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

chrisbarber.co

31–40 of 193 posts

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

#31
post #28
post #15

My dream is for my section of my town to ban cars. It’s already heavy pedestrian but if the cars went away (and everyone had to walk or e-bike or mobility scooter in the zone) it would be a utopia. Sure there’d be some issues to address and frustrations but we’d figure it out. The net would be amazingly positive.

How would people be able to "express their personality" by removing their muffler or putting a two foot lift on their truck?

Unusual and inventive walking styles?

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

#32
post #28
post #15

My dream is for my section of my town to ban cars. It’s already heavy pedestrian but if the cars went away (and everyone had to walk or e-bike or mobility scooter in the zone) it would be a utopia. Sure there’d be some issues to address and frustrations but we’d figure it out. The net would be amazingly positive.

How would people be able to "express their personality" by removing their muffler or putting a two foot lift on their truck?

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

#33
post #9

These are all great, I love city life and would embrace every single item, but without addressing the dramatic decline in public safety in virtually all US cities, none of these will matter at all.

What do you mean by "decline in public safety"? The violent crime rate has dropped to around half what it was in the '90s:

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/us-c...

Property crime is down similarly.

I understand that some people feel so afraid of homeless people or street addicts that they assume they must be in danger whenever they witness such poverty, but crime statistics do not support this opinion.

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

#34

Some additions: - No drug addicts - No homeless people - No drunks - If you throw your trash anywhere except the bin you get punished - If you shout into your phone you get punished - If you intentionally break or deface anything you get punished If your city is full of drug addicts and anti-social people not a single thing you are going to do about zoneing will make it more "walkable". This stuff is so completely de…

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> Also, in the vein of this guy I think 21 is a bad idea

Could you elaborate on that? I could speculate, but I'd love to know your reasons.

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

#35

Some additions: - No drug addicts - No homeless people - No drunks - If you throw your trash anywhere except the bin you get punished - If you shout into your phone you get punished - If you intentionally break or deface anything you get punished If your city is full of drug addicts and anti-social people not a single thing you are going to do about zoneing will make it more "walkable". This stuff is so completely de…

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

#36
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 actually good for the masses because it leads to reduced rents/prices. That's not the entire story in Austin, but it is a major reason prices have come down.

I feel like we've been out of balance for so long (decades and decades and decades) that it might be a good idea to swing the pendulum back to the greedy developers so that rents/prices become more affordable. Disclosure: I guess I'm sort of a greedy developer albeit at a tiny scale.

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

#37

Some additions: - No drug addicts - No homeless people - No drunks - If you throw your trash anywhere except the bin you get punished - If you shout into your phone you get punished - If you intentionally break or deface anything you get punished If your city is full of drug addicts and anti-social people not a single thing you are going to do about zoneing will make it more "walkable". This stuff is so completely de…

You're not wrong that such things make a city less walkable, but there's also a strong argument that just punishing people, instead of, you know, addressing the underlying problem doesn't solve the problem either. It just sets up a situation where people bounce from jail (due to the realities of living on the streets) to the homeless encampment (due to unpaid fines preventing them from earning any money).

Like, the whole reason the West Oakland homeless encampment has such an enormous garbage pile problem is because nobody living there can sign up for trash service, since they lack an actual address (and likely can't afford trash service anyway). So as soon as the single 30-gallon courtesy trash can gets filled up (within hours of delivery, if experience is any guide), they're on their own until that that can gets emptied. And they provide that single can for all the trash needs of the 30 or so people living adjacent to it.

One of the core drivers of homelessness is the absence of affordable housing within efficient reach of public transit to get to where people work. So by setting up communities that are designed specifically for walking and public transit and are affordable for most directly addresses the main driver of homelessness, which in turn starves the friends-couch-to-homeless-encampment pipeline. Nobody goes directly from evicted to homeless encampment. Its a long fall from grace. Preventing the first step, by ensuring there's adequate housing near where the jobs are, helps prevent the final step.

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

#38
post #28
post #15

My dream is for my section of my town to ban cars. It’s already heavy pedestrian but if the cars went away (and everyone had to walk or e-bike or mobility scooter in the zone) it would be a utopia. Sure there’d be some issues to address and frustrations but we’d figure it out. The net would be amazingly positive.

How would people be able to "express their personality" by removing their muffler or putting a two foot lift on their truck?

Walking around in platform shoes as a substitute for driving around in a lifted truck, maybe?

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

#39
I don't know why more municipalities don't jump on this. In my area (I live in the US) we have a number of neighborhoods that are very walk-able and they are consistently the most competitive areas for housing. In all the spots, homes are expensive and that's even if they make it on the market because hardly anyone wants to sell when they live in a place like this.

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

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> Also, in the vein of this guy I think 21 is a bad idea Could you elaborate on that? I could speculate, but I'd love to know your reasons.

No one uses the covered bus stops in my street because they’re full of homeless people slop? Once that shit gets rained on people have the heart to bin it.
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