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If you could tear down any city or town or find a new undeveloped location, how would you build that town and what would you put in it?
One house - mine. It would be a rather large house with lots of amenities. Over time I'd just have a system of trails to navigate by foot/bike, and road going towards surrounding shopping areas and towards highways. I'd just go out of town to shop.
I use Manhattan as my model for a big city, having visited the place.
That being said, I think that the downtown of Bellevue, Washington is about as small as you can get and still have that big city feel. Or to put it another way, a taste of the big city, without being overwhelming.
(Downtown Seattle is bigger, but I never fell completely comfortable there).
Downtown Bellevue has some buildings that could be described as high rises, and some hustle and bustle.
I would surround a comparable downtown with urban neighborhoods, built on a human scale. Expanding the urban core. And I understand that such neighborhoods help keep downtown from turning into a ghost town after business hours.
Last edited by Tim Randal Walker; 07-07-2017 at 10:25 PM..
Easy - ignore how we've built cities post WWII as the development pattern is proving financially unsustainable and instead, build using the traditional development pattern established during 1,000 of years of city building prior to WWII.
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Grandiose dreaming into real digital graphics of Sim City 3000 Unlimited, or Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition. Users of this computer video game software is able to create entire cities, towns from the absolute beginning. Gaining deep aptitude of Urban Planning, or Architecture.
Start out low density naturally, then increasing these building blocks past medium later on into extremely dense. Members of the administrative area requires Commercial Office, or Industrial types of paid work opportunity. Rising the supply desirability cycles of Residential. Particular services of educational facilities, colleges, hospitals, police to fire stations, including especially public transportation modes after roads. Architecture rising up fast enough.
Quick Tutorial Understanding Simulation Reflection Overview.
Independent Business Stores or Corporations giant behemoths with adequate avoidance of chains is undeniably crucial.
Phoenix is in a good location in the desert because of it's aquifer. But it was a much needed agricultural valley that was lost to sprawl and now we have agriculture in less sustainable areas.
For Phoenix, I would eliminate Sky Harbor and put it elsewhere. Being where it is (due West of Downtown a few miles) puts limits on the height of the skyline as it interferes with the flight paths. I most likely would've moved the airport to the Southeast of Downtown and further out (maybe around Goodyear or Tolleson). It would still run next to the I-10, but not interfere with the development of Downtown. It would also follow along a heavy rail path, and with the width of the I-10 in it's current state, could lead to a light-rail expansion that takes up the median of the I-10 that would serve the airport and the neighborhoods in between. Some have discussed removing Sky Harbor and moving the new airport to Maricopa, Arizona, but this might be too far and it would encourage more development for transit through the Gila River reservation which in my eyes, is a no no. If an airport was to be that far, it should be near Casa Grande/Eloy and serve both Phoenix and Tucson equally.
With the mass of Sky Harbor being replaced, I'd assume the light rail through there connecting downtown Phoenix and Tempe would still exist. I would build up this area with higher density townhouses or a row house style. This area would be in the center of many key employment areas of Phoenix (Downtown/Uptown, Tempe, Old Town Scottsdale, Biltmore, etc.) while having plenty of freeway structure to get to other areas of town. It is also near many cultural amenities (like Papago Park and the zoo, beautiful views from rooftops (see google map links). Heavy rail also exists due south, which may bring the promise of commuter rail in the future for this area of town.
Note that developing this specific boundary where Sky Harbor once was would encourage development west towards Downtown like in the Garfield Historic District and Nuestro Barrio (which is mostly empty lots now) and southeast towards ASU. Within this quadrant there is the dry Salt River bed, which I would try to extend from Tempe Town Lake (the same river, but filled with water in Tempe). Along the Salt River bed of this quadrant (by the 143 and I-10) I would encourage a walkable mixed use development area with maybe one car bridge and one walking/public transit bridge, and encourage activities such as kayaking in the river bed. This will attract higher income residents like what is happening in north Tempe currently.
I would enforce water restrictions on sprawl. Arizona currently has a policy in select metros (Phoenix and Tucson only, 80% of the state's population) that new subdivisions must show 100 years of sustainable water before being developed. This is being skipped over in favor of economic development due to the game of politics. In Phoenix also in particular, outside of Glendale, Phoenix, Tempe, and Scottsdale are first to get water cut off. I'd create a policy lining out much more stringent water usage policies for developments in the other suburbs (like Peoria and Gilbert) that would favor A) xeriscaping/no golf courses with lakes/etc. B) community pools/parks, C) minimal amount of bathrooms for a household (say 2.5 in a 4 bedroom house rather than a bathroom for every bedroom). This would favor higher density with close access to the community pool and with a lack of garage space most likely (due to higher density) would favor less car ownership and more reliance on public transit.
I'd implement a growth boundary like what Portland has. I'd put it around currently developed areas. Due to the vast swath of land Phoenix already covers, it shouldn't need to grow for some time. Outside of the growth boundary would be agriculture and public land only. In the growth boundary I would encourage heavier density and reduce stringent zoning laws approving more mixed use development particularly near core arteries (like Camelback, Scottsdale, Shea).
Obviously if I had the ability to start from scratch for Phoenix I would have focused more on stringency for water usage (less golf courses, irrigated yards which are aplenty in old neighborhoods) and reduced the amount of hubs in hopes to develop Downtown's skyline more significantly.
But in my humble opinion, Tucson would be an even better location for implementing the higher density desert city I would want, because Tucson is much more constricted geographically and also wouldn't interfere with agriculture.
id have these bunches of buildings around the city.
a bunch of elevated rail and some streets that cut through the grid like this
still dont have a good 3d pic
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