Urban Planning Megathread - I'll NIMBY in your YIMBY

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Urban Planning Megathread - I'll NIMBY in your YIMBY

«‹›2 »

NIMBY?
	NIMBY
	YIMBY
	I can't afford my medicine.

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

I�ve been seeing a decent amount of people touching on urban planning in various threads, the closest thing that we really have to a dedicated urban planning thread is the traffic engineer thread in ask/tell, but that is specifically about roads, and to a lesser extent, some bus and a bit about light rail.

What this thread is about is a comprehensive discussion about all things relating to urban planning. From mixed use developments, public transit, private transit (cars, bikes) walking, and taxation, funding, etc. If it relates to how and why your city/town�s infrastructure is organized the way it is, or should be, this is the place for it.

To give a bit of an overview of terminology that�ll likely get used in this thread:

Rolling Stock � The term used to describe the engines/cars used by metro lines and regional rail.

Light Rail � Any number of lightweight (compared to full scale metro lines) rail vehicles. Trams, street cars both fall in this category. Sometimes they have dedicated rights of way, sometimes they share lanes with surface traffic. They generally have the capacity of slightly more than an articulated bus but have dedicated stations built into the side or middle of roads. A few light rail systems also have underground routes (see Boston/Philadelphia). Ones without dedicated rights of way usually suffer worse performance than a standard bus as any traffic or blockage in their path cannot be avoided, and will need to be towed/cleared.

Metro Lines � Above or below ground heavy rail with short headways and reserved rights of way of usually 10 minutes or less. These are typically the most robust (and expensive) part of a city�s transit system capable of carrying the most people. Oftentimes other local transit like buses have routes designed to feed into the stations.

Regional Rail � Heavy rail mass transit for longer range distances. Typically stations are placed significantly further apart and headway is much higher than on metro lines or inner bus lines.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) � Systems above ground designed to imitate full scale metro lines or regional rail. They will usually have dedicated roadways or dedicated lanes and when they come into intersections with other private vehicles will often get priority signaling to get them through the intersections first. They can provide a means for a city to transition to a full on metro rail system later, by using existing buses purchased for intracity connections instead of buying new rolling stock.

Transit Pass/Transit Card � NFC or magstripe cards that allow the rider to purchase daily/weekly/monthly passes or load up an electronic wallet to make payment and transfer between transit lines quicker and payment easier.

Transit Orientated Development � Urban development focused around transit hubs. You�ll typically see talk about this relating to development around subway stations, regional rail stations, or bus rapid transit stations. Basically a lot of buildings go up near these stations which allows quick and easy access to mass transit lines, rather than building wherever and trying to bus people into the metro lines, or using park and rides to get people onto the metro system.

New Urbanism � The current rage in urban planning circles. This focuses on dense, walkable neighborhoods with mixed-used zoning and midrise buildings with retail first floors and commercial/residential upper floors. Sufficient green spaces are also heavily favored as are access to public transit and bike/bus lanes.

Suburbia - A blasted hellscape of cookie cutter mcmansions surrounded by miles and miles of endless highways.

NIMBY - An approach landowners take to block nearby developments. Oftentimes used to block the building of affordable housing for lower income people.

Some urbanist content creators to follow:

Not Just Bikes:
https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes

Armchair Urbanist
https://www.youtube.com/@alanthefisher

City Nerd
https://www.youtube.com/@CityNerd

Strongtowns
https://www.youtube.com/@strongtowns

The Aesthetic City
https://www.youtube.com/@the_aesthetic_city

Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Apr 25, 2023

# ¿ Aug 1, 2018 20:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 02:51

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

To go into a bit of detail,

NIMBYism is dramatically affecting the ability of millenials to purchase homes and drastically driving up rents.

Boomers, who have no desire to see any new construction near their old homes, are blocking many projects, and the projects that are going up tend to be "luxury" developments focused on the top 10% or above of earners.

https://fundrise.com/education/blog-posts/the-big-misunderstanding-behind-todays-millennial-housing-crisis

Today there is nearly no housing stock available for first time home buyers in many major cities or suburbs, and those that do exist have absurd travel times to the jobs in the city thanks to next to no non-car infrastructure investments in the past few decades.

