Alternative ways to build US cities and suburbs for the future

[jd3189]

During one of my video runs on YouTube, I watched some thought provoking videos:


• Video Link

• Video Link

• Video Link


These videos got me thinking about some of the main issues we face today in America. Homelessness, suburban sprawl, unaffordable cities.

Despite how it looks, the commie block ( or our own version, the housing project) was an economically way to ensure even the poorest folks had their baseline needs met.

Streetcar suburbs are also pretty neat. They are both walkable and spacious, a good balance between the hyperdense city core and the rural country. They also had human character and were still built to cater to those who still walked around, which is something that post war suburbs lacked. I now really get it when people from more walkable places say that American suburbs are just made for the car, not for humans. The car doesn't have to go, but it doesn't have to be the center of attention. The example of Riverdale ( I believe) in Toronto is a good example, and one of the videos mentioned it.

And the idea of the superblock. I can see this working in Manhattan and maybe the densest parts of San Francisco. It's a good way to reduce congestion and make cities even more walkable.

Yeah, this was a lot for one thread, but I want to know what people think about all of this. I think that we will have to do something about the current state of our urban areas.

[kingkirbythe....]

Those are very interesting videos.

[JHikka]

The Superblock idea reminds me of how the freemasons (or at least their ideas) effectively built La Plata, Argentina.


OAS Cities

A park for every x distance, a hospital and school for every x distance, etc...

[Obadno]

A lot of purists dont like it but I still think the New-Urbanist stuff and suburban retrofit stuff from the last 15 years is pretty good.

Obviously its faux urbanism but even though "Its not real" Its better than traditionally suburban patterns. This is a "mall" in Scottsdale that has stores and restaurants with offices and apartments above all on "fake" streets and it does its 10000x more pleasant than an indoor mall and more alive than a normal suburban shopping area.

Its designed well, shaded and gives the appearance of an urban environment despite not being one in a larger context.











Is this ideal from an urbanist perspective? No, Is it better than strip malls and drive throughs? Absolutely. And the success of malls like this around metro Phoenix shows that its preferred as indoor malls continue to close (besides one very famous one!) these types of malls continue to grow and even sprout urban development on neighboring parcels Below is across the street from above:




Even the neighborhoods a couple blocks away are seeing better development all because of this "mall" built far out in suburban land a decade ago: https://goo.gl/maps/FTWDueLmcarJmGkU7

[mhays]

Kierland Commons seems to be a typical mall (the lifestyle type) with surface parking, except the "halls" are streets. https://www.google.com/maps/@33.6210.../data=!3m1!1e3

The apartments across the street (if that's the last photo) are towers in a park.

Gigantic stroads all around.

Better than old-time suburbia in some ways, somewhat.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by mhays

Kierland Commons seems to be a typical mall (the lifestyle type) with surface parking, except the "halls" are streets. https://www.google.com/maps/@33.6210.../data=!3m1!1e3

The apartments across the street (if that's the last photo) are towers in a park.

Gigantic stroads all around.

Better than old-time suburbia in some ways, somewhat.

I think the main benefit is that it at least contains housing, whereas typical suburban malls don't. While it doesn't do much to activate the surrounding areas, at least it somewhat diminishes car usage because residents can just walk down to get groceries, shop, and eat. And packages it all together in land saving space. If you took all those units and spread them out into single family housing with lawns and yards and stuff, it would take up way more space.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by homebucket

I think the main benefit is that it at least contains housing, whereas typical suburban malls don't. While it doesn't do much to activate the surrounding areas, at least it somewhat diminishes car usage because residents can just walk down to get groceries, shop, and eat. And packages it all together in land saving space. If you took all those units and spread them out into single family housing with lawns and yards and stuff, it would take up way more space.

The apartments are just garnish, though. They don't materially change how 99.9% of the people interact with that development.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by JHikka

The Superblock idea reminds me of how the freemasons (or at least their ideas) effectively built La Plata, Argentina.


OAS Cities

A park for every x distance, a hospital and school for every x distance, etc...

haha oh yeah!

and small town sandusky, ohio too.

(it's on lake erie -- and home of cedar point amusement park)

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by mhays

Kierland Commons seems to be a typical mall (the lifestyle type) with surface parking, except the "halls" are streets. https://www.google.com/maps/@33.6210.../data=!3m1!1e3

The apartments across the street (if that's the last photo) are towers in a park.

Gigantic stroads all around.

Better than old-time suburbia in some ways, somewhat.

Those towers are not as "in a park" as the stock photo implies, they are right too the street: https://goo.gl/maps/x5QFQqtds6aX9BHx6

The streets are wide but you aren't going to change that, this was formerly suburban offices and strip malls.

That being said Kierland has parking lots but it can also continue to infill those lots if they so choose. The big arterials around the superblocks with smaller roads is just probably going to be as good as we are going to get.

However the newer half of the mall "Scottsdale quarter" does a better job of your complaints than the original Kierland:

https://goo.gl/maps/sB38BuYq4HKRmmvo6

an improvement in every way, no surface parking, more mix of office/retail/housing in a more urban from. Now this is of course all high end but this same model can be value engineered and what Im saying is its a better model if you want urban vibrancy than current suburbia. Compare it to this traditional mall only 10 minutes away:

https://goo.gl/maps/yUeLiNZ86dgRexUEA

Which is now closed and being rebuilt in more urban forms.

