We just need to keep having more poor people. The middle class (hah hah hah) gets new houses, poor people get the old ones.
― valleys of your mind (mh), Thursday, 1 March 2012 15:22 (twelve years ago) link
Have we discussed townhome clusters and what's going to happen to them as their first/second-gen occupants move out?
― valleys of your mind (mh), Thursday, 1 March 2012 15:23 (twelve years ago) link
many xposts
My house was built in the early 80s, and as much as I love it, it definitely needs considerable help. It was built in the cheapest way possible and the previous owners did very little to maintain or upgrade it. So I can kind of relate to the ickiness factor.
― Moodles, Thursday, 1 March 2012 15:34 (twelve years ago) link
Just slappin' salami all up on the kitchen counters and everything.
― beachville, Thursday, 1 March 2012 15:39 (twelve years ago) link
The funny part is that some houses get "old" a lot faster than others.
― valleys of your mind (mh), Thursday, 1 March 2012 15:42 (twelve years ago) link
moodles, your old house suffers from being a new house
― iatee, Thursday, 1 March 2012 15:44 (twelve years ago) link
our old house is old and we have some electrical issues, but we're working on it. i like old. not so big on new. though i'm sure there are plenty of new well-made houses. i just feel old in new houses.
― scott seward, Thursday, 1 March 2012 15:53 (twelve years ago) link
I feel like a lot of new homes have bizarre historical affectations and skimp on infrastructural concerns
― valleys of your mind (mh), Thursday, 1 March 2012 15:55 (twelve years ago) link
The only thing I don't like about my old house -- which is brick, with plaster walls rather than drywall -- is the lack of insulation. Getting the whole house properly insulated will be $$$, so we generally rely on window film, door stripping and so forth during the winter. It does at least have replacement windows.
― A Full Torgo Apparition (Phil D.), Thursday, 1 March 2012 15:56 (twelve years ago) link
My old house I think, despite its age, was one of those cheapo houses built in a nice neighborhood when no one was looking due to the war. It was kinda neat in a way to walk around the neighborhood and see the other houses built from the exact same plans, like if I ever want to burgarlize them, I'd know right where everything was in the dark.
But I'm so glad we sold that house. Rewiring an entire house would have been a bitch, and like Laurel says, it's only really a matter of time before someone has to.
We're lucky because our new house was built in an old neighborhood, a wagon ride away from the park and everything. It's built sturdy though I do wish sometimes they had a used a better material than cardboard paper to make the roof with.
I think we have, but it's still ripe for discussion. With the way the housing market exploded so fast, we're seeing my town a lot of new crime in the new zip codes. Where cities have traditionally supposedly rotted from the inside out, we're starting to see dead limbs form on the outer edges. Neighborhoods like this one are seeing more crime than the old ones.
― pplains, Thursday, 1 March 2012 16:00 (twelve years ago) link
Hmm, some planner seemed to have the idea that setting your front door into a dark, tunnel-like alcove would be a good idea
― valleys of your mind (mh), Thursday, 1 March 2012 16:03 (twelve years ago) link
idea idea
I think it depends a lot on a case by case basis, but we're already at a point where suburban poverty has become the norm not the exception: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/10/23/us/poverty-in-the-suburbs.html
― iatee, Thursday, 1 March 2012 16:10 (twelve years ago) link
surprised this wasn't brought up on here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/realestate/how-many-people-can-manhattan-hold.htmlin which it is noted that the density of Manhattan was considerably higher in the past (when it was dominated more by mid-rise tenements, rowhouses, apartments, etc.) than it is now (when many neighborhoods of rowhouses, tenements, apartments have been razed in favor of housing projects, condos, commercial development, offices etc.), and then this fact seems to be ignored for talk of making it easier to raze old neighborhoods to build newer and taller buildings that will solve NYC's housing supply problem. Also ignoring surrounding boroughs and nearby cities that are not very dense at all, and have a lot of room for development.Seems to me there's a lot of potential for increasing density in and around NYC without losing a lot of the old (and high quality) housing stock that is also sort of a draw for many people?
