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  #21  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 1:24 PM
the urban politician the urban politician is offline
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^ I don’t know about that, I certainly enjoy riding the Metra whenever I’ve done it

I love that you can drink beer on the Metra. Makes for an extra special journey
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  #22  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 1:58 PM
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I don't think there's anything wrong with aesthetically appreciating either one. Fact is, auto-oriented areas are designed by people to be enjoyable to experience from the car just as pedestrian-oriented areas were made to be enjoyable on foot. So it makes sense that they'd both be enjoyable to many people when experienced as intended.

The only issue I have with these type of conversations is the frequent occurrence of aesthetic reductionism. By that I mean that some people seem to reduce the decision of which type of development to choose or support (or to not choose between them) down to being purely a matter of aesthetics, aka personal taste/preference. In reality, while taste and personal preference are certainly things to consider, the issue also directly relates to many other issues like energy and land usage, personal and societal cost (infrastructure, transportation, etc.), public health, and so on.

People sometimes present it in a similar way to scenarios that really are just a matter of preference like, "Should I choose the grey suit or the navy suit?" assuming that the cost, size/fit, fabric, and overall quality are identical and the only difference is colour. However, when all the other factors are also totally different, the aesthetic colour preference is just one fairly minor consideration among many which one should probably not be overly fixated on. Like great... you like blue and grey equally well. With that decided, we can set that aside and evaluate them based on the other hugely different quantifiable qualities and objectively decide which is better.
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  #23  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 5:51 PM
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On one hand I can see the allure of suburbia.

But public policy doesn't have to support cheap and easy sprawl. Many countries/states have cracked down on it, mine included, to save farms and forests. That's a good thing.
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  #24  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 7:02 PM
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I love urbanism, and it's my preferred environment to live in. I don't need to extol the virtues of walkable cities. We've all heard it a million times before.

That said, I admire car-centric metropolitan areas in some respects. For one, they're so goddamn efficient when it comes to goods movement. If you want creature comforts, that stuff has to get to you somehow, and a 50' semi traveling directly from the warehouse to a Costco at 60 mph and delivering skids of diapers sure cuts out a lot more middlemen than having to break that cargo down into successively smaller vehicles until the final step is a van, illegally parking in the bike lane with the hazards on, and you, the consumer, buying a dusty 12-pack of diapers off the bodega shelf for an insane markup.

I also admire the freedom that architects have to design homes without spatial constraints that car-centric places afford, especially homes on a single level. Philip Johnson's Glass House, or Richard Neutra's Desert homes in Palm Springs or almost anything by Frank Lloyd Wright. These guys wouldn't have had such a canvas to paint on if they were stuck with a tight lot between two brownstones.
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  #25  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 7:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays View Post
But public policy doesn't have to support cheap and easy sprawl. Many countries/states have cracked down on it, mine included, to save farms and forests. That's a good thing.
I definitely feel that public policy shouldn't subsidize sprawl, to the extent possible.

I also feel that it shouldn't subsidize urbanity, although I think that it rarely does.

I think that it is fine to subsidize housing, but public policy shouldn't favor one type of housing over another.
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  #26  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 7:21 PM
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Originally Posted by hipster duck View Post

I also admire the freedom that architects have to design homes without spatial constraints that car-centric places afford, especially homes on a single level. Philip Johnson's Glass House, or Richard Neutra's Desert homes in Palm Springs or almost anything by Frank Lloyd Wright. These guys wouldn't have had such a canvas to paint on if they were stuck with a tight lot between two brownstones.
I've been to Philip Johnson's Glass House and its allure is that is set in a isolated rural location, not that it is car centric. Ditto for much of FLW's works which were largely done before cars were ubiquitous.
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  #27  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 7:26 PM
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I've been to Philip Johnson's Glass House and its allure is that is set in a isolated rural location, not that it is car centric. Ditto for much of FLW's works which were largely done before cars were ubiquitous.
But the only reasonable way for most people to get to it is by car. And that was true in 1948 as well.

FLW's earlier works - I'll grant you - predated car ownership, even for the clients he built them for, but the environments they're in would not be considered anything but car-dependent today.
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  #28  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 7:49 PM
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There's plenty of FLW houses in urban areas. I walk past one (Robie House) to get to work.
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  #29  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 10:00 PM
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But the only reasonable way for most people to get to it is by car. And that was true in 1948 as well.
But it's not still car centric. It's just rural. Sure, cars allow more people to visit the Glass House (you can take train in as well) but you couldn't build something like that in an urban area due to land restraints, privacy and deed restrictions.
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  #30  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 10:02 PM
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can we roll film of jeremy clarkson trashing the sides of an 80s maserati in a medieval passage in italy


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  #31  
Old Posted Apr 17, 2021, 10:18 PM
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Also I understand the appeal of driving, and by extension living in an urban environment that facilitates it. Mid-century Los Angeles and Detroit were onto something.

