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  #1  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 7:18 AM
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If We Want Everything To Be A 15-Minute Walk From Home, State Needs To Get Involved

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If We Want Everything To Be A 15-Minute Walk From Home, Report Says State Needs To Get Involved


Large swaths of the greater Boston area remain zoned for single-family residences only, a trend that researchers say in a new report leaves the concept of "15-minute neighborhoods" out of reach for many Massachusetts residents.
Source: https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/09/29...nkId=134418509
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  #2  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 12:06 PM
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Boston area is growing at the faster pace since the 1960's. I imagine they need to add lots of housing otherwise they might become another San Francisco.

It's also one of the least dense urban areas in the US, not much better than Atlanta, so I guess some densification outside the city proper would be welcomed.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 3:34 PM
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You need state to be less involved.

“Master-planning” this kind of thing from the top-down doesn’t work. Let’s start with how we define “everything” - what are all the amenities that you would want to have within a 15-minute walk of your home?

This quite obviously differs by community, and changes as those communities change over time (this is the essence of gentrification). In one neighborhood day care centers may be an essential amenity, in another CBD shops. And what qualifies as “grocery store” or “coffee shop”? In one NYC neighborhood it may be a Pathmark, in another Whole Foods.

Even the blurb of the article that you posted highlights that it is government (zoning) that is the impediment, not the solution. And also the Balkanization of American city administration (with lots of local jurisdictions pretending to be “villages” when really they are districts within a metro area of millions), as the article also discusses.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 3:38 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yuriandrade View Post
Boston area is growing at the faster pace since the 1960's. I imagine they need to add lots of housing otherwise they might become another San Francisco.

It's also one of the least dense urban areas in the US, not much better than Atlanta, so I guess some densification outside the city proper would be welcomed.
I would think Boston is “less dense” only because the region has been settled for so long and so the American definition of metro area doesn’t really work. You need to think of that part of the country more like Europe.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 4:05 PM
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I would think Boston is “less dense” only because the region has been settled for so long and so the American definition of metro area doesn’t really work. You need to think of that part of the country more like Europe.
I meant urban area, not metro area. By that metric, Boston has a very low density. Suburbs with massive plots, like mini farms.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 4:10 PM
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The State can do wonders if they want it to.

Once again I'll point to my own state (WA)...not that we're excellent, but we do make cities and counties do things decently at least. In all urban counties, every municipality (over a certain size I think) is required to accommodate more housing, which these cities generally focus into denser districts. Another example is a new rule that says any zoning that allows a hotel has to allow a homeless shelter too. WA gets fairly prescriptive.

Massachusetts could require that any municipality over a certain size allow retail uses, per a local planning process. I don't know the State Charter of course.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 4:15 PM
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Similarly, Oregon recently passed legislation requiring local jurisdictions to allow duplexes on single family lots by right, and up to a quadplex in certain circumstances. Cities and Counties above certain population thresholds have until next year to implement or they will have to use the state model language.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 5:41 PM
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Originally Posted by yuriandrade View Post
they might become another San Francisco.
?????

Although the geography is very different, there are already a lot of similarities in development patterns. Otherwise I don’t know what you mean.

Finally, while in the abstract being able to walk to certain retail and services may be desirable, when presented as a “if you want this, you have to do that” option, I think many people, perhaps a majority, would say “thanks but no thanks”. The ideal for many is not scattered retail on every block like in major cities but a central “high street” business district surrounded by single family homes and neighborhoods of them, not all being a 15 minute walk away. It’s the small town model, not the big city model.

Last edited by Pedestrian; Oct 5, 2021 at 5:53 PM.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 5:55 PM
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
?????

Although the geography is very different, there are already a lot of similarities in development patterns. Otherwise I don’t know what you mean.
I meant SF area crazy housing prices.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 5:55 PM
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Originally Posted by yuriandrade View Post
I meant urban area, not metro area. By that metric, Boston has a very low density. Suburbs with massive plots, like mini farms.
Which is quintessential New England. Trying to force the region to resemble San Francisco or Atlanta won't work. Boston proper and many of the inner ring suburbs are very dense and then it tapers off the further out you go but we really don't need to destroy the character of the region to increase density.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 5:58 PM
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Which is quintessential New England. Trying to force the region to resemble San Francisco or Atlanta won't work. Boston proper and many of the inner ring suburbs are very dense and then it tapers off the further out you go but we really don't need to destroy the character of the region to increase density.
I understand the article is saying the opposite: in vast areas of Boston area, you cannot build anything but SFH. They're suggesting changing legislation to allow people/developers to build different stuff if they want to.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 6:30 PM
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So weird how everything seems t require an expansion of centralized power!

