Dense in the future?
 

What are some cities that are sprawlsville today that you think stand a good chance of being either dense or at least a lot more dense than today? I'll say in about 20-40 years. Hopefully this hasn't been discussed too often and isn't closed, lol.

L.A. is obviously going to continue to grow up, since it doesn't have much room to grow out anymore.

I could see Austin grow dense but I'm not familiar enough with it.

Charlotte is already investing in rail transit, and will likely densify.

Lastly, I would bank on the big Rust Belt cities recovering density over the next half century.

The longest commutes most people seem to tolerate are about 45 minutes to an hour.

The mode of transportation does not matter and density does not matter thats about the limit people land on. So until a faster mode of transportation than trains and cars can get you from the farthest Exurb to your job they are about as spread out as they are going to get.

Now this does get a little warped as major Metro areas have multiple employment hubs and of course outliers of people willing to travel outrageous lengths to get their little slice of suburban (or rural) bliss. But unless its a smaller city with lots of room to expand outward like Boise or Odessa-Midland, id expect most of the top cities in america to continue their current trend towards more density.

Of course there is a cultural component too, from 1940-(even now in many places) getting your own little house in the suburbs was a big cultural push, id never discount a turn against urbanism like we saw after WW2 happening again sometime in the future.

But, things will still change a lot with the growing prevalence of working from home with modern communication tech which could see really odd changes in living patterns. There is no reason why you cant be a day trader or independent tech contractor working from a small town in Montana as long as you have a good internet connection and are willing to be up early. etc.

And of course if we get Jetsons flying cars, Futurama people tubes or teleporters then all bets on built form are off.

i always feel like columbus is due for some sister city austin-style densifying downtown some day.

and speaking of ohio downtown's, cleveland is on deck for a huge downtown densification office project, but as with everything clevelandy there is also a chance it could all fall apart (new sherwin-williams hq). we'll see.

Portland is about to go crazy. I think were going to see a completely new east side skyline in 10 years. Downtown is getting some tower infill too.

The Greater Toronto Area greenbelt means the cities around Toronto can only grow upward as we are seeing now.
So places like Vaughan and Mississauga, which both have 3 x 500 footers under construction, will continue to get denser.

I was going to mention Toronto's post-war sprawlburbs as a good example. Most of them are fully built out at this point, but still rapidly growing - and as a result almost all of them are creating new high-rise city centres, building LRT & BRT, redeveloping shopping malls, and building TODs around new high-frequency commuter rail stations.



Mississauga is the most notable - in the 60s/70 its city centre looked like this:

http://www.mississauga.ca/file/COM/hf0164la.jpg
http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/res...%3Fstart%3D181


Now:

https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/attach...21-jpg.190369/
https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...20755/page-103


And here's the longer term plan to continue filling it in, including upgrading the current BRT to LRT:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Dw...VDxUIZ1W5l9GnY

https://i.imgur.com/a5Y8uPm.jpg



Also in Mississauga is the Lakeview Village redevelopment, which will add 8,000 residential units & 4,000 jobs:

http://urbantoronto.ca/sites/default...492-117005.png

http://urbantoronto.ca/sites/default...492-116995.png

http://urbantoronto.ca/sites/default...492-117000.png

http://urbantoronto.ca/sites/default...492-117002.png

http://urbantoronto.ca/sites/default...492-117001.png




Here's the long-term vision for Brampton. What's currently a sprawling industrial estate:

https://i.imgur.com/C71caiH.png


Is planned to transform into this over the next few decades:

https://i.cbc.ca/1.4651546.152570657...n-brampton.png

https://i.cbc.ca/1.4651576.152570711...-boulevard.png
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...sion-1.4651520




Vaughan's city centre, which is in the process of developing a post-war industrial / big box wasteland around a new subway extension & BRT:

https://blog.condonow.com/wp-content.../VMCGoogle.jpg

https://blog.condonow.com/wp-content...VMOverview.jpg
https://www.century21.ca/roger.towns...politan_Centre