But I could never in a million years ever possibly hope to understand how someone might find this appealing: https://goo.gl/maps/nR52t6HfVVsKPr9A9
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  #32  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2021, 8:12 PM
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Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin View Post
Also I understand the appeal of driving, and by extension living in an urban environment that facilitates it. Mid-century Los Angeles and Detroit were onto something.

But I could never in a million years ever possibly hope to understand how someone might find this appealing: https://goo.gl/maps/nR52t6HfVVsKPr9A9
It never really worked for Detroit, tbh. The more the city tried to accommodate mobility by car, the worse Detroit's situation got.
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  #33  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2021, 8:29 PM
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It's not either/or. Suburb is extension of the city. Suburban is not not urban. It is lesser urban.

If you want to urbanization of the city, you have you promote urbanization in its suburbs as well. Likewise, if you want to less urbanity in the suburbs, you have to accept suburbanization of the inner city as well.

City and suburb are not separate, and efforts to separate them and isolate them has not promoted urban living in US central cities in any way.

You want a denser and more walkable inner city? You need to reduce the demand for parking and redevelop the parking lots and garages. And that means getting suburbanites out of their cars as well.
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  #34  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2021, 8:37 PM
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Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin View Post
Also I understand the appeal of driving, and by extension living in an urban environment that facilitates it. Mid-century Los Angeles and Detroit were onto something.

But I could never in a million years ever possibly hope to understand how someone might find this appealing: https://goo.gl/maps/nR52t6HfVVsKPr9A9

80% of suburban Ontario looks exactly the same. Pretty much all of London, aside from downtown and the oldest inner burbs. The Miltonization of the Universe. Utterly soul-sucking. Especially in Winter and on overcast days.
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  #35  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2021, 8:39 PM
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I like both. I've lived in both. Most Americans live in a suburban style environment. We like our space and the option of movement at any given time. Most people in most cities live the suburban lifestyle whether they want to acknowledge that or not.
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  #36  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2021, 9:36 PM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
It never really worked for Detroit, tbh. The more the city tried to accommodate mobility by car, the worse Detroit's situation got.
god, yeah but also it was a dynamic, slippery american city and the economic mandate was revoked. it would have been cool to see a metro detroit of 8 million people laced with wilshire blvds.
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  #37  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2021, 10:06 PM
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Originally Posted by SFBruin View Post
I definitely feel that public policy shouldn't subsidize sprawl, to the extent possible.

I also feel that it shouldn't subsidize urbanity, although I think that it rarely does.

I think that it is fine to subsidize housing, but public policy shouldn't favor one type of housing over another.
Why shouldn't policy favour one type of housing over another? I mean isn't a central part of planning to evaluate different development patterns in terms of their lifetime infrastructure burden, usage of land, effect on transportation patterns, usage of energy and resources, impact on the environment, etc. and encourage the development models which are objectively the best? Why shouldn't public policy play a role in solving collective problems and building a better society?

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but this sounds like the type of push toward aesthetic reductionism I was talking about earlier. The fact is, these type of issues are not well suited to be left purely to market forces because much of the resulting costs that result from individual choices are externalized, and most economists seem to agree that unguided markets simply don't have any practical way of remedying externalities.
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  #38  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2021, 10:11 PM
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a central part of (american) planning is coming under direct land-based frontal-assault by the upper middle class which is why i abandoned my university program 30 credits in lol

i mean if we are going to talk about what planning is in an american context. not sure what happens in other spots

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  #39  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2021, 12:10 AM
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Highly suggest watching Not Just Bike's Strong Towns playlist. 4 videos in this series thus far, but the end of the 4th sums it up: rural and suburban areas are fine, just they can't expect urban services at the rate we have been providing or we will continue to bankrupt our cities and towns.
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  #40  
Old Posted Apr 19, 2021, 1:55 AM
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Originally Posted by the urban politician View Post
^ I don’t know about that, I certainly enjoy riding the Metra whenever I’ve done it

I love that you can drink beer on the Metra. Makes for an extra special journey
I was speaking about the CTA
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