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Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

strongtowns.org

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Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#161

Post by wonder_er »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #98

The author appears to think that optimizing for tax revenue is one of the main goals of publicly funded transportation infrastructure (a category which includes roads, sidewalks, subways, etc.) or is at least not a terrible idea. I cannot even begin to convey how much I disagree. The purpose of public funded transportation infrastructure is to make transportation cheap (in terms of time, money, frustration or any oth…

I think you and the author might be in more agreement than your comment indicates.

You said:

> The purpose of public funded transportation infrastructure is to make transportation cheap... to the point where anyone can use it.

and

> Making cities walk-able at the expense of some longer range form of transit is not something I endorse

The reason I think you both might be in agreement is because by "optimizing for tax revenue", you have to allow dense (and perhaps) walkable development.

If a dense environment allows 10000 people to access services with 10 minutes of walking, or a not-dense environment requires public transit to get 10000 people access to services, wouldn't the dense one do it better than the not-dense one?

I think you and the author both want the most people to access important things in the least time.

I'm inclined to think that dense environments better serve more people than sparse environments with public transit tacked on.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#162

Post by oftenwrong »

emodendroket wrote: post #35
oftenwrong wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Density doesn't necessarily lead to those things. For example, Tokyo is very dense, but has a low level of crime, and is quite clean. Poverty is found in urban, suburban and rural areas. This same site has a good series of articles on suburban poverty: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/12/6/best-of-2016-s...

Yes, there's the one example everyone loves to trot out. Japan is different from the US in a lot of ways and we can't just wave a wand and turn New York into Tokyo (or Cleveland into Sapporo, for that matter).

It takes the right policies and a lot of time. We have seen American cities become less walkable and more auto-centric in the last ~60 years thanks to policies designed to hollow out urban cores and increase suburban sprawl [1]. We have also seen Amsterdam embrace "human-centric" urban planning, leading to significant transformation toward the vibrant, walkable, bikeable city that Amsterdam is famous for being today [2]. If American cities want to be more like Japanese cities, they can start by looking at the policies that make them possible, such as the relatively-sensible Japanese zoning laws [3].

[1] http://iqc.ou.edu/2015/01/21/60yrsnortheast/

[2] http://sustainableamsterdam.com/2015/12/livable-cities-campa...

[3] http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#163

Post by EpicEng »

jstanley wrote: post #145
cortesoft wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is some decision or planning that leads to this. New York is so dense because it is geographically constrained, and as the city grew it had no where to expand out to, so it had to become more dense to grow. Los Angeles, on the other hand, was created as smaller cities grew outward and connected to each other. They are both successful in growth for different reasons, but their density was determined b…

> their density was determined by geography, not by 'what people enjoy'. But whether people choose to live in them is determined by what people enjoy.

No it's not.

People tend to stay in the area they were born.

People tend to stay near their family.

People tend stay were they can find work.

People can't always afford to just up and move.

Not everyone is living on a six figure salary with a slew of job offers to chose from. Most people don't have the options you may have.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#164

Post by [deleted] »

jstanley wrote: post #145
cortesoft wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is some decision or planning that leads to this. New York is so dense because it is geographically constrained, and as the city grew it had no where to expand out to, so it had to become more dense to grow. Los Angeles, on the other hand, was created as smaller cities grew outward and connected to each other. They are both successful in growth for different reasons, but their density was determined b…

> their density was determined by geography, not by 'what people enjoy'. But whether people choose to live in them is determined by what people enjoy.

[deleted]

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#165

Post by rayiner »

d--b wrote: post #126

It's always a tradeoff... - super dense cities like Tokyo or New York can feel suffocating. A lot of people can't bear it. The lack of green space, and the overcrowding of people and cars increases the stress levels by a lot. Yet, being able to walk around the city is excellent for exercising and mindfulness, it's easier to meet with people, etc. - super sparse cities (like LA or Brasilia) on the other end tend to is…

> super dense cities like Tokyo or New York can feel suffocating. A lot of people can't bear it. The lack of green space, and the overcrowding of people and cars increases the stress levels by a lot.

