Salt Lake:Official development news thread

[T-Mac]

Ark, that looks a lot better. I really like the new layout for the homes.

[Future Mayor]

That will be nice addition to that end of town. With the State Room, The Bayou, the club across the street from the Bayou and the new sapa opening up on 8th. Plus there is a couple of unique local shops in that area too. Despite the huge road it's turning into a decent little active neighborhood. I'm sure it will only continue to improve also. The only thing that sucks is that there isn't good transit access.

[SLC Projects]

The State room looks cool.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

I wouldn't say they are a complete disaster - I've seen worse. But they most certainly could have been built a lot better. It was a good wake-up-call for cities like Riverton, S/W Jordan, and Harriman. You can see in the building styles of West Jordan the shift from the sprawl mentality to the dense mentality as you move westward. Fortunately, West Jordan was only half the size it is now when it was in its sprawl phase. Now just about every development I see has much smaller yards and some sort of dense project integrated into it.

I love this idea! You have 4 or 8 houses to 1 driveway - they are still fully seperated houses, not condos. That way you feel like you are in a house, but you don't take up as much land:



Then you have these funky quad-plexes:



Then there are always the traditional apartment complexes:



Dense houses with smaller yards:





And then ther is always Daybreak:



And of course, our fair city center not too far away:

The thing is, it's not just about density in terms of housing. The problems with suburban development like this is that it still caters to the automobile. I look at these pictures and the one common theme I see is that you're probably not walking anywhere.

That is the difference between central Salt Lake and suburban Salt Lake. Most neighborhoods in Salt Lake were built around the foot, not the car. Even my neighborhood, which when originally built was considered a suburb of downtown (in SugarHouse), has easy access via foot to everything I really need.

The layout of these suburban developments, regardless of how close the homes are, still has that flaw. And while it's nice to see they're moving in the right direction, until these neighborhoods are built on a grid and connected to commercial, retail, public parks and schools rather easily beyond the roads, we're still not doing enough.

[WASDEN]

Thanks Comrade, ditto on your assessment of such communities. I love that they refer to that type of development pictured at the top as 'cluster' homes. Pretty much sums up how I feel about them .

[Urban_logic]

Originally Posted by Comrade Reynolds

The thing is, it's not just about density in terms of housing. The problems with suburban development like this is that it still caters to the automobile. I look at these pictures and the one common theme I see is that you're probably not walking anywhere.

That is the difference between central Salt Lake and suburban Salt Lake. Most neighborhoods in Salt Lake were built around the foot, not the car. Even my neighborhood, which when originally built was considered a suburb of downtown (in SugarHouse), has easy access via foot to everything I really need.

The layout of these suburban developments, regardless of how close the homes are, still has that flaw. And while it's nice to see they're moving in the right direction, until these neighborhoods are built on a grid and connected to commercial, retail, public parks and schools rather easily beyond the roads, we're still not doing enough.

Hmmm...I manage to walk and ride my bike around just fine. I don't really see the huge difference between Sugar House and West/South Jordan neighborhoods. I see huge masses of kids walking and biking home from school every day. You guys seem to think we hop in the car for everything. I don't think we do anymore than someone in a suburb like Sugar House would.

Sugar House:



Day Break:



Sugar House:



Jordan Landing:



One major difference I see is that we have many more trails and sidewalks out here. I think it's easier to walk/bike out here than it is in Sugar House. Oh, and the grids like strikingly similar - I think Day Break has smaller ones on a neighborhood level.

[T-Mac]

Aren't the areas your referring to as Sugarhouse more of the Millcreek area. I always think of Sugarhouse being a little further north of that area. I could be wrong.

[urbanboy]

You're right T-Mac

[Urban_logic]

Originally Posted by T-Mac

Aren't the areas your referring to as Sugarhouse more of the Millcreek area. I always think of Sugarhouse being a little further north of that area. I could be wrong.

I always thought the border was 33rd South

If it is Millcreek, it is right next to Sugar House. It's the same general neighborhood. If you want to be technical, the two images from the sw part of the valley are a good 5 or so miles apart. I was comparing the areas.

