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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?

#241

Post by titanomachy »

chmod775 wrote: post #130
hn8788 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every suburb I've lived in in the USA has had everything you've mentioned, except maybe a supermarket, and that's normally only been ~15 minutes by bike at the most. The only ones I've seen that didn't have parks and nearby shops were wealthy neighborhoods, and its because they didn't want poor people to have a reason to walk through the neighborhood. Even a local neighborhood that was off-limits to military personne…

I pretty much zoomed on a place in the US at random, and this is easily repeatable: https://i.imgur.com/rCTqZU4.png I plotted a route across that for a sense of scale. There is no public transportation. For most people there's hardly anything within a 15 minute walking distance, except more suburb. Most children in that area will have to walk over 30 minutes to get to an elementary school, or the one playground. If y…

I did this exercise too, it was fun!

I think I got a biased sample but it seems more likely you'd live within a 15 minute walk of a fucking golf course than a convenience store.

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

#242

Post by titanomachy »

pottertheotter wrote: post #51
jmathai wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only 10% of homes are designed by architects then it's probably 1% who have an interior designer involved. We are in the middle of a remodel and involving an interior designer as early in the process as the architect resulted in a much different layout and floor plan than if we only worked with an architect. The architect helped us make sure the house was structurally sound and the interior designer helped us make…

There seems to be a lot of variability in what architects do and care about. In your last sentence, I feel like you could often replace architect with structural engineer and interior designer with architect in other situations and end up with the same outcome.

Agreed, I know architects who only do interior layouts.

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

#244

Post by supermatt »

0x0nyandesu wrote: post #233
advael wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't aware this was a technical term, but if we insist on this usage, the post I'm responding to is even less meaningful, because this is drawing a pedantic distinction between money that's tied up in expenses and thus, at any rate, not money that the relevant party is really making decisions about

I mean do you really want to compare my disposable income with my great grandparents? They'd hit me up side the head if they knew how much I blow on weed a month and random bullshit like latex Halloween costumes. To them eating out was a luxury they could afford maybe once or twice a year. I eat out like every other day. Our standards are way higher these days cause the truth is we're all spoiled.

You keep saying disposable income (money after taxes) when you mean discretionary income (money after necessary expenses such as rent, bills, transportation and food).

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

#245

Post by 0x0nyandesu »

ninjin wrote: post #235
0x0nyandesu wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe we are talking past each other, but I am not so sure you “see” the causation the way it probably is (I am reluctant to call myself an authority even after nearly a decade living in Japan, so take my perspectives with a grain of salt). “Western” societies apply corrections the way you seem to ascribe them to Japan: A strong arm and stern reminder. In Japan, it is instead “soft” and more akin to the stern look yo…

I spent a month in Japan. Most Japanese people live closer to how Americans live. Low density suburbs and very low density cities. Even in Tokyo you can purchase a small single family home in the suburbs with a driveway for what would be considered a very cheap price by American standards. You would take a 30-45 minute train into Tokyo. They also sound proof the nice condos in downtown really well and you can afford a fairly large two bedroom for around $1500 USD per month. They are also more creative with the dense city space and parking and allow parking on the sidewalk in designated spaces.

One thing that struck me walking around Osaka was a 7-11 that had parking like an American style one would with parking in front.

Driving into Kagoshima (bullet train was out due to landslide so we drove down) you're gonna see basically single family style dwellings all the way down hill into the city where it gets instantly dense but for only about 15 city blocks. Was dead AF at night. In a city like that you can own a car no problem and commute in. And that's how most Japanese live. Don't get it twisted. Japanese folks enjoy privacy as much as anyone else. Tokyo is the exception, not the rule. And even in Tokyo they will go to retreats out in the mountains regularly.

Tokyo is a great model for proper zoning in high density urban areas to prevent high costs but it's not how you live everywhere

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

#246

Post by inglor_cz »

jppope wrote: post #131
xibalba wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not faster to way to discredit oneself than to offer a pat, single variable explanation. As others point out, Americans like and want to transport themselves by car. Let's accept this, work with it, and build around it instead of lusting after a minority defined Utopia.

