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New Cities

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: New Cities

#561

Post by cozzyd »

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.

?? This wasn't true in Hyde Park and it certainly isn't true in South Loop.

Re: New Cities

#562

Post by ghaff »

rand1012 wrote: post #544
rvense wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the centre of a largish city in Europe. Here there's a few supermarkets less than five minutes away on foot, and the last one closes at ten every day of the week. They're also on the way to and from most other places I go. Usually I just buy what I need for tonight and tomorrow on my way home, or go after dinner when I'm likely to want a quick walk anyway. Of course, I don't have kids and am generally not a…

I think a 24 hour economy should be a design goal of this city.

Because the serfs working in all the 24 hour establishments don't themselves need a life. There are also noise issues in mixed use neighborhoods as seem to be being advocated for. And business volumes don't justify 24 hour operation of most businesses.

Re: New Cities

#563

Post by cfreeman »

hx87 wrote: post #307
eslaught wrote: post #197

Perhaps this is just me, but I just don't like cities. I agree that the things listed in this article need fixing, but I also feel like they're missing the point. I grew up in a small college town (in a house), but have spent most of my adult life living in cities (in appartments). Somehow, those cities have never felt like home to me. I've always felt like I was missing something. Privacy is not quite the right word…

Think about it this way: in an area with a given population, raising the population density of a subset of that area lowers it somewhere else, and you can live in that somewhere else. That being said, better sound insulation in walls, windows, ceilings and floors is absolutely necessary in most cities, and that is where regulations should focus on (with limited or no grandfathering), not setbacks and heights.

Good luck on getting a rule like that implemented with little or no grandfathering. The economics of that are just too extreme.

Re: New Cities

#564

Post by astrange »

eslaught wrote: post #197

Perhaps this is just me, but I just don't like cities. I agree that the things listed in this article need fixing, but I also feel like they're missing the point. I grew up in a small college town (in a house), but have spent most of my adult life living in cities (in appartments). Somehow, those cities have never felt like home to me. I've always felt like I was missing something. Privacy is not quite the right word…

If you move somewhere up in the mountains and never hear another person, can you still get a job? They're focusing on cities as economically productive spaces, not just nice places to retire to.

Also, the carbon footprint of living by yourself is much higher since you still need to travel to further-away places and get goods delivered.

Re: New Cities

#565

Post by dragonwriter »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #182
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…

> 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). There's a bigger issue here. Suppose the grocery store was 10 minutes away. You'd still need to drive there, because how are you going to get the food back to your house? I have lived carless and had to make many independent trips per week to buy food. Being able to do it all at once…

> Suppose the grocery store was 10 minutes away. You'd still need to drive there, because how are you going to get the food back to your house?

A collapsible grocery cart (similar to a collapsible stroller), and insulated reusable grocery bags.

Re: New Cities

#566

Post by megablast »

crusso wrote: post #310
bryanlarsen wrote: post #256

Earlier 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…

> almost anything that you can easily plan out and do in bulk is going to out-efficiency something done in smaller iterations

Not always. When I cycle or catch the bus home, I pop into the shops near my house, grab some stuff I need, and then continue on the way. Or I grab stuff at the supermarket near work, and cycle home with it in a bag.

Now I don't need to plan a big trip. I am already traveling to go home.

Re: New Cities

#567

Post by astrange »

niels_olson wrote: post #6

If you're serious about this, you need Geoffrey West, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/magazine/19Urban_West-t.ht... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_West http://www.santafe.edu/about/people/directory/ Alberto Hernando de Castro, and https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S_ad8ycAAAAJ&hl=en maybe Franz-Josef Ulm http://www.citymetric.com/%E2%80%9Curban-physicists%E2%80%9D... https://cee.mit.edu/ulm And I do…

Those "unpopulated Chinese ghost towns" are all populated now, a few years after they were built. The government just builds them a while before forcing the nearest subsistence farmers to move into them.

It's like Spike Japan, the blog that visits towns on holidays and claims they've been abandoned for years, because all the residents are gone on holiday.

Re: New Cities

#568

Post by rtpg »

fudged71 wrote: post #111
verg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of on-street parking was something I noticed visiting Japan. Streets can be much smaller when they don't have 20-24 feet of parking. In the US, a massive percentage of our most valuable land goes to subsidized vehicle storage. It's insane.

Narrower streets, wider sidewalks, more trees.

Actually most minor streets in Tokyo have no sidewalk. You can just walk on the street.

Cars drive through slowly, of course.

Re: New Cities

#569

Post by DorintheFlora »

Kalium wrote: post #556
DorintheFlora wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you should read some history. IIRC, at some point, car companies bought up public transit infrastructure and shut it down because less public transit was good for sales. #canyousayconflictofinterest? Linky: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_con...

Friend, I am aware of the "streetcar conspiracy". I am also aware that streetcars died out for reasons well beyond conspiracy. I am further aware of many areas where cars are very useful that never had streetcar systems to be destroyed by GM.

Sorry to have made assumptions. My understanding is that there was no pre-existing infrastructure suitable to cars. The dirt and cobblestone roads that existed were inadequate, to put it nicely. I have read up a good bit on such things and drawn a very different conclusion from you.

In the US, personally owned vehicles are critical for sprawling suburbs and rural life. It is a big country with low density. Cars should not be necessary in the big city. Those that are designed well make it possible to live without a car. In much of America, it is quite challenging to live without a car. This is partly due to choices we have made, not because it had to be that way.

Re: New Cities

#570

Post by legel »

The most profound thing I know about cities + public policy:

Google hosted a talk in 2014 by MIT Professor Sandy Pentland called "Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread". His research concludes that our connectivity - free and fast flow of data on networks, people on roads, goods and services, etc. - is our greatest economic and social virtue. His models show - "like a law" - that the more connected we are, the wealthier we are as a society.

Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMBl0ttu-Ow

And good luck to everyone behind this.

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