The US is pretty much on a crash course in the next decade or two where rents will exceed 50% of monthly income for people all over the country. New york is already at that level.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2018 20:46

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

luxury handset posted:

haha christ that sounds like hell

to add to this, a lot of community organization and local landowner politics in urban areas (cough white yuppies cough) came out of freeway revolt movements in the 1960s-1980s. a lot of the same people who were organizing to fight freeway expansion, "slum clearance" and to protect their big old rickety victorian homes are now - or their children - the same people protesting what they see as unsustainable encroachment into their territory

NIMBYs definitely have the property value argument to back them up. but also, there are very valid concerns related to community resources like water and traffic which would be stressed by additional residents. and also not a small bit of racism. which, too bad, because the population is only growing and so are cities, and many american cities need to be denser. but in my opinion it's often too simple to reduce boomer NIMBY protests to sheer concern for property values or low key exclusionary turf wars

absolutely they will. you're going to see people complaining about how this used to be a quaint neighborhood of three story condo blocks before these ten story assholes started showing up

NIMBY, and the house as the primary savings vehicle, is in large part why only "Luxury" housing is going up all over the country and the only way to get an affordable house is to get one that is 50+ years old and falling apart.

Any updates to the neighborhood have to bring up the home value or everyone's major investment for retirement looses value.

To a certain extent I don't begrudge people protesting stuff that lowers their property values, because many (and maybe even most millennials) are totally unable to do any proper retirement savings. But it just creates a continuous upward pressure for prices which drives a higher percentage of the population out of owning and into renting. That, of course, also drives up renting prices which makes even renting unaffordable for people.

Personally, I think Japan takes a better approach to housing (aside from bullshit "key money") where houses are not seen as investments, and in fact deprecate almost completely after ~30-40 years. There's no vested interests in constant upward pressure to the housing prices in that environment because you house is not a savings vehicle, but a way to pay less than you would to rent in exchange for making moving harder. It also allows for major updates to happen to the buildings every half century rather than trying to renovate extremely old buildings.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2018 13:46

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

donoteat posted:

hello i made this AMA

What do you think is the biggest problem with urban planning in the US currently? I'm guessing the highway?

# ¿ Aug 3, 2018 03:24

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

CountFosco posted:

The suburbs are the worst of both worlds: you miss the opportunities and thrill of the city, while at the same time being deprived of genuine proximity to nature and sense of community in actual rural towns.

I think it's important to distinguish, however, between suburbs and actual small cities. I grew up in a small city of around 20,000 people, and I worry sometimes that when people are plotting the demise of the suburb, small cities like my hometown will get lumped in with it. It has a downtown, a particular culture, a sense of character which is missing in suburban sprawl. Yeah, there are some suburb-like housing developments on the perimeter of my home city, but they aren't the defining feature. A good source to look at when celebrating the potential for small cities is James Kunstler. Admittedly, he has some kooky ideas, but he has a pretty great ted talk on the vapidity of modern American architecture.

Some suburbs have grown enough to be more than bedroom communities and have local jobs, shopping, theater, and nightlife now. Some of them are also pivoting to being more bicycle friendly as well (which is easier when the traffic is much lower and you have space to just add bicycle lanes without taking existing lanes away.)

Still though, most suburbs really suck and at a minimum need to be be better connected to the main urban centers via rail or BRT so they stop contributing to traffic so much and offer better opportunities for the poorer folks to get to and from them.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2018 17:17

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

KingFisher posted:

Great work, I liked 98% of the video.

The one bit I felt that was lacking was exploring the consequences of inaction or massive public investment for the posited change.

So let's say a new company moved into 52nd street and creates 1k new high income jobs.

If the land is already built out to the maximum zoned potential that is able to be financed then, what happens for the residents? I.e. what happens under the no development option?

This seems to be something many NIMBYS would perfer.

The standard answer would be that the 1000 new highly paid workers would use thier greater incomes to bid up the cost of rent driving 1000 units worth of residents from the city. The NIMBYs benefit because thier homes increase in value giving them every incentives to oppose all development. Also they don't have to deal with any construction, and likely the city becomes more white. See Seattle as an example, one of the few major cities getting whiter every year

So even with 0 change in the housing supply or the condition of the housing displacement still occurs.

