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Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

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Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#501

Post by ric2b »

EricE wrote: post #262
xenocyon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the bigger elephant in all of our rooms is climate change. Density is by far more climate-sustainable (as well as more environmentally sustainable in other ways) than sprawl. In addition, global economic forces are creating a mass move to cities around the world anyway. So no matter what we think we want right now, we will at some point in the present or future be forced to reckon with density either pleasant…

"Density is by far more climate-sustainable (as well as more environmentally sustainable in other ways) than sprawl." Care to back that up?

Transportation costs for everything go down, including food, water, electricity, etc.

Public transit becomes viable and, if well managed, superior to driving a car.

People tend to walk more instead of relying on vehicles for everything.

Buildings and roads can serve more people per material used.

I could go on, but having things close to each other makes using and bringing those things together cheaper.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#502

Post by throwaway316943 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #456
S_A_P wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really great response. I think there are a ton of both selfish and altruistic reasons for the urban sprawl that is Houston. I grew up here (Alief area) and that was the burbs when I was young. (It’s about 15-20 minutes drive from downtown) there was a 10 or so mile gap between where I lived and Sugarland. Now it all runs together. I now live due south of Katy in an unincorporated area about 40 miles away fr…

Cheap land and big house is a huge draw for sprawl. The problem is this is a fundamentally unsustainable proposition. The US is hitting those problems now and it's not pretty. It's not just gridlock but problem that once things stabilize, maintaining sprawl costs more than maintaining a compact city[1]. The roads and the schools in the suburbs are often good only when they're new - once they age, the problem become v…

It seems like there would be solutions to most of those problems. Roads are long due for a replacement but something more efficient and cost effective. Utilities are already moving towards decentralization with electricity leading the way but sanitation is on the horizon (see Bill Gates efforts). Depending on the outcome of COVID schools are going to be radically transformed. I think there’s enough energy pushing away from city centres right now to fuel a renaissance of the suburbs.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#503

Post by donatj »

pmontra wrote: post #250
bcrosby95 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also an assumption that everyone wants to begin and end every trip, no matter how trivial, with a parking spot. It's an assumption that people will want to drive in traffic for 20 minutes minimum to get to a supermarket, do anything with their kids, or anything outside their property line. I wouldn't be surprised to find some suburbs with some of the traits you mention, but it hasn't been my experience with th…

Milan, Italy, here. I can reach 4 supermarkets in at most 10 minutes, walking from my home. Of course I never go there by car, it would take more time. Probably it's the same in many areas of NYC or SF (been there some 20 years ago.) But if you move into the suburbs or away from the largest cities even Italy it's a cars only country. Sure, every small town has its elementary school, parks and play areas but you can't…

> Of course I never go there by car

Do you carry your groceries, or have like a cart? I always end up with several trips to my car worth of groceries to last a week.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#504

Post by rauhl »

xg15 wrote: post #111

> But it wasn’t strictly an “everything is bigger in Texas” ethos that caused Houston to sprawl the way that it does. Rather, Cold War–era urban design philosophy in the U.S. prioritized sprawl because older cities that had urbanized pre–World War II—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit—were seen as being susceptible to nuclear strikes. Less-dense cities such as Los Angeles and Houston were less likely to be…

> That's the first time I've heard this theory.

More than just a theory. When we were clearing out my grandparents’ house we found a pamphlet (I think it was Civil Defence, but it could have been a different agency) which was basically the paper equivalent of a government-issued FAQ about nuclear war. From my own 2020 knowledge of what they knew then, it was remarkably good stuff, written for a general audience. I remember reading it and thinking that the mockery we have for ‘Duck & Cover’ really isn’t fair, at least with respect to this pamphlet: it didn’t claim that a desk would protect at ground zero, but did (correctly) note that the harmful effects of a bomb decrease over distance. I think it was from late-40s to early-50s.

I recall that one of its points was that tightly-packed cities had been susceptible to the conventional bombing campaigns of the Second World War and would be even more susceptible to nuclear bombs, and consequently it made sense to spread cities out.

> if the USSR already managed to evade the defenses and other obstacles and destroy the city center in a nuclear strike, it wouldn't be a lot of additional effort to send multiple rockets instead of only one and also target the suburbs.

Well, it would be superlinear: if you imagine a hex grid of blast radii, the centre radius is one, the inner ring is six (cumulative seven); the next ring is is twelve (cumulative 19); the next ring is 24 (cumulative 43), and so on. 1:7, 7:19, 19:43 — it adds up!

