The elephant in the room is the assumption that _everyone wants to be stacked on top of each other_.
I do agree that designing cities around cars has ruined a lot of nice places though.
I do agree that designing cities around cars has ruined a lot of nice places though.
> assumption that _everyone wants to be stacked on top of each other_
The notion of "stacked on top of each other" has unpleasant connotations, but there are many different ways to live in a dense city. Would you feel "stacked on top of each other" in a Parisian townhouse with a magnificent shared courtyard, 12 foot ceilings, and everything you could possibly want a short walk or subway ride away?
Having occupied a 120 square foot chambre de bonne, I agree with your sentiment but I'd say it depends on a few qualifications. Like for instance not having basically plumbed closets as a large percentage of available living spaces. Building height restrictions in the city lead to a large number of tiny (aforementioned) inaccessible (few and tiny elevators) apartments.
No, I wouldn't feel "stacked on top of each other" if I were a multi-millionaire in Paris.
But, in the real world, your talking about putting families into 600sqft (at very best) boxes, with audible neighbors on every side of the unit, and no way to go anywhere (no parking, no meaningful transport, because 'everything we'd let you have is a short walk away')
If you actually do what you've described, and give everyone their own townhouse, you've just reinvented the modern suburb. Because that's what modern suburbs look like, everyone in a townhouse, or a townhouse with some small strips of yard around it.
> but there are many different ways to live in a dense city
Sure, but only if you are fantastically wealthy.
It's news to me that the Paris Bus, Tram, Metro, RER, SNCF, Velib, and the venerable scooter have all suddenly vanished.
But unless you somehow gift me one million dollars USD or more (and the same to every single person I know), none of us are going to be able to afford to live anywhere in Paris that actually has close access to all of those things you've described, with the living situation described above.
If we're magically exceptionally lucky, at best we might get like one or two.
People who wish to live in neighborhoods with low crime often NIMBY off any attempts to add public transit options specifically to keep out the riffraff.
Marin County is home to over 252,000 residents, yet it is without a BART station. If you search
web content to find out why that is the case, you will not find a lot. There is minimal information
explaining why the BART doesn't connect from Marin to San Francisco and even less explaining why it
doesn't connect from the East Bay to Marin.
Marin funded a large portion of the project when BART was being planned in the 1950s. But "concerns"
over whether or not the Golden Gate Bridge could support BART suddenly arose. After San Mateo pulled
out of the plan, Marin's participation fell through as well.
It is not unfair to speculate that socio-economic discrepancies might have something to do with this
lack of transit connection. After all, Marin is the county where wealthy residents stopped George Lucas
from building affordable housing on his land. The median household income there is almost $84,000, more
than $15,000 more than San Francisco and more than twice as much as Oakland.
A similar situation in Dayton, Ohio arose where wealthy suburbanites tried to stop the local transit
authority from building three new bus stops near major employment centers.[1]
Have you ever set foot in a European city ? I currently live in Paris. Bus, metro and Vélib' are three minutes away and I am not a millionaire. It all costs me 38 euros a month for unlimited journeys.
I could afford to start a family here. Two affluent people can rent 750 square feet in Paris. I could even probably buy if I accepted to be in debt for thirty years.
I think this is the exact tradeoff that is being discussed. Some people are OK with the 750 square ft flat. Others want a 3,000 sqft home on a quarter acre with room to park a boat or RV.
You can get this within a 15 minute Drive of downtown Houston for $300k, but you wont be walking to the local grocery or civic building.
As far as I can tell, 300k will buy you a 250 sqft apartment in Paris, but you will have access to walkable civic amenities.
Ouch. My VBB-Umweltkarte for similar costs 63 EUR a month.
- Warsaw
- Glasgow
- Porto
- Lisbon
- Athens (Greece)
- Berlin
- Budapest
- Barcelona (OK, this one gets pricey but is superbly laid out)
Numbeo cost of living index has it 153rd in the world including rent and it's well below places like Houston which is probably the cheapest large top tier city in the US.
Also no one wants to walk through blighted or a high crime neighborhood. American cities have a lot more diversity than any of the cities you mention with income disparities separating various races and stocks of people. Homogeneity of the populaces involved is a factor often totally and wholly ignored in these comparisons of "walkable and affordable" cities.
Walking through even the ghetto-est part of Belfast may not be the same as walking through the same in Opa-locka, Miami-Dade County, Florida. There are no racial boundaries to overcome in Belfast or Budapest. Not even remotely close to the extent we encounter in America. Like I said this metric should be factored into these conversations.
There are plenty of very diverse races living in Europe and nobody is scared of them.
Granted I'm not an American and I have no idea how hostile race relations run in that country but I know that in most of Western Europe and in Canada most people have no issues mingling with other races and all neighborhoods are getting increasingly diverse.
