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Solemn Sloth posted:Melbourne is cursed by a lack of constraining geography. There’s some mountainous bits to the east but other than that there’s very little to act as a forced barrier on sprawl. The growth areas are seriously horrendous in terms of the quality of communities being put up. Under serviced by community infrastructure, non-existent public transport, and massive houses on medium sized lots so you get serious urban heat island and stormwater management problems. So is the sprawl still a part of Melbourne proper? One of the problems in US is that sprawl is often totally separate municipalities.
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Aug 4, 2018 17:14
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vyelkin posted:Here's a news story that's insanely relevant to this thread about abolishing the suburbs: IIRC the same sort of thing happened... maybe.. 40 or so...? years ago to block the extension of Boston-area subway's Red Line to the town of Arlington.
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Aug 22, 2018 21:16
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Fifty billion Australian (Google says it's about 36.5 American) doesn't seem quite so bad if you consider this: (http://greenlineextension.eot.state.ma.us/documents/about/ProposedMap/projectMap.pdf) worth of light rail is estimated at 2.3 billion USD after all the facilities got cut down to the bare minimum... OddObserver fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Aug 29, 2018 |
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Aug 29, 2018 15:37
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luxury handset posted:i was just using that as a theoretical example of how planners can extract affordable housing from developers using the tools they have available Wouldn't it also be reasonable to zone things as "High-Density Residential requiring 25% affordable" to start with?
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Aug 30, 2018 04:53
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Growing up in Ukraine, we would generally have a big courtyard inside each building number (or sometimes block) and all the kids for all the apartments around it would play there, usually with each other. The buildings fit more people than what I generally see here in Boston area (apartments vs. multifamily homes), but they weren't packed anywhere near that tight.
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Jul 4, 2019 00:43
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SpaceCadetBob posted:
Shouldn't the municipality care? They are the ones setting the building code, aren't they?
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Jul 8, 2019 12:41
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Cambridge is one of many Boston-area communities whose zoning code is apparently based on how things look like in a Wisconsin suburb rather than a New England urban area. Step one of "preserving community character" might be to make the code permit what's already typical. e.g.: https://mobile.twitter.com/ahoreality/status/1158090223697317890
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Aug 6, 2019 00:15
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Red Bones posted:I am not American, are the houses on either side of the blue building owned by single families, or are they apartment buildings/old mansions subdivided into multiple apartments? They're multi-family and were always built as such. Most likely 6 families for each, each getting half of a floor. Context: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house) (Which the original of this photoshopped photo was taken from).
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Aug 14, 2019 22:37
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Insanite posted:Short and sweet. At least MBTA's near-collapse one winter saved us from the Olympics.
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Oct 24, 2019 18:52
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Solkanar512 posted:Is there some term or way we can differentiate between the sort of lovely zoning the prevents density and reasonable mixed use stuff from the sort of zoning laws that prevent people from putting a chemical plant in a residential area? Houston is like this and it's a poo poo show when plants explode. So what bothers me about some zoning around here in Boston is that it (soft) bans things that everyone is supposedly in favor of, things like triple-deckers. The point of regulation, IMHO, is to ban things that are harmful, whether it's a chemical plant right next to a kindergarden --- or that chemical plant dumping whatever it wants in the nearby river. Instead, those rules basically say that the expectation of the law is that you build something that would fit in a semi-rular suburb despite it being an urban area, so someone building something reasonable (like a 6-family home) has to go through committees (which is a vector for corruption) of tough negotiations, hordes of complaining affluent boomers that have too much free time (people working two jobs to feed their families don't have time for things like that!). Or you could build a McMansion that fits the rules and deal with way less hassle. Oh, and of course also lots and lots of parking spots, since that's what suburban life calls for, even if you're well in range of transit.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:28
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I imagine the elderly have less effect on traffic than other people, too. Given that most are going to not be commuting to a job during the rush hour.
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Feb 3, 2020 00:21
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Can we all agree that the way schools are funded in the US is awful?
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Mar 14, 2020 23:01
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Cicero posted:I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me that the time value of money plays a part here. If you can knock out a big SFH (or pile of them) in < 6 months, versus a big apartment complex taking over a year (or even multiple years), the nominal profit margin on the latter has to be higher for it to actually be 'equally profitable'. It's not simply time, either. Like during the time you may see a bunch of boards, neighborhood associations, city council, etc. demand a bunch of changes, which probably means paying architects money. Then someone may file a lawsuit, and, well, if you want affordable housing lawyer trial costs are probably not what you want to be part of the equation. Then the end result may end up scaled down a bunch so the revenue is down and expenses are up? Putting up some exurban McMansions is gonna be way less risky.
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Jun 25, 2021 15:27
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Note that you can find photos of what US cities looked like before the car/suburb era, and they are often much livelier. Also there are often a bunch of nice buildings that in modern time got demolished for parking lots or garages. I think I once stumbled on a twitter account doing comparison shots like that, but I don't have it handy. Here is a bit in he other direction, though: https://twitter.com/ProvPlanning/status/1482330242945585158 Like that's way more walkable without the highway bridge.
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Jan 18, 2022 18:39
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SpaceCadetBob posted:
The office buildings I have recently worked in probably can't be converted into legal apartments simply based on their footprint ---- they have a lot of interior space, and apartment rooms are supposed to have windows.
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Jun 18, 2022 17:39
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There is some historical irony about a guy from Arlington being in the "pro housing in MBTA communities" side since IIRC Arlington has MBTA commuter rail but not subway because racism.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:04
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The one in that NYT article looks like the world's saddest courtyard. And I can't imagine that even a bigger ones would work very well on any highrise...
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Jul 28, 2023 01:41
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Nitrousoxide posted:I mean, I grew up in the Midwest, so maybe I'm more resistant. But I don't mind the cold at all. Look, people throw hissyfits about stuff being cold in mild places like upstate NY and even barely-has-winter places like Boston, and Minnesota is actually cold.
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Aug 1, 2023 16:54
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Also, well, if someone helped them pay for a move (which are expensive!) maybe some would gladly move to West Plattsburgh --- if there are jobs there.
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Aug 1, 2023 20:57
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Requiring EV charging stations as an overall rule is probably a win overall. Going through a 12-month process of arguing over it for every single place, however ...
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Aug 21, 2023 15:33
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Mustang posted:I agree, but looking at the rate Seattle's light rail is being built, l just don't see that happening. That we're really bad at public infrastructure construction in US, in terms of both cost and time is another huge problem...
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Aug 21, 2023 19:44
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mobby_6kl posted:Are people going to give up their lawns and McMansiosn to live closer to civilization though? These are mutually incompatible and while everyone hates driving (for commuting), I kind of doubt many would make that trade voluntarily. I think you are right that there are lots of people who don't want the trade, but there are also people who want to live in cities which are currently not being accommodated.
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Aug 21, 2023 19:48
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Combed Thunderclap posted:Gee, why oh why is there a cost of living crisis in America? We must protect the environment by making everyone have a 1-hour car commute!
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Sep 7, 2023 01:18
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with all these apartment buildings everywhere how will communities of color ever be able to buy a home???
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Just be ready for when people act like a bike lane killed their firstborn.
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Jan 17, 2024 18:36
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