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A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

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Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#71

Post by jacquesm »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #65
jacquesm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not what would happen. There are a great many secondary and tertiary systems in place, a breach in one place would not automatically flood the whole country, though of course if you lived in the area just behind the breach it would be a major problem. NL has lived with water long enough that the risks are reasonably well understood. Of course nature can still surprise you, the intensity increase of especia…

Does the Netherlands export their knowledge of handling below sea level engineering? With coasts around the world more prone to flooding it seems like it could be a lucrative industry

Yes, absolutely. Kansai airport and the recovery of New Orleans were to some extent (from an engineering point of view) a Dutch effort.

For instance:

https://nltimes.nl/2017/08/30/new-orleans-turns-netherlands-...

One interesting bit about the Kansai Airport work was that the Dutch advised the Japanese to leave the reclaimed land untouched for a while (20 years or so) so it could settle, the Japanese ignored the advice because they had run the numbers and realized dealing with the damage from the settling was more profitable.

We're cheap, it's a local joke that copper wire was invented by two Dutch traders fighting over a single coin, I think the idea of wasting good materials on unstable ground just didn't sit right with the Dutch engineers but the Japanese had no problem with it at all. I wonder how the Japanese look at this today from a financial perspective.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/how-to-sav...

Edit: I originally wrote Narita, instead of Kansai.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#72

Post by Mo3 »

jltsiren wrote: post #56
Mo3 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived there for a year. I think you forget that everyone owns a bicycle, everyone rides their bicycle everywhere, and almost every single street has a separated bicycle lane. There are more bicycle lanes than in any other country on earth (22,000 miles in a country ten times smaller than California ) [1], there's even bicycle highways and intersections. Public transport is exceptionally good as well. Everything is…

Urban areas are not just walkable but walk-centric. They are built under the assumption that most people don't move faster than 4-5 km/h. Places that want to attract people must be close to each other in local centers, or people don't go to them. Bicycles are more suburban than urban. Because they allow people to move flexibly at a relatively high speed, they encourage suburban structure, where things are spread out…

You have clearly never been to any Dutch city. Bicycles are priority #1 even in the most crammed and tight spaces, and thus the distinction between "urban" and "suburban" becomes completely mangled. There's simply places with less space (Amsterdam) and places with a little more space (Almere). Does that make Almere a suburb? Possibly depending on your perspective, but there is nil relation to bicycles.

Now, of course, you could argue that that makes the Netherlands a relatively suburban place in general - the fact that it is one of the most densely populated countries on earth would disagree.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#73

Post by jacquesm »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #67
fleddr wrote: post #64

Almere is painful. The lack of history makes everything so sterile. Everything is hypermodern, clean and new. You won't have that cute old bar, infrastructural imperfection, clash of cultures, hybrid of old and new, it's entirely without soul. It feels like a VR game. Maybe I just hate modern architecture.

Can't invoke history where there is none. Can't create history when most of the city is running off to other places for those "rustic, authentic" experiences. Can't build with a bit of chaos when prices have to be kept low, density high and requirements must be met which naturally prefers prefabs and cheap, stale-looking materials. The criticisms are valid, but people haven't exactly given Almere a chance to be anyth…

If they had taken a more organic approach from day #1 I think that could have been avoided, but then the growth would have been much slower. It quite literally feels like a city designed behind a drafting table instead of something that matured over time. And that's not something that you can buff out a few decades later.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#74

Post by jltsiren »

ethanbond wrote: post #68
jltsiren wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urban areas are not just walkable but walk-centric. They are built under the assumption that most people don't move faster than 4-5 km/h. Places that want to attract people must be close to each other in local centers, or people don't go to them. Bicycles are more suburban than urban. Because they allow people to move flexibly at a relatively high speed, they encourage suburban structure, where things are spread out…

Uhh… this seems like an excessively pedantic distinction. What’s the source of truth you’re pulling from here?

People may have different definitions for "urban" and "suburban". Regardless of the words used, there is a huge difference between a city designed for walking and a city designed for people using vehicles (cars, public transport, bicycles).

