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Comment by aeharding | Hacker News Reader

I've dreamt about this. I would immediately move to the first US city that bans SOV commuters from a significant portion of the city (let's say, a couple square miles), and establishes superblocks where no vehicles are allowed whatsoever, with the old streets converted to green space.

Of course, I doubt this will happen in my lifetime.

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Attitudes are changing, so it could still happen in your lifetime. San Francisco just approved the Better Market Street Project, which isn't a ban on SOV commuters, but will heavily restrict them, prohibiting them from driving on Market Street itself, allowing them only to cross. (Taxi's will still be allowed, though not Uber/Lyft.)

This project would never have gotten off the drawing board 30 years ago. That it managed to pass is a testament to how much things are changing.

New York City has this, it's called Central Park, and it is ringed by some of the most expensive real estate in the world because it is so wonderful.

The problem is that most of those SOV commuters are commuters because they cant afford to live in the city. I count myself among them. I would rather not drive, but public transport is too expensive and so is housing. If I have to choose between owning a home and driving, or renting for the rest of my life but having the luxury of a bike I'm going to choose the former.

Isn't the USA empty enough that you could still start such a city today?

Are there good city locations still available? (By water, large enough area available, not actively attempting to kill you)

Sure, but they're probably only available by car.

Haha, I'm kinda curious. And no problem, I own an SUV in San Francisco.

There's a large, ideally-sited flat area just north of Windsor, Ontario that would be a great location for a large American city. Riverfront access with a navigable waterway, railroad and highway infrastructure, moderate climate. As far as I can tell there is no one actually living there right now.

https://wompwompwomp.com

Detroit?

A good city location is right next to an existing city. Existing cities have everything someone moving to your city might want, so just locate next to them.

There are plenty of locations with the characteristics you name all over the world. You can start a city half way between Omaha and Kansas City if you want - nobody will home even though it meets all your requirements.

Major cities develop near shipping when there is a good port location (either river or sea), and there is a rural population to support the city. Those locations are not only already taken, but with better inland shipping many of them are not nearly as important for shipping as they used to be and exist because they are too large to die from other industry that moved in since.

Major cities can also develop when there is a natural resource nearby. It is possible someone will discover a large mineral deposit and open a mine in the middle on nowhere thus requiring a city to develop to serve it. If the city becomes large enough it could outlast the mine. Though more likely the city is already a small town, and will not grow to be large enough (from 2000 to 20000 isn't enough to sustain a city despite 10x growth)

In short, the next large stand alone city will not be on earth. Mars maybe?

Oh that's a good observation: near a city location is the best city location.

Why "by water"?

I mean, yes, the city needs a water supply. It doesn't need ocean shipping, though, or even barge shipping.

Availability of land is the limiting factor inside existing cities, but not for the development of new cities. To build a new city, your limiting factor would be a self-sustaining cluster of economic activity that can attract participants. And that's difficult to bootstrap for a lot of reasons.

To get people to move somewhere, you mainly just need jobs. Everybody wants jobs. There's no choice, people have to go where jobs are because employers have much more bargaining power.

So, create some large enough tax incentives for companies to move there, and people will follow.

> So, create some large enough tax incentives for companies to move there, and people will follow.

Except companies don't just go to places because of tax incentives. Indeed, many companies (and people) stick around CA despite the super high tax burden because it has so many other things going for it. Conversely, places with very generous tax incentives can sometimes still have trouble attracting companies because the reason their tax incentives are so high is because they are lacking in other respects.

well, it depends on whether your in a high margin or low margin business or and whether or not your a monopoly business. Amazon, entertained many offers from many cities to find the best tax incentives.

I would imagine businesses that compete with low margins would be looking for such incentives.

Jobs alone aren’t enough - look at oil and gas fields in North Dakota and West Texas. You need stable employment, schools, police and fire - you know, Sim City stuff. Also, you need economic opportunity beyond just “jobs” - you need bold entrepreneurial types that tend to get stifled in a pure company town. Kind of like how a company can lose its edge if investors own too much of the company and founders too little. It’s hard to create from scratch.

The closest example to what you’re saying are the artificial capital cities like Brasilia and Canberra, but then you’re talking about the backing and resources of an entire country’s federal budget.

When was the last time a city was incorporated in the U.S. that grew to a large, thriving population?

I'm guessing it's been some decades. I grew up playing a lot of Sim City and imaging building cities, but I don't think we build cities anymore - we just expand existing ones.

On the flip side, though, there are some rust belt cities that have been hollowed out that could easily support 2 or 3x their current population.

Yeah but public transpo doesn't run out that far so you end up with a chicken-egg proble; the people who demonize cars can't get there to start the city..

> where no vehicles are allowed whatsoever

Food (just to put an example) will pop up in the stores out of thin air.

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