What do you think would improve Chicago? (Joliet, Skokie: crime, credit)

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by NYrules

Don't believe me? Play the game SimCity sometime. It's funny, even though it is just a game, you can learn so much playing that thing. Pretty much everything you can imagine for a city going through it's lifecycle will happen in that game. If you crowd up an area too much, its property values go down. To high of taxes, people go bankrupt and abandon their homes. If you put stuff where it doesn't belong it goes under. Not enough roads, the Sims move away. No jobs, the Sims leave, too much industry creates pollution so the Sims leave, etc. Its funny, but at the same time, very informational. I think every politician should play that game because he/she can learn alot.

Well, except that a few of these ideas in Sim City are wrong.

1. The dense parts of the city often have the HIGHEST property values, not the lowest. With the exception of Edgewater, the densest neighborhoods in Chicago have higher property values per square foot than even the fanciest North Shore suburb.

2. Sukwoo hit the nail on the head (I'd give her more rep if the site would let me). Automobile centered suburbs actually GENERATE traffic. Urban Planners have a whole new theory based on this traffic generation principal. Oak Park had very quiet streets because it isn't that convenient to drive everywhere. Newer suburbs don't offer any other choice.

[via chicago]

Originally Posted by NYrules

That is the case to an extent about the roads, but when you have an area such as Orland Park who made the mistake of building EVERYTHING in the town around the car, now what? Leave all the roads little dinky 2 laners? Guess what? The town tried that in the 80s and guess what happened. GRID LOCK everywhere formed in town to the point that many people fled the town for greener pastures so to say. People did their shopping elsewhere. People began to say things like, "I will avoid La Grange Road at all costs!". (That's not good, that is where the town's shopping is)

When the town's old mayor Frederick T Owens died off in about 1995, Dan Mc Laughlin stepped in and said, "enough is enough" and has been steadily improving road's capacities by widening many of the intersections in town to get things moving again. Guess what happened? Traffic has once again started moving and guess what else has begun happening. Higher end restaurants began moving in, higher end stores, and in the mid 90's much wealthier people began building off in the town's western sections, not mention all the new shoppers and diners coming in to spend their money! Today the town is progressing nicely, property values are going up still even with the bad market, and the town is actually becoming a mecca for the south side. Taxes in the town are flowing in so nicely at this point through retail that the city is able to give all of it's residents their village paid portion of property taxes back in March, so that is a good thing. Had the town said, "to bad, we're leaving the roads the way they are, get out and walk", guess what would have happened? Residents would have said, "I'll get out alright", (up goes the for sale sign) only to never return. Stores go under as people would have fled for more modern areas to shop, unemployment for the area goes up, tax revenue goes down which leads to higher taxes for residents, which leads to more flight from the town leaving you with Cal City or Harvey eventually.

Don't believe me? Play the game SimCity sometime. It's funny, even though it is just a game, you can learn so much playing that thing. Pretty much everything you can imagine for a city going through it's lifecycle will happen in that game. If you crowd up an area too much, its property values go down. To high of taxes, people go bankrupt and abandon their homes. If you put stuff where it doesn't belong it goes under. Not enough roads, the Sims move away. No jobs, the Sims leave, too much industry creates pollution so the Sims leave, etc. Its funny, but at the same time, very informational. I think every politician should play that game because he/she can learn alot.

More roads are not the answer. They are a short term solution. As long as people rely on single occupancy vehicles as their primary form of transportation, there will be gridlock. Period. Sure, you could turn LaGrange Road into a 15 lane highway, but at some point you have to evaluate what you are doing to the quality of life in a given town.

On the other hand, if developers get it together and realize the solution lies in creating dense, walkable communities from the start, many of these problems will be avoided. The key is giving people options. If you have to drive 3 blocks to get a gallon of milk because there are no sidewalks and all retail is located in stripmalls off of feeder streets, then something is fundamentally wrong.

