Dear YC, all the conceptual work has already been done: https://www.google.ca/search?q=christopher+alexander+books
New Cities
481–490 of 710 posts
Re: New Cities
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a walkable city with small markets, you pop into the market as you walk past it on the way home from work, grab ~4 things for supper and carry them home. It takes about 5 minutes, and you do it 7 times a week. In a surburb, you spend some time making a shopping list to ensure you don't forget something, drive to the store, spend at least 30 minutes getting everything (it takes at least 5 minutes to walk from one e…
I'd question those numbers: 5 minutes for urban shopping and 2 hours for suburb shopping. So you're saying that in 7 5 minute stops (35 minutes), you're able to accomplish what it takes someone else in a suburban mega-grocery store to accomplish in 2 hours? Apart from that, though, almost anything that you can easily plan out and do in bulk is going to out-efficiency something done in smaller iterations involving a l…
Carrying bottled water and soft drinks is a major hassle without a car.
That's why we just drink tap water, or water with syrup if you like something sweet (a bottle of syrup lasts a week). It's a lot cheaper, too.
Re: New Cities
#483The biggest gap in this discussion, thus far -- the elephant in the room, as it were: there's almost no room left on the planet for building "new" cities of any significant scale (meaning of course not just the meticulously designed city core; but the whole meta-city that will grow around it -- with suburbs, transportation links, etc). Sure, there might be a few -- a very small few -- bona-fide brown zones here and t…
New cities aren't going to happen, but it's not a space issue. There's plenty of space in the middle of Kansas.
Tornadoes love it there too :)
Re: New Cities
#484What's important in a generation where technology is everywhere, is to find the ingredient that actually makes humans intellectually satisfied, happy and productive. The economy and politics of this "system" is secondary to building it in such a way that it nurtures humans' actual well being. I'd like to see out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to building a system for optimal well being. For instance, are we sure t…
> "Why not experiment with humans living in structures resembling tribes, which is really what our human intellect evolved into for thousands of years?"
Most of my waking hours are spent at work, my department is the size of a small tribe, full of small tribe politics. Also the middle managers force the tribes to fight each other gladiator style. This does nothing for the customers or investors, but obviously the leaders get a high out of it because practically all middle managers across the country act that way.
My kids live most of the time in a separate tribe called school. That is one screwed up tribe where they're all the same age and ability and demographic, mostly. Unlike every other tribe they'll ever be a member of. There they are instructed in the fine art of being interchangeable cog laborers on the assembly lines that closed back in my grandpas generation, in other words its pretty much useless other than as extremely expensive babysitting. So yeah Prussian style public school is pretty much designed to maximally suck. But its their legally required tribal membership until they're 18.
The question isn't why can't we LARP artificial pretend clubs and fraternal organizations, but why did they decline in the first place and if the root cause hasn't been fixed why would LARPing bootstrap anything? If the root impediment is eliminated shouldn't those social organizations grow organically, in fact at unpreventable rates?
Re: New Cities
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Flexibility? I don't own a car, and haven't for the last decade (and only had a car for maybe a year of my life). This year, I've been driven in a car about four times in > 170 days. So let me talk about flexibility. Think about how much a car costs to buy and own (purchasing, upkeep, insurance, gas, parking, storage) - then put a price on that in hours you work a year. I bet it's a lot! Maybe weeks out of every year…
Friend, I live a life not so different from yours. I'm suggesting that other people choose to have cars now - and historically as well - because they find that the advantages for them outweigh the disadvantages for them. You may want to consider that other people may make their choices for reasons they personally find compelling in the context of their individual lives.
I think very few people are saying "no cars, ever!". We have one and find it very useful, like you say.
What many people are realizing is that cars should not be the be-all and end-all of urban design in the US.
Re: New Cities
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
You broke the rules badly and it would be better to simply take responsibility for that. > I would absolutely say these things face to face There's no reading of the HN guidelines by which the claim 'no really, I would be that rude to someone's face' makes it ok to post what you posted. I often hear this from people who think they've found a loophole in the civility rule. But obviously there's no such loophole. 'Don'…
Keep in mind I'm not speaking of everyone when I say this, but I do have a subset of the population in mind. Regarding the detatched engineer, here is just one example, although there are many: http://uptownalmanac.com/2013/08/tech-founder-complains-abou... In terms of the empathy and lack of spirit to the community, a cursory search through HN archives for the word "deserve" can summon a mountain of comments by peop…
The issue is that you broke HN's civility rules blatantly. Please don't do that again.
Re: New Cities
#487Location suggestions anyone?
my 3 priorities would be;
- close to Silicon Valley and California High Speed Rail
- no one should really be living there (no status quo)
- has to be close to a body of water (better climate)
I think I found the perfect location! Link to Google Maps: http://tinyurl.com/gnzquv3
The exact point where the couple is drinking wine in the picture can be the Dolares park of the new city :)
Re: New Cities
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Downtown Chicago comes pretty close with subway on the lowest level, trucks and commuter rail above that, and cars/pedestrians on the surface. There is also a large network of pedestrian tunnels which is useful in winter (and when coming from aforementioned commuter trains). And until 2003, there was even an airstrip only 2mi from downtown.
Montreal's Underground City is a pretty great example of how to give public pedestrian connectivity underground in winter. Well worth checking out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_City,_Montreal
Re: New Cities
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
Re: Street Design Japan is designed with public transport in mind. Most everywhere in Japan is within train/bus/bike/walk distance. You don't need 4 lane high ways when there are maybe a few dozen cards on any particular stretch of the high way at any given time. I drove from Nara, Nara to Naruto, Tokushima via highway and saw maybe ten other cars on the highway. That's a distance of 174.5km; roughly a 2 and 1/2 hour…
For sure. As I understand it a lot of the build-out in Tokyo into what were more rural areas was done by the railroad lines - build a km or two, add a station and more developed land, repeat.
This. You cannot consider Tokyo as an example of (successful) urban planning without understanding the role of the railway companies.
Re: New Cities
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why buses have more than one stop on their route.
And that's why it can take 40 minutes to travel 4 miles.
I'm assuming you live in San Francisco? As a visitor, it seemed to me that this was more due to the insane car-bus road-sharing conflicts, the inability of Muni buses to accelerate up a hill, and the deluge of 4-way stops.