Quote:
Originally Posted by Loopy
I agree, but it is was the plan that failed, in most cases, not the buildings themselves. The biggest failure of thinking in this era was that urban dwellers needed "light air and serenity", while ignoring their real needs for community and sense of place.
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I totally agree. Actually, I think that's what I wrote: the architecture is the only redeeming feature of that site; everything else is super, super lame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VivaLFuego
The notion that superblocks are inherently hostile to pedestrian activity is the result of unqualified pols thinking they are savvy to urban planning concerns (yes, you, Ald. Preckwinkle). I could list off probably a dozen renewal developments in New York City that obliterate the idea; if anything, a well-designed superblock would eliminate car/pedestrian conflicts, and thus be more pedestrian friendly. The urban layout and architecture are not what makes the Lake Meadows/Prairie Shore area a wasteland of pedestrianism; it is the suburban shopping center (hence hurting the chance for economic activity, the primary trip generator, to be made on foot) and large resident parking fields (which waste alot of space). Fix the units/acres ratio without repeating the same mistakes of the past in demolishing a healthy community of mixed income, mixed background residents. Any "replacement" community, in today's economic environment, would be a mundane blend of the upper income and the few scorned invidividuals living in subsidized units, whose construction further drove up the "market-rate" units thereby making those even more exclusive. Lake Meadows is a truly diverse development of mixed income, the sort of which planners yearn for, with 50 years of character and history. Wiping the slate clean wouldn't be any better than what they did in the '50s, in my opinion.
This plan is a complete travesty.
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This is bullshit. Whenever you isolate a tall and severe structure in the middle of a sparsely landscaped "park" you create a terrible urban experience that minimizes human interactions. If they're successful in Manhattan it's only because housing demand is so great that people would live in just about anything to be there. (Plus, I think many of the urban renewal developments are denser than LM.) Can you sincerely tell me that, given the option, someone would actually choose to live in Boston's West End over the North End, South End or Beacon Hill?
I agree that the architecture is boss and that they would ideally preserve and incorporate that into a new plan but as for maintaining the integrity of the super block... I fail to see how that would be anything but historicism at work. Or, from the sound of it, Marxism...?
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