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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

#81

Post by uoaei »

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…

Where has processing and transportation been included in your informal analysis? You seem to be quite confident but have not addressed these factors.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#82

Post by calt »

imilk wrote: post #37
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…

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…

> you'll have to hop on a bicycle

But that's exactly what you're missing. Hopping on a Dutch bicycle in a dutch city is like walking, but better. No helmet required. No hassle of dealing with cars trying to kill you. No pain from hunched over road bike posture. Just unlock your bike and go.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#83

Post by akamaka »

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…

Maybe urban agriculture doesn’t work in theory, but in practice the Netherlands already has many regions where productive farms mingle with urban areas. For an example, have a look at a satellite view of the Westland region, directly southwest of The Hague.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#84

Post by BlargMcLarg »

jacquesm wrote: post #73
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, you see almost the exact same in new streets and new sections of existing cities. They aren't made with the idea of being organic or adding a little chaos to simulate it. They are made with the intent of putting down prefabs in the cheapest way possible while still hitting requirements and budgets.

Every new project around say, Utrecht, has the same "hypermodern" feel to it. Little contrast, straight lines, visible patterns, flat and rectangular. They try to add a little more chaos to it (probably to avoid being compared to Almere) and some more greenery, but it's a far cry from the old European city look.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#85

Post by uoaei »

sandworm101 wrote: post #76
martincmartin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pla…

In-built into this comment is the implicit entitlement of the globalist consumer: that we should have access to anything we want at any time of year. But that doesn't really need to be the case. Reducing food-miles by feeding people locally-first would drop food-miles drastically, possibly more than other proposals thus far.

Minimizing total energy is indeed the name of the game. To do that, we have to recognize that we may have over-extended a little bit as a civilization, and to pull back on some of the more hubristic enterprises like bananas in Maine or avocados in Sweden during winter in the Northern hemisphere. We can still have those things, but at a minimum the costs for the consumer should reflect the costs of transportation, including costs normally externalized (excluded) from supply chain analyses.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#86

Post by jacquesm »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #84
jacquesm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, you see almost the exact same in new streets and new sections of existing cities. They aren't made with the idea of being organic or adding a little chaos to simulate it. They are made with the intent of putting down prefabs in the cheapest way possible while still hitting requirements and budgets. Every new project around say, Utrecht, has the same "hypermodern" feel to it. Little contrast, straight lines, vis…

They even try to imitate that (and fail) for instance, this area in Beverwijk:

http://overall-pictures.nl/portfolio-3/straat-fotografie/bev...

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#87

Post by stingraycharles »

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).

I would just like to say that “bicycle” is considered equivalent to “pedestrian” over here in NL, at least in the context of city planning. This allows for this additional “reach” of distance for many families without using a car or bus (which is important for children and teenagers), and it’s a big difference from e.g. the US way of approaching things.

It’s easy to see why it almost takes a completely different way of thinking, or “you got to see it for yourself”, before you can fully appreciate the little advantages it brings. The other way around is also true: I took me a while to understand the dependence that quite a few people have upon their car and/or public transport. Walking 10km is certainly a bit too much to ask, but common enough a distance to work or school, and very reasonable for the bicycle.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#88

Post by jltsiren »

calt wrote: post #80
jltsiren wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can't design a city for both walking and bicycles. You can only make compromises between them. The slow Dutch bicycles are still 2.5x to 3x faster than the average pedestrian, which makes them convenient for distances most people would not consider walkable. If most people are comfortable with using bicycles over such distances, it encourages a more spread out urban structure.

People often use bicycles in cities because they are convenient and as fast as or faster than driving a car or using public transport. That is the reason why bicycles should be grouped with other vehicles and not with walking.

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#89

Post by patall »

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…

I do not think anybody is thinking of corn fields here. But replacing spruce, plaintaint and ornamental chestnut with cherry trees, walnuts and edible chestnut. Instead of having fireball, rhododendron or snowball hedges planting black berries, currants and maybe elderberries. And finally giving families a small allotment garden where they can grow some vegetable. Besides that, it's easily possible (as in: I have done that) to harvest enough chili & pepper from June to December to supply one person via one 1m wide office window. Cities will never be food independent but can definitely reduce their food import by 15-20 %

Re: A Dutch city testing the future of urban life

#90

Post by DonHopkins »

jacquesm wrote: post #57
yvoschaap wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arestreet in streetview 2009 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aresstraat+21,+1363+VJ+Alm... walk one step forward, and you time machine into 2021! I think the architecture has more to do that every individual plot allowed owners their own design & development.

Very neat, thank you for posting that. Almere still does quite a bit of that, for instance, it was the first municipality where they allowed 'tiny houses', though, truth be told what they are selling those for you might as well buy a normal house. https://www.funda.nl/koop/almere/huis-88999896-alseidenstraa...

Are those the lofty peaks of Mt Almere in the background? Or just a huge pile of cow shit?
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