Is this better? It still has the same layout.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

I always thought the border was 33rd South

If it is Millcreek, it is right next to Sugar House. It's the same general neighborhood. If you want to be technical, the two images from the sw part of the valley are a good 5 or so miles apart. I was comparing the areas.

Sugar House's southern border is I-80, i.e. approximately 2300 South.

[Urban_logic]

Originally Posted by Stenar

Sugar House's southern border is I-80, i.e. approximately 2300 South.

Wikipedia:

Sugar House is located roughly from about 700 East at its western edge to 2000 East at the east and 1300 South to about 2700 South north to south, and is largely within the boundaries of Salt Lake City. In recent years a number of sources have inexplicably expanded the boundaries of Sugar House to include areas that have never been known as such; the boundaries being listed as far north as 1300 South, as far south as 3300 South., and even listing Sugar House going as far as 200 East. Many local businesses, although not strictly located within the bounds of Sugar House, use the name because of the area's name recognition.

You get my point. It is the area I am comparing. According to this Wiki article, my images were in Sugar House.

[cololi]

Why don't you pick somewhere between 500 E and 1300 E and 1700 s and 2100 S if you want to see what most people consider a true grid with good connectivity, not areas around Foothill/parleys and 3300 S, particularly areas that delivered under SL County regulations, which are notoriously bad.

[Urban_logic]

Originally Posted by cololi

Why don't you pick somewhere between 500 E and 1300 E and 1700 s and 2100 S if you want to see what most people consider a true grid with good connectivity, not areas around Foothill/parleys and 3300 S, particularly areas that delivered under SL County regulations, which are notoriously bad.

Because I am comparing two like-suburbs. The sw ones are on the foothills of the Oquirrhs, the Sugar House ones are on the eastern foothills. We are comparing suburbs here - not SLC. I am trying to illustrate that sw suburbs are changing for the better and have learned from mistakes of the past. Then, when Daybreak completes its mini commercial villeges sprinkled throughout the community, that will make it a lot more walkable (as in, you could walk or bike to get groceries and such). Through TRAX into the mix next year, and there you go - very walkable.

I give up. I think you guys missed my point. Nevermind.

So, how's CCC coming along? I haven't been there in a few days. What level are they up to on Tower 1? 12? 13?

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

Wikipedia:

Sugar House is located roughly from about 700 East at its western edge to 2000 East at the east and 1300 South to about 2700 South north to south, and is largely within the boundaries of Salt Lake City. In recent years a number of sources have inexplicably expanded the boundaries of Sugar House to include areas that have never been known as such; the boundaries being listed as far north as 1300 South, as far south as 3300 South., and even listing Sugar House going as far as 200 East. Many local businesses, although not strictly located within the bounds of Sugar House, use the name because of the area's name recognition.

You get my point. It is the area I am comparing. According to this Wiki article, my images were in Sugar House.

Just because Wikipedia says it, doesn't mean it is so. Also, the implication of the Wikipedia paragraph is that some people claim to be in Sugar House boundaries who aren't actually. Sugar House is entirely within SLC boundaries. Search the city website for "Sugar House": www.slcgov.com All of the images you chose are outside SLC boundaries.

[Comrade]

My street is off of 2700 South and the sign signifies that it is in the SugarHouse neighborhood. However, a block south of my neighborhood and you're looking at Millcreek, not SugarHouse, so my area is on the very outer area of the neighborhood.

SugarHouse also doesn't stretch east to Foothill. That's the East Bench neighborhood.

THIS is a typical SugarHouse neighborhood. Now that doesn't mean every neighborhood is similar, however, I'd say the average neighborhood looks like this:



Now what do you notice is different from the neighborhoods you posted?

It's a grid. The smaller streets are all linked to the major ones (9th, 11th, 13th, etc). That makes it far easier to walk from Point A to Point B.

Compare that map to this:



Now I zoomed out a bit to make it more comparable to the SugarHouse map. I think there was a bit of deception in your original posted image, because it left out that this neighborhood is surrounded by nothing. Sure, the people can walk, but walk where? They ain't walkin' down to the corner store for a Coke...that just isn't happening in this neighborhood.