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#75

Post by FooBarWidget »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #18

Unfortunately it is now uncertain whether any of this matters 100 years from now. It is expected that sea levels will rise by more than 2 meters, and that dykes will no longer work beyond an extra 2 meter extension, not because they can't be extended but because Dutch soil is too soft and seawater will just go under the dyke. Almere will probably be amongst the first to go. It seems nobody has proposed a solution, bu…

Not sure what the downvotes are for. I live here and I worry about what happens if I buy a new house (which is ridiculously expensive nowadays — like 3x-4x more expensive than just 5 years ago) — will I be able to sell it in 30 years when people start worrying about 30% of the country flooding in another 30 years? It's not some nutjob idea that only I have, the newspapers have written about how the market currently completely ignores the issue: https://www.trouw.nl/duurzaamheid-natuur/wanneer-zullen-klim... In my pension plans I already planned for the worse by assuming that my house will be devalued by 50% rather than having risen in value.

jacquesm seems to believe that we have a solution. That's not the sentiment being brought forward by the newspapers. Even reputable newspapers are like "this time we're really screwed, we can't win this one". I'm not a water management expert so I don't know any better than what I hear, but I've yet to hear from someone authoritative that it's going to be okay — the authorities just seem to be quiet on this issue. That really doesn't help me with my long-term plans.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#76

Post by sandworm101 »

martincmartin wrote: post #43
sandworm101 wrote: post #36

>> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by potab…

It's not cutting the climate-change impact of food. It's cutting the climate-change impact of food miles. As you say, overall it's making things worse, e.g. increasing the climate-change impact of every other delivery but food.

Food-miles sound good, but the reality of modern shipping is that it takes far less energy to move food than grow it. The carbon/energy cost of bringing a plant product from a hot country to a cold country is far less than the energy needed to grow that product in a cold country. That's why nobody grows bananas in new york. We could, but the cost/energy to do so is hugely more than the energy to ship bananas from place where they grow easily.

If we want to address global climate change, then we need to look into minimizing total energy put into things like food. Often that will mean growing things where they can grow most easily, with the least amount of energy. A banana brought thousands of miles by very efficient transport is more sustainable than grown in an ill-suited climate through the application of energy-expensive heat/light etc. Distance is not everything.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#77

Post by tick_tock_tick »

Mo3 wrote: post #39
imilk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been there and was just making a quick assessment by Google Maps. It is nice that you can bike anywhere, but I'm mostly seeing residential neighborhoods (~10 blocks wide of identical row homes) pretty spaced out around a town center without amenities in their area. So in terms of meeting someone for a coffee/meal/beer/event it looks like you'll have to hop on a bicycle unless you want to go on a 20-30 minu…

Of course there's going to be some level of separation between residential areas and other areas - but contrary to, for example the US, where you have to walk for miles or put your life in danger bicycling between a suburb and the city center - the distances are quite negligible and the space in between is friendly towards anything that is not a car. Public transport intervals are measured in minutes, and unlike in t…

Yes, in the USA people choose between living in a city or suburb. If you pick suburb you need to use a car all the time or be on one of the few major rail lines. People are just bringing up how this design seem to capture some of the worst parts of suburb living while managing to doge the benefits of city living.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#78

Post by vladms »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #65
jacquesm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not what would happen. There are a great many secondary and tertiary systems in place, a breach in one place would not automatically flood the whole country, though of course if you lived in the area just behind the breach it would be a major problem. NL has lived with water long enough that the risks are reasonably well understood. Of course nature can still surprise you, the intensity increase of especia…

Does the Netherlands export their knowledge of handling below sea level engineering? With coasts around the world more prone to flooding it seems like it could be a lucrative industry

They definitely export their knowledge of working with sand and water: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/11/18/dutch-firm-agrees-...

And same company has other similar/related projects like: https://www.vanoord.com/en/updates/van-oord-awarded-land-rec...

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#79

Post by bryans »

sandworm101 wrote: post #36

>> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by potab…

The USDA has a very different definition for "urban agriculture" than your claim of simply "fields between condos."

"Urban agriculture includes the cultivation, processing and distribution of agricultural products in urban and suburban areas. Community gardens, rooftop farms, hydroponic, aeroponic, and aquaponic facilities, and vertical production are all examples of urban agriculture."

https://www.usda.gov/topics/urban

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#80

Post by calt »

jltsiren wrote: post #74
ethanbond wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh… this seems like an excessively pedantic distinction. What’s the source of truth you’re pulling from here?

People may have different definitions for "urban" and "suburban". Regardless of the words used, there is a huge difference between a city designed for walking and a city designed for people using vehicles (cars, public transport, bicycles).

Just move bicycles from being grouped with cars to being grouped with walking, and you're correct.

Dutch cities are designed for walking and bicycles. It helps that the bicycles are also designed for dutch cities. Upright, comfortable, a bit heavy and slow, and can be locked up for short times without needing to be locked to anything.

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