People Who Live In Suburbs: Classy, Icky, or Dudes?

Kowloon's walled city is/was such a great obsession because it's what happens when growth occurs unchecked by laws and building codes.

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.

yup

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

xp if anything, people overrate the extent that paris' 'prettiness' makes the city

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.

Huh, it's almost like you've read all 3400 posts to this thread.

that's just part of the charm now

xp

Sometimes I think old-style walking suburb is the ideal living circumstance -- medium density, low-rise living with parks, restaurants, shopping etc. all in walking distance. Basically I'm talking about brownstone brooklyn. My only problem with new walking suburbs is that they tend to be kind of ugly and sterile.

brooklyn def the ideal suburb

I'm pretty sure I've read all 3400 posts yup.

maybe we need a new urban policy/fuck you and your yard type thread

'fuck you and your yard' would be a decent title I guess

I think the sterility of some new developments comes from the fact that they're often a single fully planned "development" instead of a natural accumulation of buildings.

"The ghosts of le corbusier and the guy who first marketed the Hummer fistfight in hell: urban planning 2012"

sounds good goole go4it

"Yard Stalinism, Bike Lane Revanchism, and what's the price of unleaded in billings MT"

xp no way man this is your show!

I've made too many threads lately plus if I make it people know it's at trap

a trap

'the dude abodes: suburbs 2012'?

Yeah sure except it's going to annoy me every time I see it wtf.

lol i'm always in favor of a lebowski ref

xp ok well there's one vote against

idg tbl

No, it's short and good, go for it.

ill miss this thread

new threads tend to be ugly and sterile

3k isn't unmanageable tbh we could fit at least a few more clusterfuck days in this

sorry guys not trying to talk you all out of this thread

on 2nd thought it's in the spirit of this thread to be overcrowded

haha I was just gonna make a thread-sprawl joke

ilx 2001:
http://www.destination360.com/europe/italy/images/s/italy-florence.jpg

ilx 2012:
http://www.lasmogtown.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/los-angeles-urban-sprawl-jpeg-lasmogtowncom.jpg

I think that makes max jane jacobs

ive always said that about myself

great Las Vegas development time lapse:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/6955987375/

the 00s esp tragic

so this is a 'thing':
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2012/03/why-driverless-cars-would-be-bad-cities-and-suburbs-alike/1393/

not sure if it merits a thread yet but prob will one day

"The video even depicts an intersection with a whopping 12 lanes for each roadway, at a time when most transportation professionals have come to believe that grids of smaller roads, not mega-arterials, are the best approach to mobility in metropolitan areas."

yeah no kidding. i have never seen a 12x12 intersection

has this been linked? if so, sorry

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/activists-fight-green-projects-seeing-un-plot.html

"In Maine, the Tea Party-backed Republican governor canceled a project to ease congestion along the Route 1 corridor after protesters complained it was part of the United Nations plot."

(xp) that video makes it look like being in one of the driverless cars would be absolutely terrifying

if i ran into that intersection to take a left i'd rather have a robot drive

related:
http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2011-06/nevada-passes-driverless-car-legislation-paving-way-autonomous-autos

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, March 5, 2012 11:46 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lol the circumstances and factors that led to the building of the walled city would be very, very, very hard to replicate in the US. the lack of law/building codes played a rather small factor in the totality of its existence.

any suburb that builds light-rail will turn into kowloon in less than a year

like, the primary reason the population density of the kowloon walled city reached what it did is because hong kong is a city where 7 million people live in a space that is 1/4 the size of manhattan. the conditions that allow that to happen simply exist in very few places on Earth. maybe if Maobama tomorrow said that everybody in the US had to move to new york state under martial law, maybe.

I don't think the law/code absence made it exist, it's just such an interesting study in those things.

Nobody wants that place to exist in the US! I think people are in awe, but I have never heard of anyone advocating it as a model of anything other than a place that seems fictional but existed due to weird politics.

i want it to exist, in new hampshire

well it's not really 'natural growth' as it's an ex-military fort, favelas are prob a better example.

Then again, areas that require fewer building permits and less review in the US tend to have some really bizarre issues. I could totally picture the suburbs of the future having few government building codes, strong residential association codes, and absolutely horrible internal construction standards.

A coworker who's lived in pretty much the middle of nowhere explained once that his friend had briefly lived in a house with mediocre water pressure. The guy after him realized the main water shutoff valve in the basement wasn't all the way open, so he fixed it. Suddenly, he had a sopping wet wall upstairs between the living room and bathroom because some genius had run out of pipe and used garden hose to run water to the sink. Inside the wall. Coworker's friend was nearly sued, but he was able to point the finger to the house's original occupant...

okay mh but "Kowloon's walled city is/was such a great obsession because it's what happens when growth occurs unchecked by laws and building codes." seems to imply the opposite of what you said!

fwiw 'growth unchecked by laws/building codes' usually results in shantytowns which are not super-dense. hong kong is super-dense even when checked by laws and building codes, as I'm sure you're aware.

shantytowns are pretty dense!