Great neighborhoods don’t have to be illegal—they’re not elsewhere

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by NorthernDancer

http://cityobservatory.org/great-nei...not-elsewhere/

Is there something wrong with my eyes, or does this website have a bizarre creamsicle color scheme?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

Suburbs are suburbs regardless. I don't care if they're 2k ppsm or 8k ppsm.

i completely disagree with that.

there is a HUGE difference between the urban functionality of a pre-war streetcar suburban neighborhood with ~8,000ppsm on a fully interconnected street grid with nearby mixed-use neighborhood street retail and a completely disconnected post-war sprawlburban cul-de-sac'ed hellscape with ~2,000 ppsm and all retail located 4 miles away at the "local" power center.

i could live in the former without blowing my brains out, not so in the latter.

suburbs are certainly not all equal.

[mhays]

...or a large-scale node with a bunch of highrise mixed-use and residential density in the tens of thousands, served by rail or at least decent bus service.

[McBane]

Even in cases where the ideals of urbanism are legal, you have outside pressures that didn't exist before. For example, you can legislate car-to-unit ratios all you want. But the fact is, NIMBYs throw a conniption if you dare propose a residential building (regardless of height) without at least one parking space per unit, even in the heart of a city with a competent mass transit system. And then you have the builders themselves who know that offering onsite parking is an amenity. I mean, all things being equal, a buyer will choose a building with parking than without parking.

Philadelphia is in the process of lowering parking requirements but it hasn't helped.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

Let's be realistic. Atlanta won't build out that far in our lifetimes in a dense, urban way. Realistically, in our lifetimes(if you're under 30), Atlanta can probably build out the inner 40 square miles or so. Expecting an urban fabric that spans across 10 miles everyway in a cohesive way is impossible given American cities simply don't grow that fast anymore and they build out using 5-7 story blocky developments or highrises which require less land than the rowhouses neighborhoods of the NE or 1-2 story commercial buildings lining streets.

And if that's the case, than a city like Boston also has that problem. It's dense urban area isn't that large to be honest. It can't be larger than 30-35 square miles, yet no one has problems with it here. It's metro spawls pretty bad as well and it's metro densities are almost low as Atlanta's, much lower than Houston's or Dallas'.

And as someone pointed out a while back, most people only care about the inner 25 square miles of a city. Outside of that, it isn't that big of a deal if it's urban or not. Only cities as large as Paris, NYC, Tokyo, London have a lot of things to do outside of the inner 25 square miles.

Houston is still growing pretty fast, and you don't need to completely redevelop every square inch of the entire greater metro area core to make it more urban. You can get developers to build (or give back land for) new street connections, or even just pedestrian connections (which require much less space) to improve the pedestrian and street network. You can do that either by having it as a requirement for any redevelopment to get approved, or maybe coupling it with incentives like density bonuses or parking requirement reductions. Which makes sense and is fair imo, since after all, better connectivity will allow for better alternatives to driving, and to accommodate density better.

In most situations, the streets that already exist can stay where they are, it's just that you will need a few new connections. Sometimes, you don't even need that many new connections, a few key connections can already make a big difference. Sometimes the barriers to connectivity aren't even private land, but small streams or railways.

Ideally the redevelopment would be concentrated more around the transit stops and transit nodes. The areas further from transit (say a 5-10 min walk vs <5min) might not "become as urban" but even if the remain in their current state, improvements in transit and more amenities a 5-10min walk away will still have a certain impact on their residents' lifestyles.

And as for how much cities are growing, there are cities that are still growing at a substantial pace. With Houston for example, the inner 300 square miles currently have a density of about 5000 ppsm, maybe a bit more depending on the exact boundaries. Over the next 30 years, at current growth rates, the Houston MSA will grow by about 3.5 million people. Depending on how much of that will be infill, there could be enough growth to make the inner 40 square miles very urban while still making some of the areas beyond relatively urban as well.

[memph]

Originally Posted by McBane

Even in cases where the ideals of urbanism are legal, you have outside pressures that didn't exist before. For example, you can legislate car-to-unit ratios all you want. But the fact is, NIMBYs throw a conniption if you dare propose a residential building (regardless of height) without at least one parking space per unit, even in the heart of a city with a competent mass transit system. And then you have the builders themselves who know that offering onsite parking is an amenity. I mean, all things being equal, a buyer will choose a building with parking than without parking.

