Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So Cisco Kid, how do you propose fixing your suggested architecture problem? Do you thnk everyone who builds a home should hire an architect? Everyone should pay for a craftsman home? Or would it be OK if people just copied Frank Lloyd Wright designs? Do you want each city to have an architecture czar who decides what is good and approved?
So Cisco Kid, how do you propose fixing your suggested architecture problem? Do you thnk everyone who builds a home should hire an architect? Everyone should pay for a craftsman home? Or would it be OK if people just copied Frank Lloyd Wright designs? Do you want each city to have an architecture czar who decides what is good and approved?
In a word, redevelopment. A small industry has risen where bombed out, abandoned inner city neighborhoods become redeveloped and reinhabited for example, where developers come in and rebuild everything. Helping to revitalize dead and dying communities.
Something similar could be done for the aging infrastructure out in the suburbs. Plenty of old shopping malls and strip malls, neighborhoods with old boarded up single family homes are out there waiting to be bulldozed and replaced with something better. Preferably in a more urbanist style with mixed use development, transit, biking and pedestrian friendly. While creating all kinds of economic and job opportunities for developers, the construction industry, the transit industry, manufacturing industry, the list goes on. The opportunities are endless. This is how you put people back to work.
We gotta get away from this autocentric urban model that is so entrenched in the American mindset. Just toss it into the trash dump of history where it belongs because it is a deeply flawed way to do things. People need to start pulling there heads out of their asses and get working on it yesterday.
I agree that redevelopment is a good thing, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee the building will be attractive. For that, some factors that help are lots of people walking (human oriented), which I think is the main reason why transit often spurred attractive development, because for transit to work, you need people to walk to and from transit.
It also helps to have smaller projects, when they get too big, it's more difficult to avoid it from being boring. Development that occurs in existing neighbourhoods, where there are many small existing properties and it's more difficult to obtain a large piece of land would be more likely smaller. Cities should also makes sure that regulations don't make smaller developments (say 4-8 storey and 4-50 units) too unfeasible.
FYI, Q4 numbers for Toronto's condo market just came out: a record 28,190 units were sold in 2011 in addition to about 230,564 units in the planning stages...
Redevelopment does not always have this result. You assume that the local government, the citizens in the area, and the developers want the type of development you're thinking of.
[fyi as we know it in California is dead since the Governor eliminated redevelopment agencies earlier this year]
Redevelopment originally did just the reverse: it demolished walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods and replaced them with single-use, car-centric places, primarily so commuters from the suburbs could drive to their jobs downtown without having to see poor people. Redevelopment didn't necessarily do anything for quality architecture. Architecture is fashion--the idea of what is "good architecture" changes about as often as the definition of stylish clothes.
As to the definition of suburb: Fair enough, an outlying residential district--but what happens to suburbs when they stop being outlying areas? As a city expands, does a suburban neighborhood become something else even if it is physically unaltered?
As to mobile homes: They are found in rural areas, obviously (heck, I have relatives who live in rural mobile homes) but it's a bit silly to say they don't appear in cities when they clearly do (I also have relatives who live in suburban mobile homes.)
Manufactured boxes are architecture too. Some architect designed all those tract homes once, even if the designs have been built many times.
Kunstler is just using "architecture" as an excuse to whine about suburbs. The things he complains about -- large foyers, picture windows, etc -- are architectural features, quite unlike what you'd find in a manufactured "little box on the hillside". He just doesn't like them because they're in the suburbs.
I agree that redevelopment is a good thing, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee the building will be attractive.
For that, some factors that help are lots of people walking (human oriented), which I think is the main reason why transit often spurred attractive development, because for transit to work, you need people to walk to and from transit.
Assuming the planners involved in the process have some competence in their field and aren't complete idiots, then it shouldn't be too hard to build attractive mixed use development projects. There are established guidelines and principles of good mixed use development available for planners to follow. Read up on them. No need to reinvent the wheel. Start out small if you have to. Hire consultants who are experts in the field. If you have to, go to Europe or Australia to find them. The world-renowned Dutch firm Gehl Architects is available for urban planning and consulting services. They are internationally recognized. The Europeans are probably a lot better at it then we are. No more excuses.
Assuming the planners involved in the process have some competence in their field and aren't complete idiots, then it shouldn't be too hard to build attractive mixed use development projects. There are established guidelines and principles of good mixed use development available for planners to follow. Read up on them. No need to reinvent the wheel. Start out small if you have to. Hire consultants who are experts in the field. If you have to, go to Europe or Australia to find them. The world-renowned Dutch firm Gehl Architects is available for urban planning and consulting services. They are internationally recognized. The Europeans are probably a lot better at it then we are. No more excuses.
Now I know for sure you really don't know how urban planning works.
Assuming the planners involved in the process have some competence in their field and aren't complete idiots, then it shouldn't be too hard to build attractive mixed use development projects. There are established guidelines and principles of good mixed use development available for planners to follow. Read up on them. No need to reinvent the wheel. Start out small if you have to. Hire consultants who are experts in the field. If you have to, go to Europe or Australia to find them. The world-renowned Dutch firm Gehl Architects is available for urban planning and consulting services. They are internationally recognized. The Europeans are probably a lot better at it then we are. No more excuses.
But there's a difference between urban planning and architecture. Even if there are guidelines for mixed uses and the scale and shape of buildings that can be built, that doesn't mean you're going to have great architecture. And even if you somehow had guidelines that covered all the details of architecture, you could still have a situation where nothing gets built in the area under your jurisdiction.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