I strongly suspect when people say that, they're thinking of the day time population of the tourist/business districts in those cities. The daytime population of Manhattan is nearly 4 million people, mostly concentrated below 130th street. The density is probably 200k-250k people per square mile. The resident population density is actually only 70,000 people per square mile. I was there after Hurricane Sandy, when the commuters and tourists were gone, and it was empty.

Here is a typical side street in Rogers Park Chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.0103744,-87.6640436,3a,75y,2.... At 30,000 people per square mile, it's about double the average density of Tokyo.

Here's one of the newer business districts in Tokyo: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.6807167,139.7630674,3a,75y,9.... That area probably has way above the average population density of the city.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#166

Post by TimPC »

reaperducer wrote: post #3

This is something that certain cities have understood for many years. Chicago, for example, mandates that all new development from a simple three-story building to a 100-story skyscraper has retail at its base to improve the walkability of its streets and make its business corridors vibrant. This also helps push down retail rents even in the CBD, allowing local upstart businesses a shot at reaching the masses. Chicag…

As much as I want the correlation to be causation looking at any of the maps in this article makes me almost wonder how much of the effect is due to the fact that downtowns get made walkable rather than anything else.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#167

Post by bpicolo »

aqme28 wrote: post #49
_m8fo wrote: post #5

I've often wondered why somone moderately wealthy doesn't just start a super dense town, e.g. everything within 100 acres, and be within 10 miles of a major city. Create tons of these at a 50K people/sqmi density and implement some sort of hub spoke transportation with the major city being the hub and it could work!

So like a mall, but bigger?

Malls are high on retail and low on the day-to-day sorts of shops.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#168

Post by praneshp »

0x4f3759df wrote: post #22
reaperducer wrote: post #3

This is something that certain cities have understood for many years. Chicago, for example, mandates that all new development from a simple three-story building to a 100-story skyscraper has retail at its base to improve the walkability of its streets and make its business corridors vibrant. This also helps push down retail rents even in the CBD, allowing local upstart businesses a shot at reaching the masses. Chicag…

I did not know that about Chicago amazing. I think its interesting how people complain loudly if they lose a stretch of beach, but don't seem to complain if a stretch of the street becomes a blight for the next 100 years (or the life of the building)

If you have a chance to go to Chicago, try taking a couple of architecture tours, preferably one on the river and one on the roads. They're easily worth the money, and explain how Chicago's planning is done.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#169

Post by baby »

reaperducer wrote: post #3

This is something that certain cities have understood for many years. Chicago, for example, mandates that all new development from a simple three-story building to a 100-story skyscraper has retail at its base to improve the walkability of its streets and make its business corridors vibrant. This also helps push down retail rents even in the CBD, allowing local upstart businesses a shot at reaching the masses. Chicag…

> This is something that certain cities have understood for many years. Chicago

There is a big contradiction here, I haven't really seen walkable streets in Chicago (lived there for a year and a half). When I think of an American city with walkable streets I think of Boston for example.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#170

Post by stcredzero »

ForRealsies wrote: post #156
stcredzero wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the cities citizens. Northern European cities such as Copenhagen are pretty quiet, despite their high density. A lot of the character of a city does come from how its citizens imagine it's supposed to be. In the nicer parts of Stuttgart in 2000: Never once even the smell of garbage.

Bingo, it is all about culture and identity (Japan). Often used argument arguing against immigration.

Often used argument arguing against immigration.

That's a very shortsighted view. One can do an examination of world history and geography to strongly support the conclusion that commerce and cultural interchange has a tremendous amplifying effect on the strength of culture and the value of human capital.

Japan itself is an example of this on a smaller scale. When Europeans first got to travel in Japan, they marveled at the sheer volume of commerce they saw.

If cultural evolution is anything like genetic algorithms, then what's needed for optimal progression is a balance of interchange and continuity: multiple populations with some degree of interchange.

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