In the decommodification section, it would have been useful to cover the Vienna and Singapore models of social housing. Both cities have decommodofied housing through an essentially massive supply of public housing. I think within the context of the US capitalist system this is the best bet to achieve the goal of housing everyone and removing the mechanisms which drive up rent costs.

Most of the policies you highlighted seem to address the "keep people in thier homes" problem and not the "how do we house everyone" problem.

Unfortunately as you correctly noted building lots of high quality public housing wouldn't "keep everyone in thier homes". Since the buildings have to go somewhere, ideally next to the mass transit.

I'd like to see you show an example of a city that has a law along the lines of "rent should be $500 per bedroom" and if 1000 new highly paid people move in then the city would respond by building 1000 more units of high quality public housing to absorb all the new demand so rent stays the same.

Lastly you might want to cover land value taxes as a means for maximizing the taxes collected to government and encouraging private land owners to build the optimal development for a location given it tax value. This would naturally encourage redevelopment where the greatest utility exists.

A lot of public housing also completely ignores the middle income people who are also getting squeezed for affordable housing and rent, but also don't qualify for public housing because they make too much.

Mixing below market housing in with other units in the same building also makes finding a new place extremely hard for middle income earners as the apartments will advertise the affordable housing rate that amounts to 5% of the units in their building, but actually none of those are available to people above the poverty line.

This drives up the costs and time needed to apartment hunt for folks too.

To a certain extent this can be avoided by just requiring advertisements to list BOTH the affordable units rates and the market rate units in any ads where the affordable units are quoted, but it still doesn't really help people who are above the cut-off point for below market rate units but unable to afford reasonably close apartments at market rates.

And of course, the "affordable" units are also usually just tiny portion of the actual number of units needed for the people at the income level in that area. So they do very little, if anything, to actually provide the poorer people with meaningful numbers of available housing.

Ultimately, with the population of cities increasing and density increasing, people HAVE to get shuffled around to increase the housing stock. It's just physics, unless you're in an area like Philly or Detroit (the latter of which isn't actually growing) where there's so many abandoned buildings in some areas that you can knock down and build new stuff while impacting almost no one currently living there.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2018 18:24

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

A pretty good overview on making transit free at the point of use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccxVYborUcU

# ¿ Aug 24, 2018 20:04

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Solkanar512 posted:

Older post, but the last time I saw a post like this, it was someone talking about how great North Carolina was. Then two weeks later they started to pass anti-trans bathroom bills.

I know that the midwest and the south get bad reputations, but sometimes those reputations are deserved. If you're working in Washington State, you're not going to be fired from your job if you're gay. Other states allow that.

Honestly Philly, Chicago, and Minneapolis are probably the best millennial locations right now. Actual affordable housing, both for rent (under 1k/mth) and for purchase (decent places for under 200k) decent job markets, good protections for protected classes, and unlikely to ban stuff like abortion/same sex marriage, if a new Supreme Court overturns a bunch of stuff with Trump's new appointment.

All are good biking cites, Minneapolis probably has the best biking system in the country. Mass transit goes Chicago -> Philly -> Minneapolis

Here's the Bike League's ratings for all 3 cities.

Minneapolis:
https://bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/bfareportcards/BFC_Fall_2015_ReportCard_Minneapolis_MN.pdf

Philly:
https://bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/bfareportcards/BFC_Fall_2016_ReportCard_Philadelphia_PA.pdf

Chicago:
https://bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/bfareportcards/BFC_Spring_2015_ReportCard_Chicago_IL.pdf

Bonus points for Minneapolis for being a state that might soon legalize marijuana, and Philly for being next to a state that might legalize weed in the next year or two.

Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Aug 28, 2018

# ¿ Aug 28, 2018 20:10

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

ProperGanderPusher posted:

My ideal home isn’t a podpartment in a sea of highrises, it’s a townhome with a backyard big enough to comfortably grill in, a few blocks away from a trolley stop that’ll take me to work.