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 14:12 (twelve years ago) link
yeah if were looking to increase density there are better places to start than manhattan
― max, Monday, 5 March 2012 14:21 (twelve years ago) link
and then this fact seems to be ignored for talk of making it easier to raze old neighborhoods
well this was like, 13 person immigrant families living in lower east side apartments. everything else being equal (if they're not corbusian tower-in-park vs row houses) a neighborhood w/ tall buildings can fit more people. one benefit to building in manhattan as opposed to the boroughs is that there's more flexibility w/ the transit options and more importantly there's less nimbyism. but yeah, not talking about the boroughs is indefensible. there's acres of buildable space 5 minutes from manhattan in basically every direction.
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 15:32 (twelve years ago) link
not looking for a return to the glorious slum days, although there's probably a good balance between crowded tenements and neighborhoods in which previously multi-family units have been merged into up-market single family dwellings, but what can you do I guess. rich people will do what they do.my proposed solution is: build into the streets. I hate the wide NYC avenues.
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 15:53 (twelve years ago) link
very jealous of european narrow streets. makes me happy working in the financial district.
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 15:54 (twelve years ago) link
oh yeah totally agree w/ you on that
http://www.sothebyshomes.com/neighborhood/24.jpg
what a waste of space
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 15:58 (twelve years ago) link
if you were someone else I'd think you were being sarcastic
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:04 (twelve years ago) link
on first look I was thinking "oh, how nice, it's not a dark occluded area like narrow streets between buildings are"
on second look, I realized that it looks more open but the green space is between rows of traffic and is completely inaccessible! if you wanted to water those trees or perform maintenance then you're going to have to close down some lanes of traffic, anyway
― valleys of your mind (mh), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:08 (twelve years ago) link
What if all the traffic lanes in one direction were converted to protected bike lanes for both directions?
― drawn to them like a moth toward a spanakopita (Laurel), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:11 (twelve years ago) link
Would be awesome, but to quote the great ilx thread "so not gonna happen".
― stan this sick bunt (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:11 (twelve years ago) link
dedicated electric line bus route in one lane iirc
― valleys of your mind (mh), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
that's one of the better looking avenues anyway. most are pretty much miserable one-way rivers of speeding cabs. was it this thread where someone was complaining about the existence of streets like Van Ness in SF? NYC basically has a Van Ness every block.
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:16 (twelve years ago) link
atlantic avenue and eastern parkway are the banes of my existence
― max, Monday, 5 March 2012 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
http://mobilizingtheregion.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/summer_streets.jpg
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 16:18 (twelve years ago) link
was it this thread where someone was complaining about the existence of streets like Van Ness in SF? NYC basically has a Van Ness every block.
lol I think that was me
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 16:19 (twelve years ago) link
Terribly inefficient to block off two lanes with barricades, tbh. (xpost)
― stan this sick bunt (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:19 (twelve years ago) link
those barricades are there because sometimes they let through traffic pass
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 16:22 (twelve years ago) link
The only perfect city was Kowloon, wasn't it?
― pplains, Monday, 5 March 2012 16:24 (twelve years ago) link
I will call out 4th Avenue as a nom. for most miserable (north) Brooklyn streetin Manhattan, Houston takes some kind of award. especially at the eastern end it's just vast swaths of pavement, gas stations, and towers-among-parks deadness
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:24 (twelve years ago) link
I love how the urban planning guys were drooling over it! xpost
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:25 (twelve years ago) link
these are really, really not parks people hang out in, as you can see in the 2nd pic they're more comparable to freeway landscaping. whereas the darkest occluded areas with narrow streets in manhattan are the places people like to walk / some of the most desirable real estate in the country.
http://www.cityprofile.com/forum/attachments/new-york/9808-new-york-greenwich-village.jpg
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 16:25 (twelve years ago) link
wish it all looked like this, really:http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7070/6851297839_6a1c47aea3_z.jpg
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:26 (twelve years ago) link
the islands in the middle of park ave are really just the places where you hand out annoyed while you wait for the signal to change/a break in the endless rushing traffic. and I think are only there to provide venting space for the metro north trains below.