Philadelphia is in the process of lowering parking requirements but it hasn't helped.

So what? All things are not equal, parking can be expensive, especially underground parking (~$30-50k per spot).

[mhays]

Originally Posted by McBane

Even in cases where the ideals of urbanism are legal, you have outside pressures that didn't exist before. For example, you can legislate car-to-unit ratios all you want. But the fact is, NIMBYs throw a conniption if you dare propose a residential building (regardless of height) without at least one parking space per unit, even in the heart of a city with a competent mass transit system. And then you have the builders themselves who know that offering onsite parking is an amenity. I mean, all things being equal, a buyer will choose a building with parking than without parking.

Philadelphia is in the process of lowering parking requirements but it hasn't helped.

Seattle gets a lot of buildings with no parking. Most of them are in certain districts of course, like within a mile of the CBD or in the University District. Some with little or no parking happen in other nodes but not as many.

But construction in basically any "node" or "urban village" will have less parking than units unless it's townhouses or condos which are typically 1.0. Typical ratios are often around 0.6 or 0.8, with some much lower.

For example the two most recent Land Use Information Bulletins (twice-weekly by the City) has ratios of housing/parking. Here's everything except the townhouses and assuming zero parking for associated retail:
943/662
60/0
41/8
60/28
98/31
840/350
90/80

[WhipperSnapper]

Definitely a tipping point when it comes to underground parking and floor area ratio for mid range developments. Parking just becomes obscenely expensive. 1 to 1 ratios would be absurd.

[McBane]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Definitely a tipping point when it comes to underground parking and floor area ratio for mid range developments. Parking just becomes obscenely expensive. 1 to 1 ratios would be absurd.

Agreed. But when you have a situation in which city council defers issues of planning to NIMBY groups, the developer has little choice but to acquiesce to the wishes to the NIMBYs. Maybe it's just a Philly thing, I don't know.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by McBane

Even in cases where the ideals of urbanism are legal, you have outside pressures that didn't exist before. For example, you can legislate car-to-unit ratios all you want. But the fact is, NIMBYs throw a conniption if you dare propose a residential building (regardless of height) without at least one parking space per unit, even in the heart of a city with a competent mass transit system. And then you have the builders themselves who know that offering onsite parking is an amenity. I mean, all things being equal, a buyer will choose a building with parking than without parking.

Philadelphia is in the process of lowering parking requirements but it hasn't helped.

Chicago currently has a relatively weak TOD ordinance encouraging low parking requirements near transit, but even this weak law has resulted in at least one tower with as little as zero resident parking. And this year a much stronger one will come into play, so more with low ratios will likely result from that. In Chicago, in the central area at least, NIMBY groups are not all pro-parking - several notable ones even now recognize that more parking encourages traffic and congestion, and raises costs, and so don't object to sub-1:1 ratios. The alderman for the Loop and near-by areas has even become fairly consistently anti-excess-parking and supportive of low ratios.

Even outside of the central area, sub-1:1 ratios aren't unusual for larger projects in transit-rich areas like the north lakefront. For example a recent development in the Lakeview neighborhood, which is 4-5 miles north of the Loop, had a 1:1 parking ratio, but it was reported that when 80% of the residential units were leased only 40% of the parking spaces had been rented.

Really, in the dense (not even central, just dense) parts of Chicago the only developments seeing high ratios (more than 1:1) either dedicate many of the spaces to retail, or are ultra-high-end where the owners likely want to have cars even if they almost never use them just because they can. Even at 1:1, that's less than 1 car per adult in most parts of the city.

[mhays]

It's shocking that core Chicago wouldn't be way below 1:1 typically, at least for one-bedroom apartments. Like 0.7 or 0.8 as averages, with micros a fraction of that or zero.

[NorthernDancer]

Originally Posted by mhays

It's shocking that core Chicago wouldn't be way below 1:1 typically, at least for one-bedroom apartments. Like 0.7 or 0.8 as averages, with micros a fraction of that or zero.

Chicago is far more auto-oriented than it should be considering it's population density and centralization of office space.

[mhays]

And it's tough to go below-grade apparently, so highrises often have giant podiums. I really like Chicago, but this is an area where it needs to improve.