231–240 of 303 posts
Wouldn’t be an NPR blog post without bringing up colonialism, and sure enough, there it is.
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The three options are to build densely, or to sprawl over into nature spaces, or to have fewer children.
We’re already having fewer children, and anyway there’s a whole lot of space out there. You talk like Chicago and LA are nearly bordering each other.
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> The hardest part, still fully unsolved, is operating with current legislation and outdated city planning rules. Those normatives revolve around high density and cheap development. Nature takes space and efficient buildings are expensive so housing constructors will have a hard time buying into the green zone. where i live there is constant discussion of "we need high density housing" and this is exactly what comes…
You can do high density without block housing! Many European cities are good examples of this. Paris, for instance, has very high density because it's packed with mid-rise (~7-8 floors) buildings[1]. Another good example is the section of Manhattan between Midtown and Lower Manhattan, which is also primarily mid-rise and very dense. Apart from that I do think it's true that block housing separated by large parks (as…
and of course we can't forget that many places are at an inflection point in population growth so all of this capacity could be vacant in 15-20 years.
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That makes sense. As I understand it, Portland isn’t particularly dense. Someone yesterday was just likening it to suburbs and talking about the great access to nature: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31241348 It certainly sounds appealing!
It’s true, Portland isn’t nearly as dense as it should be. The result is that (hundreds of) thousands of people who would like to live here can’t afford to. But everything I shared about access to nature would be just as true if the urban core was made more dense. Replacing sfh lots with multi use buildings doesn’t affect the access to nature in any way. If anything, it would help the situation by providing more ride…
It may if it just pushes people who prefer sfhs farther outside of the urban core, thus increasing the distance between urban core and nature. Maybe if you can pass zoning laws to prevent it, but that seems like a politically uphill battle (if there's already an existing state or national park or conservation area, it's probably not at risk of becoming a subdivision, but it will be hard to keep a patchwork of farms, acreages, and privately owned timber from being parceled off to meet the demand for single family dwellings).
Funny thing is, making cities more green isn't even _that_ difficult. I see above conversations on living closer to nature, or mountains vs parks - but the vast majority of time spent is walking and driving in the cities. So it seems a no-brainer that before everything else, before thinking about taking a 2 hour drive to hike, or making the time for a weekly visit to the park, we should first make sure the places peo…
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Why do people keep framing this as a dichotomy between urban areas and suburbs? I agree that suburbs aren’t “nature”, obviously. There’s a lot more to the US than urban cores and suburbs.
To be fair, you did the same, hence my defense specifically of anti-car thoughts. I very much agree that this isn't a dichotomy.
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Europe does this much better. It's not so difficult to find yourself on a quieter, greener path just on your way to work. The countryside has a network of footpaths that connect everything. Wherever I am in Europe, I can count on a quiet evening walk. Berlin is outstanding for this. Wherever you are, it's easy to escape loud traffic and sit in a green, public space. Some have cafés and Biergarten in them. I find retu…
I like the London practice of having a small square of park in the center among the homes. Although it seems a practice of wealthier urban areas, the parks are gated, the home owners have a key and they pay for the upkeep. I don't know how common this is. NYC Central Park is beautiful and vast, but sometimes I wonder if cities need more smaller little parks. There's a lovely lawn behind Rodin's house in Paris where p…
I live in a mid-sized city in the States, and all of our streets are tree-lined. Our fields too, which used to just be grass for sports, are getting more and more trees planted.
And the Roman water is potable, yes, and delicious because of the limestone it filters through. Although if you drink or fill a bottle from the bottom of the sprout, instead of putting your finger underneath and letting the water spurt up from the little hole, someone will tell you that's disgusting, because that's where the dogs lick. Nevermind that the water coming out the hole is still touching that bottom portion of the pipe.
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Why do people keep framing this as a dichotomy between urban areas and suburbs? I agree that suburbs aren’t “nature”, obviously. There’s a lot more to the US than urban cores and suburbs.
Because people have to live somewhere.
This is the sort of thing I think about when the pro-urban/pro-density/anti-car people talk about their vision for the world. I live in a city now, and the lack of substantial nature is suffocating to the extent that I plan to move. The idea that we should all live this way to conserve space—a resource which is only scarce in these urban places—seems excessive to put it mildly. EDIT: A lot of urban folks are rebuttin…
Doing these things frees up space for other things. That could be housing or green space.
And if there’s less traffic overall, it becomes easier to get out to the mountains/forest/etc.
I don’t disagree that true nature is different than groomed parks. And I like nature. But I’d rather not spend 3 hours in suburban traffic to get to the mountains that are 40 miles away.
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We’re already having fewer children, and anyway there’s a whole lot of space out there. You talk like Chicago and LA are nearly bordering each other.
Boston, NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC, and Richmond are practically bordering each other these days.