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:27 (twelve years ago) link
"hand out" = "hang out"
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:28 (twelve years ago) link
houston and delancey are prob the worst considering how dense the pedestrian traffic is around there. they're not 'worse' than 12th avenue and def better than some outer borough roads, but they're pretty awful.
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 16:28 (twelve years ago) link
I've been riding along with the thought that backyard land should be minimized, and if you want your kid to play somewhere, take them to a playground. Seeing 12 playground sets on one city block is a bit outrageous, and don't get me started on every house having a pool.
BUT the right to own all that shouldn't be taken away or penalized. It all boils down to security and time. I can watch the kids play in safety from my window while doing housework, something I can't do at a public playground.
I was thinking about laundromats for some reason, how I was happy that I didn't have go through that horrible ritual anymore because I now have a 200 sq-ft laundry room. I can put the clothes in the washer and go about my business. I don't have to sit in front of it. No one's going to steal it. If I forget about it, no one's going to take my wet clothes out and put them in a pile. I can save energy by doing them at night instead of during the day. It's all about safety and time, two things every American is taught to expect from this country and why we defend it.
Still thinking it out, but it's a slippery slope in some ways.
― pplains, Monday, 5 March 2012 16:32 (twelve years ago) link
xxxxxp If the buildings on all streets were only 3 stories high, I wouldn't mind a bit, but is that dense enough for what you have in mind??
― drawn to them like a moth toward a spanakopita (Laurel), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:33 (twelve years ago) link
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:24 (4 minutes ago) Permalink
I think Metropolitan Ave, which I live on, is pretty bad. I mean it's not so terrible between the water and Grahm, I guess but then it gets gross. Actually Williamsburg in general I find really ugly -- it is so clearly not designed for living, and even massive gentrification hasn't changed that impression.
Metropolitan Ave further east into queens just makes me want to cry though.
― simulation and similac (Hurting 2), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:33 (twelve years ago) link
medium-sized backyards aren't as bad as front yards, which turn every suburban neighborhood into v. unfriendly epic avenues
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 16:36 (twelve years ago) link
here's a wealthy paris suburb:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/paris%20dense%20suburbs/ed1976aus/streetviews/StGermainEnLaye.jpg
vs.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/city-vs-city/60362d1269902473-where-prettiest-suburbs-new-subdivisions-america-yucaipa-ca.jpg
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 16:44 (twelve years ago) link
er
http://i724.photobucket.com/albums/ww245/ed1976aus/streetviews/StGermainEnLaye.jpg
Kowloon's walled city is/was such a great obsession because it's what happens when growth occurs unchecked by laws and building codes.
― valleys of your mind (mh), Monday, 5 March 2012 16:46 (twelve years ago) link
everyone's fav. urbanism example Paris is also a good demonstration of how high density doesn't require full-on high rises, or the necessary loss of older housing stock. but a city built to paris standards of density, street width, transit, etc. even without the charming older architecture would be a very pleasant place to live.
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 17:03 (twelve years ago) link
yup
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 17:04 (twelve years ago) link
It's not seen as frequently as in Europe, but I still see those tiny front yards around the U.S. I'm not much of a front yard guy either since all it's good for is to look at the street.
This is a not-too-shabby middle-class neighborhood in my town, for example.
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/5784/screenshot20120305at110.png
― pplains, Monday, 5 March 2012 17:05 (twelve years ago) link
xp if anything, people overrate the extent that paris' 'prettiness' makes the city
― iatee, Monday, 5 March 2012 17:05 (twelve years ago) link
by the way, I can see how the thread title itself is gonna put people off. I know it's basically the "future of urban planning in consideration of enviro concerns" thread at this point but that "people who" bit has gotta be a bit of a sore point.
― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Monday, 5 March 2012 17:19 (twelve years ago) link