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Old 04-13-2010, 02:35 PM
 
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I think "well planned" is the key. Many suburbs have been very poorly designed, and, like west336 notes, aren't part of the bigger picture. I don't believe that it's fiscally or environmentally sound to let sprawl continue unchecked and unmanaged, but that doesn't mean that we all need to move into high rise apartments, either. I do think it's reasonable to expect that people should be able to get by with smaller lots, and that new developments can be built to make mass transit and walking more practical. I also believe we need to start actively working on building more density into already existing areas -- not in an across-the-board approach, but in targeted areas. Many neighborhoods in the city could add significant numbers of people without negative impact (and potentially with very many benefits), just as increased numbers of mixed-use developments or apartments can be added along new train or light rail lines. And suburbs themselves need to be more open to having a variety of housing types within their limits; some are, of course, but then you have others with highly restrictive zoning codes; those are some of the people I think west336 is talking about when he says "want to have their cake and eat it too." And frankly, I do think that some of that is immoral. The recent fight in Orono against the very small residential eating disorder clinic in an old school building comes to mind as an example of a moral issue in a suburb, and of a community willing to turn its back on both its own residents in need as well as larger society as a whole. (that said, I certainly don't think that what I consider immoral NIMBYism is found only in the suburbs. It's certainly alive and well in parts of Uptown.)
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Old 04-13-2010, 02:43 PM
 
Location: MN
3,971 posts, read 9,645,242 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flyingwriter View Post
I don't see why sprawl is so evil. Not everyone wants to live in super-dense big cities or in small towns - and so the suburbs are the perfect place for them. There are plenty of locally-owned businesses in the burbs, and as uptown_urbanist mentioned, Target IS local here. As far as the driving goes, there ARE mass transit options in the suburbs. The Twin Cities bus system goes all over the metro, the SW Transit buses cover the southwest burbs, and the Northstar rail line goes all the way out to Big Lake. The Twin Cities burbs are actually big on mass transit. This isn't Atlanta, where there is almost NO mass transit outside the central city.

The hatred for suburban development and sprawl crosses over into the irrational at times. It seems that many people see suburbanites as money-hungry, greedy, cultureless, wasteful pigs. I've even seen people claim that sprawl is immoral! Why? How does well-planned suburban growth like we have here in Minnesota hurt anybody?
There are some excellent books I'll refer to some of you in here. As a follower of the Urban Planning science, I have read thousands of pages on sprawl, and have heard cohesive arguments both for and against it.

Sprawl is bad development practices. Subdivisions within neighborhoods are gawdy and over the top. Some reasons why? Well, the kicker is the lay out. In the late 80s and early 90s, Developers started designing neighborhoods with a competitve advantage: Uniqueness. Street names changed to clever development names - ie: my hometown has an area where all the streets are named starting with a K.-Kailin Ave, Kendra Cirlce, etc. We also see the death of the gridded street system, and now neighborhoods were being built with curves, bends, cul-de-sacs...unncessecarily eating away valuable land. Streets were built almost TWICE as wide as earlier neighborhoods. Often up to 40 feet wide. They are designed to suite the automobile, not the person. Awkward lot designs to look 'unique' eats up land.

If you're in one of the burbs', just check it out. The roads are so wide that it's sad. There becomes a point when functionality and efficiency need to meet in the middle. Take a look at a CVS or a Fast food joint, chances are is that the building sits on a lot that over 50% of the land isn't used for anything. Developers will buy a 100,000 sq ft lot and build a 50,000 sq ft building.

The end result - commerce ready developments - such as new homes, businesses, strip malls etc are beneficial for our Consumer driven economy, but so many things are done wrong to get to that end result. The practice that is so wrong in reaching that end result is SPRAWL.

Smart Growth, Sustainable Development, and Planned Communities also achieve Economic Growth and Expansion, however the steps taken to achieve that is much less harmful on environment, wasteful of land and resources, and appealing to the eye.
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Old 04-13-2010, 03:34 PM
 
Location: Southern Minnesota
5,984 posts, read 13,373,691 times
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As I said earlier, not everyone wants to live in a concrete jungle. What you guys are suggesting is a concrete jungle. I like large lots, I like green space. I appreciate wide roads where I don't have to worry about hitting parked cars or pedestrians. Roads ARE for cars, not pedestrians or bikes. Sidewalks are for foot traffic, roads are for automobiles. I don't see the problem with high-volume, high-speed roadways. I like having parks and nature trails where I live, instead of having to drive (or take the bus or train) miles away to get to an area that still has some semblance of nature.

