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I exaggerated a bit, but at least surface parking is not necessarily part of the urban landscape. [Both cities' garages aren't an obvious part of the landscape; they're rather hidden]. Neither city has much if any surface parking in its center, London a bit more so than New York and they clearly have "urban landscapes".
All I hear is snobbery for wall-to-wall buildings because of one's personal aesthetic preferences over someone else's property. My comment was directed to the nonsense espoused about how the "urban fabric" was "disrupted" by the absence of another 30 story building.
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I wasn't thinking of urbanlife78's remark.
well that's what I was responding to and your comment made no sense to me.
All I hear is snobbery for wall-to-wall buildings because of one's personal aesthetic preferences over someone else's property. My comment was directed to the nonsense espoused about how the "urban fabric" was "disrupted" by the absence of another 30 story building.
well that's what I was responding to and your comment made no sense to me.
You are aware that 2 story buildings are consider urban too when built wall to wall or close to wall to wall and to the sidewalk. Not everything that is considered urban is 30+ stories high.
That has nothing to do with your origional comment I quoted, however. Just because you won't be driving there doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Where you live, there's a good chance I'll never drive there, too.
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All I hear is snobbery for wall-to-wall buildings because of one's personal aesthetic preferences over someone else's property. My comment was directed to the nonsense espoused about how the "urban fabric" was "disrupted" by the absence of another 30 story building. .
No one else mentioned 30 story buildings besides you. They were an extreme alternative to parking lots. How about four story buildings instead:
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Originally Posted by nei
Wouldn't removing every other building in Manhattan count as "damage"?!
Interesting old buildings, people walking around. Besides some nice shops there are often events and it's good for people watching. I get a better sense of who's in the community by the people walking around. Most people who've visited me liked having a town nearby. Now imagine if half the buildings were gone and replaced by parking lots.
Maybe some people would prefer some of those 4 story buildings demolished for parking lots, doubt many would. Regardless, in general, those wall to wall building streetscapes get more people walking on them, giving a good hint.
There's an express bus route with 15min peak/30min off peak/weekend frequencies going on Fischer Hallman stopping and McGarry and Highland connecting to the University of Waterloo, Conestoga Mall and small shopping centres. Bus 25 on Queens Blvd is also 15min peak/30 min off peak (except 60min on Sunday) and connects to downtown Kitchener. In the case of the express bus, "peak" means 7am to 6pm and everything in between, so really most of the day, and for bus 25 it's for about 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon.
There's 3 other bus routes that are less frequent (30min peak/60min off peak I think) on Greenbrook, Highland and Westmount, these connect to the other main mall (Fairview Park), Wilfrid Laurier University plus additional connections to Downtown Kitchener and the University of Waterloo. All in all, I think it's pretty good for a suburban neighbourhood.
Wow, that is actually better than expected. So when is Canada planning on invading the US so we too can have sensible health care and excellent public transportation? For a suburban area, those times and bus routes are just unheard of in the US.
Wow, that is actually better than expected. So when is Canada planning on invading the US so we too can have sensible health care and excellent public transportation? For a suburban area, those times and bus routes are just unheard of in the US.
They're really not. Maybe not the norm. You should check more suburbs.
Ok maybe exagerrating, it does have a rather good selection of buses. But you can definitley find similar for not much difficulty.
They're really not. Maybe not the norm. You should check more suburbs.
Ok maybe exagerrating, it does have a rather good selection of buses. But you can definitley find similar for not much difficulty.
I meant it more in the sense of coverage and frequency. Often times bus lines in the suburbs are on a 30min to 1 hour service, and at most 15 minutes only during limited rush hour times.
I meant it more in the sense of coverage and frequency. Often times bus lines in the suburbs are on a 30min to 1 hour service, and at most 15 minutes only during limited rush hour times.
Maybe some people would prefer some of those 4 story buildings demolished for parking lots, doubt many would. Regardless, in general, those wall to wall building streetscapes get more people walking on them, giving a good hint.
I doubt it. If you actually look at that area, it's littered with parking lots. Me, I kind of like it. The fact that there's quite a lot of surface parking available doesn't really diminish its appeal to me at all. It's a nice little downtown area. The parking lots probably did a lot to save it. When you had a population shift out to the suburbs, you didn't need as many buildings downtown. You cull the herd of dilapidated buildings, concentrate what's left along Main Street. Rather than being half abandoned buildings depressing the entire area, you have parking lots. No one gets excited about parking lots, but most people prefer them to urban blight caused by excess unwanted building stock in an area which tends to snowball.
Now, if Northhampton grows, it's a parking lot. It's pretty easy to infill a parking lot... but let's face it, Northhampton has the same population it did 60 years ago, and I'm pretty sure it's seen some development of strip malls and subdivisions pulling population and customers outwards. And regardless of the plethora of parking lots in the area, it seems that for most real people, the urban fabric isn't destroyed. Given, most of them probably drove there and appreciate the convenience of all the parking. That doesn't mean they want to tear down some buildings on Main Street for another parking lot. But if you just removed all the parking, the area would most likely die as well. Parking is a necessity. In someplace like Northhampton that's predominantly so-called urban-destroying surface parking lots. And apparently there's enough people that are juts fine with surface parking lots, since it looks pretty busy to me. Although that's kind of luck of the draw, usually they do streetviews really early in the morning when there's no activity so it can be deceptive.