That is the problem. Even in the newer areas of Salt Lake you posted (which are similar to the older suburbs in Salt Lake) stuck to the grid (except in the far western reaches of the city and on the eastern hills) and are easily connected to retail/commercial development. Is it as ideal as you'd find in central Salt Lake? No, but it's far better than what is offered in the above image.

You see, that is not what you're understanding. It isn't that you can't walk or ride your bike in these neighborhoods, you can, but it's that if you want to walk anywhere, you've got to commit to walking. It takes me maybe seven minutes to walk from my house to the corner store and I'd wager it'd take much longer to walk from a house on Holly Oak Drive to anything similar.

In fact, I searched that area and couldn't find a convenience store of any kind. There were two churches, what looked to be a school, but no real retail area that you could walk to if you wanted.

And that seems to fit nearly every neighborhood in the West Jordan area. I zoomed into an area between the New Bingham Highway and 9000 South and I saw a lot of homes, a lot of twisting streets, but nothing anyone could walk to, or at least anywhere in walking distance.

In SugarHouse, even if it's the images you've shown, you can do just that, especially if you lived in the neighborhood I grew up in, which was by Fairmont Park. It took ten minutes to walk from my street to downtown SugarHouse and everything in that area and that is what we did every summer as kids.

Out there in West Jordan? Not going to happen.

[Urban_logic]

Originally Posted by Stenar

Just because Wikipedia says it, doesn't mean it is so. Also, the implication of the Wikipedia paragraph is that some people claim to be in Sugar House boundaries who aren't actually. Sugar House is entirely within SLC boundaries. Search the city website for "Sugar House": www.slcgov.com All of the images you chose are outside SLC boundaries.

Omg. Of course what Wikipedia says isn't irrefutable fact. Nevermind. Sorry my images were a couple blocks from what you would consider Sugar House.

Originally Posted by Comrade Reynolds

My street is off of 2700 South and the sign signifies that it is in the SugarHouse neighborhood. However, a block south of my neighborhood and you're looking at Millcreek, not SugarHouse, so my area is on the very outer area of the neighborhood.

SugarHouse also doesn't stretch east to Foothill. That's the East Bench neighborhood.

Is that not Sugar House Park located in the image? I rest my case.

Originally Posted by Comrade Reynolds

THIS is a typical SugarHouse neighborhood. Now that doesn't mean every neighborhood is similar, however, I'd say the average neighborhood looks like this:



Now what do you notice is different from the neighborhoods you posted?

It's a grid. The smaller streets are all linked to the major ones (9th, 11th, 13th, etc). That makes it far easier to walk from Point A to Point B.

Compare that map to this:



Now I zoomed out a bit to make it more comparable to the SugarHouse map. I think there was a bit of deception in your original posted image, because it left out that this neighborhood is surrounded by nothing. Sure, the people can walk, but walk where? They ain't walkin' down to the corner store for a Coke...that just isn't happening in this neighborhood.

Hmmm...let's think about that for a second, Comrade....ummm....maybe because it hasn't been completed yet??? I was showing how this will grow into a very similar neighborhood to the Sugar House ones I posted. For Pete's sake, give it a few years! However, these people can still walk places - church, the park, school. Maybe since only, I dunno, 30% of this neighborhood is built yet, it doesn't have all the features yours does??

Originally Posted by Comrade Reynolds

That is the problem. Even in the newer areas of Salt Lake you posted (which are similar to the older suburbs in Salt Lake) stuck to the grid (except in the far western reaches of the city and on the eastern hills) and are easily connected to retail/commercial development. Is it as ideal as you'd find in central Salt Lake? No, but it's far better than what is offered in the above image.

You see, that is not what you're understanding. It isn't that you can't walk or ride your bike in these neighborhoods, you can, but it's that if you want to walk anywhere, you've got to commit to walking. It takes me maybe seven minutes to walk from my house to the corner store and I'd wager it'd take much longer to walk from a house on Holly Oak Drive to anything similar.

You want to talk deceptive? You chose my worst image (as in least developed). How about the Daybreak one? Once the first of 4 or 5 commercial villeges opens up this year, it will have convenient stores within walking distance. The community is designed to have one of these within walking distance from every point in the development.