Philly has this in abundance.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2018 00:50

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Total Meatlove posted:

A wonderful example;

But my flowers

Roundabouts actually typically have better throughput than light controlled intersections. I'm not sure what benefit they're even hoping to achieve. The primary downside of roundabouts is that they take up significantly more space than a regular controlled intersection, but that's primarily an issue for demolishing existing structures or buying up land that was previously owned/occupied to expand it. If it's already in place than you're probably not going to see much, if any improvement.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2018 23:12

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Cugel the Clever posted:

From a month ago, but I was too lazy to post it: Minneapolis, Tackling Housing Crisis and Inequity, Votes to End Single-Family Zoning

Basically, in addition to upzoning along major transit routes, the Council has enabled triplexes across the city. This hopefully means that we'll see more duplexes and triplexes going up (or into newly-renovated homes)—as opposed to the single-family homes (often McMansions) that were the only things allowed previously.

It's not the answer to the problem of affordability, but it's an important piece of the puzzle. Unmentioned in the article are the less contentious portions of the plan that outline direct investment in affordable housing, modes of transportation beyond just cars, and more.

I was on another forum talking about this and boy the dog whistles were flying fast and loose here's a couple of choice examples:

quote:

No one was ever stopping that. They want to go into good, family neighorhoods and convert single family homes into triplexes they can rent out to mulitple families on sec 8 assistance.

Explain to me how that is good for those neighorhoods.

quote:

Families have chosen to live in family-centric neighborhoods since the beginning of family's. Not sure how this negatively affects you, or why you feel so strongly that others should have to change the way they live, to suit you?

There are plenty of areas in Mpls with density, public transportation & the East coast wanna-be vibe you like. The traditional model has been for singles to live in those types of areas, but priorities often change when a person starts a family. Many (most?) don't want their children being raised in this kind of density, with bars, drugs, low income people & the issues that come with all of that.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2019 04:24

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Keep in mind that Germany was pretty much totally destroyed following WW2, so had the opportunity to rebuild in the era of the automobile with automobile centric development just like the US, but they didn't. Same with Japan.

It's not even about when the growth/building happened. It's more about the policies that were in place when the growth happened.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2019 04:53

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Brutalism is loving awful.

Art Deco 4 ever.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2019 15:37

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

We're talking about putting up commercial space in the area around a transit stop (think like a strip mall centered around a train station) to get sales from people getting on or leaving a train at that station. The commercial space would have things like cafes, grocery stores, restaurants, clothing stores.

See this example in Japan.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ww3kfoXGc5DpXyv58

# ¿ Aug 29, 2019 16:04

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Ship of Theseus but in tax evasion form.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2019 20:29

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

The US needs building more dense by right.

Got an area zoned for single family homes, you're, by right, able to build triplexes. Got an area with triplexes? You can build mid rise towers. Got an area with mid rises? You can build high rises.

All by right, no vetos from the neighbors.

Massively reduce required set-backs and parking.

Invest in public housing (but public housing without the above will fail as well).

# ¿ Jan 31, 2020 14:00

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Still Dismal posted:

Property is capital. If you have a capital asset that's appreciating in value you should be taxed on it.

The problem isn't that housing is a commodity, so much is that it's an investment. The issue isn't that housing is something people buy and sell, but something that we've built our entire political economy around ensuring always goes up.

A lot of the psychotic NIMBY reaction to things like apartments are racism or classism, but a lot of it is also the fact that the people snarling at those meetings have invested their life savings in something whose value depends on it being scarce.

This isn't some fixed and intractable law of nature either, the fact that housing usually appreciates in value and the fact that people base their personal economic lives around that are both the result of conscious policy decisions.

I'd argue that a primary residence should not be taxed.

# ¿ May 2, 2020 13:06

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

MickeyFinn posted:

Please make the argument. Those properties use city services and should pay for them.

People on fixed incomes or even incomes that don't increase with the property prices in their neighborhood will get priced out by increasing property taxes.

The money should be raised through income taxes or taxes on commercial or non-primary residence property.

# ¿ May 2, 2020 15:01

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Badger of Basra posted:

Do you think there are no renters with fixed or low incomes

Exclude rental properties from property taxes insofar as the rental units are being used as people's primary residence. If 50% of the units are being used as primary residences then reduce the landlord's property tax on that property by 50%.