Another comparison is Emeryville versus the adjoining area of Oakland. Oakland kept the same zoning, stubbornly insisting that light industry was going to magically make a resurgence. Emeryville changed zoning, tore down abandoned buildings. They let the big box stores in and have oceans of parking. But they're also in a construction boom. Lots of new condos, major employers Pixar, IBM, biomed. Adjoining areas of Oakland? The only thing they've build there recently is housing projects. Lots of abandoned buildings, lots more that are still occupied but probably should be abandoned. It's not some urbanistas anti-car TOD. People that hate parking lots should look elsewhere, but it's a lot better than it was.
I doubt it. If you actually look at that area, it's littered with parking lots. Me, I kind of like it. The fact that there's quite a lot of surface parking available doesn't really diminish its appeal to me at all. It's a nice little downtown area. The parking lots probably did a lot to save it. When you had a population shift out to the suburbs, you didn't need as many buildings downtown. You cull the herd of dilapidated buildings, concentrate what's left along Main Street. Rather than being half abandoned buildings depressing the entire area, you have parking lots. No one gets excited about parking lots, but most people prefer them to urban blight caused by excess unwanted building stock in an area which tends to snowball.
Now, if Northhampton grows, it's a parking lot. It's pretty easy to infill a parking lot... but let's face it, Northhampton has the same population it did 60 years ago, and I'm pretty sure it's seen some development of strip malls and subdivisions pulling population and customers outwards. And regardless of the plethora of parking lots in the area, it seems that for most real people, the urban fabric isn't destroyed. Given, most of them probably drove there and appreciate the convenience of all the parking. That doesn't mean they want to tear down some buildings on Main Street for another parking lot. But if you just removed all the parking, the area would most likely die as well. Parking is a necessity. In someplace like Northhampton that's predominantly so-called urban-destroying surface parking lots. And apparently there's enough people that are juts fine with surface parking lots, since it looks pretty busy to me. Although that's kind of luck of the draw, usually they do streetviews really early in the morning when there's no activity so it can be deceptive.
Another comparison is Emeryville versus the adjoining area of Oakland. Oakland kept the same zoning, stubbornly insisting that light industry was going to magically make a resurgence. Emeryville changed zoning, tore down abandoned buildings. They let the big box stores in and have oceans of parking. But they're also in a construction boom. Lots of new condos, major employers Pixar, IBM, biomed. Adjoining areas of Oakland? The only thing they've build there recently is housing projects. Lots of abandoned buildings, lots more that are still occupied but probably should be abandoned. It's not some urbanistas anti-car TOD. People that hate parking lots should look elsewhere, but it's a lot better than it was.
A light industrial zone isn't the same thing as an urban downtown or urban neighborhood. It sounds like Emeryville rezoned a dead industrial area into a new urban area and it paid off for them.
I think I'll propose Patricius's law: "No matter what the original topic, the probability of a thread in the urban planning forum morphing into a debate about urbanity and the urban fabric increases exponentially with time".
...and they can't define "urban fabric", "walkable", very well.
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I can't speak for him, but I think all those laws should be repealed, along with laws mandating higher density and New Urbanist development patterns. To protect liberty and property rights in the sphere of urban planning, a general deregulation is required, which is quite different from the common urbanist program of keeping the regulatory apparatus but changing the regulations to suit their desires.
I don't have a problem with a few regulations.
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Urbanist libertarians do exist, believing that in the absence of restrictions market competition will gravitate towards NU developments. While I'm not one of them, I believe in the principle of "there's more than one way to skin a cat". New development can be regulated non-coercively by making any prospective buyers agree to XYZ before the owner lets them buy the property. This process is consensual with both parties agreeing to abide by it, as opposed to zoning which is imposed top-down on unwilling parties. Planned communities fit in well with this process, and it has the advantage of being independent of the politics of the day.
Well I cannot agree with you regarding the "planned communities" - which is what the NU seek to begin with. The planned communities are more often than not horrible places to live and always tend to come with involuntary membership in an HOA corporation along with perpetual assessments and liens that can never be paid off. Among other things there is no right to vote and the requirement to get "permission" from an "architectural committee". These are not models of democracy and there is no respect for individual rights. Imagine having to ask "permission" from some of the posters on this site and being denied because your request "disrupts the urban fabric". Yeah.
Also to suggest that "XYZ" is freedom of choice is folly. As a condition of approving the development to begin with, local government will have mandated various provisions appearing in XYZ that constitute restrictions local government cannot achieve constitutionally. Then local government says "it's a private contract" when it isn't and "hey you agreed to it" when your choice is not whether XYZ but which XYZ because of local government's control over the development process. The "master plan" for planned communities was to benefit the developer, local government and the HOA corporation vendors, never the homeowners.
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