Originally Posted by Comrade Reynolds

In fact, I searched that area and couldn't find a convenience store of any kind. There were two churches, what looked to be a school, but no real retail area that you could walk to if you wanted.

And that seems to fit nearly every neighborhood in the West Jordan area. I zoomed into an area between the New Bingham Highway and 9000 South and I saw a lot of homes, a lot of twisting streets, but nothing anyone could walk to, or at least anywhere in walking distance.

In SugarHouse, even if it's the images you've shown, you can do just that, especially if you lived in the neighborhood I grew up in, which was by Fairmont Park. It took ten minutes to walk from my street to downtown SugarHouse and everything in that area and that is what we did every summer as kids.

Out there in West Jordan? Not going to happen.

Well I am talking the newer part of West Jordan and Daybreak - the places I started out this whole topic talking about. I'm not talking the part of West Jordan that sprung up in the sprawl era.

[DMTower]

Another thing that was mentioned is that Sugarhouse is what was considered a suburb of Salt Lake BEFORE the automobile became the preferred means of transportation. That means it was designed for efficiency for the pedestrian and is very walkable. It's easy to compare places in West Jordan and Daybreak to 50's style suburbs and say they are better, but they can never hold up to the efficiency of the origninal suburbs such as Sugarhouse.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

Omg. Of course what Wikipedia says isn't irrefutable fact. Nevermind. Sorry my images were a couple blocks from what you would consider Sugar House.

The image you posted of MILLCREEK is a suburb built after WWII that is one of the absolute worst examples of auto-focused development in the valley, and then you say it's similar to Daybreak... that proves our point, not yours.

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

Is that not Sugar House Park located in the image? I rest my case.

There is no Sugar House Park in any of the images you posted. SHP is in the corner of an image posted by Comrade. There is a golf course in your image.

[Urban_logic]

Ok, so this has gotten WAY

Let's try to rap it up.

I see your point. Sugar House is light-years ahead of West Jordan in terms of convenience. But remember, West Jordan is decades younger. I'm sure that when Sugar House was first built, it was just a bunch of houses without any convenience stores. Now it has matured. I bet that this area will too in the decades to come - especially with TRAX comming through. I was trying to compare how similar the areas will become, but I realize I my have confused the point. If you look at any arial of the West Jordan area, you will see tons of open spaces scattered throughout the city. There is a lot of potential to fill these in with stuff - like corner stores and such. Remember, the population for the city of West Jordan was at 68,000 in 2000 - now it's over 100,000. It has grown so rapidly, it hasn't been able to keep up. I have a feeling that over the next few decades, it will begin to infill these empty lots throughout the city. It will follow a similar route of suburbs like Sugar House and mature further down the road.

Here's some good news:

Old downtown West Jordan is planned to be reconstructed as a transit-oriented development and called "Briarwood". The plans call for an expanded Main Park, a history museum, conversion of the Sugar Factory into a playhouse, an indoor recreation center, a senior center, and a large courthouse to serve the Utah State Third District. The second phase calls for the demolition of a dilapidated commercial area, to be replaced by six-story buildings housing a performing arts center, a large library, a hotel, an education center, a conference center, retail and office space, a trail linking to Gardner Village and the Jordan River trail, and a cultural pavilion to house the planned light rail station.

I hope a lot of TOD's pop up around the TRAX line!

Ok, one last comment to rap up your point, then let's get back to topic

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

Is that not Sugar House Park located in the image? I rest my case.

No it's not. SugarHouse Park isn't located in any of the images you posted. The park you see is the Country Club, not SugarHouse Park. That ends at 1700 East, the area you're showing in the image I stated was the East Bench is well east of 2000 East. The area you showed in that image is Parleys Way, which is not in SugarHouse. That's around 2500 East, SugarHouse ends around 17th East. Big difference.

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

Hmmm...let's think about that for a second, Comrade....ummm....maybe because it hasn't been completed yet??? I was showing how this will grow into a very similar neighborhood to the Sugar House ones I posted.

