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Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

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Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#401

Post by tim333 »

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…

>super dense cities like Tokyo or New York can feel suffocating

I guess to some people but I love NYC and find strolling in central park very unsuffocating. The main problem with NYC is most people do like it and would quite like to move there so the prices are bid stupidly high. Property prices being high because people want to move to a place are generally a sign of successful design.

I didn't think Tokyo felt that dense when I was there but very big to get around - over 100km long and taxis costing something like the price of international flight within europe.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#402

Post by emodendroket »

jnordwick wrote: post #349
oftenwrong wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes the right policies and a lot of time. We have seen American cities become less walkable and more auto-centric in the last ~60 years thanks to policies designed to hollow out urban cores and increase suburban sprawl [1]. We have also seen Amsterdam embrace "human-centric" urban planning, leading to significant transformation toward the vibrant, walkable, bikeable city that Amsterdam is famous for being today…

Re #3: It basically makes two points. That zoning should be more liberal and less specific (stop trying to plan in such fine grain), which makes a lot of sense. And zoning should be done at the national level. Absolutely laughable in a country as large and diverse as the US.

Do they centralize this function in China? I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#403

Post by littlestymaar »

pcwalton wrote: post #212
rayiner wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economics is to urban planning like structural mechanics is to architecture. It's a way of describing a justification ("we need a beam to hold up the floor, and the math shows why") not a justification in and of itself. It's also a way of bridging differences in subjective preferences "whether we have a post or a cantilever, we need to hold up this awning, and the math shows why"). Most Americans don't live in cities…

> To a degree that stands in stark contrast to Europe. Over 60% of the population of Germany's capital lives in the city proper. Just 11% of the population of America's capital lives in the city proper. Eh, D.C. is an outlier due to its special legal/territorial status. And the numbers are uneven in Europe as well. In Los Angeles, 3,976,322/13,131,431 (30.3%) of the population of the metro area lives in L.A. proper.…

Paris is also an outlier, and the administrative distinction between Paris and the «petite couronne» is kind of artificial. In an urbanistic point of view, there is not much difference between inside and outside the «périphérique ».

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#404

Post by Brakenshire »

Zenst wrote: post #25

I love wide pavements as a pedestrian, alas London is in the grip of a cycle paths fetish and in many instances, they eat up pavements with some cases reducing pedestrian access and seen some which have reduced the pedestrian area to one foot due to the oversight of sheltered bus stops consuming the other side of the pavement. I'm not against cycle paths and indeed for them, but not when they erode away pedestrian ac…

Most of the new cycle superhighways are just lines painted on roads, the handful of segregated routes have come almost entirely from the roadspace. It is very rare for cycle paths to come at the expense of pavements, in fact I have only heard of it in the context of CS9. Can you provide another example?

The 'grip of a cycle paths fetish' is excessive.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#405

Post by vkreso »

thriftwy wrote: post #348
rhapsodic wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They might have looked dull, but not duller than any American city, esp. built in 20th century. Besides, the whole point is not the looks, but the layouts are nice. Still, currently living in a large Soviet city, and to me it is much nicer than Philly or NYC. The only comparable places I've seen in the US, in terms of sheer ugliness, are large high-rise government housing projects. I will say this about St. Petersbu…

> The woman (35 yrs and under) there seemed to be, on average, notably more attractive than in any other place I've been, before or since. This just means you've never been to ex-Yugoslavia! (Been there with my wife; she agrees wholeheartedly)

I'm from ex-Yugo (Croatia) and even though I'm heavily biased, completely agree.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#406

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

megy wrote: post #317
baby wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the loop is kind-of-walkable. But you always end up having to cross large streets made for cars and at night it's empty. Compare that to a city like London or Paris.

London and Paris also have large streets made for cars, and also has lots of streets that are empty at night. Even the Champs Elysées and Oxford St will be empty at certain times during the week.

> London and Paris also have large streets made for cars

Haha. In London Zone 1, not so much. Some of those streets date back to the Romans. And it was not re-laid out after the fire of 1666.

The wider streets in inner London pre-date 1900, and were made for animal-drawn carriages.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#407

Post by jschwartzi »

princeb wrote: post #354
Johnny555 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

random objects that enter the street unexpectedly. The self driving car will be able to see, predict How does a self-driving car predict the unexpected? Braking distance of a 30mph car is 45 ft (ignoring reaction time) so anything that happens less than 45 feet in front of a self-driving car is going to need evasive action. On a busy street with cars in all lanes, the self-driving car is going to need to decide wheth…

yes this particular prediction of the future doesn't make too much sense to me. if a car were to drive as if every thing in its vicinity has the potential to move rapidly in front of the car, and hence it takes precautions for all potential accidents, it can't be moving very fast can it? if it is traveling on a busy street with a lot of vehicular traffic and pedestrians on the sidewalk, must it take precautions for e…

Yes, it must. This is why speeds drop in downtowns and residential areas, because lower speeds provide more safety for pedestrians. A good human driver also takes account of this by reducing speed and paying better attention.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#408

Post by paulie_a »

reaperducer wrote: post #230
baby wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is something that certain cities have understood for many years. Chicago There is a big contradiction here, I haven't really seen walkable streets in Chicago (lived there for a year and a half). When I think of an American city with walkable streets I think of Boston for example.

Unless you lived in some far-out neighborhood and never went downtown, I really have a hard time believing you. I lived there ten years, after growing up in New York, and it was very walkable. I ended up getting rid of both of my family's cars because we could walk or CTA everywhere.

I moved to Chicago last July and am in the process of getting rid of my car. I hate driving here.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#409

Post by beat »

bobthepanda wrote: post #375
beat wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So there are multiple policy options that you could do. There's deregulation; deregulate anything that isn't explicitly for safety purposes. Schools and sewers and congestion and all of that should ideally be paid for with impact fees, not reflexively blocked out of hand. Every additional regulation is a cost on the developer passed down to the owner and the renter, and with enough small costs eventually you start pr…

My neighborhood is old. Lots are generally 1/10 acre, and many houses are under 1000sqf. So questions for us aren't about building new, but rather about how to maintain the neighborhood for the future. How do we replace old houses that are falling apart without changing the essential character of the neighborhood? How can we get some more small businesses and restaurants without giving way to strip malls and big boxes? And the current controversy... there's a possibility that a light rail route will pass within a block of my house, down the major in-out drag for the immediate neighborhood. The light rail does us no good, but because it's a relatively short residential pass, we will have a hard time resisting.

Re: Walkable Streets Are More Economically Productive

#410

Post by oftenwrong »

gorkemyurt wrote: post #201
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 better formula is 'no empty walls'. Vancouver does this. Retail doesn't fit in every single location when that's the case ground floor is replaced by street level townhouse style entrances to individual units..

This article discusses the damage that empty walls (or blocks) do to the pedestrian realm. You might find it interesting.

http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20151021.php

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