91–100 of 308 posts
I imagine the lifestyle in many planned Soviet housing blocks was more pleasant than a low income American Edit: I just mean the physical environment, not political / social / economic
The city isn't walkable at all—and it's on average 1 hour from my office in Santa Monica—but the open spaces between houses, the lack of terraforming abominations you see in other hilly developments in LA, and the white ranch motif make the neighborhood "nice" to me.
Much of what I personally find "not nice" about modern neighborhoods is the clumsy imposition of our collective human needs—architectural, infrastructural—on the land itself.
Unfortunately this plague of bland boxes has come to my neighborhood. Internal volume is more valued than neighborhood aesthetics. It seems there's a correlation between these boxes and people never leaving the house but to work.
I agree a lot of the balance has shifted this way but I don't see this as bad. When you are very wealthy you can have both but for those without that much money I don't blame anyone for choosing functionality over the aesthetics of a neighborhood. It seems rather insane to me to insist that your neighbor must increase their budget 20 or 40 percent (perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars) just so your house can be a…
I've seen some reasonably beautiful, middle class neighborhoods that were designed as recently as the early 1970's, but nothing since then. And while there are many aspects of modern interior design that I appreciate, floorplans tend to be universally terrible for anything designed since then as well. I have yet to walk into a (non-custom) home that was built since the year 2000 that I would ever want to live in.
The floor plan thing is real. A 1960s-1970s split level will have 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, a huge living room, a good size dining room, and a kitchen, all around 1800sqft. Or, you can buy a new 2500 sqft home that has the same, plus a walk in closet in the master. Heck I've seen plenty of 3000sqft 3 bedroom homes! It is insane. Sure these new floor plans have 2 dining rooms, a breakfast nook, a living room, and a f…
I’m the CEO of Culdesac. Our vision is to build the first car-free city in the US, starting with the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the US. That’s Culdesac Tempe, a 1000-resident neighborhood that is under construction now. Residents move in next year.
Join our waitlist at culdesac.com. If you want to visit in the meantime, drop me a note. We have something exciting happening on site next month that is open to the public.
Hiring-wise, we're hiring in Tempe or remote. Dm me on socials if you can’t find something. https://www.culdesac.com/jobs
Here's our insta, which has lots of construction updates https://www.instagram.com/liveculdesac
Here's our tik tok https://www.tiktok.com/@liveculdesac
Here's our twitter https://www.twitter.com/culdesac
Here's my twitter where I also talk a lot about ebikes https://www.twitter.com/ryanmjohnson
Here's our intro article https://medium.com/culdesac/introducing-culdesac-3fbfe7c4219...
Here's a longer piece on us https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/busi...
As the article hinted at the simple answer is Car Dependency. Suburbs are regulated and built to accommodate cars now and not people. The topic is explored thouroughly on the 'Not Just Bikes' youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes which uses information from urban planning group 'Strong Towns' https://www.strongtowns.org/ .
Nope, the article specifically addresses your point: > consider college campuses and their central quads, which typically do not have automobiles even today. The ones people admire are the older ones, not the newer campuses, which tend to be functional but aesthetically mediocre
I've seen some reasonably beautiful, middle class neighborhoods that were designed as recently as the early 1970's, but nothing since then. And while there are many aspects of modern interior design that I appreciate, floorplans tend to be universally terrible for anything designed since then as well. I have yet to walk into a (non-custom) home that was built since the year 2000 that I would ever want to live in.
The floor plan thing is real. A 1960s-1970s split level will have 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, a huge living room, a good size dining room, and a kitchen, all around 1800sqft. Or, you can buy a new 2500 sqft home that has the same, plus a walk in closet in the master. Heck I've seen plenty of 3000sqft 3 bedroom homes! It is insane. Sure these new floor plans have 2 dining rooms, a breakfast nook, a living room, and a f…
Our "main" street is half a kilometre away and has shopping, bookstores, restaurants. All small businesses.
Several transit routes run by the edges of the neighbourhood.
Everybody walks. Everybody used to walk to work. Streets are almost all one way.
It's cars. It's always cars that make neighbourhoods terrible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
North American houses from my UK perspective: - Detached no matter the cost - so close they may as well be terraced, but they'll be detached 'gah-damnit'! - Garage in front. I.. ok. Practical I suppose. Bloody ugly. - Fake shutters!! I'm mentioning it last but it bugs me the most. At least have them wide enough that they look like they might be usable. But no, inch-wide 'shutters' on a six-foot window, why not.
Detached makes sense, you need to airgap for noise
As the article hinted at the simple answer is Car Dependency. Suburbs are regulated and built to accommodate cars now and not people. The topic is explored thouroughly on the 'Not Just Bikes' youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes which uses information from urban planning group 'Strong Towns' https://www.strongtowns.org/ .
The sweet spot seems to be about 1920-1940.