101–110 of 155 posts
American zoning forbids taller ~6 story residential building and trades open green space parks for shorter, 1-2 story buildings. The lower density means people are further away from the few parks that do exist too.
Does every city in America have the rules you mention, or specific ones?
-- Picard
I was walking in central London and something felt wrong. I couldn't quite tell what though, but I had this constant feeling of unease. It took me a few days to understand - there are no trees in central London (the City). Sure, you have a small/big park here and there, but no random trees on side walks. It's literally a (beautiful) concrete/glass wasteland. Note: I only walked a few of the main streets, I'm sure I'm…
I think these simplifications end up hurting more than helping. 30% tree cover looks very different depending on the trees your municipality chooses. For example, Barcelona covers everything with a variety of Platanus, which is easier to keep than other trees, but it’s quite dirty and produces A LOT of pollen. For me, that I’m allergic to it, it just makes the city unavailable for 2-4 weeks every year. Having smaller…
I also think these are harmful simplifications, for several reasons. First of all, I'm skeptical about the study that proves that people seeing three trees have better mental health. There are so many factors that it's hard to separate one. A solid study would compare families living in the same building, roughly at the same floor, and with similar parameters (family size, income, education, street noise, etc.). Comp…
American zoning forbids taller ~6 story residential building and trades open green space parks for shorter, 1-2 story buildings. The lower density means people are further away from the few parks that do exist too.
Are zoning laws in the United States at the federal level? Or by township and city? Does every city in America have the rules you mention, or specific ones?
And here, somehow, that stupid excuse that they destroy utility cables and pipes didn’t cause to cut them out. It seems that it’s possible to solve this.
And of course, I’m basically in a forest. There are trees everywhere. The “park” here is an at least 100 years old forest. There is one about 30 meters from here, and about 500 meters an even larger one, where I’ve just lost today.
Of course, the city center is different, but even comparing the outskirts of other cities, this is very-very green.
[0] https://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/aplsample/apl159/apl159....