piccboi824

I just wanted to comment on the recurring issue of improving mass transit in the suburbs. There are several reasons why making improvements to transit in the suburbs is often infeasible. Let me lay it on the table for you. 1.) Building transit takes HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars. Look up any current transit project in this country and check the price tag. If that kind of money was so easy to come by, then there would be large expansive systems in every major metropolitan area. Because building rail systems is such a huge investment to be made by the local, state, or Federal governments, they're not going to build them where projected ridership isn't high enough for the system to essentially pay for itself. 2.)The demographic of the suburb- The dominant socio-economic class calls the shots in any neighborhood. Wealthier residents fight transit extension because they feel that it makes their safe little bubble susceptible to the bad influence of the working class. Look at LA. Currently the Expo Line, which is near completion of phase 1, is being built to connect Santa Monica with Downtown Los Angeles. It travels through the westside, which is the wealthier portion of Los Angeles County. The line faces opposition form the residents of Cheviot Hills (an affluent neighborhood) with one resident making the statement -- "Do you think the people who live in Cheviot Hills are going to take this bloody train. No, they are going to get in their cars. The people who are going to use this are the people who work in the hotels in Santa Monica, and they are going to come from the Hispanic areas nearer downtown. Now they take the bus." This is a reality that happens with alot of projects. In my neighborhood in "suburban" Miami (Miami has more of and urban suburb with denser population, but the same heavy traffic and shopping centers, though it doesn't take thatlong to get places) a commuter rail that would run less than ten blocks from my house on an existing CSX right of way was shut down because of voter opposition to the noise and frequency of trains. My neighborhood is mainly middle class, no where near the affluence of Cheviot Hills, but because the majority of households own cars and woouldn't have to rely on mass transit, they didn't deem it necessary. Transit is mostly ridden by the low-income bracket and because transit gets buit where it gets ridden, it won't get built in the suburbs because the main riders don't lve there. 3.)Sometimes it just isn't feasible. Let's look at the modes of transit. Heavy rail requires complete grade separation either underground, elevated, or surface(like an expressway median). Again we're talking major expense even for a short extension. Light-rail in my opinion is only really good if it's grade separated as well. LRV's can reach high speeds that make commuting comparable to heavy rail, but if it operates on the street level in mixed traffic or without grade separation at major intersections, then it becomes more of a nuisance than a god send. It'll have to run at slower speeds which means longer headways, a longer commute, and more of a hassle than just driving. Plus, LRV's can't negotiate tight corners, have restricted train length based on the length of blocks (unless trains are allowed to block intersections whole stopped), and require track to be laid in the street to go anywhere. That's why we made a switch from streetcars to buses, because they can maneuver better and more safely and because routes coud be changed without major expense. The bus is seen as something used because you don't have a car, not an alternative to it and because it has a more uncomfortable ride, you'd might as well be in your car. This turned out to be a long post, but I hope I gave more insight to how things operate in the real world. we must remember that what are simple solutions in Simcity aren't so simple in a world with bureacracy, voting, and expense (none of which exist in Simcity).

North America will never be anything like Europe or Asia without a massive overhaul of infrastructure which will cost in the trillions of dollars and therefore will never happen in any of our lifetimes and maybe even in the lifetimes of the next three generations. You would have to reorganize the layout of the suburbs and develop way too much in order to have anything like what Euorpe and Asia have, at least in the younger cities in the Western and Southern United States. It is highly impractical to extend transit into the outer suburbs due to the tremendous cost of expanding and operating transit and the fact that the majority of the suburban population aren't just going to stop driving because there is public transit. In fact, in most places, transit plans are heavily opposed by those who have the option of driving. In my neighborhood in Miami, andy plan to have a street running LRT or a commuter train running on existing track, has always been voted down by the community because people won't give up their cars, especially in areas farther out. Even my sister and her husband who live on the west side of Chicago with a Blue line stop at the end of their block, will drive to work instead of taking the train, because they can then operate on their own schedule. I on the other hand would be on that train everyday I because I hate driving. Families in the suburbs won't be making a mad dash back to city either for several reasons. The cost of living in decent areas of cities like New York, LA, Chicago, Miami, etc. is incredibly high. In Miami for example, a nice sized 3 bed/2 bath can be purchased for $300,000 outside of the city, while a place of equivalent size in a decent neighborhood within the city would be on the market fro 3 times as much. Another factor that keeps families in the suburbs is the higher crime rate and poor performance of city schools. My sister and her husband moved into a newly gentrified neighborhood in the West Side of Chicago 5 years ago. The area has made a comeback, with a lot of young professionals, med students, and such moving into the area. Most of these people are single, dating couples, or newly weds just starting out who moved there because it is only 10 minutes from the Dwntown Loop and is within walking distance of the Illinois Medical District and the University of Illinois at Chicago. They don't have a problem with the moderate crime and poor school performance, because they don't have kids. But once the kids come along, they will sacrifice convenience for good schools and the ability for their child to play out on the street without exposure to drugs and violence. On the other hand, I do believe that living in the city affords a different experience than growing up in the suburbs. You are exposed more to a variety of cultures and encounter people from all walks of life. It is sad to say that suburbia in most cases does not demonstrate the diversity of our country bothe racially/ethnically and socio-economically. There are also a lot of good magnet and charter schools being established in major cities that perform well, plus there is always private education. You also can spend less time commuting and more time with your family. Plus there is just more of a real world experience in urban areas. I grew up in Miami which has "urban" suburbs, so it was the best of both worlds (except transportation and commuting really sucks) because I benefited from good schools, more space, and lower crime but I also encountered a formed a diverse group of friends, developed street smarts and lived the busy city lifestyle. To sum things up, suburbia may not be ideal, but it won't be disappearing anytime soon.