I don’t know what Opa Locka is like but Belfast is not a good example to compare to.
I think you may have picked the worst possible example for articulating your point.
Budapest? Average apartment size in Hungary is 77 sq m. Average in Budapest is 57-65 m^2. You Forints go a long way: 2824 / sq m (~$10?!?). I'm in! (https://www.towerbudapest.com/en/property_management/news/an...)
If on the other hand, you have a corporate job at a branch of a western company it's extremely cheap. Software developers in Warsaw easily make 10-20K PLN per month thus having rent costs less than a quarter of their paycheck.
and since we're doing lists, these are the most expensive cities i lived in (coincidentally some of them are the best cities in the world to live in, bar none):
- sydney
- tokyo
- singapore
- hong kong
- london
all top notch, all extremely expensive.
moral of the story is: you get what you pay for.
What do you mean by don't accept?
Porto and Lisbon are quite easy to get around as an English speaker, most young people are very decent at speaking English.
Yes, small grocery stores are at every corner but for other things, like clothes or electronics you still have to go to a big shopping mall, at least 2-3 miles away. Oh, and did I mention all those are closed almost every Sunday?
As for apartment prices even for really well paid software developer the choice is basically between buying a small (500 sqft) flat close to work, or bigger (800-1000 sqft) far away from it, with the added inconvenience of jet planes waking you up in the middle of the night, because Warsaw is stupid enough to have big international airport located near the city center.
EDIT: Another thing: after more intensive rains some of the subway stations get flooded, so they are out of service for several hours. Not that there are many subway stations in Warsaw - just 34, forming one and half line
I lived on a two lane street, and no one had air conditioners. You don't know how loud air conditioners and furnaces are until you live in a place without them.
I walked to work, and lived within 1/2 mile of 8 grocery stores. When I went to German class Downtown, I walked 15 minutes to a train. I could get to the airport in 25 minutes via one bus and one S-Bahn leg.
Here in the States, I also don't have a car, but I'm surrounded by highways separating me from a park, and my apartment is much much louder because Boise, the city, doesn't control the roads within it. The state does. Thoroughput is all that matters.
I still live 0.5 mile from multiple grocery stores, but I don't have transit here. Getting to the airport from Downtown is a 40 minute bus ride (with a 15-20 minute schedule variance) for 2.5 miles. The state won't allow the city local taxing power to improve transit, and so the city limps along, unable to expand transit that matches the limited space to expand lanes.
I wouldn't be surprised to find some suburbs with some of the traits you mention, but it hasn't been my experience with them. I've lived in about 5 different suburbs in my life and a supermarket has never been more than 2 miles away - certainly not a 20 minute drive and it's even within biking distance. Parks are by schools and there's usually an elementary school fairly close if you're looking to do something with your kid. Depending upon the suburb you can also play in the street, which I regularly did growing up.
The traits you are talking about sounds more like a rural area than a suburban one.
I'd consider that far, far away.
My walk to the nearest train station is about one mile, takes about 15 minutes to get there on foot, and that's irritatingly far, too, considering the trip is two way and repeats every day. Something like a grocery shop should be accessible within decent walking distance, a five-minute walk or so.
A rule of thumb is that if something is far enough that I have to take the car in the first place I'll be incentivised to drive further away to a big supermarket/other big stores while I'm at it.
The grocery store that’s 2 miles away is a big supermarket. The US doesn’t really do small groceries in most places.
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 shop at walmart and safeway have never heard of, all within a 10 minute walk.
I live in a city of about 100K people, and there are plenty. Or a few miles away is a city of ~70K people with others. As well as non-chain organic markets, whatever. The suburbs are adjacent; that's what suburbs are.
I am in the northeast, are you a Californian or Texan?
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)
An interesting parallel is Japan; Japan doesn't require parking with its properties, and to buy a car in Japan you have to produce proof of a parking space that you have (probably by purchasing a spot either with a property or in a lot somewhere), and the market has mostly sorted itself in favor of extremely dense networks of small shops.
Living in a dense city like SF is great for somethings, but it sucks when you want to leave, and paying almost $400/month for parking isn't good either. Both lifestyles have their advantages and I think it really comes out to personal taste and choice.
Back when I lived across the street from a grocery store I'd sometimes go get food for dinner, talk a bit with guests for what we wanted for desert, then walk over and pick up whatever we'd decided on. When the grocery store is across the street it is basically an on-demand food pantry.
Check out this Canadian talking about his grocery trip in Amsterdam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk.
In much of the USA, your produce would freeze and thus become mush.
In much of the USA, temperatures well above 90 degrees would wilt your produce. Also, all your frozen food would be ruined.
If you're carrying frozen food, we have bags with insulation and reflective foil on the inside. Put your frozen food there and even in +40C weather it will take much more than 15 minutes to thaw. Besides, buses and obviously the metros are acclimatized to a temperature of more or less 25C.
