Human-scaled cities - not too tall, not too short (suburbs, downtown, freeway)
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not too hot, not too cold. as goldilocks would say 'just right.'
suburbs are too short, skyscraper cities are too tall. when your buildings are all one or two stories, it creates endless autosprawl because you have to keep building ever outward. things are so far apart the only practical way to get around is by car...walking is not practical. things are so far apart that TOD is cost-prohibitive, so transit is minimal or non-existent. forcing every place of business to have its own industrial-size commercial parking lot. and every home its own personal 2 to 3 car garage, with a large driveway to accommodate several more cars on top of that...which could be called a residential parking lot. all these parking lots, residential and commercial, eats up more and more land which in turn creates more autosprawl. a vicious cycle that requires ever huge investments in roads and freeway expansion, sewer and water lines, power lines, cable lines, etc. and constant truckloads of taxpayer money to maintain it all.
skyscraper cities are at the other extreme. they are too tall. they create density at such an uncomfortably high level, with very tall faceless impersonal buildings that make you dizzy and nauseous to look up at them, that most people will want to flee for the suburbs to escape the overcrowded and often unbearable conditions that usually results from superdensity.
that to me is the fundamental problem with modern (as opposed to traditional) urban planning - cities tend to be one or the other, autosprawl city or skyscraper city. there's nothing in between. neither are on the human-scale, nor sustainable. and both ugly.
Good post... I've often said that many skyscrapers and skyscraper districts are just vertical suburbs
Without a doubt many "urban" highrise housing projects serve basically the same function as tract homes. People live in both and both are predominantly residential. The difference is footprint. The tract homes will take more space, but when done right it can be just as urban and walkable. "Urban" isn't just a look.
Back to the topic. I don't think I like the idea. It sounds great but it seems too purpose built. Call me weird but part of the appeal of many cities is that they look and feel different from others. If they were all built the same way, a huge part of that individualism would be lost. That's how I am though.
Good post... I've often said that many skyscrapers and skyscraper districts are just vertical suburbs
I don't get the fascination with skyscrapers and modernist buildings many seem to have. they're little more than tall vertical warehouses. with few exceptions, are strictly utilitarian in appearance and function. but when architects attempt to be clever or creative with them, it ends up looking like some sort of unidentified flying object crashlanded from outerspace.
Last edited by cisco kid; 10-13-2012 at 03:49 PM..
Without a doubt many "urban" highrise housing projects serve basically the same function as tract homes. People live in both and both are predominantly residential. The difference is footprint. The tract homes will take more space, but when done right it can be just as urban and walkable. "Urban" isn't just a look.
one of the fundamental problems of modern design, I believe, is the lack of aesthetics. when you abandon aesthetics, then anything goes. because now everything will be ugly and unpleasant to look at. that's why everybody stays indoors, safely cocooned and sealed inside of their homes (and their cars)from the outside world. who can blame them? no one wants to go outside of their house because the outside is too ugly to look at, and too unpleasant to be in. to borrow a term, there's no 'walk appeal.' don't underestimate the importance of beauty and aesthetics in urban design. people don't like to walk in ugly places.
Human scale would be something like a small village of mud or wooden huts, or perhaps log houses (depending on the climate). Anything higher than one story need not apply. Trying to claim that 2-3 stories is too short for "human scale" is just an attempt to appropriate the term "human scale" for the development you favor.
Human scale would be something like a small village of mud or wooden huts, or perhaps log houses (depending on the climate). Anything higher than one story need not apply. Trying to claim that 2-3 stories is too short for "human scale" is just an attempt to appropriate the term "human scale" for the development you favor.
traditional rural villages, hundreds of years old, are still standing and very common in throughout western (and eastern) european countries. but nobody would accuse them of being backwards. and there aren't many skyscrapers in the larger cities either. there are some suburbs, but little or no sprawl. this is where human-scaled, traditional urban design originated, and still exists.
I'm a native Californian. Born and raised in the suburbs of L.A., I later moved to San Diego where I commuted to San Francisco. I was born in the early 1950's, so I saw a lot of skyscrapers go up. As a kid, I recall when the L.A. City Hall was one of the most prominent structures on the skyline. I recently retired and moved to Asheville, NC. There's lots to like about Asheville, no the least of which is the Art Deco archetecture in the downtown. Instead of filing for bankruptcy following depression of 1929, the city opted to pay off it's obligations- a process that took 50 years. Investment in new construction all but ceased. The absence of building activity in Asheville had the effect of preserving several buildings from the wrecking ball, enabling many to survive today.
asheville looks like an amazing classic american town. I too grew up in the autosprawl strip-mall hell known as california, but later escaped and lived to tell about it. glad you were able to do the same. I hear the price for regular gas in the state now averages $4.80 per gallon.
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Link to Art Deco Downtown Archetecture