This is by far the dumbest idea I have ever heard. This isn't a solution to the problem! It's like trying to put out a fire, but instead of grabbing the water pale, you crab a gas can and throw it on, creating an explosive inferno! I agree that something should be done about abandoned, derelict buildings, but demolishing whole neighborhoods just because they are "negatively affective" to the image of the city is absurd. Believe it or not people live in the inner city because they have no other affordable option, not because they enjoy living the ghetto lifestyle. These areas used to be pristine, strong, and thriving neighborhoods where people of all classes lived. When the white middle and upperclass made their move from the urban core to the suburbs, they left all of these blighted structures to the occupancy of the poorer and disadvantged working class (primarily minorities, immigrants, and the poor whites). Because no one really had interest in these groups, they allowed investment in these communities beyond the bare minimum to drop. They built highways through the hearts of these communities and allowed crime to rise and education and opportunity for advancement to fall. No attention was ever paid to these places , even when the residents wanted to rise up and save their community from becoming what it is today. Now they have our attention because we can't look pass them anymore, and instead of dealing with the issues there, we buyout the residents with offers that seem huge to them at first (because they have never seen so much money before), promise some affordable housing, and then build new townhouses and condos for the young professionals to move into. This occurs all of the time and it's called gentrification. It is great for us, the suburbanites who can live the nice city life and afford these places, but it displaces thousands out of their homes and forces them to move to other areas to start the cycle again, or they just end up in the homeless shelters or on the streets. Then we'll be complaining about all of the bums hanging around the subways and downtown (*cough* Miami). This will only work if you address two key issues: 1.) The availability of affordable housing for those who are displaced, and actually coming through with our promises of providing that housing. Why can't we just improve and update the residences of the low-income bracket instead of kicking them out and letting the higher-income brackets come in. You'd be outraged if a bunch of Donald Trumps bought you out of your house (or pull the imminent domain card) just so that he could tear it down and build his new private estate over it, while you're left homeless. Why do it to these peole? 2.) Improving police, health, and education services in these neighborhoods. Many new residents of gentrified areas usually leave once they begin to have families because of the crime and poor performance of the local schools, so they end up moving back to the suburbs, effectively restarting the cycle. If the kids who grow up here have the ability to grow up without drugs and violence and can receive a proper education that will allow them to go to college and be able to compete for high paying jobs, then they can break out of the cycle of poverty and have an opportunity for advancement and to fix up their neighborhoods. If we don't invest in improving these issues, we'll just have a perpetual cycle of shifting blight.

Comparing the transit systems of North America and foreign nations especially ones like South Korea is pretty ridiculous, we're too different in terms of infrastructure, economics, and organization. Everyting is going to be less expensive there, because the have less inflation and a weaker currency than we do here in the U.S. and Canada. That's why they can build a large system that goes to every destination and collect a lower fare because it is just cheaper. I think paying a $2.00-$2.75 fare is cheaper than paying 10-20 times as much to fill up your tank and sit in traffic and contribute to global warming anyday. The Seoul Subway just doesn't come clean by itself, people have to constantly clean and maintain the stations in order to be that way. They can hire more santation workers because they have a larger population than any of the cities that you mentioned in North America, their system is run by three separate organizations, not just one, and because they are not required to pay their workers as much as we are required to pay ours. When you are one agency that must hire thousands of workers to operate vehicles and maintain trackage, I think you prioritize operation and function over cleanliness. plus, the New York, Toronto, and Chicago systems are way older than Seoul's system. I'd have to say the the Chicago "L" is my favorite sytem because it connects you to the entire region. You can get to both airports, connect to all Amtrak and commuter train services, get to every sports complex, and reach the cultural and shopping destinations of the area either directly or through connecting service. What other destinations whould you need to go to? The buses are extremely reliable, there is never a long wait, and there are short headways between trains.