It seems like the "smart growth" "sustainable development" types want to see the death of the American suburb. They only want you to have two options: dense urban areas and rural countryside, with no middle ground. I think there are ways to make suburbs more environmentally efficient without forcing everyone to live in urban jungles or take a long commute from the country.
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Old 04-13-2010, 03:42 PM
 
4,176 posts, read 4,656,690 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flyingwriter View Post
I don't see why sprawl is so evil. Not everyone wants to live in super-dense big cities or in small towns - and so the suburbs are the perfect place for them. There are plenty of locally-owned businesses in the burbs, and as uptown_urbanist mentioned, Target IS local here.
Calling Target 'local' is stretching it. Their corporate headquarters are here, but their business model is anything but local. All their crap merchandise is made in China. But we don't need to rehash a tired, old debate.

Quote:
As far as the driving goes, there ARE mass transit options in the suburbs. The Twin Cities bus system goes all over the metro, the SW Transit buses cover the southwest burbs, and the Northstar rail line goes all the way out to Big Lake. The Twin Cities burbs are actually big on mass transit. This isn't Atlanta, where there is almost NO mass transit outside the central city.
Have you noticed that the proposed SW LRT line hasn't encountered nearly the kicking and screaming as the Hiawatha and Central Corridor lines have? I wonder, wonder, why that might be. Could it have anything to do with the clientele who might be served by such a service?

Quote:
The hatred for suburban development and sprawl crosses over into the irrational at times. It seems that many people see suburbanites as money-hungry, greedy, cultureless, wasteful pigs. I've even seen people claim that sprawl is immoral! Why? How does well-planned suburban growth like we have here in Minnesota hurt anybody?
I gotta take issue with this. We have horrendously unplanned suburban growth here. There is no natural geographical boundary to halt the sprawl, unlike most cities our size. We can just keep going forever. Taken to its logical extreme, if gas stayed cheap, one day Duluth and Rochester would be exurbs. St Cloud practically is.

I've got a friend who commutes daily from Big Lake to the Univ/280 area, just under 50 miles. Some winter nights when there's a snowstorm, after commuting three hours home, she wonders why she doesn't just bring a sleeping bag to work. Insanity.
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Old 04-13-2010, 04:22 PM
 
10,629 posts, read 26,662,877 times
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I, for one, wasn't talking about concrete jungles or thinking that everything has to be rural or big city. I don't think everything needs to be dense and built up, but there needs to be a movement away from the current sprawl that does cover much of the metro area. Low-density sprawl doesn't help preserve nature; many (including me) would argue that it hurts nature by spreading out at extremely low density levels and taking up land with large lawn-covered housing lots and excessively large (for most people) houses, and sprawling big box stores with huge surface parking lots.

People might LIKE large lots, but I think that in the modern United States we, as a society, have got to come together to acknowledge that just because someone wants something doesn't mean that they're always going to get it. Those large lots come at a high societal price. That doesn't mean everyone has to live in an apartment or start walking everywhere, but I think it's reasonable that we put our feet down and say "enough" with the new subdivisions. I think some level of options for type of housing and neighborhood is desirable, but I can't, no matter how hard I try to come up with one, come up with any positive to increased levels of sprawl. Even the idea that sprawl can create new jobs (through constant new construction, perhaps?) doesn't work, not to mention is (as been vividly demonstrated in recent years) a pyramid scheme of sorts that has crashed down around our heads.
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Old 04-13-2010, 05:32 PM
 
Location: Southern Minnesota
5,984 posts, read 13,373,691 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist View Post
I, for one, wasn't talking about concrete jungles or thinking that everything has to be rural or big city. I don't think everything needs to be dense and built up, but there needs to be a movement away from the current sprawl that does cover much of the metro area. Low-density sprawl doesn't help preserve nature; many (including me) would argue that it hurts nature by spreading out at extremely low density levels and taking up land with large lawn-covered housing lots and excessively large (for most people) houses, and sprawling big box stores with huge surface parking lots.

People might LIKE large lots, but I think that in the modern United States we, as a society, have got to come together to acknowledge that just because someone wants something doesn't mean that they're always going to get it. Those large lots come at a high societal price. That doesn't mean everyone has to live in an apartment or start walking everywhere, but I think it's reasonable that we put our feet down and say "enough" with the new subdivisions. I think some level of options for type of housing and neighborhood is desirable, but I can't, no matter how hard I try to come up with one, come up with any positive to increased levels of sprawl. Even the idea that sprawl can create new jobs (through constant new construction, perhaps?) doesn't work, not to mention is (as been vividly demonstrated in recent years) a pyramid scheme of sorts that has crashed down around our heads.
What would be your ideal development plan for the Metro? I know you don't like sprawl.

