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Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

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Re: Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

#191

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ryanj20021 wrote: post #147

Founder here. Great to see the excitement people have for Culdesac and for Culdesac Tempe. Our vision is to build the first car-free city in the US, starting with the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US. Join our waitlist at culdesac.com. We open next year! If you want to visit in the meantime, drop me a note. Hiring-wise, we're hiring in Tempe or remote. Our top hiring prio is to lead product de…

Good luck!

I’m not sure how much of an issue stormwater management is, in Arizona, but that was something my mother harped on, in Maryland.

Developers hate stormwater management, with a burning passion. My mother was not popular with them. Planned communities were notorious for not, er…planning for stormwater management. It usually required setting aside significant acreage, and doing a lot of fill work.

It was a really big deal, though. The communities that cut corners, suffered millions of dollars in damages, and often multiplied damages in other communities.

The dirty little secret about all these natural disasters; earthquakes, wildfires, volcanoes, tornadoes, etc., is that the single deadliest and most destructive force in nature, is good ol’ H2O.

Re: Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

#192

Post by djrogers »

ryanj20021 wrote: post #147

Founder here. Great to see the excitement people have for Culdesac and for Culdesac Tempe. Our vision is to build the first car-free city in the US, starting with the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US. Join our waitlist at culdesac.com. We open next year! If you want to visit in the meantime, drop me a note. Hiring-wise, we're hiring in Tempe or remote. Our top hiring prio is to lead product de…

Welcome to HN.

Couple of thoughts; first, it’s kinda weird for you to introduce yourself as a ‘founder’ - I’ve been around developers and real estate all my life, and I’ve never heard anyone use that term to describe what they do. Makes me wonder if you see this as more of a housing subscription service than a community?

Which leads to my second thought - what’s the thought process behind this being a rental-only thing? Are there any accommodations for families? Your website doesn’t appear to address kids or families of more than 2 people at all. Without ownership and family support, this really feels like a place nobody will be invested in making their home.

Third, how do you plan to deal with the inherent monopolies you’re building to avoid a ‘company town’ situation? For example, if residents are not allowed cars and are mostly stuck with your handpicked grocery store and restaurants, what will keep those establishments from just slacking off on service and overcharging?

Thanks for stopping by!

Re: Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

#193

Post by petsormeat »

GavinMcG wrote: post #42
_huayra_ wrote: post #27

These efforts seem well-intentioned but doomed to fail because it requires government action to make the rest of the area work , i.e. be more walkable / bikeable. It's great you can bike from your pricey apartment to your friend's, but try getting passed by a bunch of distracted drivers going 50mph faster than you on the arterial stroad when getting to the nearest reasonably-sized grocery store that is 10 miles away…

Having lived down the street from this site, I'm also skeptical. Tempe has some bike infrastructure, but the high temperatures four months of the year and the spread-out nature of the larger Phoenix metro makes a car a priority for most people, and cities (including Tempe and neighboring Mesa) design around that. There's a bike path to the west of this site that runs north-south but terminates after only a couple mil…

+1 on the use of "stroad." Too much of urban Arizona is ruined by these constructions.

Re: Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

#194

Post by oscardssmith »

verall wrote: post #188
fy20 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The odd thing is that nearly everyone in the community still drives everywhere, and some own multiple cars. Parking is a disaster and everyone complains about it, but these were all new builds and the buyers all should have known that parking would be limited. This sounds a lot like communities built during Soviet times. At the time the idea was everything you needed was in your community, and if you ever needed to…

In most American cities the bus schedules are like every 15-20 minutes and buses arrive at a near random distribution over that time. So even if traffic is so bad that driving is consistently 40 minutes, the bus-to-stop-to-bus trip is really anywhere from 40-80 minutes depending on your luck. I think people really value being able to estimate their commute and buses add a lot of variance.

That's an entirely self inflicted problem. Just run the busses every 5 or 10 minutes, and have twice as many busses.

Re: Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

#195

Post by solox3 »

Calling it "The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US", and then mentioning "zero private cars means zero hassle" (so there are other private vehicles, like trucks?), "Rideshare" (what are we sharing if not a car?) and "On-site car share" (so there ARE cars?), makes the headline inspirational - and with the best will in the world - a bit misleading.