I find grids to be very efficent and easier to deal with than a street hierarchy system (suburban system). I mean when your residential demand is high and you need more workers for your commercial offices or factories, it is much quicker to plop a large grid of different block sizes than to make a bunch of winding roads and little cul de sacs that will end up lengthening your sims commute and causing tremenous congestion on your main artery. Increased congestion raises traffic noise and pollution which lowers desirability as well. Besides there are many different kinds of grids. I am taking more of a L'Enfant approach to grid design with my current city. It has many winding and diagonal main streets that criss cross through my basic street grid creating a mix of square and rectangular blocks with triangular and irregular shaped blocks, much like Washington DC's diagonal avenues and lettered (east-west) and numbered(north-south) streets. I find that this leaves one or two squares for bus and subway stops next to congested intersections and makes my city more organic while still being planned and structured.

There are so many dirty cities it's hard to pick one. The worst thing I've seen is the village in the city dump of Managua,Nicaragua. People actually live in and make their houses out of the city trash. And we're talking hundreds of people who live there. The Cleanest I have to say is Miami. We have city wide recycling, clean streets, regular garbage pickup, and seeing as how our economy has always been based on tourism and international business, we have no industrial smog that hang over citiesin the Northeast and the Rust Belt.

I'm a very transit oriented mayor. all of my major cities employ some form of transit whether it be subway/elevated, monorail, intercity rail, ferries, or a combination of everything. I usually get excited a build my highways or rail at the beginning and build up around them so that my sims will end up having to rely on them. For example, as my main city gets older and becomes more commercial based, I move my industry to neighboring towns and have either one avenue or highway connection and a rail/transit connect to that city so that way, traffic is forced on to those thoroughfares ensuring usage. I hate building a great highway system and have like a handful of Sims use it. For some reason they would rather stay on side streets and roads that high occupancy highways and avenues.

These post are ridiculous! One of the first posts which was like a few years ago talked about Miami and it was so racist and misinformed. As a resident of Miami who has grown up there and is witnessing the turbulent rise and fall that is our city, I do have to admit that we cannot plan ANYTHING and suffer from hindsight. But, I must say that Miami is not one giant ghetto (every city has what black folks like me call the 'hood') and more and more people speak english now. We aren't a third world country, we are a gamma class global city for the rich and elite. Some people need to stop watching Miami Vice and CSI Miami( it's not even filmed there, that's Long Beach people, the only thing from Miami is the helicopter shot of the Brickell skyline). The only area that I would not drive through at all would be the northwest side in Liberty City,Allapattah,Brownsville, and down 27th Avenue (Unity Blvd.). Though it is obvious that I am fond of my city, it does have its flaws. The city was developed overnight. We had so much real estate boom in the 20's, we hit bust way before the rest of the country didi in the Great Depression. Nothing was planned. We have only one east-west expressway that does not extend to the western neighborhoods of Doral, West Kendall,and the Redlands where these thorough fares are needed. Our Metrorail was built at the same time as the Baltimore subway (they have identical train cars because they shared an order) when the federal government, who funds the nation's transit systems evrywhere, didn't have sufficient funds. So they never had the capital to fully complete the system to extend to the airport, to the southern communities of Cutler Ridge and Homestead, to the northern black communities and Pro Player-Dolphin stadium, and to West Kendall. Now with even more budget cuts everywhere across the state, their Orange Line plan is being delayed even more. Downtown is another poorly planned area. There is no high end retail or shopping destinations(places that are worth a special trip downtown like the shops on Chicago's Magnificent Mile). Downtown attractions are limited and don't cater to a wide variety of people, and the parks and highway overpasses are overrun with bums. They build freakin' 76 story condos everyday that no one ever moves in to because no one can afford to live in them when a 1 bed/1 bath starts in the 500,000's. And people who could afford still won't move there because there is absolutely nothing to do after 6:00pm when downtown shuts down. The Beach,Coconut Grove, Key Biscayne,Brickell, ad Midtown are much more desirable and active areas to live. Well I didn't intend to ramble on about Miami, but that gguy got me so POed that I had to say something. I think Houston is kind of disorganized, but even planned cities like Philadelphia and DC can seem that way, because the times that they were planned in were completely different. I mean could L'Enfant really plan for an Interstate in 1797 when they didn't even have national roads let alone trains and automobiles, like give me a break. Besides why would you want som loud ugly congested Spaghetti junction in the middle of our nation's capital. DC is perfect just the way it is, it doesn't need a 6-lane highway and skyscrapers to be a planned city. That's why the Washington Metro has the second highest ridership in the United States after the NYC subway.