Socorocks

Disneyland. NOT. hahaa.

other than the fact that you've conveniently chosen to disregard most of my main points, I suppose the best thing to do for L.A. would be, in an "ideal" low-density fashion, re-designate developed land with an FAR ration of greater than 3.0 to "parking lot" or "landscaped easement", so then we can go about getting rid of those pesky, cramped office towers and apartments. In fact, why don't we just tear out all the side walks and mercilessly 8-lane every road we can? Everyone should live in a single-family home, and no buildings should exceed 35 feet in height. Low density LA sounds like a dream come true. L.A. is not crowded, not by world standards. Tons of room for improvement.

regardless of how far back the little spat about the merits of density was, I can't resist but comment. clearly, people don't get it. Density is WHAT MAKES A CITY A CITY. once a city reaches a critical mass of people within a given area, it is able to support a far greater variety of organizations, services, businesses, lifestyles, and uses than your now-typical low-density wastelands. Crowding is part of city life. Being compact is not necessarily detrimental, it's just that our typical American "bigger-is-better" thought paradigm has clearly indoctrinated most of you into believing that being emptier makes a place better. If Los Angeles wants to reaffirm its footing as a global city, increased density within a defined area is absolutely requisite. Without that, the world will continue to look down its collective nose at LA as a vacuous, sprawling nowhere.

I know what gentrification is, thank you. Anyway, Duke87, you (and so many other Americans) look at this as an aesthetic issue and a preferential issue, rather than what it really is. Gentrifying older, urban neighborhoods does add to problems, correct, while it does do a lot to stem the flood of McMansions that devour our countryside as wealthy people tire of suburbia in increasing numbers. But the problems that both neighborhood renewal and reversal as well as unchecked sprawl present are rooted deeper. The reasons why attempts at revisiting the design of the places in which we live are superficial at best is because they are aimed at changing the format of said locale, and not the lifestyles of the people their in. People want to be urban and green and modern and yet they want to keep their auto-oriented lifestyle. They still want to drive to work. This is not a perception issue. People would use transit if they were educated properly, not if the system was the newest cleanest shiniest brightest most extensive in the country. It's been shown by poor ridership of new, well-planned systems that it doens't matter the quality if the stigma is still there. It's a teaching challenge as well as an infrastructural one. The cultural problem you speak of is not resistance based on cold hard preference and division; moreover, it's not because people are unchangeably predisposed to avoid transit and urban contexts; rather, it is an ignorance. If the horrid unsustainabilities, ineffeciencies, impracticalities, and unhealthinesses of the suburban, car-oriented lifestyle could be adequately, rigorously, and effectively presented, then the sea change would begin in earnest. We see the the beginnings of this right now, with the wealthy returning to the city (despite the negative effects of gentrification). But the middle class is largely unmoved, and therein lies the next greatest challenge to correcting the sprawl issue. Put simply, I don't think people would fight so hard for their sprawl if they knew just how bad it is for everyone and everything, especially themselves.

[ In many parts of the country, this type of sprawl-like development is the only legal way to build, so developers actively eliminate the feasibility of mass transit (before it even has a chance) in order to maintain the automobile as the only practical means of travel.quote> This is a terrible and unfortunate truth of our time, one that, unfortunately, most people are not familiar enough with the principles of place to understand the implications of. Thank you for contributing this.

Originally posted by: britishdude1192 I honestly don't see why this is such a problem. I live in a New York City suburb in New Jersey and I like it, there's still parks and trees and wildlife (to a certain extent) and if you want to talk urban spraw the suburbs go straight acrosss the state of NJ and even into Pensylvaniaquote> People who say things like this have clearly not endeavored to educate themselves, on anything. Please try to find me one credible consortium of planners that still supports reckless, uncontrolled, wasteful and vacuous sprawl that is taken seriously. No one takes statements like that seriously.

I would definitely like to see more of this. Very cool.

Is there a sort of population threshold that must be attained before a city can support a light-rail investment with ridership?

