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Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

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Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#361

Post by briandear »

trgn wrote: post #50
emodendroket wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

In NYC you certainly could. It takes banning cars for personal transport and expand the subway. The city would improve tremendously. Not quite like waving a wand, but doesn't require tearing down and rebuilding either.

How do you transport 4 kids and groceries on an NYC subway? If elevators exist at all they are pissed-filled containers for mentally deranged homeless. Trains are overcrowded. People making statements like banning cars are likely single people that never had to push a stroller across NYC during rush hour.. or any hour for that matter.

Public transport is ridiculously inefficient when you have to buy more than you can carry or have babies or toddlers or young kids. I suppose we should just eliminate kids as well in order to make the perfect urban utopia?

And what about when it’s 10 degrees in NYC? Walking on freezing streets to stations blocks away isn’t too fun.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#362

Post by briandear »

electricslpnsld wrote: post #56
jnordwick wrote: post #2

> Streetscape enhancements add value to an area and are associated with higher rents and the attraction of new businesses. In addition there is good evidence to show that improving walking and cycling environments raises private property values by significant amounts. Nobody doubts this. Actually everybody sees this as the problem. I love NYC, but i also hate it. There is a price for density: crime, trash, prices, ov…

> I love NYC, but i also hate it. There is a price for density: crime, trash, prices, overcrowding, urban decay, poverty and homelessness, etc. These read as mostly outdated stereotypes of NYC from 80s and 90s. NYC now ranks as the safest major city in the United States, by most measures.

NYC has the largest homeless population in the US. You are still more likely to have your bike stolen in NYC than you are in Houston. “Safe” doesn’t mean “less crime” it means less violent crime. Overcrowding — definitely still true in NYC. Urban decay? Still there. Have a visit to the Bronx or Queens sometime.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#363

Post by zjaffee »

beat wrote: post #260
closeparen wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure progressives are strongly aligned on opposition to any housing construction unless it’s specifically set aside for low-income residents, and are okay with low density zoning as an anti-gentrification measure. YIMBYism is more center-left than progressive.

It's more complicated than that. The recent Minneapolis mayoral race had housing policy as a major issue, and Minneapolis is nothing if not progressive. Affordability and gentrification are interrelated, but so is quality. I live in a relatively low-density neighborhood of mostly 80-110 year old houses. Lately, we're getting new development in the form of cheap older rentals being torn down, and large-for-the-lots (t…

Jane Jacobs, one of the historical thought leaders behind modern urban planning, discusses in her book (The Life and Death of American Cities) how thriving neighborhoods have a mix of cheap old real estate and expensive new real estate. The old real-estate allows for places like dive bars, and general affordable housing to exist, where new buildings house chain stores, high end boutiques, and allow the neighborhood to grow to match current demand from new residents.

The key issue here is that this cycle works best in the long term, but can cause pain in the short term. Additionally, if the new housing doesn't match the complete incoming demand for the neighborhood, the prices of the old units rise as well furthering displacement. In turn, she advocated for the removal of zoning, for as it stands right now, there is an extreme demand for housing in neighborhoods that are zoned in such a way that restricts their density from matching the demand in addition to pushing commercial activity to fixed locations where prices will always be high due to demand to living within walking distances to stores.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#364

Post by paganel »

IWeldMelons wrote: post #255
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…

The best urban environments I've lived in so far are the ones in the ex-USSR. They had moderate amount of street retail, not too much, but were very walkable. Today, in the area around me they began retrofitting the lowest levels of the condo buildings with cafeterias and such and it is becoming too busy, too messy and uncomfortable the people who lives in these buildings. Generally, what you need is not a retail in…

> The best urban environments I've lived in so far are the ones in the ex-USSR

You might want to read more about Microdistricts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict), if you haven't already, as a resident of one of those former communist Eastern-European cities I can attest to their usefulness. For example, until a couple of years ago I used to live in one of those apartment buildings that used to be part of a microdistrict (building was built in the 1960s), and I can tell you that I had an elementary school right bellow my window (I was living on the 7th floor) and a kindergarten 50 meters from the building's entrance. Don't have kids, but if I had one at the time he/she could have gone to kindergarten or school in record time (the elevator-ride would have probably taken longer than the actual walking, it was an old elevator), so no need for me, the parent, to need to leave work earlier in order to pick my kid up from school or kindergarden (or to hire someone else to do it). The tram station was also pretty close, like 50 meters or so.

