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cities don't get built from scratch and they don't get built in a vacuum. Grand, centrally planned cities only work if you've got centrally planned economies and can dictate who moves when and why. Otherwise, cities should start small and grow intelligently.
Your design seems to be geared towards getting lots of people to a central business district. I'm not sure that's the model appropriate for a brand new city. I suspect most new cities are in the developing world, where needs may be quite different. You also seem to be assuming a mostly featureless geography. If you're designing a city, you first have to ask why people are moving there, then take stock of the geography, climate, and the transit technology.
cities don't get built from scratch and they don't get built in a vacuum. Grand, centrally planned cities only work if you've got centrally planned economies and can dictate who moves when and why. Otherwise, cities should start small and grow intelligently.
Your design seems to be geared towards getting lots of people to a central business district. I'm not sure that's the model appropriate for a brand new city. I suspect most new cities are in the developing world, where needs may be quite different. You also seem to be assuming a mostly featureless geography. If you're designing a city, you first have to ask why people are moving there, then take stock of the geography, climate, and the transit technology.
cities don't get built from scratch and they don't get built in a vacuum. Grand, centrally planned cities only work if you've got centrally planned economies and can dictate who moves when and why. Otherwise, cities should start small and grow intelligently.
Your design seems to be geared towards getting lots of people to a central business district. I'm not sure that's the model appropriate for a brand new city. I suspect most new cities are in the developing world, where needs may be quite different. You also seem to be assuming a mostly featureless geography. If you're designing a city, you first have to ask why people are moving there, then take stock of the geography, climate, and the transit technology.
This is pretty much spot on. The "central business district" model is based on the assumption that all economic activity takes place within an office building and within a single focused area. This only supports certain economies, but not all. Furthermore, having a single central business district often results in very high prices for retail/office real estate spaces which prevents mid-sized or small business owners from having a place to establish themselves. Because of this, smaller businesses require cheaper spaces to grow which often is at the outskirts of a city (or at least not within the central business district). Therefore, transit should not be focused only on a central node but in fact be multi-nodal (i.e. a web of transit lines). This obviously makes traffic more complicated, but that's just a fact of life that we have to live with.
As has been mentioned, the basic model is flawed. Having housing separate from business makes for traffic jams and the need for transportation which then results in traffic, traffic jams, pollution, etc. Inter-space the business district with housing areas, have most of the area be mixed us and not separate housing/business areas. Then folks won't have to travel as much.
Take your basic family and their basic needs. Figure a couple of parental units will need employment or some way to bring in income. The offspring will most likely go off to a school of some sort. Things are changing, but that's a fairly basic model. They will need to bring in food to their house, maybe have a pet, have access to a park or outdoors, walk in the park or get some sort of outside exercise would be good for them, they'll want entertainment. Start with a clump of single family houses, maybe two blocks long and two blocks wide. Sandwich that in with a block of denser houses on either side, then put a block of light mixed use commercial. Shops and offices. That will provide employment for the people in the houses as well as provide them with food and services. Your public transport will run along the commercial street.
At some areas, you'll probably need a bit of heavy industry, if you have rail or a river, it might be nice to site it there since those are both very economical methods of transport.
You can put at least a small park about every four blocks, a large house at the end of every other single family residences blocks.
Look at your geographical features when planning your town. Is there a lake? Mountain? Any geographical feature folks will want to spend time in? A forest with trails? Have that within easy reach of the town.
The overall plan should be that each house can reach about 80% or more of everything they need within four blocks of their house. This will create an imminently walkable environment. Saves on transportation time, creates community, gives them a much better quality of life.
As has been mentioned, the basic model is flawed. Having housing separate from business makes for traffic jams and the need for transportation which then results in traffic, traffic jams, pollution, etc. Inter-space the business district with housing areas, have most of the area be mixed us and not separate housing/business areas. Then folks won't have to travel as much.
Take your basic family and their basic needs. Figure a couple of parental units will need employment or some way to bring in income. The offspring will most likely go off to a school of some sort. Things are changing, but that's a fairly basic model. They will need to bring in food to their house, maybe have a pet, have access to a park or outdoors, walk in the park or get some sort of outside exercise would be good for them, they'll want entertainment. Start with a clump of single family houses, maybe two blocks long and two blocks wide. Sandwich that in with a block of denser houses on either side, then put a block of light mixed use commercial. Shops and offices. That will provide employment for the people in the houses as well as provide them with food and services. Your public transport will run along the commercial street.
At some areas, you'll probably need a bit of heavy industry, if you have rail or a river, it might be nice to site it there since those are both very economical methods of transport.
You can put at least a small park about every four blocks, a large house at the end of every other single family residences blocks.
Look at your geographical features when planning your town. Is there a lake? Mountain? Any geographical feature folks will want to spend time in? A forest with trails? Have that within easy reach of the town.
The overall plan should be that each house can reach about 80% or more of everything they need within four blocks of their house. This will create an imminently walkable environment. Saves on transportation time, creates community, gives them a much better quality of life.
Gosh, what a boring life you describe! Provincial, too! That's less than 1/2 mile in any direction! Talk about living in a bubble!
I applaud any effort at reforming the abomination that is the "modern" urban city.
My personal favorite is based on dual ring villages (neighborhoods?), arranged in a hexagonal array. All intersections are thus three way instead of four way.
With closest packing of circles within the hexagonal array, there are three axes, 120 degrees apart, suited to express rail transport (inbound / outbound) [surface or subterranean]. Local urban rail service can follow a more leisurely route, connecting the various dual ring villages.
As to the network of surface roads, a hexagonal array of ring villages, surrounded by ring roads, would impose a speed limit by virtue of the radius of curvature.
Examples:
● For an outer ring road of 150 ft radius, the safe speed is 21 mph.
● For an outer ring road of 300 ft radius, the safe speed is 28 mph.
● For an outer ring road of 600 ft radius, the safe speed is 38 mph.
● For an outer ring road of 900 ft radius, the safe speed is 45 mph.
● For an outer ring road of 1200 ft radius, the safe speed is 50 mph.
By design, a city of dual ring villages and unidirectional ring roads would have inherent speed limitations - especially if roundabouts / traffic circles form the intersections between rings. The urban road system would be a mesh, with no need for stoplights, a moderate average velocity, and fault tolerant in the event of a blockage.
Each dual ring village / neighborhood would be a self contained community, with a central park, an inner ring building, a ring road, an outer ring building (and barrier wall), surrounded by an outer ring road.
In addition, each roundabout (intersection between 3 DRVs) may be designed to have a multistory parking garage, thus keeping automobiles outside of the ring villages.
Population density can easily outstrip current mega cities like Mexico City, Hong Kong and NYC.
Yet have far more green space, and a better quality of life.
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