Re: Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

#196

Post by benatkin »

vinceguidry wrote: post #37
_huayra_ wrote: post #27

These efforts seem well-intentioned but doomed to fail because it requires government action to make the rest of the area work , i.e. be more walkable / bikeable. It's great you can bike from your pricey apartment to your friend's, but try getting passed by a bunch of distracted drivers going 50mph faster than you on the arterial stroad when getting to the nearest reasonably-sized grocery store that is 10 miles away…

Not doomed to fail. Just doomed to not deliver what you're asking for, true car-free living. I moved to the nicest part of my city and drive twice a week, on weekends. When I go into the office, I walk. A neighborhood like this with cars evicted to the periphery would be miles better than this. It's already possible to commute without a car. You just have to plan your life around it. Which you're already in for if yo…

Also doomed not to be a real community. The only gathering points will be overpriced regional chains like Firecreek Coffee. I don't see people walking to visit their neighbors at their homes very often. It seems destined to be similar to any large condo.

Re: Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

#197

Post by gwbas1c »

Studio and 1-bedroom only? What about families? Couples that need an extra room for an office or home business?

And where do you park your personal car? I REALLY mean it. There are many "car-free" developments with well-placed parking areas for residents who choose to have a car. Even when I was able to live in a bike/walk/train situation, I still drove 2-3 times a week. (And, no I wouldn't have used a car share service, even if was easily available.)

Re: Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

#198

Post by drewr »

ethanbond wrote: post #116
notJim wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m skeptical that all planning is necessarily doomed to fail. Towns already do a considerable amount of planning via their zoning rules, and subdivisions are planned as well. The example here just seems like a subdivision, but planned for walkability rather requiring you to drive. Where did the place you lived in go wrong?

Well… most towns/subdivisions with zealous planning suck. The best cities in the world appear to be very organically grown. Maybe this is an illusion?

I think it may indeed be an illusion. Paris, for example, was extremely planned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Pa...

Re: Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

#199

Post by closeparen »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #158
harikb wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planning works great for public utilities- roads, libraries, parks etc. The moment we cross that are have a planned bank, grocer, retail I think it falls apart. The grocery shop needs guarantee on revenue to be setup, and then they will slack off because they won’t need to compete or innovate. People will realize once the HOA bill runs in to several hundred dollars and have to deal with shitty services. In the real w…

Doesn't zoning largely let you choose where private businesses go? Maybe you can't select exactly where to put the bank versus the grocery store, but you can select categories of businesses, to create the feel you want. (I'm not sure whether zoning is a "good" thing or not in general, but there are certainly lots of successful towns and cities with zoning rules.)

You can try, but there are failure modes.

* People don't want the things that are specified in the master plan, so there's no tenant that would be both legal and viable.

* Businesses are protected from competition (for their space, and for their niche in the area) so they charge too much and deliver too little.

* People want things that aren't in the master plan, and they aren't allowed to exist. (The politically engaged majority can get the plan amended with enough work, but these top-down designs can miss the long tail of niche interests, none individually powerful enough to get itself on the agenda).

Re: Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US

#200

Post by SilverRed »

stemlord wrote: post #69
jrsdav wrote: post #18

I live in a master planned community (Daybreak, Utah), and while you can definitely scoff at the building quality (state of things everywhere right now, it's all done fast and with low quality materials), it's been fantastic, especially during the pandemic. The whole neighborhood is designed to be walkable, with parks, pools, trails, train stations, grocery stores and restaurants (added in the later phases, which are…

Ive seen several attempts at master planned neighborhoods with little town center type things with the idea that youd rarely have to leave, around South Florida growing up, and even lived in one for a few years. They all failed miserably. I feel like ones that succeed are just lucky. These communities can have basic predetermined guidelines to how growth can happen but the actual growth needs to happen organically. Y…

I just don't see the point of these kinds of things when you could just move to an existing city. I moved to the middle of an Australian city and I haven't left a 2km radius because there is just no need, everything exists within walking distance. My city is also great because it is surrounded by a ring of parklands so I could go on a 10km walk through nature without ever leaving the parklands (other than crossing a few roads).
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