They paved over paradise, put up a giant turd (freeway, major, development)

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

The buses throughout Grand Canyon NP and also Acadia NP were great, and I'm pretty sure they ran on CNG (no diesel fumes, less noise).

Less congestion, less emissions than everyone driving from point to point in a car. Less need for parking right AT the scenic spots. It's a must for these crowded areas.

[eschaton]

Looking at satelite views of Honolulu, the residential areas are pretty universally single-family housing, but as I said previously, they are built on a grid, with lots so small they lack anything resembling a real front or backyard.

The main problem, in terms of density, is similar to California cities, most houses are one (or at best, 1.5) stories. Thus the easy way to fix this is to rezone the closer in residential areas for multi-story flats, similar to New England triple-deckers. Large scale application could raise the density 2-3 times, without any need for outright demolition of existing single-family housing.

[MIKEETC]

Originally Posted by cisco kid

A better idea would be mixed-use and new urban type development. That's the obvious alternative, not no development at all. But obviously, the closed-minded rigid corporate mentality can't or won't think in terms of anything but parking lots and eight lane freeways. May be hard for you to imagine, but there is more than one kind of development. And there is a better way to develop.

You would still have a concrete jungle. Sometimes the solution is not to develop.

[but then no money would be made]

[ogre]

Originally Posted by nei

And congestion, especially congestion per driver tells little about sprawl. London and Paris have horrible traffic congestion but they're definitely not sprawling. There's plenty of transit, though.

I would think that each city would present its own situation. A city's distribution of employment centers, large entertainment venues, etc., would affect traffic patterns, and this would have more of an effect on congestion than just a simple question of whether the city's general layout was sprawling or compact and dense. Living in the Boston area, I see Boston as an extreme case of the old Northeastern cities and their tendency to have smaller areas than Sun Belt cities of similar population, and to have the amenities and major economic activity concentrated heavily in the city center. At a glance it seems to me that this layout makes serious traffic congestion more likely. It's great for walking around once you're in the city, and cities like this are ideal for public transit, but if you drive to the city, you're likely to encounter serious traffic congestion, because all those cars all those people from all over are driving into the city are converging on one little central area. In the case of Boston it doesn't help that the streets in some sections of the central city are literally paved over footpaths.

Sprawling cities, on the other hand, may have the potential to have less traffic congestion. In theory, if the economic activity and city attractions were evenly distributed, this would lead to low traffic congestion, with the cars also distributed around the city instead of packing into a few small high-traffic areas. On the other hand, sprawling cities may have more total vehicular traffic on the streets, as these cities often have less extensive public transit than densely built, centrally concentrated older cities.

Which means you really can't say that any city type generally is the worst for traffic congestion. You have to consider the details of each city individually.

[cisco kid]

The only thing worse than a parking lot is a golf course. Hawaii now has the distinction of being the capital of the world for most extinct and endangered plant and animal species per square mile, according to the Hawaii Biological Survey. Thanks to years of reckless development patterns, industrial farming, golf courses, etc.

Hawaii's Endangered and Threatened Species

"That is the epicenter of extinctions and near-extinctions," said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which helped produce the study."Hawaii is (a) borderline ecological disaster."

Nearly All Native Hawaiian Birds At Risk Of Extinction: Report (2009)

Joni Mitchell's old song was quite prophetic.

[cisco kid]

Originally Posted by MIKEETC

You would still have a concrete jungle. Sometimes the solution is not to develop.

[but then no money would be made]

Maybe but the concrete jungle would be denser and more compact. The idea is minimizing the human footprint. The human population is already established there so you can't get rid of it. But you can attempt to minimize the human impact on the land. There doesn't seem to be any effort to do that and its probably too late. Hawaii is firmly in the deathgrip of commercial developers and their one-track mind running everything. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

[Ohiogirl81]

Originally Posted by cisco kid

The only thing worse than a parking lot is a golf course. Hawaii now has the distinction of being the capital of the world for most extinct and endangered plant and animal species

Cause and effect? Golf courses cause species extinction?

Keep grasping.

[darkeconomist]

Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81

Cause and effect? Golf courses cause species extinction?

Keep grasping.

I think he implied a leap of logic, and you only reinforced it. More likely, he meant human action on the islands are causing extinctions.

[MIKEETC]

Originally Posted by cisco kid

Maybe but the concrete jungle would be denser and more compact. The idea is minimizing the human footprint. The human population is already established there so you can't get rid of it. But you can attempt to minimize the human impact on the land. There doesn't seem to be any effort to do that and its probably too late. Hawaii is firmly in the deathgrip of commercial developers and their one-track mind running everything. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

This won't solve the problem because the population is constantly increasing and, therefore, the human footprint is increasing. You can go vertical, dense, and compact all you want but at some point an upper limit that is comfortably acceptable to most people will be reached and development will move outward from the 'core' - that is inevitable as population continues to grow.

A good example of this is Hong Kong. HK is vertical, dense, and compact. Perhaps in the beginning with a few buildings it was great but as the population grew, so did the demand for residential and commercial development. And so it naturally went horizontal albeit with a lot of vertical development. At the end of the day, it's still being developed. -it is wall-to-wall buildings on the island now.

The solutions, which are not going to be acceptable to a lot of people, is a moratorium on land development (which will control urban growth) and a limit on migration to the island (which will control population growth because the alternative such as mandatory limits on births is even more unacceptable).

[but like I said, it ain't gonna happen]

[nei]

Originally Posted by MIKEETC

This won't solve the problem because the population is constantly increasing and, therefore, the human footprint is increasing. You can go vertical, dense, and compact all you want but at some point an upper limit that is comfortably acceptable to most people will be reached and development will move outward from the 'core' - that is inevitable as population continues to grow.

Either way, a more compact city = less developed land. Sure it will move growth will move outward, but the total developed area will be less.

Hong Kong has a lot of undeveloped land with in the city limits.