sprawl. Suburbs sprawl almost 70km to the west (keep in mind that I think LA has suburbs 110km). Fortunately, Sydney's far more constrained - we don't have as far to go. We have mountains to the west, National parks to the north and south, and the Pacific Ocean to the east.

There's currently three freeway projects under construction; one's simply a cross-city tunnel that bypasses the City Centre for folks headed from the Eastern Suburbs to the west. Not a big project that one, and certainly not expected to change much.

Then you have the Lane Cove Tunnel. This is basically connecting two existing motorways. Sydney's network has long been a patchwork of sections.

The biggie though is the Westlink M7, a 40km motorway which, along with the Lane Cove Tunnel, completes the Sydney Orbital Network.

However there's a few more PROPOSED projects which are more worrying. The F6 is again on the cards... *sigh*. That's a local one for me. It's a freeway which would be best cancelled, and a metro line built along its route.

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Date: 12/26/2004 4:49:55 PM
Author: kansashindles
I think the real issue most suburbanites have with public transportation is that it is a public resource. You have to rub shoulders with the underclasses. I remember reading Edge City quite a while back discussing how and why private spaces (malls) were replacing public ones (CBDs).

quote>

The real cool thing about those shopping malls is that if you're too rowdy, don't dress appropriately, or try to do something public - like protest - the local rent-a-cop will kick you out and not let you back in (that's bad?)

It's really sad that shopping malls are so prevalent in suburbs...and that there is a complete lack of any REAL public space in suburban areas (like town squares). I mean, when's the last time you've seen somebody take pictures of a mall?!