America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 5:41 AM UTC

topmonk wrote: post #74

magduf wrote: post #49

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You don't need "low rise cohousing communities" to have families in cities. Japanese cities are extremely dense, yet people raise families there just fine. On my trip to Japan, I was really struck by how many children I saw in the middles of cities (moreso in some districts than others, of course), whereas I never see children in downtown American cities. Of course, Japanese cities don't have enormous parking lots, e…

Japan has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, well below replacement rates. Their society is also consists almost entirely of Japanese that all share the same culture. It would be very hard to emulate what they do and even so, no real guarantee that it would change anything.

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 5:48 AM UTC

madhadron wrote: post #169

sethhochberg wrote: post #59

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Bulldozing entire blocks of cities and replacing the mixed developments that were there with towers surrounded by isolated green space was attempted in the US during the middle of the century, under the guise of being "urban renewal". These projects were broadly considered failures, creating isolated communities with the net effect of displacing many more people in the "bulldoze" phase than they could attract in the…

Where did I ask for towers surrounded by isolated green space? Please look into what cohousing, as developed in Scandanavia, actually looks like.

Post by nostrademons » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 5:53 AM UTC

eitally wrote: post #228

asveikau wrote: post #213

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I am not sure what part of town you are in. Can you open google maps and tell me how much "green space" you see? More than I grew up with. Hint, there is a rather large rectangular one on the west side of town. But I have noticed (and been criticized on HN for claiming) that the parenting cultural bubble in SF seems completely unknown to many other subcultures. It is indeed a very good community, though.

Sure, but good luck easily getting to Golden Gate Park if you're, say, coming from Mission Bay. And if you can afford to live in the hillier parts of town the odds are good you probably have decent (albeit small) neighborhood parks. The problem with SF is that the public schools suck, the streets in a lot of the "urban" parts are rife with squalor, and the city is a lot bigger than it looks when you're trying to get…

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 5:54 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #243

mrep wrote: post #190

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> more small shops of all kinds, more coffeeshops, more live music, more social clubs, more classes, more playgrounds, more museums Suburban playgrounds are way better than urban ones and the rest of your examples require a lot of money. I'm biased because I grew up in the suburbs, but playing sports outside for free like I did as a kid sounds much better than having to get job because the only thing you can do in th…

No, you are misunderstanding me. There is more of pretty much everything within a kid-accessible distance in the city, including tons and tons of free stuff. There are more and better parks and playgrounds. There are more publicly accessible athletic facilities. There are more and bigger free public libraries. The amazing museums have regular free days for residents, and zoo/aquarium/museum passes can often be checke…

Post by closeparen » Fri, Jul 19, 2019, 5:58 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #252

closeparen wrote: post #233

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I don't know how to capture the hostility of suburbia any more perfectly than a walk down the El Camino in Sunnyvale. Try this on street view for a few blocks. Imagine yourself on the sidewalk. This is the world that the "urban cores in the USA are actively hostile places to be" consensus has given us. Maybe the cities this was built in response to really were some kind of unimaginable horror. But I'm pretty sure the…

And what does that area have an hyperabundance of? Parking spaces and road lanes. You can choose to optimize for car throughput or not. Or you can choose to make your spaces look like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3082077,-71.3535296,3a,75y,2... Your call.