Make up the difference with higher income and commercial and non-primary residence property taxes.

# ¿ May 2, 2020 15:55

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

luxury handset posted:

localities can't collect income taxes

???

My city, Philadelphia, does. It also collects income taxes from people who live in the city, whether they work there or not (I work remotely and still pay income taxes). It also collects from those that go into the city to work but live outside of it.

This is a far more equitable system than a wealth tax on people's primary residence.

This is not some unheard of thing. DC and NYC do it too.

luxury handset posted:

there are way not enough commercial or second homes to tax to support local government

I'm sure it isn't, which is why municipal and county income taxes should be normal.

luxury handset posted:

in the united states, the primary use of property taxes is to fund education as primary education is entirely handled at the local level. inequitable distribution of residences and property taxes across jurisdictional lines is a strong, perhaps the strongest influence on racial segregation. while this scheme is really awful, it exists because there is no meaningful revenue sharing in the united states (generally, there are always exceptions) between state and sub-state aka local jurisdictions. so tampering with property taxes without some sort of magic scheme to enhance state level control of local decisions will, directly, make education even worse in the united states as poor jurisdictions would lose the ability to fund schools with no adequate compensatory measure in place

States should be providing the funding for schools, rather than localities. Local level funding, whether through property taxes or income taxes, for schools just leads to unequal opportunities for people who live in poorer communities.

luxury handset posted:

the problem with second homes is that they tend to be in nice, remote locations. so all these coastal or lake or mountain towns where people retire to would have a nice fat funding boost with nothing to spend it on really. this is more of that inequitable distribution thing

They are already taxed. I would envision income taxes and commercial/industrial property taxes providing the bulk of the funding rather than residential property taxes.

# ¿ May 2, 2020 22:13

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

https://twitter.com/aidan_smx/status/1406380826867245058?s=20

# ¿ Jun 22, 2021 01:15

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Are there any small towns in the US people can point to as exemplars for how to handle densifying and equitable housing?

# ¿ Jan 19, 2022 17:50

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

mystes posted:

Cool, send in lots of lions then

This, but with lions instead of bears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQRwzYpiU-0

# ¿ Feb 3, 2022 15:21

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Jaxyon posted:

Probably already posted somewhere in this thread, but here's some Youtube channels I've been enjoying on Urban Planning

Not Just Bikes:
https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes

Armchair Urbanist
https://www.youtube.com/@alanthefisher

City Nerd
https://www.youtube.com/@CityNerd

Added these to the OP

# ¿ Apr 23, 2023 23:12

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Added the additional couple of channels to the OP

# ¿ Apr 25, 2023 22:45

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Jasper Tin Neck posted:

Unfortunately there's a reason you rarely see residential conversion of industrial or commercial buildings built after the widespread adoption of electricity.

The reason is that before widespread adoption of electricity, factory machinery had to be organised around a driveshaft or belt system powered by a single steam engine or water wheel. All of these spaces also have to be lit by big windows because there was no other economical light source. This results in a multi-storey building plan with relatively shallow floor plans, which lends itself well to loft conversions.

Industrial architecture didn't immediately adapt to electricity but once industrial planners realised you could easily wire power to many (relatively) small machines instead of one big one, you start seeing the vast, windowless, single-floor production facilities we know today.

Similarly, offices and administrative buildings used to have much shallower floor plans, because how else would you have enough light to work? That changed with the widespread adoption of electric lighting, which ushered in the vast office halls we know and dread.

The specialisation afforded by electric power is the reason why most non-residential buildings built after 1950s are mostly incompatible with residential uses, at least without heavy demolition or allowing for windowless cubicle apartments.

You can probably do it, but as you said there are portions of the building that may not be acceptable as living spaces. Some of them could be converted to common areas, or you could have a core of commercial/office space in the center of a ring of residential floorspace. Though that creates its own issues as you would likely need to separate the elevators or street access to each.

There's also the problem of the per-foot valuation of residential properties being far lower than commercial making existing mortgages that might be in place for a property untenable. This may work itself out as commercial/office properties just generally getting devalued if they continue to have significant high vacancy rates.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2023 14:49

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Shrecknet posted:

We'd need to drastically reform every city but NYC to make them accessible from anywhere instead of car-focused/-required.

