> Pedestrians are much more able to see or intervene in a crime than drivers are.
Pedestrians are easier to watch and carefully evaluate, also, and will not always be around; you can follow a target and wait until they are safe to rob. People in cars are a mystery, and near active streets a constant one.
Also I don't think pollution is specific to this type of construction. Any type of full scale construction in urban environments causes terrible pollution and pest issues for the adjacent blocks.
I don't at all doubt its also inflation at play. It seems perfectly reasonable tho that a place that generally has car-less renters would have higher prices as those without cars could afford that added price. To an extent of course.
If there's only 100 units in a car-less block and 500 ppl that want them, what could be done if you've reached the limit of what can be built?
I guess you could go up, making sky scrapers... but now I have to admit I'm out of my element. Not sure if that's viable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
I wonder what can be the counter to this?
Forcing the approval of some type of permits and permitting high density development in some amount/type of area is much more reasonable and executable. (If a city were falling short of the originally proposed mandated housing, what entity would have to make up the shortfall and how would you force them to build a development they’re not asking to build?)
Another is to remove zoning laws preventing secondary suites / in-law apartments / granny flats / etc. These also force a certain type of development onto cities.
Another fix - not so much zoning though - is to move to 10' lanes instead of 12'. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-06/why-12-fo... , which again forces a certain type of development onto cities.
After decades of existing forced development, it too easily becomes the baseline of what is "normal."
I have no problem with cities imposing restrictions on cities, as that is amenable to democratic review by the voters in that city. Having a national imposition on a city would be objectionable to me on principle (and in the US, would very likely violate the 10th Amendment).
AHJ - authorities having jurisdiction, basically "whoever sets and enforces the codes"
That still leaves the problem in your original proposal of "how exactly do you plan to enforce the required level of high-density development if no one is asking to do it?"
The National 55 MPH speed limit shows the federal government, through the power of the purse, can have a strong influence on state traffic laws.
The history of zoning shows how the State Standard Zoning Enabling Act - a federal work - can influence the states to change.
There appear to be easy ways to tweak judge2020's proposal to make it better reflect demand, but I don't care to argue that issue.
> AHJs imposing restrictions on themselves
judge2020's point is that zoning laws support current residents, not future residents, so AHJs have a systemic bias against making these changes.
judge2020's proposal is to look towards the democratically elected bodies which have a wider scope.
As a concrete example, California recently made it easier to build mother-in-law units (ADUs in CA terms), by reducing the requirements cities and counties can enforce. See https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2020/03/12... . This law is why I mentioned mother-in-law units as an example.
That change in California law has no constitutional issues like what you are opposed to.
If CA voters can’t manage to do this for CA, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be any easier to get it to pass federally.
Just because it isn't easy doesn't mean judge2020 isn't right.
You said you staunchly oppose a state government forcing a certain type of development onto cities, without explaining why you oppose it, nor stating if you support the current forced state of development.
I do oppose states “[forcing] cities [to] have a certain minimum amount of high-density development every year” because it’s not at all obvious how to implement forcing development that is not supported or requested by developers.
I have no significant objections to the current level of state restrictions in my state of MA, in which no developers are forced to develop property against their wishes.
If you poll people if we should build more in their city, you get a majority in favor. Then you get community meetings in which a vocal minority that can actually afford (typically better off and older) to go to community meetings and create pressure shoot down projects or cripples them.
On a larger scope you have folks who are denied economic opportunity due to housing policy that gets set by people who are already in, but kick away the ladder for everyone else. As a concrete example, I know lots of people who'd love to live (again) in SF in part due to the job market, but cannot or it would be super hard for them.
You might probably be right but its nevertheless amusing the way statistics can render things banal in a weird way
Same in the UK, rent is up all over the country, breaking in, flytipping, private and public areas devastation is up. Local media don't even care to report on knife attacks in major cities.
It worked so well that the city and the DPD started the Green Light program. They worked with gas stations putting up cameras and put together teams of dedicated officers for a quick response. The result was that it drastically reduced car jackings and gas station robberies. Now they've done the same thing at liquor stores and are talking about expanding it to other cooperating merchants. Cameras only work if they are being monitored and the police respond quickly.
Critical part isn't the monitoring, but availability of enforcement. Having enough units just walking around would probably have similar effect.
For example here in bum fuck eastern europe, after we joined Schengen, street crime dropped in no time. Lots of „street professionals“ went to much more wealthy Western europe. Some packed up and left. Others leave for tours and come back home to live on income from stolen stuff.
