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.
Would it be good for our cities to be denser like Manila or Karachi or Mumbai? Should we have 100k people per square mile density? Should everyone live in high rise flats and take the train everywhere or walk? Should every street in the city be crowded with people walking in walkable areas?
The middle ground is where we should live. 20,000 ppsm gives us walkable neighborhoods where you can still have lawns and trees and a mix of apartments and single family houses. This would be along the lines of the denser streetcar neighborhoods in Midwestern cities like Minneapolis and Milwaukee. 40,000 ppsm gives us a midrise streetscape that is still human scaled along the lines of the great cities of Europe. As we redevelop our cities those are the parameters we should be aiming for in my opinion. Exurban sprawl should be avoided as much as hyper density.
Last edited by Drewcifer; 01-12-2015 at 10:04 PM..
Your examples are all poor cities with quality of life issues. Poor + very high density can have health issues, many of these places have extremely cramped living conditions. A better first world example would be New York City (mainly Manhattan and some nearby sections), Paris or Barcelona both of which have neighborhoods around 100k per square mile. Still not appealing to many people, but with first world living conditions. While much of the very high density portions of New York City and Paris are expensive, a lot of Barcelona is not, showing they're not always connected.
My favorite neighborhoods are generally the midrise neighborhoods. 4-6 story apartment buildings lining the street makes for the best cityscape.
6 story buildings without much courtyards or setback are often very high density, they describe Paris and Barcelona high density neighborhoods and many NYC high density neighborhoods.
I would say that the mid rise city can probably reach densities of around 50k-60k ppsm if you include things like ports, railyards, airports, water treatment plants, parks, stadiums, cemeteries, industrial areas and the like. That's without any crowding (i.e. multiple people per room). For Paris and Manhattan a lot of those are in the suburbs/outer boroughs, hence the higher densities.
For predominantly high-rise cities, you might get to 100k ppsm without crowding.
For more mixed cities with a mix of low rise and midrise/highrise it might vary from about 30-50k ppsm, although that depends on the mix I guess. Seoul, Tokyo and I guess Brooklyn are mostly like this.
If the city is mostly in the 2-4 storey range, typical densities might be more around 20-30k ppsm, like many of the denser urban cores of North America that aren't Manhattan.
Mumbai is like a shelf with regular old sardine cans, tightly packed with sardines, with the cans stacked 2-3 tall and the cans all next to each with little to no space in between the cans (or stacked 5-10 tall for Shenzhen urban villages).
Kinshasa is like a shelf with regular old sardine cans, but the cans aren't stacked, just individual cans with about 4 inches of space in between them.
Manhattan is like a shelf with sardine cans stacked 4-10 tall, but instead of having a dozen sardines per can, there's only one sardine per can.
American suburbia is like a shelf with individual sardine cans spread 1-2 ft apart and one sardine per can, just like Manhattan.
Kowloon Walled City was like a shelf with sardine cans stacked 10 tall and the sardines had the juices squeezed out of them to fit two dozen per can.
As long as the sardines stay in their cans, they don't know if they're in American suburbia or Manhattan. Or if they're more packed, whether they're in Kinshasa or Mumbai.
Class bias alters our view of what makes a "good" city, whether that be a high density city or a low density suburb.
High density cities would be fine as long as there is a healthy representation of higher-income and middle-income individuals living in those high-density living quarters. This might come off as politically incorrect, but I doubt that many people would complain about a high density city that was composed almost entirely of wealthy, educated, law-abiding residents. It is when we start seeing homeless folks, drug users, or "people who look shady" in the streets that our perception of a "good" city starts to turn negative, whether that be in a city with high or low density. Unfortunately, our biased perceptions (usually based on socio-economic classes) color our opinions of whether a city is "good" or "bad".
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.