[NYrules]

Originally Posted by via chicago

More roads are not the answer. They are a short term solution. As long as people rely on single occupancy vehicles as their primary form of transportation, there will be gridlock. Period. Sure, you could turn LaGrange Road into a 15 lane highway, but at some point you have to evaluate what you are doing to the quality of life in a given town.

On the other hand, if developers get it together and realize the solution lies in creating dense, walkable communities from the start, many of these problems will be avoided. The key is giving people options. If you have to drive 3 blocks to get a gallon of milk because there are no sidewalks and all retail is located in stripmalls off of clusterf*ck feeder streets, then something is fundamentally wrong.

Ok so what is the solution when a town builds everything geared for the car in the 1970s? Now what? Tear everything down and start all over, or just widen the roads? I know what I would choose if I were in office.

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by NYrules

Ok so what is the solution when a town builds everything geared for the car in the 1970s? Now what? Tear everything down and start all over, or just widen the roads? I know what I would choose if I were in office.

The solution is to abandon the town and move back to the city. In all seriousness, a lot of these suburbs have paved themselves into a corner due to lack of foresight. There are no good solutions when the built environment is already so screwed up. I suppose $10/gal gas will decrease congestion eventually.

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

2. Sukwoo hit the nail on the head (I'd give her more rep if the site would let me). Automobile centered suburbs actually GENERATE traffic. Urban Planners have a whole new theory based on this traffic generation principal. Oak Park had very quiet streets because it isn't that convenient to drive everywhere. Newer suburbs don't offer any other choice.

Actually, I'm a dude, but thanks for the complement. I'd give you more rep too if I could.

I just find this discussion fascinating. Its actually distracting me from my real work today. I guess I'm just a wanna be urban planner.

[neonwattagelimit]

Speaking as someone who has played a hell of a lot of Sim City in his lifetime, dense properties often have very high land values. I haven't played in awhile (the last version I played regularly was 3000), but typically in my cities the areas with the highest land values were also the densest. I think it all kind of depended on how you build the city....kind of like real cities.

In any case, in the real world, more roads lead to more traffic (this actually happens in Sim City, too, man I wanna play that game now). This may seem counterintuitive, but it is a fact, proven by countless studies. You build a road, and cars just show up on it. You widen a road, more people use it. That's how it works, and the only answer is better public transit, everywhere.

That's not to say that we should evacuate the suburbs, or that it would be possible to do so. But we do need to enhance cross-regional public transit in large metros and encourage suburbs to do more building up, instead of out.

[supernerdgirl]

Originally Posted by neonwattagelimit

Speaking as someone who has played a hell of a lot of Sim City in his lifetime,

ahahahahahaha oh god i can't believe the discussion has come to this.

[rgb123]

Originally Posted by sukwoo

The solution is to abandon the town and move back to the city. In all seriousness, a lot of these suburbs have paved themselves into a corner due to lack of foresight. There are no good solutions when the built environment is already so screwed up. I suppose $10/gal gas will decrease congestion eventually.

in all seriousness then, what would really improve the city was then if all the jobs were also in the city. Because if I moved to the city, I'd be paying a lot more to get to my job in gas than I do living in the suburbs.

As if congestion wasn't bad enough, you would have everyone trying to go to exactly the same place.

The problem is the transit, not going where everyone needs to go, now.

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by rgb123

in all seriousness then, what would really improve the city was then if all the jobs were also in the city. Because if I moved to the city, I'd be paying a lot more to get to my job in gas than I do living in the suburbs.

As if congestion wasn't bad enough, you would have everyone trying to go to exactly the same place.

The problem is the transit, not going where everyone needs to go, now.

I think that over time, you'll see a gradual migration of businesses towards more transit-friendly locations, including, but not limited to the Loop. To a limited extent this is happening already. Won't happen overnight obviously.

[Lookout Kid]

I wouldn't accpet a job that wasn't off of public transit. Of course that's easy to say in a still reasonably decent economy!