101–110 of 209 posts
The main issue he cites seem to be parking taking up so much space. Wouldn't a parking deck solve this? Build a 6 story garage and the 18% goes to 3%.
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I think this is the idea behind culdesac (no private cars or parking in development, on light rail, carshare at periphery) but we'll see how that pans out.
No private cars in the development? OK, that means the housebound can't live there, because people like home health nurses can't be asked to drag equipment and other supplies from the closest parking to wherever the person lives. With many First-World countries looking at aging populations, this is going to limit the appeal of such developments.
The main issue he cites seem to be parking taking up so much space. Wouldn't a parking deck solve this? Build a 6 story garage and the 18% goes to 3%.
Parking garages are enormously expensive. They can cost up to 50k per space. For instance the parking garage at the Chinese theater cost as much as the theater itself
What makes them so expensive?
I wish the author would hit the non-walkability a bit harder. To get from one section to another, cross a street. To get from one side to another, you have to cross several streets. There is one area that did the same thing where I live (The Greene Town Center). I cannot simply think of why I would want to live there, and I was their target demographic! I really can't walk around inside of The Greene without having t…
I first encountered this kind of shopping center in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Main Street at Exton struck me as incredibly strange - it's a strip mall dressed up to look like an urban downtown, right down to parallel parking spots on the street. Once you do park, it is actually fairly walkable. A couple of years later, after having moved to Philadelphia, there was something I wanted to grab at a store in Main Stre…
to be honest, the grove always gives me the fakeness willies, like it's all facade and no substance (broken only when i walk into a store and it becomes real somehow).
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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.
Yet people continue to walk around in those areas. There's masses of onstreet parking here in Berlin and not that much off street parking, but the footpaths are always crowded. It's the same in Melbourne - some parts have onstreet parking and lots of people, and some parts of only off street parking and few people. If getting people to walk between destinations is a goal, you should increase the proportion of on stre…
How do busses ambulances etc move through a city that has narrow streets crammed with cars.
Of course with European city's with wide boulevards might not be as bad - though of course those wide streets are designed to stop barricades and to allow for the use of grape shot to stop the rioting presents.
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> There are so many examples everywhere in Europe and Asia, but I can’t think of many (any?) in North America. Manhattan.
Manhattan has almost no middle class people with kids. At most there are some upper middle class lawyers/bankers/programmers fighting it out over a handful of decent public schools. I don’t consider that functional or healthy. By age 45, 86% of Americans have had kids. Out of the remaining 14%, half say they wish they had kids. Just 5% say they don’t want kids—a number virtually unchanged from 1990. You can’t call an…
I’m not sure this is totally a rip from Hollywood or a kind of modern Potemkin city. I see this in old districts too. Facade in the front parking in the back. Strip malls are the inverse. With strip malls it looks ugly but you can tell at a glance if there is parking. The older form you don’t know till you drive around the back on a typically one-way street. The modern take is like the Emeryville Bay Street shopping…
I agree that Santana Row is particularly well done... but I think the author is reminiscing for something more like downtown Palo Alto. What he misses is a few things: a) Palo Alto can hold onto its old town feel because it’s literally the epicenter of Facebook, google, sand hill road and Stanford university. Some random town in Florida isn’t going to have all that. B) in places like Florida, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Hous…
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 a…
Is it in Orlando? If so, that actually looks like a pretty nice area! Judging by what I saw on the map, that would be a nice place to live. If one looks at the map, you see multiple parks surrounding the area, an elementary and middle school that appears to be walkable, a sizeable grocery store, and a lake to walk around. While it looks to have a lot of streets still throughout, it looks to be much more than just an…
It's a great place to live, tons of parks around, literally everything I need within walking or biking distance. We even have a 30 mile bike trail that starts from here.
I was just using my area as an example of how this model can work if designed well.
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 a…