The Irresistible Urge to Build Cities from Scratch
bloomberg.com
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[0]: http://worrydream.com/refs/Alexander%20-%20A%20City%20Is%20N...
He discusses the graph structure of a city: it should be a semi-lattice and not a tree, and there we agree entirely.
But a city should be a tree in the sense that it's an organic structure that iteratively improves in response to local knowledge, rather than a centrally planned crystal that assumes perfect foreknowledge of needs.
For anyone interested, the ethos of our dream city is walkability. High density, mixed use buildings. The main "streets" are walking and biking only, with limited roads for service vehicles. Public parking and transit at the city edges allow people to leave their car behind when visiting.
There are many ways to make a city walkable in winters, but for the most part, density suffices: the city acts as a shield and a heater.
As for having public transport at the edges of the city only - not a problem if that boundary is never too far.
For some part, Moscow has embraced this idea, with the so-called transportation "rings" (highways and subway) encircling the city - but they do branch inwards.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like...
US urban planning in the late 1800s and early 1900s "emphasized a grid plan, partly out of extensive reliance on foot, horse and streetcars for transportation. In such earlier urban development, alleys were included to allow for deliveries of soiled supplies, such as coal, to the rear of houses which are now heated by electricity, piped natural gas or oil." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_end_(street)#Suburban_use...
Sure, you might argue that people purchased those houses because of the benefits of the grid system, and hence (indirectly) optimized for sales. But that same Wikipedia page points out that post-war construction in the US emphasized cul-de-sac and crescent streets.
> "Real estate developers prefer culs-de-sac because they allow builders to fit more houses into oddly shaped tracts of land and facilitate building to the edges of rivers and property lines.[10] They also choose these discontinuous network patterns of cul-de-sac and loop streets because of the often significant economies in infrastructure costs compared to the grid plan. ... The desirability of the cul-de-sac street type among home buyers is implied by the evidence that they often pay up to a 20% premium for a home on such a street, according to one study.[10] This could be because there is considerably less passing traffic, resulting in less noise and reduced actual or perceived risk, increasing the sense of tranquility."
In other words, cul-de-sacs optimize sales, not grid patterns, and "quirky features or strange floorplans" of non-grid plats don't seem to be a problem - quite the opposite.
I believe Joseph Smith's 'Plat of the City of Zion' influence on Salt Lake City's shows that the grid system of SLC was not specifically optimized for sales, and indeed was partially designed for navigation. At the very least, you know were you are with respect to the Temple.
If you want to dig into the details, the report is at https://spacesyntax.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Hillier-S... . A quick search finds the following in the conclusion section:
> Cul de sacs or grids?
> The principle that larger the numbers of dwellings on the street segment reduces the risk of burglary, applies both to cul de sacs and grid like layouts. Small number of dwellings in a cul de sac are vulnerable, especially if the dwelling are affluent.
Other people find urban areas terrifying because each person present increases the threat. Crowds mean pickpockets and sometimes riots. Every person must be watched, and this is incredibly stressful. It's constant preparation for a fight-or-flight response.
The non-urban mindset feels much safer with completely empty streets. The next best thing would be just cars.
Assume the example person is walking. Fear of crowds is the norm for people with a rural/suburban mindset. Evidently, people with an urban mindset actually feel safer in crowds, which is difficult for me to wrap my head around.
The deserted road is safe, aside from wild animals.
In a crowd, the more extreme rural/suburban people would be keeping their hand near a concealed weapon. I suppose this feeling might be alien to a person accustomed to city life.
The above plays a role in the fact that rural/suburban people without jobs are often hesitant to move to cities. The stress would take a toll on such people.
And yeah, that would make it unsafe.
In the US, black skin is associated with the socially constructed term 'race'.
What I mean by this is that in the US, carrying guns has been something that whites do much more often than blacks. Historically, when blacks try to exercise their rights to carry weapons, as the Black Panthers did in the 1960s, white politicians passed laws to take those rights away, like the Mulford Act.
African-Americans surely know of events like the shooting of Philando Castile, who had a concealed weapon, informed the officer that he had a concealed weapon, and was shot by the officer who, IMO, was scared of the idea of a black man carrying a gun.
There are plenty of African-American farm workers - farmers for generations even. They must certainly have a "rural" mindset, by your definition.
How many of them fit into the category of the type of "extreme rural/suburban people [who] would be keeping their hand near a concealed weapon"? Knowing that if they are stopped by the police there is a much higher chance of harassment?
Quoting then governor Ronald Reagan, after the passing of the Mulford Act: "There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons."
If yes, do you have any evidence? If no, is it really a "rural mindset"?
Why should we believe that "Fear of crowds is the norm for people with a rural/suburban mindset" is correct?
