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The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

strongtowns.org

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Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#161

Post by altoidaltoid »

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.

and you can kick out "undesirables" and control political speech.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#162

Post by [deleted] »

reggieband wrote: post #157
rayiner wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re the one moving the goal posts. We were not talking about whether the population of families was significant “enough to support a large number of businesses.” I was replying to a post that suggested New York was an example of “a living, breathing, functional and healthy” urban community. By my reckoning, middle class households with kids are underrepresented by a factor of six in Manhattan. That’s is a hugely d…

> You’re the one moving the goal posts. I'm responding directly to your claim using your own words. Again you want to change the subject, which is fine. > I think that disqualifies New York City from being deemed “functional” and “healthy.” I made no claim for or against that point. I responded to your claim "almost no middle class families" which I believe to be false. Feel free to walk back that hyperbole if it isn…

[deleted]

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#163

Post by avip »

dsr_ wrote: post #43
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.

It appears likely that we are going to have to write off at least half of Florida in the next century, so any building at all seems counterproductive compared to finding better places to live.

Better write off the entire thing while it has some market value.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#164

Post by kop316 »

clairity wrote: post #158
kop316 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to both of those places. The huge difference between them, the example I give, and the one from the website once you park and get to the grove, there's no car traffic in it! The third street promenade likewise had entire blocks closed to traffic. Crossings where also very generous to the pedestrians, so you rarely had to wait to cross the street and knew that you wouldn't get hit. It was also very easy to w…

yes, i was commenting more on the impetus for the rise of insular, faux "microcommunities" in general than on the walkability therein, which, as you point out, is better at 3rd street & the grove.

That's fair. I didn't mean to suggest you were incorrect, my point is I think folks are trying to replicate it without understanding why it works.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#165

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

atombender wrote: post #151
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live near Santa Fe, NM and I cannot possibly agree with this characterization. Most modern (i.e. non-tourist) commerce in S.Fe is on Cerrillos Road. While I support this arrangement to a large degree, Cerrillos is a 4 mile long strip mall, in essence. In a car, it's convenient. On foot, it's a nightmare. There is a bus running up and down, but the bus rarely seems to have much ridership. The old core of S.Fe contai…

I don't live in Santa Fe, but I think it's got a very walkable core. That said, it's also a very typical example of a town whose residential suburbia has ballooned without support from public transit, to the point that if you don't live near Cerillos Road, you're basically in the suburbs and absolutely you need a car.

Well, the problem is that "the core" isn't "the core" :)

It's very walkable if you're visiting or enjoying a day in town. It's very unwalkable if you need to get normal day to day or week to week shopping done.

The transit/'burbs thing is probably true, but I live so far from the city that I'm not really familiar with the transit situation.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#166

Post by 205guy »

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…

That's cool, I didn't know about the Epcot concept city. It reminds me of Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium, a "new town" built by and for a university in the early 1970's:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvain-la-Neuve

"the city center is built on a gigantic concrete slab, with all motorized traffic travelling underground. This allows most of the ground level of the city center to be car free. Most buildings are built on the slab (la dalle), and the pedestrian area is expanding even far from the city centre."

(I also learned about Louvain on HN last year, but I can't find the link now)

Though when you think about these layered cities really require a lot more cement, just so you can have your car in a basement. It was so much more efficient to have a dense city and a train station to go most places.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#167

Post by gshdg »

Bootwizard wrote: post #76

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…

The key difference in what you describe is that there are apartments above the businesses. Mixing residential and commercial in a walkable way is what makes a real community. The shopping center described in the article is nothing like that.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#168

Post by papito »

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…

You start somewhere. If you have multiple dwelling buildings, there will be more people per square mile. Then local business come in. People from the outside may not be accommodated in terms of parking, but at least people who live in the neighborhood don't have to fire up the car to get some milk. It's not that different from a neighborhood in, say, Queens.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#169

Post by berkeleyjunk »

alex_c wrote: post #48
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…

I mean... are you dismissing the bad because there’s worse? My takeaway is that this kind of new development looks better (“movie set”) than what you describe, but it does not meaningfully change how people use and interact with the space and with each other. The hard part is building a living, breathing, functional and healthy community on a continent that’s been built from the ground up around cars. There are so ma…

Check out Montreal. It has a great downtown and decent public transit. It is also very walkable about 9 months a year.

Re: The Rise of “Movie-Set Urbanism”

#170

Post by 205guy »

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 the original article doesn't emphasize enough is that because the project isn't close enough to the density and viability and desirability of a vibrant and dense town center, it will not evolve into to one, but rather evolve in the other direction, toward a strip mall.

They do touch on this with a few quotes:

"As a result, these places tend not to hold their value over time, and to feel very dated after a couple decades."

"these places are also liabilities from a public-finance point of view because their drive-to, drive-away nature means that huge amounts of the land must go to roads and parking, which require maintenance but generate no direct value, and no tax revenue for the local government."

The Strong Towns website likes to emphasize urbanism from a city-accountant point of view: would you like your town/city to attract people and have a rising tax-base (aka value) so that you can afford to maintain the infrastructure, rather than lose value to the point where you can't afford to maintain it, and it deteriorates and becomes even more undesirable.

This place might be attractive for a while, but if it is only superficial with ice cream shops and brewpubs, it's just another place to drive to, not live in. When they build a Walmart and Home Depot and food court 10 miles away, people will drive there for cheaper stuff. If people live close enough to walk here, it may develop a small hardware store, some clothes shopping, and maybe a thrift store. If the people who live nearby have to get into their car anyway, it will be just a destination among many, not a livable place.

I think that is the criticism of this project: it is not good enough to become what they want you to think that it is.

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