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Good think you crushed him like a Nimby Komeht. Now the NIMBys are crushed and the only thing left is to crush the roads so we can go back to walking in the mud and cities will have won.
You: And, just to put a cherry on it, you want people outside the urban areas to pay for your "smart planning and design.
Me: I've said no such thing.
You: Here's a bunch of links.
Me: Not a single one backs up what your claim that I "want people outside urban areas to pay for your smart planning and design."
Are we done here?
Look at the body of your posts. Every single one exudes disdain for people who have chosen-chosen- to live outside your beloved urban cores. You also advocate making them pay confiscatory fees for doing so.
In Komeht World everyone lives in a 600 sq. ft. apartment (except those who live in luxury, locked and security patrolled buildings) go to work on buses (paid for by those who drive cars) and shop daily at non-existent mom and pop stores.
Reality is different. You can prattle about gentrification all you want but the reality is that gentrifiers are upper income and are pushing the middle class out.
You can say what you advocate attracts all groups, but it doesn't. You know it, I know it, Ray Charles can see it doesn't.
Look at the body of your posts. Every single one exudes disdain for people who have chosen-chosen- to live outside your beloved urban cores. You also advocate making them pay confiscatory fees for doing so.
In Komeht World everyone lives in a 600 sq. ft. apartment (except those who live in luxury, locked and security patrolled buildings) go to work on buses (paid for by those who drive cars) and shop daily at non-existent mom and pop stores.
Reality is different. You can prattle about gentrification all you want but the reality is that gentrifiers are upper income and are pushing the middle class out.
You can say what you advocate attracts all groups, but it doesn't. You know it, I know it, Ray Charles can see it doesn't.
Stop - you made a wildly inaccurate claim and have been called on it. Now you're making more wildly inaccurate claims on top of that.
Nei - if he wants to take issue with something I actually said, let him come forward with it. I'll defend anything I actually said. But I'm not going to spend any more time explaining things I didn't say.
All around the nation, I see rotting urban cores without a job in sight. I see crumbling rowhomes covered in gang tags, failing businesses - soon to be replaced with liquor stores and check cashing places - and crime. All the while, the taxes in these places keep going up and more and more people leave.
Now, don't get me wrong - I don't LIKE any of the above. I'd actually be quite happy in a rowhome or townhome community where I could live within walking distance of some friends, some good restaurants, and some useful stores or places of entertainment. I'd still need a car to take longer trips, but in a perfect world, I would also have a short commute to work that might not even need it. But that lifestyle is not practical much of anywhere outside of a few large cities in America, and even then it might not work depending upon if there are any jobs in your field in the city itself. A bunch of problems bring the whole concept of "the victory of urbanism" to a screeching halt:
1) Lack of jobs in urban areas. While an urban environment does a fine job preventing sprawl and gridlock, it doesn't do any good at all if everyone has to drive out of the city for their job and then back into the city at the end of the day. All you do is move the traffic jam around at that point. People need to be able to live near where they work. That has failed in many suburban environments thanks to huge commutes, but it also fails in urban environments if all the jobs are out in the suburbs.
2) Dismal living conditions: Too many cities (at least in America) are still being strangled by rampant crime, poverty, and decay. Nobody wants to live like. What's the use of having lots of stuff within walking distance of you if you don't feel safe going outside at night? What's the use of getting a cheaper home if you're not safe there and taxes are through the roof on the place?
3) City congestion - old cities that have not been updated to handle new realities: There's tons of congestion and sprawl in the suburbs and plenty of people with huge commutes, but cities can be badly crowded as well. Too many cars and not enough places for them, too many people in too small an area. It can be just as bad as the suburbs, just in a different way.
Summary: I don't see any triumph of urbanism, at least not in America. I see a nation that instead has continued to neglect problems for years, eagerly leaving behind old and crumbling regions to pave over new ones, while all the while failing to address the problems. There is no reason our cities cannot be great places like those in Europe and other locations, but there's no will or leadership to do that. There's too much money to be made selling new, overpriced homes vs. fixing up old neighborhoods and changing and improving them for modern living.
All around the nation, I see rotting urban cores without a job in sight. I see crumbling rowhomes covered in gang tags, failing businesses - soon to be replaced with liquor stores and check cashing places - and crime. All the while, the taxes in these places keep going up and more and more people leave.