Quite frankly all of our metro malls are going to the Kierland model either through retrofit, or total tear down. Only two traditional enclosed malls seem to be surviving on their own out of a city of 5 million. Heres an example of a strip mall undergoing a similar redevelopment:

Before:


After:


Across the Street from above:

Before:




After:




Before:


After:






You cant say these aren't an improvement. We are never going to be able to tear up existing roads and infrastructure and rebuild true urban forms but we can make do with what we have, and in my opinion quite effectively

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The apartments are just garnish, though. They don't materially change how 99.9% of the people interact with that development.

But that isnt accurate, that area has several hundred apartment units and offices all around that actually drives foot traffic in an area that used to be 100% suburban with zero pedestrian activity.

I personally have my office in this area and its bustling at lunch and in the evening compared to what was here when the first portion of Kierland was built almost 15 years ago now.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Obadno

But that isnt accurate, that area has several hundred apartment units and offices all around that actually drives foot traffic in an area that used to be 100% suburban with zero pedestrian activity.

I personally have my office in this area and its bustling at lunch and in the evening compared to what was here when the first portion of Kierland was built almost 15 years ago now.

I'll take your word for it. It looks mostly inaccessible by foot unless you live in one of the apartment buildings. Even if there are 200 apartments in those towers, that's not enough to even sustain one of those stores, so most of the customer base would have to arrive from somewhere beyond this development. To me it looks like almost all of those non-resident customers would arrive by car.

[mrnyc]

there is always tod to spur more urban suburban redevelopment too.

this current example is shaker van aken tod that is going up in phases around the cleveland blue line rapid (fyi - cleveland's rail transit has always been known known as 'the rapid').




Shaker Planning Commission OK’s Van Aken Phase II residential high-rise


more:
https://www.cleveland.com/community/...onditions.html

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

. To me it looks like almost all of those non-resident customers would arrive by car.

Yes and there's no way to change that save complete abandonment of the area and a total reconstruction of the street grid or if we start building Asian style super apartment blocks.

Neither of which is going to happen. As I said in the beginning it isn't "real" but its a better model than normal suburban sprawl.

Is it really that big a deal if people drive to an area like that and spend the whole day walking around before leaving?

how is that materially different from how most people throughout time have interacted with urban centers?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Yes and there's no way to change that save complete abandonment of the area and a total reconstruction of the street grid or if we start building Asian style super apartment blocks.

Neither of which is going to happen. As I said in the beginning it isn't "real" but its a better model than normal suburban sprawl.

Is it really that big a deal if people drive to an area like that and spend the whole day walking around before leaving?

No, it isn't. It's how the mall has worked for 70 years lol. This is just an extremely marginal improvement. Like the bare minimum to be considered an improvement.

Originally Posted by Obadno

how is that materially different from how most people throughout time have interacted with urban centers?

Driving.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Driving.

Today I learned people don't commute into NYC. Why waste all that money on bridges and tunnels????? I suppose thats why NYC has no absolutely massive parking structures: https://goo.gl/maps/o5i2FVghgYBby4TP8 https://goo.gl/maps/S5hVtp3NUVFhVjmM6

Lets take a little history lesson. Urban centers for most of time were not where the majority of people lived (Today they say thats the case but they count Urban area which is also suburban so its a flawed metric) meaning people commuted in and out to access those services and trade. Weather it was on foot, on a donkey cart, in a train or .... in a car.

You are being obtuse, letting perfect be the enemy of the good.

As with so many of these urban purist conversations, We cant go back in time and uninvent the car, and deconstruct suburban car centered development. Time for you to accept reality.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Today I learned people don't commute into NYC. Why waste all that money on bridges and tunnels?????

Most people commute into NYC on public transit.

[homebucket]

There's plenty of people that drive into SF to spend the day. We call them the bridge and tunnel crowd. Some people do take BART and Caltrain too, but the bridges are always packed.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Lets take a little history lesson. Urban centers for most of time were not where the majority of people lived (Today they say thats the case but they count Urban area which is also suburban so its a flawed metric) meaning people commuted in and out to access those services and trade. Weather it was on foot, on a donkey cart, in a train or .... in a car.

You are being obtuse, letting perfect be the enemy of the good.

As with so many of these urban purist conversations, We cant go back in time and uninvent the car, and deconstruct suburban car centered development. Time for you to accept reality.

I don't know what you mean. We don't need a time machine to see how urban environments look that aren't distorted to accommodate cars. Many examples exist in the world today, lol.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Most people commute into NYC on public transit.

If your metric for a place being urban is most people using mass transit you are looking at the wrong continent.

NYC is by far an extreme outlier and still from hat I can find over 30% of the commuters into NYC come on a Bus or a Car.

Again we cannot un-invent the car.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't know what you mean. We don't need a time machine to see how urban environments look that aren't distorted to accommodate cars. Many examples exist in the world today, lol.

Im sorry do you not understand the point of this discussion?

its how to make Suburban areas more urban. suburbia for the future.

That will involve people commuting by car, I dont see why its any worse for people to drive to an urban center, park and spend the day than it is to drive to a "Fake" urban area and spend the day.