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A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

chrisbarber.co

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Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#81

Post by hexis »

harmmonica wrote: post #24
hexis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with this, but I think it's more humane to use foot traffic as a way to solidify safe places and not as a way to bring crime down.

Can you expand on that a bit? I'm not sure I quite understand, but I'm interested to know how you're thinking about it.

I would not ask normal people to start walking in dangerous neighborhoods in order to increase foot traffic and make it safer, those first folks are at great risk of just getting hurt.

I would, however, try to keep any safe area with good foot traffic that way, or even increase foot traffic.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#82

Post by hexis »

iambateman wrote: post #61
hexis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to live wherever you live so that I could even imagine that this was not obvious to anyone who goes out into public spaces.

Come on down! Columbia SC is experiencing a bit of a renaissance…there’s growth all over the city and a lot of optimism. Life isn’t perfect, and we have serious problems like any other city, but I took my kids bike riding through downtown yesterday evening and felt safe.

I am glad you are enjoying it, but Columbia, SC has an extremely high murder rate, even for the US which in general has terribly high murder rates.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#83

Post by gishglish »

iambateman wrote: post #61
hexis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to live wherever you live so that I could even imagine that this was not obvious to anyone who goes out into public spaces.

Come on down! Columbia SC is experiencing a bit of a renaissance…there’s growth all over the city and a lot of optimism. Life isn’t perfect, and we have serious problems like any other city, but I took my kids bike riding through downtown yesterday evening and felt safe.

Is it doing better than 5-6 years ago?

I lived there for a few years, and while the river walks were very pleasant, I don’t have much to say about it particularly otherwise.

The job market was pretty bad, basically limiting you to State gov or one of the handful of insurance companies around and state government work is rough (easily the most fulfilling job I’ve had, but the salary was just way too low.

Seems hard to justify with GA and NC markets nearby unless you’re staying solely for CoL or existing ties.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#84

Post by rickydroll »

harmmonica wrote: post #36
larrik wrote: post #4

"Here's what people said:" before the actual list was super annoying. > Allow single‑stair buildings up to 6 stories This seemed like a terrible suggestion, but it caused me to google it and now I see it's not that terrible. I didn't fully understand all of these, and some are clearly specific to California. I also worry about some of these opening the floodgates for greedy developers (a lot of existing laws are due…

Sorry to focus on the greedy developers comment, but one thing I'd ask you to consider is that sometimes you need some greedy developers to balance things out a bit. The US has gotten so bad at building housing supply to meet the demand that prices have obviously gotten out of whack. The past several years in Austin, TX, though, as an example, have shown that unshackling some greedy developers to come in and build is…

Things are bad in the US for housing because we count on market forces to provide what's necessary. Market forces shut down development if housing prices drop. After all, why start a project if you have a chance of being underwater by the time you're done with it?

see: https://clmarohn.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-housing-pr...

If you want affordable housing, it will have to be government-funded, allowing developers to continue making a profit while the government bears the loss. Another way of expressing it is the government pays for housing to be built at cost plus and then charges rent according to what people can afford, i.e., income and expense-based rent.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#85

Post by hexis »

chaps wrote: post #58
hexis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get my information about dangerous public spaces with my eyes, ears, and memory that it used to be safer very recently.

Confirmation bias is a savory drug, friend.

There is a big difference between confirmation and confirmation bias.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#86

Post by hexis »

lapetitejort wrote: post #79
hexis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get my information about dangerous public spaces with my eyes, ears, and memory that it used to be safer very recently.

Write a peer reviewed paper with facts and figures

Unreasonable standard for reaching conclusions, I suspect if you thought about it, you would agree.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#87

Post by petsfed »

constantcrying wrote: post #74
petsfed wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Have you ever been around homeless people? Yes. At many stages of the descent from "I'm just crashing on your couch until I save up enough for another deposit" to "I'm sleeping in my car until I can find a job" to "I'm living in a shanty and rummaging through the trash to turn in aluminum cans for change". Both whilst living in the Bay Area, but also in Oregon and Washington. You're complaining (rightly) about the e…

> We have within easy reach the ability to 1) stop more people from becoming homeless, and 2) help people who are homeless get their lives back in order. I live in a country with a right to housing. The government will literally pay your rent. Public transit is still full of homeless people. Guess why? Spoiler: It is not because housing is unaffordable or because transit is bad. >Hell, I'm actively watching my brothe…

So, do you live in a country that is notoriously designed almost exclusively for personal automobiles? Whose cities' growth was informed as much by lobbying from the automotive industry as by a desire to use personal automobiles? Do you live in a country where prison sentences are applied in such a way that meaningfully decreases the recidivism rate?

I see by your comment history that you live in Germany. You do understand that even California is considerably less urban than your country, right?

And to be clear, I'm not saying my brother-in-law doesn't need to quit drugs. I'm saying that the in the US's justice system, just putting him in prison until he's clean will just guarantee that he's in and out of prison until he eventually overdoses, all the while dooming his 11-year-old daughter, my children's beloved cousin, to a life of addiction and abuse herself. Moreover, even if he does get himself clean, because of his criminal record, he's doomed to working those same shit jobs, living at the ragged edge of the poverty line, for the rest of his life, because very few will take the risk of hiring an ex-con. Nobody ever relapsed in those conditions, no sir.

Maybe its different in Germany. Maybe getting yourself clean and sober will allow you to live a productive and happy life, and once you've served your time, you're free of the stigma of being an ex-convict. But if the only solution to the drug problem in the US is incarceration, given the current state of prisons in the US, a more humane approach might be mass executions. Which, I recall, Germany has some experience with.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#88

Post by CalRobert »

abraxas wrote: post #51
cjbarber wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. Do you mean USA cities or worldwide? I'm told that some of the most walkable cities worldwide are: Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Vienna, and Barcelona. Which other ones should be on there and which ones from USA? Devon also made this list: https://airtable.com/appcoaCeTbl22Few2/shrWJYzc04FQZIkP5

I visited Amsterdam this summer. It's amazing, almost eerie how you get off the train at Cetraal station and you are greeted by a city that is nearly silent. Instead of the usual groan of the combustion engines you just hear the gentle sounds of bicycle chains all around you.

Utrecht is even better!

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#89

Post by CalRobert »

larrik wrote: post #4

"Here's what people said:" before the actual list was super annoying. > Allow single‑stair buildings up to 6 stories This seemed like a terrible suggestion, but it caused me to google it and now I see it's not that terrible. I didn't fully understand all of these, and some are clearly specific to California. I also worry about some of these opening the floodgates for greedy developers (a lot of existing laws are due…

"Greedy" developers.... because "make something and sell it for money" makes you greedy in any other line of business?

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#90

Post by harmmonica »

xnx wrote: post #73

Good list. By my count, 77% (27 of 35) of the items in the list are removing restrictions (many of them put there by urban planners).

I upvoted you but I literally wanted to reply with "THIS!" because it's such an important point. There is no direct dollar cost to municipalities to doing many of these and many of them would actually save cities money (though I think the direct dollar savings are on the margins). Some of the externalities will have costs, many qualitative and/or subjective (how dare you take away my constitutional right to street parking!), but generally speaking if you went through the list and tried to quantify the externalized costs one by one you'd end up with massive dollar savings, or maybe better put many of the major external costs of enacting these would be voluntarily shouldered by the residents/businesses vs. the municipalities.
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