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#505

Post by jp555 »

oblio wrote: post #59
jp555 wrote: post #12

GDP: Houston, Texas = ~$500B/yr Siena, Tuscany = ~$11B/yr

Population: Houston: 2.3 million Siena: 50k What's the use of these pointless comparisons?

Exactly - Houston probably needs that interchange with their big population.

And not so for a city of 50K like Siena, right?

The whole thing is pointless, that's my point.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#506

Post by throwaway316943 »

donjoe wrote: post #494
LoSboccacc wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so what's the alternative? build houses right on top of factories? pact stile mass transit with strict worker factory allocation? there's zero chance mass transit can accommodate people's needs, even if you somehow solve the shopping issue with local markets and fixed item prices, the job house graph will always look like a fractal set of overlapping stars. cars is one of the most important social equalizer of this a…

> so what's the alternative I think it's quite odd we nowadays think cars are the only possible form of transportation. We are not born with 4 wheels underneath our butt. The alternative is to build structures build for foot or bicycle traffic. Everything within 10k can easily be reached by either bicycle or foot traffic. By building infrastructure for cars, you create distances which are for cars only. They would ot…

Your argument still doesn’t make a clear case for removing cars. All those problems could also be solved by improving cars and infrastructure which has the added benefit of not completely demolishing and rebuilding around a system where you have to schlep your groceries up a hill in the rain on an old bicycle.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#507

Post by jp555 »

romanoderoma wrote: post #384
jp555 wrote: post #12

GDP: Houston, Texas = ~$500B/yr Siena, Tuscany = ~$11B/yr

Houston homicide rate: 12.1 murders per 100,000 population Nigeria homicide rate: 4.5 murders per 100,000 population Siena homicide rate: It all depends on how you spend that money...

Hiwi group (hunter gatherers) in Papa New Guinea homicide rate: 1018 murders per 100,0000 population.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=YtwSz2A12e8C&q=153&redir_es...

But.... so what?

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#508

Post by astura »

souprock wrote: post #486
stbtrax wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like some paranoid parenting that seems to be in style right now. In Tokyo kids take the subway by themselves as young as age 9. In denser cities the density helps in that other people help socialize/watch your kids and they can bike around to their friends place when they are older. As someone who grew up in a denser area, then moved to a sprawly suburb where you were dependent on your parents for getting you…

Kids aren't born at that age. It takes 9 years. How are the little ones supposed to travel? At one time, mine were these ages: 8, 6, 4, 2, 2, 0 Doing that on the subway would be nuts. I actually know somebody who, as a kid, got off the subway at the wrong stop. That really happens. The crowd seems to be leaving, the kid goes, and before the parents can react the subway is moving again. Activities need not revolve aro…

Absolutely nothing is "nuts" about taking six kids on the subway, I really have zero idea where that idea is coming from - I just can't understand it. My grandma never knew how to drive and she would take my cousins, siblings, and I all around town on the bus. No big deal at all, totally normal. There would be somewhere around 1-8 kids at any given time.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#509

Post by bluGill »

hannasanarion wrote: post #392
bluGill wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, like most small stores they paid their staff less than the big supermarket, had worse selection and charged a lot more. The supermarket took over because they had better prices on better selection. It was nice to walk to the store for something you were missing that was common, but if you wanted to cook something exotic odds are they didn't have it, and so you switched most of your shopping elsewhere and mostly…

Smaller groceries means more selection, not less, because each store can specialize instead of needing to suit the average expectation of everybody in a 5 mile radius. I live in one of America's few dense cities, and there are three stores I visit often, one Kroger chain with the selection you'd expect, one latin grocery, and one asian grocery where I can get all kinds of stuff that most people in the suburbs who sho…

If they specialize they can find a niche that the large players don't cover. I have seen a few markets that were not specialists. They had the same American food selection that everyone buys (obviously in different areas the exact selection is different, but within the region none). The same name brand spaghetti sauce (but only of the 2 name brands, not the 10 in a supermarket), onions, ground beef you buy in the large supermarkets today, but at higher costs.

The Kroger chain you visit killed all of the above (except for the gas station convenience stores which are a smaller version of the above)

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#510

Post by S_A_P »

pfraze wrote: post #432
S_A_P wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really great response. I think there are a ton of both selfish and altruistic reasons for the urban sprawl that is Houston. I grew up here (Alief area) and that was the burbs when I was young. (It’s about 15-20 minutes drive from downtown) there was a 10 or so mile gap between where I lived and Sugarland. Now it all runs together. I now live due south of Katy in an unincorporated area about 40 miles away fr…

Houston is by far one of the most diverse areas I’ve ever visited in the US, up there with NYC.

And look at that- my cousin has joined the discussion.
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