It really is just a non-issue. I assure you your produce are left outside for more than 20 minutes. There is no impact at all on freshness, and walkable cities promote smaller grocery stores that tend to have fresher food.
Food grows outside, in direct sunlight, exposed to scorching heat or near-freezing temperatures. Most of the plant based food is still living in the shelf when you purchase it, and has imune systems to fight-off bacteria and the like that would otherwise colonize it. The only concern are products of animal origin in the heat, but even the most sensitive like refrigerated fresh fish, still needs at least a few hours in hot weather before they can become problematic.
When grocery shopping frequently, you're also going for five or ten minutes instead of two hours, and the grocery is probably on your way home.
This has never been a problem for me. Many fresh fruits and vegetables will easily last for a week in your refrigerator (some for longer), and fresh fish or meat can be frozen for later use. Fruits such as berries that degrade rapidly can be eaten first, and fruits that last longer, such as apples or oranges, can be eaten later. Fruits like peaches or avocados can also be bought in varying states of ripeness, which means that different ones could achieve ripeness over the course of a week.
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.
Driving for the bulk, walking for the random stuff we needed.
Is there more demand for high density urban housing that cities are not meeting? If so, why?
Is there a demand for more access from suburban commuters? If so, why isn't the access available?
Are these solutions mutually exclusive?
Surely you think, summer isn't that long, just tough it out a few months. Well I regularly run the A/C in the "winter months". Several years ago during the week of chistmas, I went to a late night movie, as I was walking back to my car to go home I noticed the following: at 11:30pm it was 80F (26C), the humidity was around 80-90%, and I was wearing shorts.
Are you satisfied with a few arbitrary restaurants within walking distance? or, car enabled, would you rather go 30 miles for that REALLY good place that would never be so close in a compact city?
Kids need to bring stuff. That could be hockey equipment, a drum set, or a clean playpen.
Kids wander off if not contained. A kid may get off a subway at the wrong stop, lost in the crowd, along as the rest of the family continues on down the line. A kid may fall onto the tracks.
Kids should be kept from licking public spaces. Kids should be kept from eating food found on the ground. Kids should not be able to play with hypodermic needles.
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 around consumerism. Find a less-densely populated area, and there will be wild space like forests and streams. Backyards can be pretty big too. Consumerism is more of a city thing, since there is no backyard and no forest.
I neither want nor need to be a taxi driver for my kids. From the age of seven they have been perfectly capable of getting to school, orchestra practice and sports by themselves using the subway, local trains and buses. The drum kits and equipment can be stored on location, and whatever they need to carry (the cello is heavy) builds strength or can be wheeled.
At their age, back in the day of no smartphones, if I got lost in the city I could ask any adult for help, and they would be delighted to help me.
However I do like living 3 minutes from the next supermarket, and 20 minutes from the city center with all the shop, and 25 minutes from my work (all distances by foot).
I would love to have all the advantages without any of the disadvantages, but at least around here most people prefer living closer together over commuting longer distances.
In the East Bay you can start to approach reasonable but if you're working in the South Bay, your commute won't be reasonable and access to the city for recreation may not be great either.
When/if we finally buy, we're looking at a rural, passive self-build where we can work remotely. The cost is about the same as a town house these days.
There isn't any technical reason why you couldn't put in proper isolation between floors or walls, aside from the fact it would slow down construction and be expensive. Proper insulation (both acoustic and thermal) also makes rooms smaller in a given footprint which is an issue for marketing.
This is definitely ideal, but is it achievable (in average, not for any individual) in larger cities even if they are built for walk/public transit?
I don't have much experience in Europe, but I knew in Tokyo, which probably has the best public transit in the world, the average commute time is one hour. This is obviously an extreme example as Tokyo is a megacity, but I think majority of people cannot live 25 minutes from their work for any cities that have 1M+ populations, regardless how the city is built.
Most people use public transportation, and that's usually a 5-10 minute walk to/from the station on each side, and changing trains once or twice. Among my peers, it's usually 30-45 minutes with public transportation. Half that by car, if they don't work in the inner city.
I generally agree, though in cities like Paris you can get close. But 1M+ is very big by European standards. There are only 34 cities on the entire continent that fit that description [1], and there are multiple capitals [2] half that size (Dublin and Lisbon each have around half a million inhabitants).
Once you get down to ~300k or fewer citizens commute times drop a lot. That's really how the vast majority of the population lives.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_cities_by_pop...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_European...
If you look at the population of agglomerations (some cities in Europe have ridiculously small limits - Paris is fifteen times smaller than London), you see than London (14,800,000) and Paris (11,400,000) are a bit less populated than the the biggest US cities New York (22,100,000) and Los Angeles (17,700,000) but slightly more than the third Chicago (9,750,000).
