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A surface lot in a downtown breaks up the urban fabric of a downtown. It is not the same as a parking lot in a low density suburb. Sorry you can't understand the difference.
But a surface lot and store in the residential neighborhood doesn't "break up the fabric" of the residential neighborhood? I think the problem is that you are not adequately describing a difference. Both have a parking lot. Both have sidewalks. In both cases you are apparently driving by or walking on the sidewalks past the parking lot. You aren't going to either parking lot, apparently. So you continue walking past the parking lot and on past the "non-parking lots" which are large buildings in your downtown example or residential homes in your other example. Either the parking lot "breaks up" both or neither. The only thing common in both examples is your opposition to including car accessibility in your "fabric". [anti-car]
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Do you even know what a downtown is and how it is suppose to function? If a downtown is nothing but a bunch of surface parking lots, is it still a downtown?
If a tree falls in the forest, does it still make a noise?
The Spokane example had a parking lot you complained about. There were plenty of blocks filled with buildings and yes it would still be a downtown. Please enlighten me on how a downtown is "supposed" to function. But I'm sure you will insist upon telling everyone else how their property needs to conform to your sense of form and aesthetics [control]
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When you put in parking lots, you break up the urban fabric of that area.
Change your viewpoint. Parking is part of the urban landscape and most of the time more of it is needed. [anti-car]
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Low density suburbs are much different, where a surface lot doesn't disrupt the urban fabric because there is none. Though if a parking lot is going to be used, then access and sidewalks need to be properly applied.
??? Frankly this sounds like snobbery and cherry picking what constitutes your "fabric". Per the examples you have given: If there are block-sized big buildings then a block-sized parking lot disrupts "the fabric", but if you have a residential neighborhood of homes a parking lot or store doesn't disrupt that pattern? I do not find either example "disruptive" per your definition but it seems to me that either i) neither are disruptive or ii) both are disruptive. The parking lot is just part of the "fabric" - and the owner of that property decides what goes there.
I'm going to paraphrase Escort Rider's response to another poster after modifying it for this case:
I find your notion of "disruptive" bizarre. I came to the conclusion that you consider 30+ story buildings packed together good per se and parking lots bad per se. Small houses don't count in your "fabric" claim because they aren't 30 story buildings. I would rhetorically ask how such ideological rigidity can take over a person's thinking except that there hasn't been anything rigid or consistent about your ideology only its effects. [control, elitism, anti-car]
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Funny that you are stuck on the parking lot when it really isn't the parking lot that is the issue, it is the placement of the sidewalks that make it easier for one to get around on foot without having to go all the way around like a car would.
All the way around where? The downtown block or "Village Road"? There are sidewalks in both cases. The walker must go "all the way around" just as a car would in both cases. In addition, the walker must go to the road intersection to cross and then back the other direction on the sidewalk on the other side to get to a mid-block location unless you promote jay-walking as part of your walkability strategy.
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Well I am sorry that you don't understand how photographs work, just because you don't see people out walking around in a photograph doesn't mean people don't. I tend to specialize in taking urban photos without people in them. One of my photos of an empty street in NYC doesn't mean the street is always empty, it just means I have good timing.
Google must have had great timing. It was a sunny day. People were active as evidenced by the cars at the store and the kid on the bike - yet no one was using the sidewalks street after street and block after block after block.
As for seeking "urban photos without people", it seems that you want them without people, parking lots, cars, or much of anything else except for wall-to-wall buildings.
Change your viewpoint. Parking is part of the urban landscape and most of the time more of it is needed. [anti-car]
Did you check my London link? There's almost no parking in the urban landscape. Ditto with my Manhattan photos (nearly, I posted a photo of a rare parking lot deliberatley) Certainly urban.
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As for seeking "urban photos without people", it seems that you want them without people, parking lots, cars, or much of anything else except for wall-to-wall buildings.
Without people? There's plenty of people in those images.
Did you check my London link? There's almost no parking in the urban landscape. Ditto with my Manhattan photos (nearly, I posted a photo of a rare parking lot deliberatley) Certainly urban.
Without people? There's plenty of people in those images.
It is as if he doesn't understand the concept of a parking garage. A downtown can have plenty of parking without parking lots.