Also, what do you think of all the new (built since 2000) townhomes and cluster homes in places like Plymouth and Apple Valley? Are these as bad as traditional sprawl?
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Old 04-13-2010, 06:59 PM
 
Location: MN
3,971 posts, read 9,645,242 times
Reputation: 2148
Quote:
Originally Posted by flyingwriter View Post
As I said earlier, not everyone wants to live in a concrete jungle. What you guys are suggesting is a concrete jungle. I like large lots, I like green space. I appreciate wide roads where I don't have to worry about hitting parked cars or pedestrians. Roads ARE for cars, not pedestrians or bikes. Sidewalks are for foot traffic, roads are for automobiles. I don't see the problem with high-volume, high-speed roadways. I like having parks and nature trails where I live, instead of having to drive (or take the bus or train) miles away to get to an area that still has some semblance of nature.

It seems like the "smart growth" "sustainable development" types want to see the death of the American suburb. They only want you to have two options: dense urban areas and rural countryside, with no middle ground. I think there are ways to make suburbs more environmentally efficient without forcing everyone to live in urban jungles or take a long commute from the country.
No, I'm not.

You really don't know what sprawl is do you?

There are suburbs that HAVE done the right thing- Maple Grove, White Bear Lake, etc. in terms of a Planning Stand point.

I think you need to realize what sprawl is.

You're looking at a painting, but you're not looking at was used to create that painting, and that's what you need to do.

Yeah, suburbs are cute, they give you your space, and that's awesome, and I love suburbia. But there is just SO much bad that has to do with them and the development standards used in creating them.

You have no idea what you're talking about. A 25 ft road is EASY to navigate, as most city streets are less than 20 ft wide. TONS of Space. But then you look at a subdivision and the streets are 40 feet wide!!! 40 feet! 40 doggone feet wide!

Are you crazy? People in the suburbs don't park on the streets. That's why they build their 3 car garages, and have giant driveways set back 100 feet from the street. There is no need for a 40 foot wide road.

Your very last sentence I quoted is EXACTLY what Sustainable Development and Smart Growth does.
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Old 04-13-2010, 07:02 PM
 
Location: MN
3,971 posts, read 9,645,242 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flyingwriter View Post
What would be your ideal development plan for the Metro? I know you don't like sprawl.

Also, what do you think of all the new (built since 2000) townhomes and cluster homes in places like Plymouth and Apple Valley? Are these as bad as traditional sprawl?
Not really in terms of land use, but in terms of overall planning, ya townhome developments are a total mess.
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Old 04-13-2010, 07:20 PM
 
Location: Southern Minnesota
5,984 posts, read 13,373,691 times
Reputation: 3365
Quote:
Originally Posted by knke0204 View Post
No, I'm not.

You really don't know what sprawl is do you?
I have always heard that low-density suburban development = sprawl. Subdivisions, big box stores, etc.

Quote:
There are suburbs that HAVE done the right thing- Maple Grove, White Bear Lake, etc. in terms of a Planning Stand point.
OK. Those are nice suburban areas. However, how is Maple Grove any different than Plymouth or Chanhassen? Is it just the Arbor Lakes pedestrian mall thing?

Quote:
I think you need to realize what sprawl is.

You're looking at a painting, but you're not looking at was used to create that painting, and that's what you need to do.

Yeah, suburbs are cute, they give you your space, and that's awesome, and I love suburbia. But there is just SO much bad that has to do with them and the development standards used in creating them.
OK

Quote:
You have no idea what you're talking about. A 25 ft road is EASY to navigate, as most city streets are less than 20 ft wide. TONS of Space. But then you look at a subdivision and the streets are 40 feet wide!!! 40 feet! 40 doggone feet wide!

Are you crazy? People in the suburbs don't park on the streets. That's why they build their 3 car garages, and have giant driveways set back 100 feet from the street. There is no need for a 40 foot wide road.
Residents might not park on the streets, but if people come to visit or residents have parties or painters/work vehicles over, then they can and will park on the streets. The extra space helps. How does a wide street impact the environment anyway, besides taking up space?

Quote:
Your very last sentence I quoted is EXACTLY what Sustainable Development and Smart Growth does.
I have always heard smart growth proponents stress density. Density, infill, and walkability. Is that not the case?
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Old 04-13-2010, 07:46 PM
 
Location: Cleveland bound with MPLS in the rear-view
5,509 posts, read 11,838,664 times
Reputation: 2501
Maple Grove's "master plan" so far isn't looking good at all, and Arbor Lakes has got to be one of the worst new urbanism concepts I've ever seen. One thing I give the West some credit for is that they plan suburban sprawl a lot more efficiently than they do in other regions of the country, maybe because of geographical restrictions, I don't know. One new urbanist concept I do agree with (to some extent) that is local is Centennial Lakes in Edina. It doesn't try to be urban, yet it combines density well with suburban zoning concepts.
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