This happens whenever you improve anything in a city. The solution is to make the improvements everywhere if you can. We obviously can't stop making nice things just because it makes some areas more desirable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George_theorem
The remedy (at least according to Henry George) is to not only continue improving, but also to tax away the land rents, and most likely distribute them equally to all residents.
This also means that whenever there's an improvement to, say, transit that is actually beneficial to the community, it can be more than self-funding by taxing land rents.
I do feel you on the problems, but the idea of the construction job being complete in only a 9 month timeframe sounds like a luxury.
Some superblocks sometimes have parks or playgrounds, you never have to worry about your kids getting run over or thrown in the back of a van, more people hang out outside because it isn't sulfery or loud.
I lived in one super-like-block in Poland and noise was the reason I had to move out. About 200 flats facing each other, you need only one person to ruin day or night for everyone there. One party at night and you have 600 people who couldn't sleep. One specific neighbour was listening to music from loudspeakers literally all day causing echo in the block. She turned volume up when cleaning and vacuuming, she had to still hear the music WHILE vacuuming. Never want to live to such block ever again, not anywhere close.
That's just living in a city _shrug_
If rather hear kids playing at 3pm than youths on ATVs or random mopeds at 3am
Edit: I think you may be misinterpreting the definition of a superblock
> never going back to dense population
We have different interpretations of "living in a city".
As the parent of a young child, I wish very much for more car-free space around my house. Otherwise I need to pack her in the car to get some running-around space.
You might be interested in this "Not Just Bikes" video about raising kids in non car dependent places: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHlpmxLTxpw
or this one about kids who bike to school in a group for safety: https://bikeportland.org/2022/10/13/portlands-bike-bus-featu...
The coverage of the bike bus stuff made me cry because it just felt so special and gave me hope for the future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_scramble
And I thought 2nd paragraph from Wikipedia offers an interesting insight on cultural priorities:
> It was first used in Canada and the United States in the late 1940s, but it later fell out of favor with traffic engineers there, as it was seen as prioritizing flow of pedestrians over flow of car traffic. Its benefits for pedestrian amenity and safety have led to new examples being installed in many countries in recent years
Unless you are trying to cross perpendicularly, then you have to walk 10 meters less. Averages out to being similar (and isn't annoying to use in person).
Regardless, it shortens the crossing length, and puts crossing pedestrians at a perpendicular angle to turning drivers, both of which drastically increase pedestrian safety.
No offense but this sounds like a classic reactionary anti-bike cliché, so would you mind sharing some sources?
The OP is drawing some pretty common sense conclusions, they are essential turning busy streets into quiet alleyways.
Would you rather walk on a highway shoulder or a residential street?
Ears on the street is what matters, not cars on the road.
In fact, there will be more people on the streets. The lack of cars makes it possible to use the spare space for playgrounds, skate parks, outdoor restaurant seating, additional shops, et cetera. And the streets don't suddenly narrow: they are still 70 feet wide, they don't magically turn into tiny alleyways the second you remove car traffic.
I can tell you from experience that many well-designed parks are even very busy after nightfall. No reason to feel afraid when there are literally a hundred people within eyesight.
I have two questions:
Do emergency services count as cars?
Do people who have to take call to provide emergency medical care still get to use cars?
No
If you ask two, people answer the less interesting one to the exclusion of the other.
So emergency vehicles can drive in. Can emergency workers drive out?
That doesn't solve the problem, which is OK, in that I don't expect people here to understand how being on call works.
Basically, it's like a leash centered on the hospital: You can be anywhere, as long as you can get to the hospital in a certain amount of time when you get called in. This roughly correlates with distance, but not entirely: When my dad was on call in a town with a railroad track running through it, he had to stay on the right side of the tracks because a long coal train would blow his response time. (It was a small town.) The point is, though, they aren't fixed at home when they're on call, and being fixed at home would destroy their lives. My dad had to be on call fully 50% of the time when he lived in aforesaid small town, because he was 50% of that town's total anesthesia providers.
Therefore, unless you propose a chauffeur, they will be driving their own vehicles while they're on call.
On a deeper level, changing how being on call works would require changing how small of a town people are allowed to live in. This seems like a common problem: People come up with something that they might be able to make work in New York City, and think they've Solved The Problem, blissfully unaware of St. Louis, let alone Du Quoin.
It's 5pm Friday in NYC, you're 10 blocks from the hospital and get paged? You walk or ride a bike. Any city not built in the American car centric design, biking is faster
That is a good argument against shopping malls or high rise buildings, as they are bigger and vastly most inaccessible than superblocks. If shopping malls and similar structures are safe, superblocks are safer.