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Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

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Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#201

Post by BrianHenryIE »

dymk wrote: post #199
BrianHenryIE wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gotta hand it to you, in response I searched DuckDuckGo for: "people in los angeles love their cars" and the top result was "People in Los Angeles Are Getting Rid Of Their Cars" Hypothetically, if one person had to die every time you used your car (for your dogs to travel or whatever) would you stop using your car? How about if it were one person for every 1000 journeys. What if every single journey you made in you…

"People in Los Angeles Are Getting Rid Of Their Cars" is a headline meant to generate clicks, posted with no context, statistics, or discussion. Are you a vegan? Hypothetically, how many people have to die due to the greenhouse gasses emitted due to your meat consumption? Have you ever served somebody an egg that didn't have a fully cooked yolk? Do you consume any single-use plastics? Do you use a compost toilet? We…

> it's said people in Los Angeles love their cars

doesn't need a survey or study. Are you disputing the perception that Los Angeles is a car-centric city?

> Are you a vegan?

Yes.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#202

Post by helen___keller »

0x0nyandesu wrote: post #136
scelerat wrote: post #126

I may be romanticizing it as a mere occasional visitor, but my impression of Tokyo is as a place which has managed to manage a balance of (incredible) density with livable neighborhoods. Lots of public transit, commercial districts, residential zones with small shops and groceries. Very walkable, bikeable, and even driveable if that's what you need. But within the city you seldom need to drive. I grew up in LA suburb…

The thing with Tokyo is that the cops do their jobs. A homeless person asking for money on a Tokyo subway is unheard of. I'd love something like Tokyo in the USA but it will never work because crime on American public transport is rampant. Hell just last week a women was raped on a Philly subway and no one did a thing. Adult hood in America is coming to terms with the fact that I'll never live to see this cleaned up…

> it will never work because crime on American public transport is rampant.

Are you sure? I’ve never had that impression across years of transit, bus and rail, in Pittsburgh and Boston.

I think the biggest barrier is a chicken and egg problem: it’s hard to motivate transit expansion without dense housing and it’s hard to motivate denser housing except along existing transit corridors

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#203

Post by strken »

ohazi wrote: post #76
OJFord wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North American houses from my UK perspective: - Detached no matter the cost - so close they may as well be terraced, but they'll be detached 'gah-damnit'! - Garage in front. I.. ok. Practical I suppose. Bloody ugly. - Fake shutters!! I'm mentioning it last but it bugs me the most. At least have them wide enough that they look like they might be usable. But no, inch-wide 'shutters' on a six-foot window, why not.

> Detached no matter the cost - so close they may as well be terraced, but they'll be detached 'gah-damnit'! The difference between "so close" and "terraced" is hearing your neighbors fucking at night. No thanks. Agree with you about the shutters, though...

Through nearly a foot of solid clay bricks, you can't hear anything. My neighbours across the road with a window facing towards them are more audible than my neighbours next door.

I think US homes are usually timber, so they might not block sound so well.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#204

Post by 0x0nyandesu »

ninjin wrote: post #190
0x0nyandesu wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing with Tokyo is that the cops do their jobs. A homeless person asking for money on a Tokyo subway is unheard of. I'd love something like Tokyo in the USA but it will never work because crime on American public transport is rampant. Hell just last week a women was raped on a Philly subway and no one did a thing. Adult hood in America is coming to terms with the fact that I'll never live to see this cleaned up…

I am not an expert on the subject, but I do not think that the explanation for most of what you see in Japan is explained by “good policing”. There was an excellent article on policing in Japan a few years back that I sadly can not remember the outlet of, but I very much remember a sentence that resonated with my experience in Japan which was along the lines of: “It is not because of the quality of its policing, but…

It's a combination of cleanliness, social responsibility, and police presence true but I've also heard what happens when there is a disturbance and it's dealt with quickly either by police or conductors. Someone begging on the train is not tolerated at all. Japanese culture views that as an unacceptable imposition by that individual on the other riders. Western culture tends to shame you in the other direction which is its own whole set of insanity.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#205

Post by ericmay »

robbrown451 wrote: post #109
ericmay wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s odd to me to place this as a “conservative” preference. In what way is this conservative? And why is that meaningful? Anyway - there is growing evidence of “objective truths” in architecture and design. Namely work tracking things like heart rate, eye movement, etc. Findings are indicating that asymmetrical houses or imposing skyscrapers are actually stressful to humans. The fist being stressful because you natu…

I think you are mistaking the word "conservative" for a political position. The parent is using it as in this definition "averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values." Steep roofs are more traditional. I'm definitely not buying the idea that asymmetrical houses are "stressful" in any meaningful way. I mean, I guess you could say anything that is interesting and non-bland is stressful, but that is qu…

Sure, my “this is unnecessarily political” radar might be off. Especially given there is a lot of angst about Trump’s decision to mandate all federal buildings follow Greco-Roman architecture (maybe the only good thing he ever did) so there is a pushback now where anything “conservative” or traditional is bad and modern is good kind of thing. I’m surely overreacting.