Originally posted by: DFire870 The main reason why people live in the suburbs is the high desnsity areas aren't so good for raising a family. And sprawl doesn't always take away farmland. Sure, it might eat up ranches and woodlands, but to say it just eats up farmland is stupid. Also, not every new development bulldozes all the trees and plants new ones. This might be the exception, but in my subdivision they left many of the trees, so there are maybe 2 or 3 houses that have young trees. (Hell, my backyard has about 10 trees and it's tiny!). And if you really want to complain about this, go back 50 years and complain to Eisenhower. Because honestly, suburban sprawl is only going to get worse, not better. (BTW, I'm not saying sprawl is good, but there's really nothing you can do about it)quote> This is absolutely, utterly untrue. Try SmartGrowth principles. Try traditional neighborhoods. Try New Urbanism. Try Mass Transit. Consider that family-friendly neighborhoods of houses can exist within a walkable, viable, communicable, and still maintain a density that is suitable for children and pets and whatnot. Look at any pre-WWII suburb of any major American city. Very walkable, very accessible to the rest of the city, transitions nicely into more urban zones, and is still quaint, tree-lined streets fronted by beautiful old houses. There's no reason why we have to continue to exacerbate our automobile addiction by persisting to build the types of nonplaces that Charleston, Greenville, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Las Vegas, or any American city is currently suffering from.

Pictures don't tell us much as to why you feel a city is poorly planned - and that goes for this entire thread. Every place has a special circumstance that is the reason why things are the way they are, so when you post pictures of traffic and say that that means a place is poorly planned, you really haven't made an argument at all. Big cities are crowded. That's how they are. For traffic to be a breeze all of the time in a big city you'd have to demolish most of the city to accomodate that. Just because traffic is unpleasant doesn't mean that a place is unpleasant to live in. Imagine the streets of New York or Paris or Chicago or London or Tokyo, empty. They'd make for great driving, but what kind of large city could call itself important when its streets are devoid of life?

xxbydesign and DARKO: Thank you for your insight. It's funny because it seems like this thread is rather intellectually one-sided; those of us who try to make compelling arguments as to why suburban sprawl is soulless and unhealthy end up laughing at responses like "I lIkE SprAwL bEkUZ I lIvE ClosE tO BunNIeS anD I lIke CaRZ LOL RoTfL LMAO hahah"

There is nothing spiritually, emotionally, or physically fulfilling about sprawl. Suburbs, on the other hand, can be quite beautiful when integrated well with their surroundings - tree-lined grid of streets, quaint white-washed houses, corner markets, a wholesome, fulfilling way of life. But American sprawl is all walls, divisions, berms and buffers, strips, lanes, just division after division after division. Uses are divided. What? Put commercial services that people need within walking distance of homes? Preposterous! The nerve! If we did that, some might even have the gall to leave their cars in the driveway for once! If suburbanites could for one second look past all the pretty landscaping and river rock siding and ample traffic provisions, they would see that they live in a place of utter void. I grew up 60 miles outside of Los Angeles - essentially the mother of suburban sprawl. There is nothing pleasant about driving down a road and seeing nothing but cinder-block wall and the backs of cheaply constructed houses. There is nothing pleasant, in fact, about being absolutely forced to drive anywhere. I should not have to get in my car when I need a quart of milk, but with the endless barriers and walls and divisions and vast, wasted concrete-and-planter expanses, I have no choice. People were initially drawn to the suburbs because they felt trapped in the close quarters of the city. But now, nothing feels more trapping than sprawl. Los Angeles, Pheonix, Houston, Atlanta, Sacramento, Las Vegas - largest prisons on earth. Sprawl is not good, lovable, healthy, useful. It is destructive, wasteful, and demoralizing.

Originally posted by: belfastuniguy I just want to take some of the points and expand on them. 6. Australia is a possible potential Presidential republic, Canada less so quote> Why is that? [i don't know much about either country's government, so I genuinely am curious]

I'm sure I would be surprised. Considering that mass transit in the Greater LA Area is miserable. I'm really a transit virgin. And the only times I've ever used public transit, the number of which I can count on both hands, have been so that I simply walked from hotels to transit stops.

The only places we have that kind of highway lighting in Southern California is at freeway interchanges with high stacks and flyover ramps. They make sense there, because the'res more levels to be lit, but it just seems kind of wasteful and unnecessary over single highways.

