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Old Posted Nov 20, 2022, 6:07 PM
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European Cities Act on Density

Europe’s Cities Are Getting More Crowded—That’s a Good Thing


Nov 15, 2022

By Matt Reynolds

Read More: https://www.wired.com/story/europe-cities-populations/

Quote:
.....

After decades of slowly creeping outward with the creation of new suburban commuter belts, Europe’s cities are growing denser once more and providing a potential boon for the environment and our well-being in the process. American cities, take note.

- The picture across the majority of central, northern, and western Europe showed that cities were getting denser. Populations were growing, but most of these people weren’t moving into suburban homes with garden plots and double garages. They were moving into the inner city. — European cities were growing steadily in population size while barely growing at all in terms of their overall urban footprints. And this wasn’t just in cities like Leipzig that had seen an exodus of residents in previous decades. It also happens in cities with a long-term growing trend, places like London, Stockholm, and Naples. This means that these cities do have some capacity to absorb newcomers.

- If cities are getting denser, it means that these new people must be living on land that was already developed within the city boundaries. Most likely this is down to a combination of vacant lots being filled, more people living in shared flats and apartments, and existing inner-city land being converted to denser housing. While this inner-city densification was taking place, the development of natural or agricultural land on the outskirts of cities was dramatically slowing down. — In 2011, the European Commission introduced a “no net land take by 2050” initiative that meant that any urban expansion had to be balanced by converting developed land into green areas.

- In practice, this meant that cities became denser as authorities were encouraged to redevelop land within rather than developing outward. This makes perfect sense for somewhere like Europe, says Philipp Rode, executive director of the LSE Cities research center at the London School of Economics. “Any form of urban extension in this part of the world is to be blunt quite ridiculous,” he says. “In mature countries, when you have stagnating populations, I don’t think you can politically justify any form of de-densification in these contexts.” — It makes sense that cities are lower-carbon places to live. If you concentrate people in one area, you can deliver services to them much more efficiently.

- Of course, looking for the most efficient way to pack as many people in one place doesn’t always lead to the happiest places to live. We know that crowded cities can be hotspots for pollution and lead people toward loneliness. But there are all kinds of things we can do to make cities more pleasant places to live. We can plant more trees and set aside urban green space. We can reduce the number of cars on the street or make sure cars that are there pollute less and use that extra space for bike lanes, outdoor restaurants, or parklets. “There are so many opportunities to make cities much greener. Even in cities that feel pretty crowded already, there is often a lot more room to densify than we might think.

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  #2  
Old Posted Nov 20, 2022, 6:34 PM
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Gladly it's the same story everywhere: the US, Europe, parts of Latin America, pretty much every place that experience urban decay, deindustrialization starting in the 1970's.
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  #3  
Old Posted Nov 20, 2022, 6:44 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Yuri View Post
Gladly it's the same story everywhere: the US, Europe, parts of Latin America, pretty much every place that experience urban decay, deindustrialization starting in the 1970's.
It's still pretty rare in the U.S. And most of the places in the U.S. that have strong controls would never call it a "green belt".
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Old Posted Nov 20, 2022, 6:53 PM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
It's still pretty rare in the U.S. And most of the places in the U.S. that have strong controls would never call it a "green belt".
Well, the US cities have resumed their growth for the first time in decades. In a majority of them, the city or the inner city grew faster than their metro area between 2010-2020. In fact, it was inspired by this US back to the city phenomenon that I opened the Downtown thread.

But back to Europe, since Germany resumed its role as the economic powerhouse of Europe somewhere in the late 2000's, they've been under an amazing urban renaissance. Most of their major cities are growing like crazy. Leipzig, mentioned on the article, is the fastest one, but also Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich.

Same thing in Britain, starting on the 1990's, Scandinavia, Belgium, every place where urban decay was strong. The aricle noticed that as well: in Spain, where cities were very dense and didn't experienced much urban decay, suburbanization keeps going. Same for Eastern Europe, where suburbanization is still a more recent phenomenon, a bit like Latin America.
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Old Posted Nov 20, 2022, 6:56 PM
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It does look like there's been some kind of urban renewal and momentum in the US vs their sorry suburban culture for quite some time, though.
Thank God...
Even in Detroit, the so called Motor City, they've actually been redevoloping their inner city so that it would be more welcoming.
That's saying something. There is hope.
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Old Posted Dec 26, 2022, 1:46 AM
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I think the main problem for everywhere is weaning people off their suburbs and cars, and onto public transport.

The issues with that is in order to get PT popular and convenient one has to build an entire network for coverage and frequency first, to entice people to switch. That's not really doable from scratch nowadays due to expense. Yet at the same time keeping car / suburb culture alive is unsustainable, not just for the environment but the upkeep and taxes on the city purse.

Zoning is a quick fix though, that could definitely be remedied, though the nimby culture may stop it.

The thing where you make your changes then the market adapts is easier than trying to persuade the market, while slavishly catering to it. What you need is political will and education.

Last edited by muppet; Dec 26, 2022 at 2:05 AM.
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Old Posted Dec 27, 2022, 4:48 PM
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I love articles that tell me what to think right in the title.
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Old Posted Dec 27, 2022, 4:56 PM
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Some US cities are heading in the right direction...spending tens of billions on transit, limiting outward growth, focusing growth into infill formats, opening up the zoning...
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Old Posted Jan 2, 2023, 9:23 PM
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I think zoning would be a quick fix on multiple fronts, letting the market do much of the work. I'm not sure why some places still hold on, but I imagine residents can produce very vocal minorities despite the majority being okay with it.
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Old Posted Jan 2, 2023, 10:02 PM
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An unsung aspect that the US could learn from Europe is the manner in which they devote their street width to pedestrians, from wall to wall.

In many of the cities I visited in Europe, there were entire large swaths where I walked around with traffic barely noticeable. In the US, there isn't an area larger than a square mile in which traffic is not noticeable. Even in the densest part of US cities, up to Manhattan, traffic plays a huge part in defining the experience.
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  #11  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2023, 1:17 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays View Post
Some US cities are heading in the right direction...spending tens of billions on transit, limiting outward growth, focusing growth into infill formats, opening up the zoning...
Even in the birthplace of the modern suburb, Long Island, which features Levittown, there are numerous (LIRR) downtowns that are building higher density near train stations. It's a ray of light, at least.

L.A. metro always gotten the bad rap for being "one giant suburb", but land use on Long Island is in a far worse sprawl condition. Outside of the downtown rail development I mentioned, new development outside of that continues virtually in the same 1950s/60s era pattern. Still locked around being car-centric. The great light-rail projects I've seen progressing in urban north Jersey could be as far away as the moon; still not a hint of anything like that planned here.
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