Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo the Dog
I read a book maybe 10 years ago or so by Grady Gammage Jr. He stated that the Phoenix Village system was an epic failure because people live in one "village" only to commute out to another "village" to shop/dine/work.
The idea of villages was to have Phoenicians "live, work and play" within the same village. Of course that would never happen in a city with a built environment like Phoenix. He did give credit to 24th/Camelback as one of the only successful village centers and I agree.
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If that is the criteria for success, then failure was the only logical outcome. Regardless of what the city tried to do with the villages, at the time of their creation, people already lived in those villages, and already worked in other villages, and aren't going to simply sell their house and move across the city to satisfy the goals of the village project.
In any post-war city built around the automobile, people are not likely to live right where they work. The entire village concept really only works when a city has a certain density so that people have enough housing options and work options in their immediate area. Even in old, dense cities, people aren't going to necessarily work in the same 'village' that they live in. Just because someone lives in Brooklyn doesn't mean they won't take the subway into Manhattan for work.