371–380 of 683 posts
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Why do I need to go to the mall? Because there is no retail zoning closer to my home.
Because some things are too expensive to keep in stock (at least with any variety in styles/brands/etc) at local retail stores? Clothing, hobby supplies, computer peripherals, etc.
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Why do I need to go to the mall? Because there is no retail zoning closer to my home.
My city has plenty of all kinds of shops where people live, but they (and I) still go to malls because shops there are larger and better equipped, there are more of them and you can walk between them at nice temperature and protected from the rain.
It seems like a not insignificant amount of malls aren't sustaining themselves, so I wonder if the balance you described is a world where malls can thrive.
A land value tax would fix this. https://www.thebalancemoney.com/what-is-a-land-value-tax-520...
No thanks.
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That's assuming there is a monopoly on providing parking spaces. Zoning notwithstanding, anyone can build a parking structure and rent or sell parking spaces. Tenants can choose whether to pay more for an apartment that includes parking or less for one that doesn't. The total cost of a housing unit with parking wouldn't be be more than it is now because the cost of constructing a housing unit with parking wouldn't be…
Fun fact - the city near me has a new zoning rule that limits the total number of parking spots in the city to something close to the current number of parking spots. If you want to build an apartment with parking, type find to need to tear down something with parking first. So they're tearing down shopping centers, movie theaters, and grocery stores just so they can build apartments with parking. I have no idea wher…
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The excess of cars in cities is bad enough, but I do wonder whether underground parking would at least help. It can be more expensive, especially for taller buildings, but it would eliminate the eyesore and recoup the valuable urban real estate and potentially free up the streets. Realistically, we have to accept that we've spent almost a century creating a situation that has enabled car dominance and that many peopl…
Can't speak to this everywhere but in Seattle and Portland there is already extensive underground and 1st 2nd floor parking for many of the "4 over 1" style of modern apartments. Part of the problem with this is that it's so expensive that it cuts into the developers budget leading to less housing being built in medium density areas and larger/taller buildings so to keep the margins up. Even if you imagine a magic sh…
It would be like a really big car that could fit lots of people. You could then put it on tracks so it had its own right-of-way or even underground.
Oh well, one day we'll figure it out. I'm sure instead what we should be doing is expanding our highways and building more parking lots. It'll fix the problem one day I'm sure of it!
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Can't speak to this everywhere but in Seattle and Portland there is already extensive underground and 1st 2nd floor parking for many of the "4 over 1" style of modern apartments. Part of the problem with this is that it's so expensive that it cuts into the developers budget leading to less housing being built in medium density areas and larger/taller buildings so to keep the margins up. Even if you imagine a magic sh…
If only we had a means of transportation that could efficiently move large quantities of people into dense areas of living. It would be like a really big car that could fit lots of people. You could then put it on tracks so it had its own right-of-way or even underground. Oh well, one day we'll figure it out. I'm sure instead what we should be doing is expanding our highways and building more parking lots. It'll fix…
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> incredibly expensive proposition for many cities I lived in Italy for a number of years. It is a poorer country than the United States in a lot of ways, and yet they manage this quite well. It still comes back to zoning and parking: by allowing denser development, you can plan transit routes that serve a lot more people, some of whom don't even own an automobile.
The largest cities in Italy are quite a bit smaller than the largest cities in the US, so it's a very different situation. Rome's metro area is about 4.3 million people. San Antonio's is about 2.6 million. San Antonio also has far more relaxed car-based commutes than the Bay Area or LA as a result. If you dropped Rome's three subway lines in San Antonio you wouldn't get rid of that many car trips, especially since th…
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I know multiple people who bought houses 45 minutes from work that made way, way more money than needed for those houses. They WANTED to be in the middle of nowhere. They could have had a house 11 minutes away with good schools and access to nature, but they choose 45 to be isolated. They live in their cars.
I wish I was further out of the city. I think if actual self-driving cars arrive, they will fuel sprawl like nothing else before. I wouldn't mind a long commute if I could sleep or work or chill out as my car drove me to work.
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Is it wrong that I think I would enjoy playing Sim Parking Lot?
Try Mini Motorways. It's a different style of game but certainly captures the futility of car-centric traffic management.
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If only we had a means of transportation that could efficiently move large quantities of people into dense areas of living. It would be like a really big car that could fit lots of people. You could then put it on tracks so it had its own right-of-way or even underground. Oh well, one day we'll figure it out. I'm sure instead what we should be doing is expanding our highways and building more parking lots. It'll fix…
except that one big car is not controlled by you, and you have to schedule your trip around it, rather than have the convenience of any-time availability. Not to mention you can't really carry much onboard.
Japan, many european cities, etc are all comfortable with the provision and use of widespread public transport.
Where it's a problem is those locations where people such as the Koch brothers [1] invested 50 years (1970 - present) and tens of millions of dollars to bend both public opinion and state and city representatives against public transport.
It didn't take much to have the land of the free muttering in lock step about freedumb's, liberty, and their right to roll coal.
From a distance it was like watching lemmings march over a cliff [2].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-pub...