None of my aunts and uncles who were born and raised on a farm appear to have a fear of crowds. Most of them left the farm when they became adults ... and moved to cities.
For certain, most people from suburban areas do not have a fear of crowds. Otherwise, who goes to "crowded suburban malls" https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22crowded+suburban+mall%22&t=ffsb... ?
I read a book last night about ranchers in the mid-20th century. These are certainly rural people. Yet the ranch hands would go to the fair or rodeo, which certainly had crowds.
Cities wouldn't exist if there weren't people attracted to them, and of course some of those people come from outside. Clearly your aunts and uncles did not have that suburban/rural mindset despite being raised there.
Street crowds are different from other ones. Suburban malls try to keep an eye on things, ejecting people who cause trouble. The same goes for football games, the fair, the rodeo, and so on.
You first wrote "Fear of crowds is the norm for people with a rural/suburban mindset". Now you say it's, what, 'fear of being in insufficiently observed areas'?
I really don't understand that. So Times Square is okay because while there are crowds there are also a lot of cops?
Here's a cop van on Times Square. I literally did "Times Square" in Google Map, switch to street view, and rotated to see the van - https://www.google.com/maps/@40.758673,-73.984968,3a,75y,21....
You wrote "suburban/rural mindset" but when I point out that I know who were raised on a farm and don't have a fear of crowds, you now qualify that to "some people"?
I think your view is now the much weaker "some people from rural areas don't like being in areas where there aren't enough police or security guards or other people watching out for their safety"?
That's obviously true - white flight occurred in part as urban whites moved to areas where they felt the local government was more interested in keeping them safe from having to deal with non-whites.
I know that's not what you meant. I bring it up to point out how your statements are so general that they seem more over-generalized than insightful.
There are crowds everywhere there is economic activity. No one thinks the shopping mall or the beach or the park is the next coming of the Bolsheviks or the next Ferguson; that's all purely suburban American hysteria.
Cul-de-sac layouts are usually in suburban regions. Is that included in 'urban'? Or are you comparing urban cores to exurbs or rural regions?
I've walked outside at 1am in a city with no one else on the streets. I've walked at 1am in another city with a lot of people on the streets. I can tell you that I felt safer when there were more people on the street than just me. Which would make you feel safer?
FWIW, "high foot traffic" does not only mean "crowds". Neighbors walking by every few minutes would count as high traffic.
To give more concrete numbers, https://spacesyntax.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Hillier-S... concerns this exact topic. The author writes "Mean pedestrian movement [for road] segments without retail the rate is 158.476 [per hour] for 317 segments", where a 'segment' is the section of street between intersections, in this case, in London.
That's roughly 2-4 people on the street at any one time - hardly a crowd that would lead to a riot!
On streets with retail, it's 640, or about 10-20 people at any one time.
Due to bad navigation, I walked through a bad area of western San Francisco on July 4 during mid day and then again on July 5 at around 2 AM. As a non-urban person I might be clueless, but I felt a lot less terrified with the deserted streets at 2 AM. Fewer people means fewer threats. I don't assume bystanders will somehow help me.
The idea that "criminals aren't going to try to break into a building if there's an audience" was proven wrong right after I left, with the Wells Fargo museum robbery happening in broad daylight with a crowd and a traffic jam.
I linked to a report concerning cul-de-sac streets in London. Do you think that I think London is not urban?
I also linked to a Wikipedia page which makes an explicit connection between "suburbs", "urban planning" and culs-de-sac, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_end_(street)#Suburban_use... .
No one is seriously making the absolutist argument that "criminals aren't going to try ... if there's an audience".
There was a Jan. 27, 2015 Wells Fargo museum robbery in San Francisco at 2:26 a.m - https://abcnews.go.com/US/wells-fargo-museum-gold-robbers-pl... . If that's the one you mean, and you believe it is a valid data point, doesn't it cast doubt on your views?
For me it makes little difference, as the actual argument is one of statistics. Any one data point has little weight. The report I linked to gives those statistics, and references to similar reports.
The line is blurry. Factors include a high portion of people who are dependent on landlords and public transportation, the mixing of residential with non-residential, and of course density.
It certainly is possible to have a cul-de-sac that is urban.
You responded "I think all of us (you, me, cimmanom) are assuming that cul-de-sac layouts are not urban."
So your belief is that I looked at a map of a part of London, assumed it was not urban, but was instead some 'absurdly expensive neighborhood that isn't urban'?
I am growing more convinced that I cannot place weight on your assumptions.
Which Wells Fargo museum robbery you are thinking of which took place during the day. Can you at least tell me what year it was?
First, where the cul-de-sacs are in my town, there is virtually no violent crime. (Violence directed towards persons.)