But I’d also challenge this notion that buildings built a certain way are conservative in any meaningful sense. And calling them conservative as though that’s an attack on them has a hidden assumption that everything new must be good, which we surely know is not the case. So it’s not really necessary in this context to call the architecture conservative. It wouldn’t be a true description of the architectural style, and it wouldn’t add any interesting perspective to the conversation. Are Boston City Hall and the African American History Museum “liberal” because they are new? And if I commented and said that they were liberal would you seriously not see political undertones?

Anyway, I think if you think about it a bit it makes a lot of sense that we look for symmetry and would find symmetry in our environment more pleasing. Asymmetry could indicate a predator or something not “normal” which must be dealt with.

There is ongoing research, though not much. I’ve enjoyed reading some of Ann Sussman’s work [1] on the topic and I’m sure one can find ways to poke holes in her work. Ultimately I feel like it makes intuitive sense. Hell, why are we intentionally designing houses to be asymmetric and why does that only become prominent now? Relatively speaking.

> I guess you could say anything that is interesting and non-bland is stressful, but that is quite a stretch.

Right which isn’t something I’d say. I also wouldn’t consider American suburban homes or brutalist architecture to be interesting to the eye except in that they are good examples of things you wouldn’t want to do; cheap in the case of American suburbs and psychotic in the case of brutalist.

[1] https://geneticsofdesign.com/

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#206

Post by ohazi »

strken wrote: post #203
ohazi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Detached no matter the cost - so close they may as well be terraced, but they'll be detached 'gah-damnit'! The difference between "so close" and "terraced" is hearing your neighbors fucking at night. No thanks. Agree with you about the shutters, though...

Through nearly a foot of solid clay bricks, you can't hear anything. My neighbours across the road with a window facing towards them are more audible than my neighbours next door. I think US homes are usually timber, so they might not block sound so well.

In California they're definitely timber because earthquakes.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#207

Post by mc32 »

handrous wrote: post #195
mc32 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me a place like hidden glen north is odd. It's a tract surrounded by soundwalls and has few exits from the development, whereas in normal developments you have intersections with all streets. This kind of development follows the thoroughfare model where smaller streets feed larger streets which feed boulevards/expressways which feed freeways. They are built in such a way the actual city neighborhood is disconnecte…

> It's a tract surrounded by soundwalls and has few exits from the development, whereas in normal developments you have intersections with all streets. I'm not sure any development built after about 1975 in my midwestern metro area isn't like this, including the sound walls if they're next to an interstate or major highway. My neighborhood, with... oh, I dunno 150houses? At least a dozen named-and-numbered streets pr…

You made me recall a time when I was broke while in school. I had classmates in neighborhoods like these. I'd take a bus and then hike to their place. But walking there was weird. People that saw you (most buried in their TVs or whatnot) looked at you like something was wrong. Like, what is someone doing _walking_ here (I usually walked fast, so it was clear I was coming and going), since I didn't visit often, they didn't "recognize" me apparently and walking really threw them off or marked me as "stranger" or slight "intruder" as I had not driven in -which was the normal mode.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#208

Post by lmm »

ryanj20021 wrote: post #95

We can and we are! I’m the CEO of Culdesac. Our vision is to build the first car-free city in the US, starting with the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US. That’s Culdesac Tempe, a 1000-resident neighborhood that is under construction now. Residents move in next year. Join our waitlist at culdesac.com. If you want to visit in the meantime, drop me a note. We have something exciting happening on…

"Culdesac" sends the opposite message to what most of the Strongtowns crowd believes in: a proper grid where everyone takes their share of the cross-town traffic, instead of selfish suburbia that funnels everyone onto highways.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#209

Post by [deleted] »

beowulfey wrote: post #189

Seems a lot of these comments are thinking “nice” refers to the livable sense, but the article is specifically referencing aesthetics. And then makes the argument that modern neighborhoods don’t look pleasing because there is no consistency between neighboring houses. I don’t buy this at all. There are many tracts of suburban (USA) houses where every house looks consistent and similar, with subtle differences in colo…

[deleted]

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#210

Post by dymk »

BrianHenryIE wrote: post #201
dymk wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People in Los Angeles Are Getting Rid Of Their Cars" is a headline meant to generate clicks, posted with no context, statistics, or discussion. Are you a vegan? Hypothetically, how many people have to die due to the greenhouse gasses emitted due to your meat consumption? Have you ever served somebody an egg that didn't have a fully cooked yolk? Do you consume any single-use plastics? Do you use a compost toilet? We…

> it's said people in Los Angeles love their cars doesn't need a survey or study. Are you disputing the perception that Los Angeles is a car-centric city? > Are you a vegan? Yes.

> I tried to find the tweet, but it was succinctly put ~"it's said people in Los Angeles love their cars, but people in LA have no choice but to own a car, it's not love, it is necessity".

This is the part that needs a study or survey to back it up.

If we're just throwing around anecdotes, I've both driven a car and taken the bus in a city that was known for its mass transit, and the mass transit sucked compared to being in a car.

> Yes.

And how about the rest? I'm just making sure we're being consistent, and that you optimize all your life choices to avoid any possibility of harming someone, no matter how remote or indirect.

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