How convenient
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  #13  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 6:40 PM
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Originally Posted by yuriandrade View Post
I understand the article is saying the opposite: in vast areas of Boston area, you cannot build anything but SFH. They're suggesting changing legislation to allow people/developers to build different stuff if they want to.
A lot of these towns are historic/ picturesque and probably want to fend off crappy subpar development that doesn't meld with the urban fabric...except for Foxborough...they can redevelop that all day of course.
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  #14  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 6:45 PM
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They can maintain high standards. Maybe that's little town villages. This isn't treading new ground.

Nor does progress require that everybody end up within a 15-minute walk of even an appropriately-zoned area let alone actual retail. Maybe the goal could be to enable appropriate zoning within a 15-minute walk of 50% of the households in an given town, and 25-minutes for 80% for example.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 6:59 PM
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
A lot of these towns are historic/ picturesque and probably want to fend off crappy subpar development that doesn't meld with the urban fabric...except for Foxborough...they can redevelop that all day of course.
Looking at Google Maps, there are like 40 miles of very low exurban development between the denser suburbs of Boston and Worcester. Same between Boston and southern New Hampshire and Boston and Providence. It's not like those New England big plots are endangered species. They'll be there forever.

So it's not harmful to allow denser developments if the owners want so, specially now when Boston metro area is growing near double-digit/decade.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 8:52 PM
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Originally Posted by yuriandrade View Post
I meant urban area, not metro area. By that metric, Boston has a very low density. Suburbs with massive plots, like mini farms.
But doesn’t even the urban area encompass some places that, historically, were filled with farms? Southeast England has a lot of that too.

Metros out West are denser because there are subdivisions and then empty, unoccupied desert, and there’s no point in having a lot of land around a house when all you can grow is dirt.
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  #17  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 9:15 PM
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But doesn’t even the urban area encompass some places that, historically, were filled with farms? Southeast England has a lot of that too.

Metros out West are denser because there are subdivisions and then empty, unoccupied desert, and there’s no point in having a lot of land around a house when all you can grow is dirt.
I'm not criticizing them. I'm just stating they have lots of room to densify. Not suggesting exurban Boston must turn itself into a Hong Kong, but some denser nodes might help the area.
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Old Posted Oct 5, 2021, 9:24 PM
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Every city everywhere has lots of room to densify if you're count the exurban fringe.
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  #19  
Old Posted Oct 6, 2021, 4:03 AM
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The irony is that while the Federal Government is constitutionally restricted from interfering in State actions (that whole 'federalism' thing), the States themselves operate on a unitary basis within their lands.

Which is to say, there's no reason why a State even has to tolerate local Governments. The Federal Government cannot disband the Commonwealth of Virginia, but the Commonwealth can eliminate every county and city if it wanted to.

Heck, Massachusetts can eliminate every local government within its territory and establish a "City of Massachusetts" that expands from Provincetown to Pittsfield.

Yet State governments are often really aloof when it comes to local management, even with local NIMBYism becomes rapacious and a massive threat to economic growth. It boggles the mind how so many States will spend so much time arguing with NIMBY suburbs, when the State has the unilateral authority to fix the problem.

Like Maryland spending millions in litigation fighting with the Village of Chevy Chase on whether the Purple Line would adversely impact the habitat of the Hay's Spring Amphipod, a microscopic shrimp, derailing the Purple Line for 2 years.

Or like that time Illinois considered consolidating its municipalities, only to poll them and realize they didn't want that, so they backed off. So they settled on consolidating a handful of mosquito abatement districts and called it a day. Springfield should unilaterally amalgamate Chicago and Cook County and call it a day.

Unfortunately, the only ones who use this power effectively are Republicans, and they only use it to punish urban communities (see what Georgia is doing to break Atlanta in two for a contemporary example).
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Old Posted Oct 6, 2021, 5:48 AM
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Originally Posted by mhays View Post
The State can do wonders if they want it to.

Once again I'll point to my own state (WA)...not that we're excellent, but we do make cities and counties do things decently at least. In all urban counties, every municipality (over a certain size I think) is required to accommodate more housing, which these cities generally focus into denser districts. Another example is a new rule that says any zoning that allows a hotel has to allow a homeless shelter too. WA gets fairly prescriptive.

Massachusetts could require that any municipality over a certain size allow retail uses, per a local planning process. I don't know the State Charter of course.
Y’all have the best DMV without exception. The State government of California on the other hand is a train wreck.
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