This may or may not be true, and it doesn't matter because single use zoning in most American cities makes it illegal to build walkable cities. It's pretty hard to establish what Americans prefer when the alternative what they have isn't allowed.

Why should a neighbourhood consisting of single family homes not be walkable?

This is such a neighbourhood from the early 1920s not too far from where I grew up. Take a stroll through it with Street View. It is perfectly walkable.

https://goo.gl/maps/kKqhtNbKDy6oycSi9

The lots are smallish compared to the American standard, though. This is a crowded continent.

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

#247

Post by 0x0nyandesu »

supermatt wrote: post #244
0x0nyandesu wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean do you really want to compare my disposable income with my great grandparents? They'd hit me up side the head if they knew how much I blow on weed a month and random bullshit like latex Halloween costumes. To them eating out was a luxury they could afford maybe once or twice a year. I eat out like every other day. Our standards are way higher these days cause the truth is we're all spoiled.

You keep saying disposable income (money after taxes) when you mean discretionary income (money after necessary expenses such as rent, bills, transportation and food).

Laymen versus technical. If I'm talking to a random person on the street I'm gonna say disposable. But yes I mean discretionary. My discretionary income is still huge. Well over 50% of my paycheck. It's also not even fair to say though because it's still my choice to have upgraded my living situation. Sure I'm locked in now but I could sell my house and downgrade at any time and my discretionary will go up.

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

#248

Post by mint2 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #83

If you ask the objective and measurable question of which neighborhoods tourists pay money to see, the answers are almost exclusively older neighborhoods, That doesn't sound like a good objective measure of what is a "nice" neighborhood -- I visit a lot of places as a tourist that I wouldn't want to live in. We have the neighborhoods we have because people are choosing to live in them. Some things, like a central car…

> If houses in a cookie cutter boring neighborhood cost 10% less than the ones in a planned neighborhood that's objectively nicer,

Minor point, planned neighborhoods are at best a local maxima but I’ve never seen one that wasn’t sterile and bland. Irvine ca is a soulless sterile place with gobs of early 2000’s office park style landscaping all over the residential areas, and that’s even true for the just built areas. The new dev areas are all continued to be “master planned” and they are just sad. But hey, it’s family friendly!

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

#249

Post by inglor_cz »

randycupertino wrote: post #140
cletus wrote: post #106

Two reasons: 1. People (in the US at least) overall consistently choose more land over living somewhere walkable. In a lot of places, the marginal cost of more land is near zero; and 2. The dirty secret of car dependency is that most people (in the US) like being car dependent. In all but the densest largest cities, private vehicles are so much more convenient. Even in Manhattan there are a nontrivial number of peopl…

> 2. The dirty secret of car dependency is that most people (in the US) like being car dependent. In all but the densest largest cities, private vehicles are so much more convenient. Even in Manhattan there are a nontrivial number of people who cling to their cars. We recently moved from city center to a blue-collar suburb and it is notable to me how much of a car aficionado culture there is here! A lot of my neighbo…

I know a lot of guys and some gals who really love their cars. In a post-Communist country, people over 40 still connect car ownership with luxury, even though the economic situation is now different.

But no one, no one loves the unavoidable traffic jams. So the thing about clinging to their cars is sort-of two faced.

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

#250

Post by mixmastamyk »

saila wrote: post #8
jedberg wrote: post #3

> That is why the increasing cost of craftsmanship, while real, cannot account for the decline of neighborhood beauty. It's not the cost, it's the availability. I'm currently in the process of a home renovation. If you want a master craftsman to build you say, kitchen cabinets, you may have to wait years for them to be available. Or you can go to the store and buy custom built cabinets from a factory and have them in…

That's the current situation, but what about the past several decades? The article claims that very few attractive neighborhoods were built in the US post WWII.

The cheap box aesthetic peaked in the sixties.
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