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New Cities

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: New Cities

#401

Post by Kalium »

justinator wrote: post #381
curryst wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing the way cars function inside the city is only part of what would need to change. Near me things just aren't laid out well for pedestrians. It would take me about an hour to walk to the nearest grocery store (not counting corner stores, because all they sell is junk food). Biking should be much shorter, though I can't say I've ever tried. We would need to stop the trend of having a small number of large store…

> Cars are on a pedestal not only because of convenience and speed, but because they're the lowest common denominator. The lowest common denominator? I don't own a car, and I'm sure many other people in my city don't either, so no: it's not the lowest common denominator for us: walking is. Cars are themselves very expensive and require a massive amount of infrastructure to function. Look around a city and think of al…

Have you considered that with infrastructure in place, cars enable an immense amount of individual flexibility? To my mind, it seems somewhat plausible that cars rose to dominance because they enabled individual flexibility for the masses atop pre-existing and extensible infrastructure.

Re: New Cities

#402

Post by gjkood »

Speaking of new cities;

A shoutout to a new video series from WIRED on Shenzhen.

Episode 1 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp6F_ApUq-c

Episode 2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3r4kdHxdcE

Episode 3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4wbFdePb-k

I came upon these videos through Andrew "Bunnie" Huang's blog. http://www.bunniestudios.com

Enjoy.

Re: New Cities

#403

Post by anon4711 »

Since they make it so clear that they're '[..] not interested in building “crazy libertarian utopias for techies.”', I wonder:

Who is? And where can I sign up for that?

Re: New Cities

#405

Post by gwbas1c »

I think the thing to realize is that there are certain advantages to suburban living: The modern suburban home is what many people consider a mansion in other contexts. A lot of people take a lot of pride in their home's interior and exterior work.

Thus, perhaps the city of the future needs to figure out how to give people space and personality in their dwellings. Living in a shoebox apartment where all one gets to do is pick the wall coverings does not appeal to everyone.

Instead, perhaps it might be better to think about how someone can buy property in 3D? Large empty 3D grid-like structures where someone can build and have a high degree of control over their interior and exterior?

Perhaps even elevated walkways and trains, so people can get around without needing to venture down?

Might sound like something out of sci-fi, but cities really need broader appeal. A lot of people just don't want to move into a building where someone chose everything else for them.

Re: New Cities

#406

Post by ido »

superuser2 wrote: post #253
ginko wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone living in a place "designed for people", my trip to the grocery stores means putting on my shoes, walking down the stairs and across the street. The next department store is about 200m down the street.

Is this Manhattan? Because in Chicago I think that describes about 10 blocks (a few hundred staggeringly wealthy people in the most lavish of luxury condo towers). The rest of us have some tiny, price-gouging convenience stores nearby but have to go ~20 blocks for a real supermarket, 4-5 miles to downtown for a Target or Macy's. Taking the train is less of a hassle than parking in the Loop, but it's still a hassle.

In Vienna "maximum 5-10 minutes walk from the closest supermarket" would cover virtually the entire population.

Re: New Cities

#407

Post by athenot »

dhd415 wrote: post #375
rwhitman wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about this. My thought has been, bump the street level up one story to create a pedestrian / bicycle promenade and move building entrances to the second floor. Keep the existing street below intact, with parallel parking etc. Essentially build a boardwalk above a commercial street, so that traffic can flow below. (Though for ventilation purposes, it would be best if most cars at street level were electri…

That reminds me of a 1920s drawing of the "city of the future" that had several levels of roadway with a promenade or pedestrian level on the third or fourth story: https://worldstreets.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/future-city...

For an extreme (and somewhat tongue-in-cheek) version of that, see The 5th Element. Everything happens in the sky and street-level becomes this shady area filled with trash and thugs. :)

Re: New Cities

#409

Post by rtkwe »

yyyuuu wrote: post #372

A large part of today's population already resides in big cities around the world. Would it be more plausible to research on how we can improve the situation in the current cities, instead of starting from scratch. It's like Software, where you come up with a large code base that is ridden with problems, but somehow works most of the times. You can either dive into that and improve it or you start writing your own sy…

To change an existing city you have a lot of baggage in the form of existing structures and landowners who you have to either convince that the change is beneficial to them or force the changes and fight the inevitable legal battles. That's just assuming that your plan can be implemented with the existing structures, if not it's going to require purchasing the existing structures and rebuilding/tearing them down.

That's not to stay starting over is easy. Trying to create a city out of whole cloth with sufficient jobs and infrastructure to attract and retain people isn't an easy problem in the slightest. It does avoid the NIMBY fight of trying to change an existing city though.

Re: New Cities

#410

Post by dang »

sauceweak wrote: post #202

Since the parent felt the need to use an affiliate link, here's a direct link to The Rent Is Too Damn High - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO/ An amazon affiliate link to a 2.5 star book doesn't really establish confidence in someone's recommended reading list.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11987265 and marked it off-topic.
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