Rollfast

Getting to Des Moines.

I-Like-To-Bike

Daydreaming? Isn't that what this thread and list frequently are all about?

Rollfast

That cat named Edison was a good daydreamer though, or we'd all be doing forums by telegraph.

I-Like-To-Bike

My cat also has dreams; I suspect her dreams and tail twitching might have more in common with some of the more bizarre fantasies posted on this list.

Walter S

Should be great for you! Daydreaming and fantasies are apparently a highly favorite topic that you post about.

I-Like-To-Bike

You seem to be confused, I don't post daydreams, or fantasies or imaginary economic, social or sci-fi screenplays on BF. I do call 'em what they are when the usual suspects post 'em as realistic visions/predictions of the foreseeable future or as serious proposals for promoting or living car free.

tandempower

The big picture is that more change is necessary for sustainability than is currently envisionable as 'realistically achievable.' Still, steps can be taken by individuals in the present to choose LCF and promote it in the short-term as well.

Without the more imaginative future visions, however, we would risk patting ourselves on the back for changing the world just by living car free within the current infrastructure. In reality, we need to identify what level of LCF is really necessary to achieve planetary sustainability and figure out what it takes to achieve that.

Mobile 155

Who is the "We" that has the right or the power to determine how or even if LCF is worth while? Some talk of a future of dense jammed packed cities with all of their heat and crime as the solution while others promote Earthship homes and living off of the grid. And all the while people living in the real world are simply worried about living day to day. In what poll or Study have you seen LCF as even on the radar screen of the people or voters? In the end they will decide the direction society takes. They will decide who will lead them into the future. Looking at the number of voters that are LCF, something not even those posting here have been able to agree on, I see no growing swell of anyone that can stand on a platform and declare, "We have the answer, follow us we will save you."

So so even in this forum "We" is a nebulous concept.

I-Like-To-Bike

The Royal We is useful for imaginative "Big Picture Screenplays" that "we" can promote as "our" answer to city scenarios that "we" declare must be altered and resolved as "we" direct.

tandempower

There is no absolutely deterministic power, unless you want to talk in terms of "God," and then you're dealing with complexities that go beyond any single determinant or controllable set of determinants, controllable from a human standpoint anyway.

Still, I have the right to say what "we" as humans (or "we" as life in general) need and should do, as does anyone else who is sincerely attempting to transcend narrower interests in favor of the greater good. If you or anyone else sincerely believes that something is for the greater good, they should speak out about it and reason with others about why they believe it is so. What happens too much here and in every other discussion is that people work harder to attack those of us that are putting effort into sustainable vision than they do on constructively reasoning about what is and isn't ultimately sustainable.

You're assuming future cities must be hot and crime-ridden. The question is whether dense cities can be shaded and crime-abated to the benefit of their residents.

Berm construction is good because it combines living space with green space so less photosynthetic biomass has to be displaced for human life. Grid-free living is not a bad idea. Between reducing energy/water consumption and creating sustainable sources for these resources on-site, future homes may well all be "off the grid." We'd be doing well if they are.

Most people worried about living day-to-day are not free enough from conformist mental habits to objectively question the status quo in favor of choosing a better future that's different from the present. They are too busy trying to earn their share of the present to question its sustainability. Many people do make an effort to envision sustainability, but the moment they feel confronted with the fact that they are part of the problem by the choices they currently make, they spring into ego-defense mode and attack proponents of change as enemies of the status quo they participate in. Some people are able to overcome the knee-jerk of their ego-defensiveness to objectively overweigh present-day practices against potential future changes; and as a result many of us realize that we need to work toward implementing changes that won't be easy or quick, but which will benefit us and future generations in the long run.

They will definitely decide who to follow, and who to elect, but they cannot determine the direction of societies or nature. Often, popular majorities or even powerful popular movements that don't achieve majority create momentum in some direction or other but unsustainable choices guarantee their own limited longevity. Part of democracy is the freedom to continue speaking out about what directions should be taken when the popular directions are stubbornly resistant to critically reasoning about their sustainability.

It's not "follow us we will save you," but "change direction before you destroy the future and much of the present." Ultimately, we are all held accountable for the directions we choose and take by the fate our children and their children reap as a result of the seeds we planted in their history. They will suffer for our sins, even if we manage to escape that fate.

Mobile 155

Only two points: I believe dense packed cities will be crime ridden and hot because they already are. They can be seen from space and measured for UHI effect. The Human Scaled city is an idea not a reality. The ideas promoting it are the same as each generation has had to listen to, life used to be better, it life can be made more like it used to be. Trouble is it never is likebitbused to be and human scaled has changed. As far as the last paragraph we see it on street corners all the time on sandwich boards with people standing on soap boxes. And yes society moves on and we don't go back to the old ways. Just remember the response you got to you post on living on a side of town that was only car free with low wages versus not car free and more money. You stood alone, sandwich board like.

