Plans for a new city in the American desert • Hacker News Board

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#261

Post by prawn » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 12:17 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #99

pcurve wrote: post #8

"The cleanliness of Tokyo, the diversity of New York and the social services of Stockholm: Billionaire Marc Lore has outlined his vision for a 5-million-person "new city in America" and appointed a world-famous architect to design it" "The mission of Telosa is to create a more equitable and sustainable future. That's our North Star." I admire their ambition, but they are underestimating people's preference for inequi…

As someone living in small town on world scale. I wonder if even trying to aim at 5 million is doing things wrong... Might it be that real sweet spot is somewhere lower than that?

I live in a city with a population around 1.3 million and it's a massive, sprawling place. Takes an hour to drive across, without traffic. Even 200-300k people could be enough, unless you really want to be attracting international tours, have major league sporting teams, etc.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#262

Post by prawn » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 12:22 PM UTC

mistrial9 wrote: post #136

pcurve wrote: post #8

"The cleanliness of Tokyo, the diversity of New York and the social services of Stockholm: Billionaire Marc Lore has outlined his vision for a 5-million-person "new city in America" and appointed a world-famous architect to design it" "The mission of Telosa is to create a more equitable and sustainable future. That's our North Star." I admire their ambition, but they are underestimating people's preference for inequi…

> .. appointed a world-famous architect to design it" LOL - this is ignorant ! there are two common Master's tracks in the field, Architecture i.e. the design of buildings and interior spaces, and Urban Planning i.e. the design of multiple buildings in a functional way. Anyone would hire an Urban Planner to design urban spaces, not an Architect. source: 600 hours of working with Urban Planners in California

"Bjarke Ingels Group ... is a ... group of architects, designers and builders operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development."

They have 500+ staff and think it'd be a safe bet that they have urban planners in their existing mix. Their job opportunities page indicates they're hiring more.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#263

Post by prawn » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 12:39 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #49

I am not really educated about how things are going now, but, when I was attending school, they used Brasilia[0], as an example of a "great idea that never made it." I have also read about the giant Chinese "ghost cities." I think that having a reason to be there, is 99% of the incentive to build a city. There's a reason that almost every city is on a body of water. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia

I assume a major issue with Brasilia and co are that they are designed at car scale. I suspect if you designed without cars as a key factor, you'd immediately have a better chance of creating a more enjoyable place?

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#264

Post by IdontRememberIt » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 10:35 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #134

IdontRememberIt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not private initiatives. They were the will of powerful, bright and respected people.

Private people can't be powerful, bright, and respected? Plus their example was Brasilia, not a private initiative either. >They were the will of powerful, bright and respected people. Not the first adjectives I'd use to describe imperialists, colonialists and warlords personally.

The "fathers" of Dubai, Singapore, etc are highly respected and loved by the locals. Of course there are counter-exemples.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#265

Post by prawn » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 4:46 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #14

That initial stage isn't very promising. 50000 people on 1500 acres is only about 30 dwellings per acre, not very impressive. You can achieve that density with traditional row houses.

Might also include common areas/gardens, commercial buildings and so on.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#266

Post by schrijver » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 12:08 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #35

I'm very curious, have there ever been any "cities from the ground up" projects that don't turn out to be total shit that end up just reflecting the urban planning fallacies of the day? (Looking at you, Brasilia) I mean, all of the cities that are most "livable" in my mind are old cities that were designed before the car and thus have enough density and public transportation to make things both close and also the kin…

Almere and Lelystad come to mind, built from the 70ies onwards in the Netherlands on land reclaimed from the sea. They’re relatively small but still impressive to me, with decent public transport and excellent biking infrastructure. Of course many people prefer older cities with more ‘character’ but if it’s your thing the architecture really is quite nice.

Dutch urbanism is good but it requires a lot of trust in the government. Urbanists make top down plans, and then work together with property developers to create neighbourhoods. These property developers have to follow a lot of rules and guidelines and there are municipal committees that check whether the architecture is good enough for example. Top down urbanism is often seen as a recipe for disaster, but it seems to work there. I guess there are enough feedback loops in the system so that urbanists get a clue about what people like and implement that. For example, people like living close to water so constructing a neighbourhood often coincides with creating lots of canals and ponds.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#267

Post by freemint » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

gremloni wrote: post #255

Bayart wrote: post #11

I feel every attempt at community-by-design bears within it the seed of inhumane horror. Forget about the energy equation of building a city in a desert, what's the on-boarding process for prospective inhabitants ? Putting the price of accommodation sky-high to make sure everybody's in the right tax-bracket (or even earns enough to not pay taxes) ? Going through an interview process to only take in people with the "r…

I feel like deserts are instinctively slept on. It’s always sunny, nice and hot, low humidity, great for solar energy and clean. The only problem is water and the plan seems to address that issue.

And that it gets really, really cold at night.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#268

Post by IdontRememberIt » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

IdontRememberIt wrote: post #114

A better bet, would be to have a strong government building and planning efficient infrastructure (transportation, utilities, ecology, etc) so that private initiatives make economical and competitive sense.

This is actually what Switzerland or Singapore do. Can the downvoters elaborate to enlight me why it is wrong? Thanks.