Now, don't get me wrong - I don't LIKE any of the above. I'd actually be quite happy in a rowhome or townhome community where I could live within walking distance of some friends, some good restaurants, and some useful stores or places of entertainment. I'd still need a car to take longer trips, but in a perfect world, I would also have a short commute to work that might not even need it. But that lifestyle is not practical much of anywhere outside of a few large cities in America, and even then it might not work depending upon if there are any jobs in your field in the city itself. A bunch of problems bring the whole concept of "the victory of urbanism" to a screeching halt:
1) Lack of jobs in urban areas. While an urban environment does a fine job preventing sprawl and gridlock, it doesn't do any good at all if everyone has to drive out of the city for their job and then back into the city at the end of the day. All you do is move the traffic jam around at that point. People need to be able to live near where they work. That has failed in many suburban environments thanks to huge commutes, but it also fails in urban environments if all the jobs are out in the suburbs.
2) Dismal living conditions: Too many cities (at least in America) are still being strangled by rampant crime, poverty, and decay. Nobody wants to live like. What's the use of having lots of stuff within walking distance of you if you don't feel safe going outside at night? What's the use of getting a cheaper home if you're not safe there and taxes are through the roof on the place?
3) City congestion - old cities that have not been updated to handle new realities: There's tons of congestion and sprawl in the suburbs and plenty of people with huge commutes, but cities can be badly crowded as well. Too many cars and not enough places for them, too many people in too small an area. It can be just as bad as the suburbs, just in a different way.
Summary: I don't see any triumph of urbanism, at least not in America. I see a nation that instead has continued to neglect problems for years, eagerly leaving behind old and crumbling regions to pave over new ones, while all the while failing to address the problems. There is no reason our cities cannot be great places like those in Europe and other locations, but there's no will or leadership to do that. There's too much money to be made selling new, overpriced homes vs. fixing up old neighborhoods and changing and improving them for modern living.
That was like every possible stereotype of cities in the history of the universe.
The D.O.T.s are still operating on retrograde 1960s thinking that roads, wider, faster, straighter are the answer to traffic woes. It's so damaging on so many levels. And they are completely entrenched - with a huge amount of political power, vast sums of money to play with and an enormous industry that depends on D.O.T.s continuing their destructive path all donating quantities of money to pols to perpetuate the cycle.
Thing is, you cut off the roads, you cut off the funding for your urban fantasy projects.
Quote:
Right now every D.O.T. in the nation is trying to figure how to raise revenue - they're almost universally hitting upon tollways - once anathema to car people. That door is opening up a whole new line of thinking among D.O.T.s for ways to deal with traffic with managed tollways.
DOTs and urbanists love tollways -- but only when the tollway funding is diverted to their pet projects. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is spending its toll funds building 1 World Trade Center, for instance (in addition to the usual high salaries for administrators and patronage jobs). When toll funds are actually required to pay for roads, urbanists aren't so hapy with them,
Quote:
NIMBYs on the other hand, are not persuadable. They belong to the class of people who will never get it. The only thing to do with NIMBYs is crush them.
Out on the SF Bay peninsula, it isn't NIMBY. It's BANANA -- Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone. And yet SF is the #2 urbanist paradise in the country, following NYC. The NIMBYs are the one complaining that their vibrant walkable neighborhoods are being taken over by nasty boring whitebread rich people who belong in the suburbs.
Thing is, you cut off the roads, you cut off the funding for your urban fantasy projects.
DOTs and urbanists love tollways -- but only when the tollway funding is diverted to their pet projects. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is spending its toll funds building 1 World Trade Center, for instance (in addition to the usual high salaries for administrators and patronage jobs). When toll funds are actually required to pay for roads, urbanists aren't so hapy with them,
Out on the SF Bay peninsula, it isn't NIMBY. It's BANANA -- Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone. And yet SF is the #2 urbanist paradise in the country, following NYC. The NIMBYs are the one complaining that their vibrant walkable neighborhoods are being taken over by nasty boring whitebread rich people who belong in the suburbs.
Personally I hate tolls and would probably consider myself an urbanist. The East Coast seems to be riddled with stupid toll roads. I do get it from time to time with costly bridges that require a stream of money for upkeep, but that is about it.
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