I think there's a few cities on the East Coast that could work with just some additional density and more mixed use planning. They already have sufficient public transit to work.

Boston, Philly, Baltimore (maybe, their transit is the weakest of this group), DC could probably all work.

Chicago is probably there now too, though I can't speak to how good their non-loop transit is.
Minneapolis is probably going to get there with their existing trajectory though they need better rail/brt connections to its own outlying cities and Chicago for you to be able to realistically go without having a car in the household.

Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jul 31, 2023

# ¿ Jul 31, 2023 16:29

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Kalit posted:

I feel like Minneapolis has been doing a fantastic job recently. We haven't had a city-wide average year-to-year rent increase of more than... I think over 4% the past 23 years? And most of the time it's been under 3%, with a couple years under 0%. And we're building more units in the metro than we have in the past 35+ years.

Unfortunately, you're correct about trying to go car-less for a household. I've lived here for 13 years without a car, but it'd be impossible if I had kids/pets or lived/worked more than a few miles away from downtown.

Yeah, I agree. They've made some really incredible changes to their zoning recently and probably have some of the best biking infrastructure in the country. They also have a reasonably well-developed BRT network that's actual BRT with dedicated lanes. This is unlike a lot of places which just slap "rapid" on a regular line. I think they have between 4-6 new BRT lines going up in the next few years too which should help in ton in connecting St. Paul and the other outlying communities to Minneapolis.

Rail would have better throughput and reliability than BRT I'm sure, but the latter can get up and running wayyyy faster with less red tape and has the existing rights of way through the highways.

If someone was a remote worker and could choose to move anywhere in the country Minneapolis would be in my top 3 list of suggestions to them.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2023 15:43

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

mobby_6kl posted:

Isn't it cold as gently caress though

I mean, I grew up in the Midwest, so maybe I'm more resistant. But I don't mind the cold at all.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2023 16:45

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

OddObserver posted:

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.

Speaking of the twin cities. City Nerd, everyone's super dry urban planning youtuber just put out a video on it today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leZ6vIpwSVA&t=710s

# ¿ Aug 2, 2023 18:34

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

If I could reliably pick up a car at a car share within a 5-10 minute walk from my house I'd sell my car in an instant. I only use it for grocery shopping and traveling to hike.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2023 18:22

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Battery powered personal vehicles are undoubtedly not ideal. Though clearly less bad for the global environment than gas ones even if worse locally near lithium mines. A lot of existing car infrastructure can be reworked for mass transit though. Existing roads can be used by buses. People complain about the wires for trolley buses and the noise and emissions of diesel buses. Battery or hybrid buses largely eliminate those concerns (though I would say complaints about trolley bus wires is just NIMBY bullshit, and they are way cheaper to operate long-term after the expense of the wires is recapitalized.)

Saying "no more roads ever" is dumb and as unrealistically counterproductive as saying "ev's will solve all and we need to change nothing." EVs, including personal, cargo, and mass transit will all be useful in combating climate change.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2023 18:00

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Baronash posted:

I'm curious if anyone has run across any research paper or study or comprehensive plan that actually sets out to examine what it would take to retrofit an existing suburb for usable transit and walkability? It's pretty easy to find articles that speak about it in broad terms, or bring up some example of a particular neighborhood within a town that is uncharacteristically walkable, but I'd love to see an actual A-Z plan for a specific town that goes over how it could be done.

Strong Towns goes around to advise places on how to improve the walkability/zoning/etc of places. They may have case studies on the site, or may be willing to provide some to you if you reach out to them.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2023 01:45

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

I like the look of the new 5 over 1 mixed-use stuff going up all over the place :shrug:

# ¿ Sep 1, 2023 21:38

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

I think part of the reason for the perception that older buildings are better made is that the older the building the more likely it is that only well built ones will have survived the present day. Selection bias means that most of the poo poo buildings from 40 years ago will have been demolished.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2023 00:20

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Also, you can still get decent density with single family homes if you do away with parking minimums and setbacks. I have a pretty typical rowhome in Philly. My street is .2 km long (about .12 of a mile or a 3 minute leisurely walk).

