Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy • Hacker News Board

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#191

Post by duxup » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #111

> But it wasn’t strictly an “everything is bigger in Texas” ethos that caused Houston to sprawl the way that it does. Rather, Cold War–era urban design philosophy in the U.S. prioritized sprawl because older cities that had urbanized pre–World War II—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit—were seen as being susceptible to nuclear strikes. Less-dense cities such as Los Angeles and Houston were less likely to be…

I don't doubt someone thought of / would like that idea... but I have trouble believing sprawl really was influenced by some plan involving nuclear strikes.

Yeah you'd have a good chance of having more survivors due to the nature of nuclear weapons, but I don't see that influencing choices like wanting to have a suburban home and etc.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#192

Post by sudosysgen » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

wozniacki wrote: post #189

sudosysgen wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scooters, the RER, the SNCF, the bus, the Vélib and the metro, are very cheap and service even poor parts of Paris and the Banlieue pretty well.

There's also this assumption that people in relatively segregated rich areas want to be connected to poorer areas via public transit - the opposite is more often true. People who wish to live in neighborhoods with low crime often NIMBY off any attempts to add public transit options specifically to keep out the riffraff. Marin County is home to over 252,000 residents, yet it is without a BART station. If you search we…

Agreed, though I don't think we should, as a society, allow this kind of class-based segregation. It causes nothing but pain in the long term.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#193

Post by marcosdumay » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

scruple wrote: post #104

tuna-piano wrote: post #55

It's interesting that protests generally happen in dense parts of cities. Now imagine a city without a dense part - protesting becomes more difficult. Myanmar's non-democratic military government actually moved their capital from a dense city to a new city so spread out and with no downtown area - potentially to prevent the ability to protest the government. https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/inside-burma-s-ghost-t…

Reminds me of Brasilia.

Where people have no problem protesting in front of government buildings.

That "people always protest at the densest areas of the city" is just that, correlation. The targets of their protests happen to be in those areas.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#194

Post by jeffasinger » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

maxsilver wrote: post #134

ebg13 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no way to go anywhere (no parking, no meaningful transport, because 'everything we'd let you have is a short walk away') It's news to me that the Paris Bus, Tram, Metro, RER, SNCF, Velib, and the venerable scooter have all suddenly vanished.

Obviously they haven't, and they remain great options for people wealthy enough to afford Parisian Townhouses. But unless you somehow gift me one million dollars USD or more (and the same to every single person I know), none of us are going to be able to afford to live anywhere in Paris that actually has close access to all of those things you've described, with the living situation described above. If we're magicall…

If the problem is that there aren't enough acceptable quality housing with good public transit access, it seems like building more transportation and housing would be a good solution rather than building similarly expensive suburban sprawl.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#195

Post by gambiting » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #111

> But it wasn’t strictly an “everything is bigger in Texas” ethos that caused Houston to sprawl the way that it does. Rather, Cold War–era urban design philosophy in the U.S. prioritized sprawl because older cities that had urbanized pre–World War II—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit—were seen as being susceptible to nuclear strikes. Less-dense cities such as Los Angeles and Houston were less likely to be…

It wouldn't have. In case of an all out war each side would send dozens if not hundreds of rockets at each target. US in particular had the problem where each arm of the military(airforce, army, navy and missile command) had their own and completely independent launch plans. So each one would launch their own compliment of nukes at Russian cities. Destruction of your own missiles by the already exploding weapons was actually seen as a significant issue that would lead to loss of many if not majority of weapons. Eric Schlosser's Command and Control is, as always, a great read about this.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#196

Post by leetcrew » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 6:25 PM UTC

kaesar14 wrote: post #37

totalZero wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Houston, you drive. There is no reason to judge space in one place by the use patterns of a totally different place.

Walking sounds less dangerous, less polluting, and better for overall health

it is also slower and you cannot bring nearly as much with you. I love walking to restaurants, but I prefer to drive to the furniture store.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#197

Post by ghaff » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 6:25 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #114

oblio wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in the name. You only have "sub-urban living" because there is an "urban" nearby.

You don't have to go to the urban center for everyday things though, you go there because that's where the jobs are. When full remote becomes more wide-spread, that might change things rapidly.

Some jobs. There are more than there used to be in some cities but most technology jobs are still in suburban campuses and industrial parks.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#198

Post by adrianN » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #142

xg15 wrote: post #111

> But it wasn’t strictly an “everything is bigger in Texas” ethos that caused Houston to sprawl the way that it does. Rather, Cold War–era urban design philosophy in the U.S. prioritized sprawl because older cities that had urbanized pre–World War II—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit—were seen as being susceptible to nuclear strikes. Less-dense cities such as Los Angeles and Houston were less likely to be…

That would be a lot of ICBMs. The city center is not residential. Most people that work in the city center for city's like houston or LA commute from one of many different cities. Just to wipe out half of houston you would need to simultaneously strike at least a dozen different locations. The idea was, if there is a missile on the way or if other cities are being attacked, the sprawl would allow evacuating a lot of…

MAD did not allow for "surrender". You either wipe out your enemies military completely before they manage to launch most of their rockets, or you both die. There is no targeting of symbolic locations and then calling it quits.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#199

Post by smerdyakov » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

abraxas wrote: post #177

maxsilver wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you feel "stacked on top of each other" in a Parisian townhouse with a magnificent shared courtyard, 12 foot ceilings, and everything you could possibly want a short walk or subway ride away? No, I wouldn't feel "stacked on top of each other" if I were a multi-millionaire in Paris. But, in the real world, your talking about putting families into 600sqft (at very best) boxes, with audible neighbors on every si…

Nonsense. There are very walkable and affordable cities with pleasant neighborhoods that don't break the bank in all parts of the world (sans North America). Off the top of my head and from first hand experience: - Warsaw - Glasgow - Porto - Lisbon - Athens (Greece) - Berlin - Budapest - Barcelona (OK, this one gets pricey but is superbly laid out)

To be fair at least some of these cities aren't described as affordable by locals. Berliners are constantly complaining about the rent prices.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#200

Post by rsynnott » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

reddog wrote: post #173

dylan604 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urban sprawl happened because people were tired of living on top of each other, and cities that had the room to expand used it. There was also another name used for that sprawl, white flight. I think we're seeing some of the results of that today.

I've always thought it was funny how whites moving from the city to the suburbs is bad (white flight) and whites moving from the suburbs to the city is also bad (gentrification).

I think you have to detach the idea of _personal_ blame from it. They're both phenomena which cause problems.