However, there is a decent amount of burglary and break-ins. Now, if you are going to do that for profit, you'll typically need some form of transportation to get away swiftly before the police gets on your track. Either a moped or a car, depending on the bulk of the loot you are planning on acquiring.
Before a burglary, you'll want to do recon. I can tell you, from the point of view of someone who was looking for property to buy, driving or walking down these cul-de-sacs will get you noted. People know each other there, if not by name, then by looks and what their car looks like. As an outsider, having your license plate number written down or a being snapped with a cell phone camera is par for the course.
Also, some of the suburban cul-de-sacs would have almost no foot traffic not intended for that street anyway, when the street in question is on a leaf or twig.
Presumably, local people are more likely to help out.
(As an aside, domestic violence is highly under-reported. It's almost certain violence directed towards persons occurs in some of those cul-de-sac houses.)
I've not had that experience walking down culs-de-sac.
In any case, it sounds like an easy way to do recon would be to walk a dog through the neighborhood. Making sure to pick up. Or put a camera mount on your roof and slap a sticker on the side saying "Google Street View Vehicle."
Maybe the lights reported are because the roundabout has outlived its usefulness? A stopgap before ripping it out.
Also the timidness of drivers to enter a circle kills the flow and causes a backup that takes time to clear.
I hit 4 different traffic circles on my 40 mile trip home, two of them are 1 lane wide and only about 100 feet wide, the other two are a lot larger and have 2-3 lanes.
The narrow ones [1] back up much quicker during rush hour(s) especially when you have non-commuters using them (you can tell who they are).
The one that is 3 lanes wide [2] usually has a protected lane for only going to the first exit (on then off), then a middle lane that circles the entire roundabout and a middle lane that allows you to exit at any of the exits whenever you want. It works very well. I have never seen a backup on it.
The one that is only two lanes [3] backs up quite a bit during rush hour, when there is a West Point football game or because someone is too scared to enter. The backup clears relatively quickly, but I feel it wouldn't back up at all if there was protected on-ramp.
1: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.324487,-73.8829004,106m/data...
2: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.2981376,-73.935245,212m/data...
3: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.3202891,-73.9909974,212m/dat...
To get any further improvement you start having to look at junctions with over head ramps and tunnels.
My wife's family comes from a small town outside of a small town in Louisiana and I remember when they opened the traffic circle there [1], the entire town hated it because they had never in their lives had such bad traffic, because no one knew how to use a yield sign -- stop meant stop, no sign meant yield, but now there is a new triangular stop sign, what the hell man.
Now days though, it flows amazingly, but it took close to a decade. I'm sure it will still improve over time, but now that the entire population has used it, they get it.
1: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.1609199,-93.267374,121m/data...
It replaced a very dangerous 4 way stop/traffic light intersection that very regularly saw accidents due to the geography (hilly) and the road layout (straight into the intersection after a mile of rural road).
https://www.google.com/maps/@27.9775503,-82.8273026,101m/dat...
Multiple two-lane entrances. An inner lane that goes all the way around but cannot exit. An outer lane that has a single break between the incoming and outgoing sides of the same road.
Oh, and cherry on the sundae, it's in a tourist-heavy area, so many drivers have little-to-no familiarity with it. People block the outer lane waiting to move inside when the outer lane disappears. And then block the inner lane waiting to go through the outer lane to exit.
Not all of this is on the drivers...
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.2981376,-73.935245,212m/data...
In which case I agree completely. And, from what I can tell, they're about the same size, so IMO this was a design miss, not a space constraint.
For me, it's all about the surprise factor. In my example, the outer lane almost goes all the way around. So you end up surprised after passing two exits and then being forced to merge to pass the next one. GGP's example is completely symmetrical, so nothing is surprising.
It's finally starting to happen, at least in some parts of the country.
Even a mediocre roundabout is far better than that bane of American suburbia, the 4 way stop.
It just reinforces the prejudice that Americans can't drive.
Yes, the roundabouts here in D.C. long ago outlived their usefulness. Unfortunately, ripping them out probably isn't in the cards.
Meanwhile Dupont circle handles P street, 19th street, Connecticut avenue, Massachusetts avenue, and New Hampshire avenue. Plus there is the pedestrian traffic from the park and the metro stop at Dupont.
Can you imagine doing that with only traffic lights? How many officers would be required to massage that mess?
Unless you propose building a spaghetti mixer, I can't imagine a better system for drivers or pedestrians.
Traffic lights (signals), can help improve flow further in these situations as well as giving pedestrians a safe way to cross.
Part-time signals (only on a peak) can be very effective.
Here's a roundabout in Cape Town (Adderley Street Fountain) with a traffic light - https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.9202591,18.4250697,3a,75y,4... .
