Culdesac Tempe: The first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by sammalloy » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 1:51 AM UTC

kevinpet wrote: post #180

sammalloy wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People need to get off the notion that those working the most entry level jobs should be living in the newest housing. The infrastructure in the US is old and dilapidated. Newer housing is energy efficient, safer, and more conducive to modern living requirements (high speed internet, solar, heat and cooling), regardless of what kind of job a person keeps.

A new Tesla is all of those things too, but expecting a construction laborer or call center worker to drive one is delusional.

Except, one doesn't need a Tesla to drive a new electric car. I don't think the analogy holds up. The car industry is now switching to electric cars, but this is not a new approach. There have been multiple attempts since the 1990s to get them to change to electric, and it is only now actually happening. We should expect everyone to drive one once the switch is complete, so there's nothing delusional about it. What /was/ delusional, was the response I got from the GM salesperson in 1997, when I tried to buy the EV1 off a dealer in San Bruno. He said, "no, I can't sell you this car, it's lease only."

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

#202

Post by SilverRed » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 1:53 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #165

dragontamer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shared makerspace seems like a neighborhood level thing. There's all sorts of services / hobbies that make more sense to be neighborhood based instead of nationally based. Tools and workshops are like that. The biggest issue with tools/workshops is liability. Someone's going to lose a finger, or a rotary tool will pull out their hair / a piece of their scalp... (even with all the safety precautions, its going to…

I do a lot of 3D printing. Almost none of it is for replacement parts. Replacement parts sourcing has gotten extremely good online in the last 10-15 years. Need a recoil start handle for a Honda HRX 217? Dozens of vendors of the original part and more selling knock offs. Even as a Mech E and experienced 3D printer with multiple printers, it’s almost never worth my time to make a part that I can buy.

I had a 3D printer for a while but I just got so little use out of it. Designing anything was like an all day process and any time I found something I needed I would think "Do I want to spend the entire day to get this thing" and the answer was almost always no.

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

#203

Post by closeparen » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 1:53 AM UTC

deltasixeight wrote: post #168

stemlord wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A master plan doesn't hurt, they could get it wrong but it's not that much worse than haphazard randomness. The good cities you see aren't good because of early planning. They're good because of constant vigilance to improve and maintain. Subway systems for example aren't usually part of the master plan of the city at inception but are the result of constant vigilance to improve. Meanwhile western US suburbia is the…

American suburbia is exactly as planning codes require it to be. It's just hard to imagine that they could be this bad.

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

#204

Post by ryanj20021 » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #191

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 re…

Phoenix doesn’t get much rain but it occurs in concentrated periods, so we have more experience with it than you might think.

In fact, part of why downtown Phoenix developed a few miles from the Salt River is because it had to avoid the seasonal flooding.

We have a plan for storm water management both during construction and long-term. We worked closely with the city on it.

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

#205

Post by SilverRed » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 1:56 AM UTC

goodpoint wrote: post #153

Thorentis wrote: post #103

Unfortunately this project lacks two things which are essential to a long-lasting, sustainable, and human-friendly town. 1) Architecture that inspires, elevates the soul, and will last the test of time. All I see is soulless pre-fabs. It looks like you're living in a shopping mall. 2) The freedom to create buildings and institutions that are meaningful to the residents who reside there. Churches, schools, sporting cl…

> All I see is soulless pre-fabs. It looks like you're living in a shopping mall. Spot on. Like a town from Greece or Portugal, Spain, Italy, Mexico... but with a dystopian feel.

The dystopian feel was mostly coming from it being not so great renders which feel overly flat and vibrant.

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

#206

Post by ultrarunner » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 1:56 AM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #191

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 re…

Suffice it to say that stormwater management can be a Big Deal in Arizona as well. Even the DOT sometimes gets it wrong: when the news shows floating cars in Phoenix, it's quite often the I-17 where it crosses Greenway[1].

Fortunately for Culdesac, the area they're in is mostly flat and won't accumulate runoff from mountains, and is near canals and Tempe Town Lake (the Salt River), so they're probably pretty safe. Also developers were allowed to build Anthem about 45 minutes north in a wash. A coworker who just moved there mentioned today that he saw his neighbors' cars float by last week when it rained. So sadly your latter sentiment does seem to be in full force out here. But probably not in that area of Tempe.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=greenway%20underpas...

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

#207

Post by mixmastamyk » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 1:56 AM UTC

oscardssmith wrote: post #194

verall wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes but it’s expensive and they already lose money. I think it’s worth it, but I guess most don’t. Maybe self-driving can handle bus routes at least.

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

#208

Post by Wowfunhappy » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 1:56 AM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #199

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eng…

I feel like 1 and 3 means your "master plan" just sucked all along. >:)

It's certainly a hard thing to get right, though.

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

#209

Post by erosenbe0 » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 1:58 AM UTC

_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…

Bike infrastructure is great but like any pavement it has lots of long-term cost. You ever seen rust-belt potholes? Drainage issues. Erosion. Tree roots. And you have to tear it up sometimes to do water, sewage, and utility projects.

Edit: I forgot snow removal and salting

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

#210

Post by Nicholas_C » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 2:01 AM UTC

eikenberry wrote: post #29

I don't really see anything addressing the heat issue of the location (AZ). In most hot environments people tend to minimize outdoor time, moving quickly from one AC'd zone to another. How do you get places while staying out of the heat in a neighborhood like this? Tunnels?

I recently saw a YouTube video deriding Houston’s car-first city design. The video didn’t once bring up that it’s extremely hot and even standing and waiting for a bus at 8am is sweat-inducing for 4 months out of the year and riding a bike to work is even worse 7-8 months out of the year (speaking from experience for both these things). Interestingly enough, downtown Houston has a massive tunnel system with restaurants, barber shops, dentists, doctors, etc. to keep everyone out of the heat in the summer.