Also, the photos without people is something I try to do with my photos because my photos aren't about people, they are about urban landscapes. Though it seems the concept of an artistic photo is lost in the sense that urban places do just fine and are often times very healthy active urban areas without parking lots.
Did you check my London link? There's almost no parking in the urban landscape. Ditto with my Manhattan photos (nearly, I posted a photo of a rare parking lot deliberatley) Certainly urban.
Without people? There's plenty of people in those images.
There is a difference between parking and parking lots. One takes place in a garage and the other requires lots of surface land for parking. Even many of the surface lots in Manhattan have cars stacked so that less space is needed for parking.
It is as if he doesn't understand the concept of a parking garage. A downtown can have plenty of parking without parking lots.
...and it can have a parking lot, hamburger joint, dry cleaner, convenience store, etc. which should be the decision of the owner of the property, not you.
You have not been able to define walkability - only to use it as an excuse to decry things that do not meet your aesthetic preferences. Whether a parking lot or a parking garage, you are on the sidewalk walking by.
As opposed to "disrupting" your "fabric", others walking might appreciate not having their view or sense of space obscured by the 30 story buildings they walk past. From the perspective of the walking pedestrian, the parking lot represents an open field of view as opposed to the narrowed, claustrophobic effects of an overshadowing encroachment from 30 story buildings. The decision as to what should go there is not yours in any event - it is the owner's choice.
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Also, the photos without people is something I try to do with my photos because my photos aren't about people, they are about urban landscapes. Though it seems the concept of an artistic photo is lost in the sense that urban places do just fine and are often times very healthy active urban areas without parking lots.
So how "healthy" and "active" are they without people?
Did you check my London link? There's almost no parking in the urban landscape. Ditto with my Manhattan photos (nearly, I posted a photo of a rare parking lot deliberatley) Certainly urban.
So? I won't be driving to London. All I see is consistency in promoting anti-car accessibility as part of "urban planning".
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Without people? There's plenty of people in those images.
You are commenting on my response to urbanlife78's remark that he/she specializes in taking pictures of urban areas without people. I guess urbanlife78 should avoid the urban areas in your pictures if he/she wants people-less images. I don't otherwise see what your point to me is.
There is a difference between parking and parking lots. One takes place in a garage and the other requires lots of surface land for parking. Even many of the surface lots in Manhattan have cars stacked so that less space is needed for parking.
The bigger difference is one costs about 40x, even more of subterranean, as much, but yeah. If you're someplace where the land is very valuable, like Manhattan or London, it makes more sense to maximize the surface land by putting the parking in a garage. Also Manhattan and inner London were built prior to the automobile, so the buildings were less likely to have been designed with a parking lot in mind. For both reasons you see very few parking lots.
In less dense areas, including highly urban ones, you see surface parking all over the place. Outside of the FD, San Francisco has quite a lot of surface parking.
The bigger difference is one costs about 40x, even more of subterranean, as much, but yeah. If you're someplace where the land is very valuable, like Manhattan or London, it makes more sense to maximize the surface land by putting the parking in a garage. Also Manhattan and inner London were built prior to the automobile, so the buildings were less likely to have been designed with a parking lot in mind. For both reasons you see very few parking lots.
In less dense areas, including highly urban ones, you see surface parking all over the place. Outside of the FD, San Francisco has quite a lot of surface parking.
Urban areas, and especially urban centers, land should be a higher value and there should be less ability for surface lots. Unfortunately most of the surface lots came about in a time in our country when we were bulldozing buildings to make way for the future, only to later regret many of those decisions.
SF is a good example in the sense that you can't find many surface lots in the financial district because the land value is too high for something like that. Even outside of downtown, you can find surface lots, but not to the extent of block after block dedicated to parking.
So? I won't be driving to London. All I see is consistency in promoting anti-car accessibility as part of "urban planning".
It doesn't matter where you personally drive to. You said:
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Originally Posted by IC_deLight
Change your viewpoint. Parking is part of the urban landscape and most of the time more of it is needed. [anti-car]
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".
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Originally Posted by IC_deLight
You are commenting on my response to urbanlife78's remark that he/she specializes in taking pictures of urban areas without people. I guess urbanlife78 should avoid the urban areas in your pictures if he/she wants people-less images. I don't otherwise see what your point to me is.
I wasn't thinking of urbanlife78's remark.
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