Langstaff Gateway redevelopment in Markham, which would add 15,000 residential units (plus commercial) around a commuter rail station:

https://www.calthorpe.com/sites/defa...10_%281%29.jpg

https://www.calthorpe.com/sites/defa...-09%29-v01.jpg




It's also art of the larger Richmond Hill/Langstaff Gateway Urban Growth Centre, congruent with Richmond Hill's new city centre:

https://i.imgur.com/N1mO4ns.png

https://i.imgur.com/qBY66HQ.png
http://mshplan.ca/Project%20Sheet_Ri...%20Gateway.pdf




Markham's other city centre:

https://downtownmarkham.ca/wp-conten...st-facts-2.jpg




Still suburban, but at least they'll be dense. :shrug:

The high rises mixed in with fields just screams CHINA to me.

That’s who’s funding it lol

It’s the Vancouver/Miami model of growth

In the us, I would say Houston, Dallas will show the greatest densification. Not with high rises, more like big 6-7 story midrises wrapped around parking, with the odd inner loop high rise

High rises nodes in currently low rise edge cities would include Tyson’s, new Rochelle, Bellevue, maybe north Austin, east Portland downtown (Lloyd center) , parts of queens, jersey city. Nimbyism will probably keep more redevelopment core focused and brownfield elsewhere (ie Chicago and sf)

Houston and Dallas??? What?

Where are you getting this from exactly?

LA will have the most and it's been happening with large 5-7 story mixed use buildings everywhere.

I think it's going to start adding 15-20 story buildings in the same fashion, as well as keep adding the 5-7 mixed use stuff.
Even parts of south los angeles and the Valley are adding these buildings all over the place.

Downtown will continue adding 40-60 story buildings. Century City, Hollywood and Koreatown, Wilshire, will likely add a ton of 30-40 story buildings (already planned/u/c)

Probably given 20-40 years per the OP. They present two different versions of future density: DFW has a midwestern feeling with it's orderly development and clean look and Houston's libertarian roots come out in it's haphazard, a "mother's type of love" look. Both cities have the bones to support a dense multi nodal metropolis.

However, Houston does need to figure out it's future in order to densify... Are they going to get very serious about flooding and are they going to get very serious about investing in a plan to development new industries. Houston has been getting more involved in its local public university which is not among the state's flagship.

Western Metros for sure.

I know when I went to LA in 2013 I didn't recognize it. Previous to that the last time I was there was in 1994! Nearly 7 years later I'm sure the city has changed yet some more.

Toronto's urban development patterns/strategies are unlike anything else in the developed world. That parcel situated between the highway and cemetery... speechless. Propose anything like that in LA (or even OC), and the NIMBYs will be sure to stymie it... thank goodness.

You can thank the Ontario government for that, The province has pretty much told all the GTA cities that they are going to get denser whether they want to or not. but even with the heavy hand of the province, getting skyscrapers built in Toronto is not a smooth process taking many years and about 1/3 of the cost to build is from fees and taxes.

A full unrestrained GTA would look like Asian cities with highrises replaces the miles of single-family homes in the region. The current process will take longer and be more expensive for home-owners but as long as the greenbelt holds the non-stop construction will continue

You may think that but the real reason is that Vancouver and Toronto don't have any more land to build out with and have to build up to house their fast-growing populations

Houston. Already in 2019 nobody in North America is converting single-family zones into dense neighborhoods faster than Houston. They still have to make it less car-oriented, but the infill is impressive and different than what other cities are seeing.

The future:

https://live.staticflickr.com/912/41...054f7e57_b.jpg

Yeah Houston and Dallas. See post above. Both densifying pretty rapidly and both were heavily low density sleepy neighborhoods well into city centers. There's parts of them that will remain sprawling and low density but mostly outside the loop in Houston's case. For now.