I have 32 lots per side on the street. Maybe 4-5 of which are vacant. That's 64 lots with both sides. If we assume 60 are in use and house an average of 2 people per home that's 120 people on that street, or about what you'd expect to live in a normal midrise apartment complex. This is a pretty normal density for my area.

I can walk 10 minutes and within that time reach a train station, two major bus lines, 2 grocery stores, doctor offices, dentists, corner stores, laundrymats, daycare centers, and bars, and restaurants.

There are also a few 3 over 1 apartment complexes going up within walking distance that will be adding more shopping to the area.

And this is with a majority of the people in the area living in single family homes, whether they rent or own them.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2023 20:03

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Cugel the Clever posted:

But, when all those residents drive down to the retail space at the base of their buildings, where will they park??

You see, the neat thing about Tokyo's land use especially is a lot of the train stations are built with retail on top. Little mini-malls that are super conveniently placed and which the (private) train operators can charge rent on (and get some pretty good rates too since there's huge traffic going to/from the station)

# ¿ Sep 21, 2023 02:18

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Kaal posted:

The biggest thing about ground floor apartments is the lack of privacy and the sense of insecurity. Having lived on what was effectively a ground floor (due to a hill our balcony was about five feet from a common pathway), it was always a bit weird to have people constantly walking past our windows and looking into our living space. We had to lock up our bikes when we stored them on the balcony, and when there was a fight outside one time, we felt particularly vulnerable. Adding tall fenced yards to the ground units can help with both issues, and create a real amenity for residents, but it has to be done correctly.

I think this is just because of the familiarity with living in single family homes with big setbacks. I've lived in several apartments which have no access restrictions (either ground floor access or you can just park and walk up to a second floor one even if you don't live there. I currently live in a rowhouse so someone could obviously peer into my windows if they wanted.

It's not an issue. And if you want some privacy, just close the blinds.

Total Meatlove posted:

Isn�t the answer to do reinforced parking structures under stores, with access ramps for loading and unloading, so that you can put PV/Wind on the large roof print and shade cars etc underneath for cooling?

At that point you�ve used as much steel as any parking structure on top of a store would take, but increased efficiency and power draw?

Requiring underground parking will just massively drive up construction costs. I mean sure, let people build underground parking lots if they need it, but honestly, requiring it just reinforces car dependency and drives up rents for retail or homes.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2023 15:30

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Fitzy Fitz posted:

These are really common in English rowhouses, but every one in the US has a parking lot instead. I don't think anyone here understands what separates an apartment from a townhouse. These don't exist anywhere here to my knowledge:

Rowhomes like that make up a majority or plurality of the housing stock in in Philly and Baltimore and (to a lesser extent) have a major presense in DC, NYC, and Boston.

Outside of that, there are certainly "townhomes" which fit the bill, but they are not very common, and they usually have to have large setbacks and a parking garage that they are built over due to local regulations.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2023 16:40

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 02:51

Nitrousoxide: May 30, 2011; do not buy a oneplus phone

Fitzy Fitz posted:

That is interesting. I assume it's mostly confined to that corner of the country? Maybe some around Chicago? And mostly pre-war?

Chicago has some too yeah. Philly and Baltimore are still building new ones, though not really in the pre-war style of course. Lots of remodels of the existing stock though. I can't really speak to DC/NYC/Boston.

Sometimes they are split up multiple units too depending on the size of the original building.

This is a pretty typical pre-war row home which was recently remodeled in Philly.
https://www.redfin.com/PA/Philadelphia/2129-Reed-St-19146/home/39006071

And more similar to the English row homes you were talking about.
https://www.redfin.com/PA/Philadelphia/226-W-Rittenhouse-St-19144/home/39395571

New construction will often look like this and be split into one or two units per floor depending on how they want to break up the floor space.

https://www.redfin.com/PA/Philadelphia/819-N-Uber-St-19130/unit-5/home/146488357

Though you can get it all to yourself if you really want (and can afford that)

https://www.redfin.com/PA/Philadelphia/194-W-Oxford-St-19122/home/184802529

# ¿ Sep 21, 2023 18:08

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Urban Planning Megathread - I'll NIMBY in your YIMBY

«‹›2 »