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Comment by reso | Hacker News Reader

I say this all as a YIMBY who is very happy to see 20k new units added to vancouver: something feels off about the plans for the Jericho lands but I can't describe it.

I feel like when you have these mega developments where 10 condos go up all at once in the space of a few blocks, they end up as "bedroom neighborhoods", where people sleep but don't do anything else. There are a lot of these happening in Canada right now. There's one on Victoria in Waterloo. Concord place in Toronto is another example. I don't see street life there. I only see people going to or coming from somewhere else.

The best neighborhoods are the ones where there is a broad-strokes master plan, but beneath that, some amount of decentralization in implementation. Then you get a diversity of ideas about how to live all in one place.

Maybe there are words for this I don't know.

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It's not exactly what you're getting at, but you might enjoy Christopher Alexander's essay "A City is not a Tree". It also talks about why highly planned cities can end up not working and feeling "right" in the way that older more incrementally-grown ones can.

It would be more convincing to rage against planning if the backdrop wasn't a situation clearly created by the complete absence of planning. Obviously there's a middle ground. This isn't it.

Take Tokyo for example. It’s ugly and massive and sprawling but, connected with amazing transit, there is not only plenty of housing for everyone at all income levels, but the place is also just totally rad.

Tokyo is ugly because of its tropical summers; if you tried to build the Western idea of "not ugly" there would be mold and insects everywhere.

If it is discontinuous with the broader urban fabric this is definitely a risk.

Look up Ørestad in Copenhagen - a massive master planned area that never gained any of the hoped for vitality you would see elsewhere in the city.

A decent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OMxzXsufq8

I think the tough part is it's hard to master plan these thing sometimes. Is it better to limit restrictions and let people put coffee shops and bars where they want?

I absolutely think your'e right - given permissive small business landscape

It seems like it had othe problems apart from being discontinuous from the city. There are lots of areas like this in the US which are contiguous with the city, that still end up as dead zones.

Did anyone really believe this was a good idea? I feel like the developers' need to turn a profit and the government's need to impose itself don't leave any good ideas on the table. Instead they focus on packaging up the same bad ideas just with different marketing.

When it inevitably doesn't work as promised, they just say oops, and move onto the next project.

I think the lack of organic place making is hard, but certainly not impossible. The example I listed suffered from insufficient place making (which one day may yet appear).

The pedestrian and shopping areas are linearized instead of polycentric as you would see in an urban core limiting mobility and discovery of the local businesses that make an urban landscape thrive. Additionally a limited variety in offerings of real estate limit the use patterns of a place. For example there stretches along the main way that form a barren pedestrian zone (among those are freeway underpasses, giant shopping centers and large office blocks).

Why its hard to replicate the organic formation of these places is that markets and public will, over time, evolve the space into the best value use. Of course, put enough people living in an area and urban life will emerge as people fill out coffee shops, theaters, etc. -given policy accommodative to mixed use development.

Here are two highly cherrypicked illustrations of my point.

Inner Copenhagen: https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6800033,12.5764683,3a,75y,24...

Orestad: https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6285983,12.5788039,3a,90y,19...

If the old city centers are crowded and expensive because they're so desirable, then why do we need any new solution? Can't we just copy paste the old stuff outward in every direction in concentric circles from the old downtown?

I've never understood all the headscratching on this topic. Everyone likes charming little streets, plazas, coffee shops, locally owned restaurants. Just let people have it!

It really is! Americans like myself feel the magnetic energy of old European city centers yet we relegate them to vacation rather than import them here.

My only guess as to why developments don't achieve this is that the most desirable outcomes to society is that all stakeholder interests can't possibly be seen within a development plan. With that a more narrow band of priorities are emphasized and bureaucratic processes lead to a rationalized and simplified plans rather than the controlled chaos that incremental and democratic growth creates.

(in the same way a product manager may propose a box to be the product shape - if profitability and volume is prioritized, and the box shape is explainable to regulators and management. While if the product had been iterated through organic public reception, it will evolve to take an ergonomic shape formed and validated by users over years).

Ørestad looks nice on street view. Give it some time, maybe?

I think you're right that decentralised planning will create a more diverse cityscape, but your example seems fine...

I disagree about master plan neighborhoods being better. It's just way too much ownership, control, and responsibility for one developer or one period of time, usually. Imo, master planned neighborhoods are an optimistic dismissal of the idea that organic evolution of a neighborhood should be allowed to happen, and a massive bet on whatever gets built being great. Often this takes place as a huge cul-de-sac suburb with one place designated for a gas station and a few shops, or as just an isolated parcel where most of the businesses end up being franchises and people drive out to visit other places rather than shopping nearby. In the prairies, these developments build over wetlands on the outskirts where land is cheapest and it's all boilerplate garbage that the developer has decided in advance it's probably everything everyone needs. A sort of "This is where the houses go, this is where the commercial is, here's the rest of the city". Everything ends up looking pretty samey and dull.

In other cases, when it happens in a city, like in Burnaby or Oakridge, it ends up displacing in some way or another way more people than is necessary, because they have a grand vision to replace 10 blocks of housing or something.

I think you're basically describing a typical suburb and I agree those suck. However I live pretty close to the Jericho lands and there's plenty going on here. Both 4th & broadway are nearby with lots of shopping/dining etc. and there are big parks/beaches nearby. I think the neighbourhood will get even better with more residents.

Yeah it's hardly an inactive place; I'm sure as the towers go up some of the single story houses will sell and Broadway will expand. Especially as the new skytrain stations go in

This honestly sounds pretty chill to me. Having residential neighborhoods that are quieter, but still close to downtown and accessible on public transit, seems like a great situation for me. Not everyone wants to live in the hustle and bustle of downtown.

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