Zedoo

The short answer is No.

Large cities will shrink and small towns may recover. What's left over, the population excess, will die.

denis123

High crime rate is due more to poverty than high density. There are many dense cities outside the USA with low crime rate. In Canada, the crime rate is lower in large cities than it is in the country.

Many places have started to address the problem of UHI. Heat island effect can be reduced a lot with white roofs and green roofs. They are now mandatory here in Montreal. Other measures include planting more trees and light colored pavement. UHI also exists in subburbs around large parking lot in shopping centers for example.

Mobile 155

That is more of the "it could be dreaming" that we so often hear. When you google most dangerous places to live the usual suspects almost always come up first, even the top 100 will get a nod from most people. Yes some day in the far future they may work out a solution but for now it exists and is not a case of what we could, should or would have done. Saying what could be done is simply an excuse to ignore what is. In other words a theory that to date isn't proven. When you google UHI do you get information on suburban parking lots? Unless things are very different in Canada I don't think so.

When you google Hunan Scaled City do you get a city or a concept?

When you search crime rates on places you want to live does it say anywhere that the poor are more likely to be the criminals? Is that also a theory? Or are you saying there are more poor people in dense cities and so the crime rate is higher?

i know this is getting repetitive so I an pretty much done. I will simply finish with I do not accept that a tightly packed urban area is a better way for humans to live and raise children. It may be better for the ones governing but it isn't for the ones governed unless they would rather be controlled.

cooker

Cycling doesn't solve all problems but it certainly causes less problems than cars. If Copenhagen was as auto dependent as an American city it would have run out of space much sooner.

denis123

There is no dreaming here. The fact that some dense cities in the world are dangerous does not contredict the fact that there can be dense cities with low crime rates. This being said, I googled most dangerous place to live and found very little relation with densities. Most of these places were not very dense and some of the densest cities like Paris and Tokyo have low crime rate. Even in the US, the most dense cities (New York, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago) are not among the most dangerous places to live. For the relation between poverty and crime rate, just google poverty and crime rate.

I haven't seen any evidence that living in dense urban areas is bad for humans and their children and I don't need to claim that it is bad for people to live in sparse areas.

Walter S

Or a Chinese restaurant?

Walter S

How am I giving up "control" by living in the city? Who is controlling me? Somehow I thought I lived in a democracy under a system of laws crafted by my fellow citizens.

cooker

I don't think that would work well. One way streets are designed to speed up traffic, so they encourage more driving, and also people more often need to go around the block to get where they are going, so trips are a bit longer

cooker

This never gets old:
Nobody lives in dense cities anymore, they're too crowded.

tandempower

You're ignoring the third possibility of people living at a scale that's not as dense as the "tightly-packed" cities you describe, but that also doesn't sprawl as much as driving-dependent scaled cities. Bikable cities are basically manageable 'sprawl,' which I hesitate to even call sprawl because by driving-dependency standards, this is a tight/dense geographical pattern.

This isn't to say you can't have dense/tight developments within such an area. Sprawling driving-dependent areas have always had malls and apartment buildings, both dense developments within the sprawl. These dense developments are better for walkability and transit efficiency. Still, there can be single-family housing with yards, etc., but the focus should be on making these areas bikeable and/or transit-friendly, so that the choice to bike is there and people aren't driving-dependent.

If driving is a fraction of total traffic, congestion and sprawl pressures lessen, which makes biking more doable and encourages it because it is a larger share of total multimodality.

peant

that already this him man

noglider 

Perhaps you're unaware, but these fantasies we speak of are becoming realities. Maybe Burlington isn't showing it, but the Complete Streets design philosophy is taking hold. The people have asked for it, and we are getting it. Improving transportation infrastructure for everyone is good for everyone. Adding bike facilities to a city is good for vehicular traffic, mass transit, health of citizens, and the city's budget. Everyone wins, so fantasy turned out to be a good idea where it has been (or is being) implemented. You can say it's not a good idea if you like, but you can't say it's not going to happen.

cooker

Actually that's wrong. If all the people who live in cities moved to the country, they could not sustain themselves with agriculture as they would be occupying too much of the land. By living densely in the city, they free up more land for agriculture.

noglider 

When people graduate from college, the fastest growing choice of lifestyle is to move to a city where car ownership is unnecessary. Young adults don't want to own cars. Renting occasionally is cool and popular. Real estate in cities is sky high because more people want it than the city can fit, both prices and rents are climbing. A climbing real estate market is definitely not evidence that no one wants to live in these places.

It's not that able-driving suburbanites are envisioning a car free suburbia. It's the people who don't want to drive or can't drive. That sector is growing and speaking. If you haven't noticed, you just haven't noticed yet, but it's happening.