But, yeah, a microdistrict requires that you live in a not-so-big apartment (not-so-big compared to owning an actual house) so if you're the sort of person that usually buys and accumulates lots of stuff then it's not for you, because you'd have no place to deposit said stuff. I guess that's why it kind of worked in the former Communist countries and why it's so difficult to impose in places like America.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#365

Post by briandear »

matt4077 wrote: post #21
jnordwick wrote: post #2

> Streetscape enhancements add value to an area and are associated with higher rents and the attraction of new businesses. In addition there is good evidence to show that improving walking and cycling environments raises private property values by significant amounts. Nobody doubts this. Actually everybody sees this as the problem. I love NYC, but i also hate it. There is a price for density: crime, trash, prices, ov…

> crime, trash, prices, overcrowding, urban decay, poverty and homelessness, etc. I fail to see how that description actually fits today's New York, or most other large US cities. It may have been true in the 80s. But just the change over time proves that these aren't necessary consequences of high density. You may also wish to take a walk around Paris, Venice, or Barcelona to see how attractive urban environments ca…

Paris? You have lost your mind. Dog shit everywhere. People peeing anywhere they want on the street. Loud scooters at all hours of the day and night. Crowded sidewalks, polluted air much of the year, extortionate housing prices, everything closed on Sundays or after 7pm. And there are the ubiquitous Gypsy pickpockets everywhere.

And Venice? It’s about the single most crowded and overpriced city in Europe. Beautiful to visit, but a nightmare to live there. Even in November it’s elbow to elbow people; the infrastructure is at the breaking point.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#366

Post by electricslpnsld »

briandear wrote: post #362
electricslpnsld wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love NYC, but i also hate it. There is a price for density: crime, trash, prices, overcrowding, urban decay, poverty and homelessness, etc. These read as mostly outdated stereotypes of NYC from 80s and 90s. NYC now ranks as the safest major city in the United States, by most measures.

NYC has the largest homeless population in the US. You are still more likely to have your bike stolen in NYC than you are in Houston. “Safe” doesn’t mean “less crime” it means less violent crime. Overcrowding — definitely still true in NYC. Urban decay? Still there. Have a visit to the Bronx or Queens sometime.

> “Safe” doesn’t mean “less crime” it means less violent crime.

Let's take a look at Houston vs NYC. In 2017 NYC had 286 homicides [1], while Houston had 269 [2]. If we divide out by population (8.5 million in NYC, 2.3 million in Houston), we get:

0.000033647058824 murders per capita in NYC

0.000116956521739 murders per capita in Houston

So you are roughly 3.5 time as likely to get killed in Houston vs. in NYC.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/nyregion/new-york-city-cr...

[2] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/...

> Have a visit to the Bronx or Queens sometime.

I'm from Long Island City -- I know a thing or two about Queens. :)

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#367

Post by IWeldMelons »

paganel wrote: post #364
IWeldMelons wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best urban environments I've lived in so far are the ones in the ex-USSR. They had moderate amount of street retail, not too much, but were very walkable. Today, in the area around me they began retrofitting the lowest levels of the condo buildings with cafeterias and such and it is becoming too busy, too messy and uncomfortable the people who lives in these buildings. Generally, what you need is not a retail in…

> The best urban environments I've lived in so far are the ones in the ex-USSR You might want to read more about Microdistricts ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict ), if you haven't already, as a resident of one of those former communist Eastern-European cities I can attest to their usefulness. For example, until a couple of years ago I used to live in one of those apartment buildings that used to be part o…

I am living right now in one. Very convenient, compared to a Brooklyn city block.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#368

Post by jimmywanger »

emodendroket wrote: post #343
jimmywanger wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the post you responded to says that density without strict oversight leads to all the bad things you were talking about. I cannot think of a counterexample. Density with strict oversight seems like it could lead to a flourishing society, which is what has happened in those other examples. It's very easy to have density with strict oversight lead to bad results, but some form of strict oversight seems like a prere…

Ok, so I suppose the conclusion I would draw, if we accept all these premises, is that increased density is not worth the cost.

Well, increased density is off the table without massive forced birth control/a massive die off. The population of the world has massively spiked in the last fifty years, the trend is continuing especially in poor countries, and all these people have to go somewhere.

A dense city is the only place for them to go and try to support themselves, since there isn't enough good land around for subsistence farming. Density is a given, in the future. Whether or not it makes people happy is an entirely other thing.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#369

Post by tmnvix »

ars wrote: post #53
ebiester wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to ban cars. You just need to design around people instead of cars. Remove parking minimums. Don't put on-street parking but rather leave it to the free market to handle parking solutions (Yes, that means people pay to park.) Subsidize public transit but road maintenance must be paid by automobile-based taxes. Don't require density, but always zone for the next bigger thing. (The neighborhood is single…

How is that designing around people? First you are going to make all the people in the cars nuts because they can't find parking, so they won't come. Next all the people who find public transport tedious and slow won't come. (Yes, even the best public transport is not anywhere near as a good as a car that goes direct, and where you can actually leave your stuff in the car.) Next all the people who hate living in dens…

> First you are going to make all the people in the cars nuts because they can't find parking, so they won't come.

Maybe they will come, but won't bring their car?

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#370

Post by phil248 »

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…

"A lot of people can't bear it"

You wouldn't know if by the tens of millions of people who live in those densest cities. It seems like an astronomical numbers of people can "bear it" just fine.

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