Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban_logic
Skeptics like yourself are a bit draining and depressing, but you do bring us optimists down to reality.
|
I am not a skeptic, but an idealist. When a suburban development has a blank slate, why not do things right, based on hundreds of years of development patterns that prove what works best and what doesn't? I give some suburbs a pass, primarily because of the time they developed and people were pretty much naive to the impacts that the private vehicle would have. But those developments that pop up in the last 10 years have no excuse. They should be perfect. There is no reason why they shouldn't be. I feel the same way about developments in urban cities. Salt Lake City has allowed it's fair share of crappy developments, and so do most places. But fighting for an ideal is by no means a downer.
daybreak should have done a lot of things different. They need a broader mix of housing types. The initial premise was that duplexes, twinhomes, tri-plexes, etc,. would be intermixed with single family residential. Instead, they end up putting all of the apartments and multifamily dwellings in pockets. I think they have improved on this a bit with their recent villages. There are few logical street connections. Anytime you have to backtrack through a neighborhood to get out of a neighborhood, it increases driving and walking distance to get to key areas. Another big hit for Daybreak is that South Jordan allowed the district to go where it did. While that part of the valley certainly needed more commercial and entertainment venues, it will delay significant commercial opportunities in Daybreak. If they would have limited the development at the District, Kennecott Land would have had a much easier time recruiting retail to Daybreak and it would have happened sooner than it has. Plus, everyone from Daybreak drives to the District. There are few people brave enough to walk across Bangerter. South Jordan also has limited the connections between existing neighborhoods and Daybreak.
The number one thing that suburbs do wrong is limit connections, for pedestrians, bicycles, and vehicles. They do it because they cave to public clamor about traffic.
I have seen a number of suburbs get things right. Reston Viriginia is the first to pop into my head. You are probably familiar with Davis, Ca. which is another fine example of a community holding up an ideal and striving to get there.
Threaded Mode