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The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

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Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#71

Post by Swenrekcah »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #66
Swenrekcah wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably true, but in the intervening 75 years, cities would do well to build up their public transport.

The only thing that will cause cities to build up public transport is if people start living in more dense quarters. And the only thing that will make people start living in more dense quarters is if the cost of moving people and all the mass associated with their lives increases drastically. Therefore, the only solution is to cause the price of fuel to rise dramatically, or wait for the consequences of fuel use to r…

I agree. Also cities and municipalities should charge for road usage.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#72

Post by wingdom »

kipchak wrote: post #69
wingdom wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this particular development is in Florida, where you can't go under ground, and hurricane building codes make building up more complicated and expensive. As a Florida resident, I would love to see more parking garages, so parking takes up less ground surface area.

Going "underground" in Florida is typically prohibitively expensive, but it's possible if you're willing to fudge things a bit. Disney's Utilidoor System is a tunnel system that sits above the water table by itself being mostly at ground level, and then having the parks built a story above it. The Lagoon around Disney comes from the dirt dug up to create the effect. I believe the concept for a underground transportat…

If only you knew how much I wish even some of the original Epcot city had been built in Central Florida. My life would be so much different it would be unrecognizable.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#73

Post by logfromblammo »

ses1984 wrote: post #35
seanalltogether wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really I think these "main streets shops" are designs to replace strip malls in suburban environments, which in my opinion is infinitely better.

Isn't it pretty much the exact same thing?

Not exactly. They put the parking in the back. Or the center. Or whatever. Somewhere you can't see it right away.

It's different. Better! Because this way if you put the strip malls across the street from each other, it's like one double-wide strip mall, instead of two separate strip malls with a double-size parking lot in between.

I guess it's not strictly necessary to keep the car traffic between the malls, but that way, you can reduce the speed limit to 15 mph and then still hit pedestrians trying to cross. Fun!

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#74

Post by ghaff »

chasd00 wrote: post #65

these are popping up in the DFW suburbs where they can be built from scratch. The standard setup is retail at street level with apartments on top and parking underground or at least concentrated in one large garage. They're not completely car free in the center of the development but it doesn't make sense to drive on the interior, there's no point. I think the streets on the inside are there mostly for fire/emergency…

You can have largely pedestrianized areas in the interior with these sorts of things but, in general, you need to provide parking because a lot of people are going to need/want to use a car to get to them even if they're on some sort of transit route.

They also tend to work better in moderate climates. One example of something along these lines in the Bay Area is Santana Row. Very clearly artificial but still relatively pleasant.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#75

Post by rayiner »

ses1984 wrote: post #36
rayiner wrote: post #12

> Until you deal with the parking problem—which is done by building truly mixed-use places where people can meet their daily needs without hopping in the car—you haven’t created true urbanism. Daily needs means jobs for both you and your spouse, which won’t be in some random subdivision in Florida. It means schools, which don’t appear to be there either. It means the kids’ after school activities, again, missing from…

>Driving is unavoidable What about public transport?

1) The US is not structurally capable of building public transit. For suburban areas like this, light rail is workable. But it costs us as much to build light rail as it costs other countries to build fully underground automated subway systems.

2) These are suburbs, so there is no rhyme or reason to where things might be located. It can literally take hours to do a route that you could do in a car in 30 minutes.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#76

Post by Bootwizard »

I live in a place exactly like this in Florida called Baldwin Park. It's much better designed and I love living here. The main difference is a few things (and these really matter to me):

1. All the parking is parallel parking along all the streets. This ensures that the number of businesses don't need their own massive ugly parking lots

2. There are actually apartments here above the businesses, so that it's always active, the people that live here keep the businesses below in business. We have everything from lawyers to gyms to dentists right below my feet in a single square mile.

3. This is actually a community. We have multiple community events and I can just show up and be there. We have a big shopping day every first Friday of the month where local merchants will set up tents and sell their stuff. They also do some event for nearly every holiday.

4. The entire town center is walkable. A square mile of walkable businesses, a park, a pool, etc.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#77

Post by bluGill »

michaelt wrote: post #40
C1sc0cat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have of street parking you get congestion as people park on streets - that is the reason why planners mandate of street parking.

I've heard of towns that attempt to solve this by marking roads residents-permit-parking-only, then only issuing one parking permit per house. Of course, it's not a perfect solution - you need exceptions for the elderly and infirm who need regular care visits; some sort of guest permit for anyone who hires tradespeople; and people who need a work vehicle have to do without a non-work vehicle, or be forced out. And it…

Just charge for parking with the goal of always having one empty parking spot per block. Everything else will work out: those who need to park there now will find a price, those more price sensitive will move elsewhere. If there is high demand someone will open up a parking garage.

All of that assumes good transit though. Without good transit everybody must have a car per adult plus a one spare per family. When you have to pay the expensive of several cars the additional costs of parking starts to hurt. Most people do not see any real alternatives to cars: transit needs to come every 10 minutes all day and get me many different places within half an hour to count as good.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#78

Post by bluGill »

oftenwrong wrote: post #15

Florida is almost entirely a place where you need a car to do anything. It is so absurdly spread-out that even driving at high speed on their high speed roads is a remarkably slow way to get anywhere. If people cannot park there, they cannot get there. Even if you built a real urban walkable neighbourhood with housing, stores, schools, offices, churches - a place where people could truly walk to all of their daily ne…

If it really was as a walkable neighborhood some people could get rid of the car. There would still be a lot of cars but we would have the start of people not having cars. Walkable means several possible jobs, a library, courthouse, many retailers at several price points including discount retail where you buy your daily groceries and clothing.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#79

Post by cortesoft »

dsr_ wrote: post #41
crazygringo wrote: post #30

Correct it's no vibrant, bustling organic downtown. But it's still a helluva lot better than nothing at all. The suburbs I grew up in? There were a bunch of shitty strip malls, and a single indoor mall with a single food court with zero natural lighting, taken over by teenagers after school because it was literally the only place to congregate besides the parking lot outside the supermarket. There was no local "cente…

What is shown is not better than what you grew up in; it's the same. It's an outdoor mall, pretending to be a downtown. The only difference is that this mall doesn't have the food court and the giant corridors; instead it's outside where the rain and bugs can get to you.

It is also near the water, which could be nice.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#80

Post by rayiner »

alistairSH wrote: post #55
rayiner wrote: post #12

> Until you deal with the parking problem—which is done by building truly mixed-use places where people can meet their daily needs without hopping in the car—you haven’t created true urbanism. Daily needs means jobs for both you and your spouse, which won’t be in some random subdivision in Florida. It means schools, which don’t appear to be there either. It means the kids’ after school activities, again, missing from…

Are you fellow Restonite? If so, "Hi!" RTC and the current major development is an interesting case... RTC predates the expansion of the subway system, so drive-to urbanism was, as you suggest, a reasonable option given other constraints. Now that the Metro is (almost) expanded past Reston to the airport, there is (was?) an opportunity to build a true human-scale urban environment (at least within the designated deve…

I don’t think Metro in Reston actually solves very much. The silver line gets you to the airport, Tyson’s, Arlington, and DC. But many if not most people who work in Reston are going to be working in and around Reston or Loudon county. What is the public transit situation for getting to a school from any of the new Reston developments?

I think you’re also correct that the development around the train stations are dysfunctional. That’s a common WMATA problem. The silver line stations, and the developments around them, are monstrous concrete edifices, not human scale at all.

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