Davis? Wow, that's a drive. Don't BART stations have garages that commuters from further out can leave there cars there and get on the train the rest of the way into the city?

As heated as I must admit I became when reading Tarkus' initial thoughts on NU and ULD, I concede some points to him... for instance, well-planned, well-connected (cul-de-sacs destroy cities), mixed-use, ped-friendly neighborhoods on the lower end of the density spectrum are more than possible if done well and done considering autos on at least an equal level of accessibility importance with people. The one thing, though, that still greatly irks me about low-density is that its proponents expect to have the amenities of the city with the wide-open spaces of the country. It's like expecting to have the sunny, hot, beachy summers of Southern California and the icy, beautiful winters of the Northeast... it's simply unnatural and to try to bridge those things would be perverse and fake - exactly what most low-density, auto-oriented developments are throughout this country. As Americans we are used to having it all, all of the time. But I think more and more people are beginning to see that that is unsustainable and unrealistic.

Corinth Kaiserford Rosebank Coen Bend Unionburg Union Gap Horton Bend Arendt Park Cardenas Santa Rosa Verona Beach Seville Coast Albion Point Presidio City Delton New Brunswick Salisbury Renteri City Partington Junction Portola Bay Valencia Temple City Lakewood Hills Lakewood

::sigh:: this forum got really boring really fast. here we were, intellectually debating and exchanging thoughts, and now we're back to griping about freeways. Good day

Expounding on SamJam's point, for NU developments to work, they have to cater to the transit network, and Tarkus is right, it's a waste for transit networks to cater to them, as SamJam's example of Toronto shows. Ideally transit networks are laid out to maximize coverage and efficiency, and urban developments ought to spring up around them. Portland's issue, while I am not wholly familiar with it, seems to be that the city tried to push spurs of their light rail or whathaveyou to where developers chose to build their projects - but I think the only thing this shows is that you can't let developers control reurbanization. And, agreed, people shouldn't give up their cars entirely. But one should not have to own and drive a car in order to be a fully-functioning member of society. The problem with more roads, ULD, etc. is that it lets cars control our lives. Most developments, especially of the ignominious surburban variety, are designed with cars in mind first, and the people that will be using them are further on down the list. In my city, when a proposal is presented, the first thing the people ask is not, "How will this benefit my community or neighborhood?", or, "What sort of impact will this have on the way I live?", but rather they scream, "Not enought parking!" "Generates too much traffic!" "Where will my SUVs go?!" My point is that people need not relinquish their cars, but need to stop being so ridiculously excessive with them. Sure, their invention benenfitted society in innumerable ways. But our subsequent, out of control addiction to them was ruinous to too many once-splendid American cities. Why is it necessary that I drive several miles for a quart of milk or to return a video? Why does the vast, vast, seething majority of workers have to drive to their jobs? Why can't, say, and equal third walk, an equal third drive, and another equal third use transit? Why do we let cars run our lives and 8-lane automotive sewers bisect and destroy our communities? Because too many people believe in ULD. So I leave you with the simple request, Tarkus, that you describe to us just how the ideal ULD community would look to you.

I apologize for my sharp and personal tone, it just is very alarming to see that there are people who would rather see the further decline of the city and the rise of suburbia - to an even greater extent that it has already harmed America - in a world where there will be more and more people and less and less planet left each day. Speaking of population rates, what study has ever said that the Earth's population will decline any time in the seeable future? And, Mulefisk, one of the biggest reasons why NU projects have failed is because the vast majority of municipal policymakers are ambivalent if not hostile to them, and under most current zoning codes, many NU projects are actually illegal because they "liberally" mix uses in a way that hasn't been seen in decades.

Oh, yes... My fellow Southern Californians, how could we forget the ignominious CA 91. Don't forget about that wild and crazy, $15 billion, 11-mile tunnel proposal under the Santa Anas between Irvine and Corona! Fun. Four miles from my home. Can't wait for that one to be approved.

Ultra-low density is obsolete. Ultra-low density applies to farmland. What would the world be like if everything was ULD? There would be not a lick of open space anywhere on land. We could have tract homes and 12-lane freeways in Siberia, and on Easter Island, and in the Sahara, and Antarctica. Apparently that would be excellent planning to Tarkus.