Dude, look at the area around that neighborhood, areas that are developed, they aren't comparable. You can go block after block of twisting street without finding anything worth walking to and that is very different than SugarHouse. In most of SugarHouse, you are only 10 or so minutes away on FOOT from the downtown core at 2100 South and Highland Drive. This area, no matter how developed it'll get, will ever be similar and you know how I know that? Because all you have to do is look at the other developments in that region to see what this area's fate is. It isn't pretty and it isn't anything close to being urban. To say it's very similar to a neighborhood in SugarHouse is pretty much a lie.

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

For Pete's sake, give it a few years! However, these people can still walk to many places - church, the park, school. Maybe since only, I dunno, 30% of this neighborhood is built yet, it doesn't have all the features yours does??

Walk to church and to a park and to a school, unless they attend junior high or high school. Good for them. But can the kids walk to a store? Can anyone walk to a shopping center? No. Can they walk to the movies? No. When I was a kid, I walked to Movies 10 every summer, but you could not do that in most of West Jordan. And this development, regardless of future plans, is still stuck in the same failed mindset of a network of neighborhoods cut off from one another because they do not use a grid. SugarHouse uses a grid.

Sorry, but it isn't the same.

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

You want to talk deceptive? You chose my worst image (as in least developed). How about the Daybreak one? Once the first of 4 or 5 commercial villeges opens up this year, it will have convenient stores within walking distance. The community is designed to have one of these within walking distance from every point in the development.

You're kidding, right?

You posted five images from the same area. The only image you didn't post from this area was Daybreak. All I did was zoom out of your original images to show that the area is not an urban development. It sits far from anything that could be compared to the SugarHouse commercial center, there are no corner stores or retail shops that are easily accessed via foot and if you go into other areas in this region that have been developed, you find the same thing. Go look back at the area you posted, zoom out and scroll around, you find blocks and blocks of suburban development with zero connection to anything outside of their own development.

Now to further my point, because you don't seem to get it, here is an even more zoomed out view of the area you supplied five photos from:



Now this is development just north of the sliver you showed in your original post five times. I don't know how old this development is, but it's obviously complete. Sure, there is open land for future development, but realistically, you see the trend has been put in place. There is nothing in this area you can walk to that is similar to what I could walk to in SugarHouse.

Look at this aerial and show me the retail cluster of buildings similar to SugarHouse. Now remember, most Salt Lake neighborhoods have a mini-core of retail shops, whether it's 9th and 9th, or 15th and 15th, the small area around 13th South and 21st East or the dozen plus you find throughout every central city area. These commercial and retail nodes are small, but you can still access them via foot rather easily. The same can't be said for most of West Jordan. Sure, there are exceptions and if you live by Jordan Landing, you could possibly walk to it, but that's a sliver of that area's population. Most of West Jordan and most of suburban Salt Lake is built far from anything similar to Jordan Landing.

Now like I said, most of SugarHouse can easily access its core retail area by foot. They don't need to drive and many don't. Yeah, you can find areas of SugarHouse that are too distant from the core, but generally, every major Salt Lake neighborhood is developed around some type of retail center than can be accessed by walking, driving or mass-transit. Let's be honest with ourselves, if you lived in the neighborhood you're showing off, you're not walking anywhere close to something similar to SugarHouse's core, or something very similar to 9th and 9th or even the small intersection of 1300 S and 1700 East (where Emigration Market is). You're just not going to find it in these newer developments. And if there is a gas station or a corner store located in these neighborhoods, they're on the outer edges, often on a busy road and if you're living in the middle or pushed back from the main street, it's doubtful you're walking down that path to even get a Coke.

So yeah, I guess you can attend churches and parks and sometimes schools in many of these suburban neighborhoods, but that's if your school or your ward is located in these neighborhoods. Not everyone is LDS and not everyone goes to elementary school and as that picture shows, not every neighborhood is located by a school or a church. So it's definitely possible in SOME cases, but it's very unlikely you'll see the type of walkability that you get in SugarHouse, whether you want to concede this or not.

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

Well I am talking the newer part of West Jordan and Daybreak - the places I started out this whole topic talking about. I'm not talking the part of West Jordan that sprung up in the sprawl era.

That's fine, but this new development doesn't look much different than the old developments. Just because the homes are closer doesn't make it urban. It isn't urban unless it's walkable and right now, these developments aren't walkable. Nothing in that area is walkable.

Sorry, but that's the way I see it.