The next biggest agglomerations in Europe, Madrid (6,550,000) and Milan (6,200,000) can be compared to Houston (6,750,000), a bit less populated than San Fransisco (7,850,000).
Then you have Berlin (4,725,000) which is close to Seattle (4,425,000) or Phoenix (4,700,000).
It's almost like wanting 50000 people with different professions nearby means you have to live next to 50000 people. Until we discover teleportation.
When full remote becomes more wide-spread, that might change things rapidly.
There is a reason we've been congregating in cities for millennia, despite having to overcome many diseases which are made worse by overcrowdedness.
The main reasons for urbanization were always economic and political. Rome was not built for the Coliseum; the Coliseum was built for Rome.
It's true that local amphitheaters may book a few good live acts every year but that selection pales in comparison to what you can get every weekend in a reasonably-sized city. There are some fun local theater groups in my suburb too. But sometimes I really want to watch something other than Shakespeare.
I know it’s not the same, and I also enjoy live entertainment and the other amenities of cities. I just don’t think these amenities are historically a prime driver for urbanization. People historically move to cities for economic reasons, providing a lucrative and competitive market for entertaining them.
It's primarily jobs though. I know quite a few people who don't care enough for the Opera or obscure African sports to pay two or three times as much in rent and taxes. It's a mixed bag, some love living in the city, but all have to live in the city if they want to work in certain jobs & have a career.
> There is a reason we've been congregating in cities for millennia, despite having to overcome many diseases which are made worse by overcrowdedness.
Yes, primarily because that's where the opportunities were, always. The colorful cultural life you describe was (and still is) enjoyed by the urban elite, that wasn't a thing for the working poor in e.g. 19th century Paris. Their entertainment would be a bottle of wine and laughter with friends after slaving away in the factories; much the same they'd have in a village, just minus having a job and some money. Today's working class might go to the movies (if they don't prefer Netflix), the theaters, opera houses, obscure sports etc are upper class things.
That might be changing, though I'm not convinced we'll see full remote work for large amounts of office jobs.
The life described is one of privilege, not of the lower classes. It's pubs vs operas.
There is a light rail line running through the suburb which connects downtown. Its a 30 minute train ride to go to the big event venue for big sports and concerts. This precludes the idea of going to the local minor league teams in the area as well which can often be just as much fun to watch and follow and far cheaper to attend.
There are club sports which participate in the park in my neighborhood. All I need to do is walk down the street and find people playing various kinds of sports. There are larger suburb-city owned sports complex on the bike trails for even more congregation.
Living in a suburb does not mean you can never go and see a show or a sports game or a concert.
The location of jobs matters because many of them require daily commute. But for major entertainment events it's sufficient to be 'close enough' for the things that haven't yet been replaced with something that's accessible remotely. For example, 30 years ago living in a small town meant that your access to cinema was limited or at least delayed, so you were 'out of the loop' of the culture in some sense. That's not an issue anymore - not because there are more cinemas, because their role has decreased.
Many suburbs elsewhere may only have Applebees as the pinnacle of culture, but that is not a given. Not every city is the same around the world. Not every suburb is the same.
There is no way in which I consider this a replacement for restaurants. Or vice versa. You can value both, one, or neither, but they aren't the same thing.
If you took everyone in the suburbs and built them dense city neighborhoods they wouldn't suddenly have great places to eat.
Now with that said, there are many intelligent ways to design density so that it is not unpleasant. Paying attention to green space and the natural world, space and light in general, and careful design for both function and form can make urban density a thing that is not only sustainable but emotionally/esthetically appealing. (Unfortunately this is not necessarily how density develops in cities, current incentives often instead favoring development that prioritizes flash, affluence appeal, and short-term private economic gain.)
Care to back that up?
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.
You can have density that supports public transit and walkable retail without having to build like HK or Manhattan. This is in the middle of a Toronto neighbourhood that was build in the 1910s (use street view to poke around):
* https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Westminster+Ave,+Toron...
Currently these houses/land are very expensive because living 'downtown' is fashionable again, but up until the 1990s they were reasonably priced because... who would want to live downtown when you could live in the suburbs?
Some smaller sized houses on the next street over:
* https://www.google.com/maps/place/50+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+O...
Most have lane way garages. They're generally 3-4 bedrooms.
Everyone can have a front yard, everyone can have a backyard (with an accessible garage), and no one is really "stacked" on each other.
Also, you'll be hard pressed to find anything that everyone wants. It's almost a tautology, so it's not really useful to make such statements without more context/clarification about...
Automobile mobility results in sprawl: many/most people don't want to be stacked if they don't have to. What many here may not realize is how incredibly wide and flat Texas is; driving another mile takes less than a minute, and there's a whole lotta miles to get you some space from neighbors.