Here's one in Cambridge, UK - https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2084812,0.136931,3a,75y,82h,... .
there are a load there with lights, tram crossing it straight, pedestrian crossing that aren't on a road crossing etc. makes for some fun time crossing one at peak hour, it's not weird at that time to get stuck in one for 10 minutes or more.
Some have through streets with lights mixed in with the circle: https://ggwash.org/images/posts/201611-221233-1.png.
But as I said in an earlier comment, the reason they kind of suck in the US is we don't seem to do them right.
* A very wide circle (350ft/100m minimum) with 3 lanes
* Each entrance and exit has 2 lanes.
* The outside lane of the circle directly connects the outside entrance with the "first" exit.
* The middle lane of the circle and the inside lane of the entrance allows you to exit at ANY of the exits
* The far inside lane of the circle exits nowhere without a lane change, but allows you to bypass an exit that might be backed up due to traffic.
There are lots of stoplights that should also be replaced by roundabouts. A solid line of traffic flows right through a roundabout, and most of it is delayed by a stoplight.
The only problem with roundabouts in USA is the 30% of drivers who don't know how to use them, and stop when they see the yield sign... don't be that driver.
Recent US cities grew very quickly in a rather organised way and a grid was the quick and simple way to handle that.
Not at all, many cities evolved from towns, that evolved from villages, that evolved settlements, etc. That slow organic growth is different from the very accelerated "add one more tile" or "do it in one go" growth.
Imagine the difference between having a baby that grows into an adult, and having an adult from the get go.
The difference is the speed of development and, even more importantly, the level of planning.
US cities grew quickly and were planned.
Some modern cities that grew very quickly recently are nevertheless messy because they grew without any sort of planning.
Some cities are quite old but nevertheless follow a grid because that's the way they were planned. E.g. Beijing.
Planning is the key.
Before the city there was a town, or a village. It's not blank slate > city, it's blank slate > something > something else > city. There's some evolution in the middle and that makes the difference. One grows organically over time and goes through different stages until it reaches the "city" stage, one is planned as a city from the start.
That's arguing on a distraction, though, as the key is planning, not blank slate.
It's like arguing that you can build a person by assembling organs in the right place. You can build a humanoid structure which mimics the human, but it's missing the most important feature: life. You can't simply instil life into something. It needs nurturing.
The part which we now call "New Town" was built in stages between 1767 and around 1850 and has an explicit "block-based" design.
More details on Wikipedia, as always:
It sounds indeed convenient for large cities where millions of people travel daily from one end of the city to the other. But does it matter for smaller cities (<200,000)? I have lived my whole life in "non-grid" cities in various countries and I couldn't imagine to live in a city with straight roads. Where is the fun? Finding an alley that you can use as a short cut, wandering around and discovering a nice house or garden that you cannot see from the main street, being scared as a kid of that small street where the big dog lives, etc.
Like, alright, ending up at 90th street is relatively easy, except that i ended up at the wrong end of this street, and the walk to the correct house is 2 kilometer...
Why? Is getting lost on the way to work a problem? A month into working anywhere, you learn all the ways to get there anyway.
And a 45-minute tram ride to work on winding streets beats a 1.5 hour traffic jam on a nice, wide, straight 101 North any time.
You need to get out of the urban megacity.
I've lived in several parts of the USA. My worst commute was 20 minutes by car, and my current commute is 3 minutes by car or 15 to 20 minutes by foot. These were all software development jobs.
The reason is that I choose small cities. I choose places that have suburban density, though they aren't technically suburbs because people aren't commuting into an urban megacity. The jobs are local.
Another nice benefit of this choice is my expenses. Houses go for 10% to 20% of what you pay in a place like the Bay Area, not even counting the extra land you get. Nearly everything else is cheaper too. Gas is half the price. Groceries are cheaper. Taxes are much lower.
And yes, I guess living in NYC for a while seems to have affected me in many ways :)
From the article, "The project is closely identified with President Xi Jinping, which means it’s unlikely to join a long list of Chinese “ghost cities” financed by local governments."
A lot of initiatives are started by people with an idea but without resources or knowledge to execute it.
I think that city planning is an awesome idea. I grew up in Barcelona and the results are very good (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample). But creating a new city from scratch is more difficult. And it is harder to get the experience to do it right as the execution of the project will take decades.
The first "park ring" is essentially the old city walls and moat
As in e.g. NYC, subway in Moscow is generally a faster commute than a car, if there's a station where you need to go. Unfortunately, Moscow subway is also concentric rings + radial lines mostly, and has the same problem of getting somewhere "diagonally" without hitting the crowded central hub stations.
Moscow is still pretty walkable, compared to many US cities, with sidewalks, crossings, etc. Though in areas built past ~1960 you have to be ready to walk for significant distances.
Wouldn't parkland arranged in spokes be better -- with bike lanes for commuting to the center?