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

[subterranean]

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

[Yuri]

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.

[10023]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

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.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by 10023

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.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

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.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by JManc

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.

[10023]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

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.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by 10023

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.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

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.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

?????

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.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

I meant SF area crazy housing prices.

Boston has already been there for a along time.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

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.

Do Cambridge, Sommerville, etc., have some dumb height limit stuff going on? I lived in Cambridge 20 years ago and the only hi-rises were around Kendall/MIT, and they weren't residential. I remember there being a few public housing towers out by the Alewife T station.

I just don't think it's worth battling suburbs to legalize ADU's or basement apartments and maybe get a strip of townhomes built near a commuter rail station. The much more pragmatic approach is midrise/hi-rise development near existing T subway stations.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Do Cambridge, Sommerville, etc., have some dumb height limit stuff going on? I lived in Cambridge 20 years ago and the only hi-rises were around Kendall/MIT, and they weren't residential. I remember there being a few public housing towers out by the Alewife T station.

I just don't think it's worth battling suburbs to legalize ADU's or basement apartments and maybe get a strip of townhomes built near a commuter rail station. The much more pragmatic approach is midrise/hi-rise development near existing T subway stations.

I don't know, but if they have, they should scrap it. It's an urban environment for the past 200 years, so midrises and even highrises should be allowed.

Originally Posted by JManc

Having lived in southern New Hampshire for a while, it's pretty sparse and the attraction there are the rural open spaces and I don't see the demand for denser developments outside maybe Nashua or Manchester. I could see it around Lowell, Worcester and Providence which are already fairly dense areas within an hour of Boston.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The urban areas in and around Boston could easily be denser than they are now. I don't think they need to develop the green space around the developed areas in order to grow.

Yeah, wherever they want to add more density. Around denser nodes it's even more helpful as more people could use existing transit. But they definitely should get denser or at least not having density to be outlawed.

[10023]

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.

[mhays]

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.

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by mhays

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.

[subterranean]

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.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by subterranean

Source: https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/09/29...nkId=134418509

So weird how everything seems t require an expansion of centralized power!

How convenient

[mhays]

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.

[badrunner]

Every city everywhere has lots of room to densify if you're count the exurban fringe.