cycleobsidian

Some of the disadvantages of small local shops versus big box stores have to do with zoning bylaws. If they were amended to allow people to own small shops in residential neighbourhoods, perhaps people would, especially if gas prices go up. In times of old, people could have little restaurants in their own homes, but now you would have to be in a certain part of the city, have enough parking for customers, etc. etc.
I am excited about the smart growth initiatives encouraged in some provinces in Canada because I think they will eventually loosen these rigid zoning by-laws. I even think local grocers would stand a chance if they were given more leeway.

Newspaperguy

There was a post here a few weeks ago with links to video footage of Barcelona, Spain in 1908 and 2008. The streets in the 1908 video footage had a mix of streetcars, automobiles, horse-drawn wagons, cyclists and pedestrians all able to use the road together. From what I often read on this forum, that's a model that could gain a lot of support as it allows a choice of how one addresses transportation needs in such a city.

Mandating a design for pedestrians only is not much better than mandating a design for cars only.

wahoonc

And has been proven time and time again on Main Street USA. I have lost count of the numbers of towns that have built pedestrian malls down main street, only to take them back out years later. Unfortunately we are still battling the car is king. Too many people won't shop where they can't park right in front of the store, or in the case of malls park and walk from store to store in a conditioned climate.

Aaron

cooker

That's often cited as an objection, but the effect is trivial since the main streets aren't calmed and the residential street is generally only the last couple of hundred yards. As well, in a compact neighbourhood you would live much closer to the fire and ambulance stations, and the hospital too, than in a spread out suburb. So that would offset any speed penalty.

chewybrian 

I should have been more clear. I meant only the residential streets, and I was being very Flori-centric. The way neighborhoods are designed here, there are maybe 150 feet between the houses on each side, counting about 30 feet of asphallt. Everyone keeps their cars in the garage. On the whole street, there might be 2 or 3 parked cars. This may be somewhat unique to the newer, gated or HOA style communities of Florida.

Of this 150 foot span between the houses, what is actually needed and useful is about 12 feet of asphalt, and maybe a few parking spaces for guests. The rest is for show, like the fake living rooms people have, with furniture only sat upon by relatives on holidays. People use their back yards, but never the front. You could eliminate most of the space between the houses on each side, without impacting the usefulness of the homes.

This is the style of new communities being built around here, without much evident thought given to the bang for the buck for square footage of the neighborhood. It seems like pushing the sides of the street together would be economical without much sacrifice required. I could acclimate to a 5 foot wide front yard quite easily, vs. the jump to light speed of living in a high-rise in a crowded downtown, which seems like a nightmare to me.

gerv 

And your comment explains even more, unfortunately, about you.

gerv 

From what I have read, the inspiration for JH Crawford's designs -- Italian cities -- also featured multiple modes of transportation. Even today, you'll see small cars, bicycles, scooters on those narrow streets. The thing to note is that the "design" (you may not want to even call it such; since these developments evolved rather than grew from a single design...) is optimized for pedestrians. In fact the road surfaces, usually cobblestone, tends to slow down scooters and bicycles.

I don't catch what you mean by "mandating". Most of these city designs should be seen as proposal, some portions of which may find they way into existing cities... if they work.

It's clear to me that for the current period of time, we will still be able to ride our bicycles through our cities. The need for the bicycle won't go away anytime soon.

Still, you can't discount that some future generation may evolve to the point where cities are laid out mainly for pedestrian traffic. After all, if you told people back in the late 1800s of the current freeway system in southern California, they would have laughed at you.

Newspaperguy

Gerv, your description makes sense. The author, however, seemed to be pushing against the use of cars or bicycles, and that's where I take issue.

Robert Foster

And that is where it always ends up. Reality verses pipe dreams. The idealistic view of utopia only works if the majority is interested in that vision of utopia. If they are not and they are forced into a life recommended by the disenchanted few they will fight against it and sooner or later overthrow that vision which destroys the forced utopia. Some of us, close to half from most reports, are not in favor of "having to live" like the Amish or Shakers. They don't see high density living as the solution nor are they looking to become Luddites.

I also have seen cities ban cars from whole sections of town only to have the next town open a large mall that draws the customers that might have come to the car free area away. The car free area has two choices, give cars access or become a boutique area and give u most of its business. That of course will cost the city tax money and the fight to open up the area starts. In a few short years the great experiment fails because people will not support it "if", and this is the point, if they have an option of doing what they want.

We don't live in a world without personal transportation or one that will give up that transportation without a fight. We live in a world where people yearn for their technology. Computers and Cell phones for quicker communication. Cars, Planes, Trains, Mass transit for quicker transportation. Microwaves for quicker food preparation. TVs and DVDs for quicker entertainment and all of those things have had increased impact on our lives by hundreds of percentage points.

We don't "need" to yearn for a world without personal transportation we need to learn to make that transportation sustainable.

cooker

Hey - I was being friendly. I didn't know you were Canadian.

gerv 

I apologize for this. I misunderstood you. I tend to be sensitive to issues which were real 25 years ago and probably aren't today. And yes... still Canadian... though I've been in the US 15 years now.

bgary

The author is pushing for cities that are so optimized for walking that cars or even bikes are not only not necessary, but inconvenient. Subways would be his choice for longer distances, then intercity trains. If his ideas were reality, it would eliminate the need for imported oil as well as coal. We would live in cleaner, more pleasant cities. Our cities would consist of Places, as opposed to the modern city, and especially suburbs, which consist largely of "No Place" (wide roads, parking lots, landscaped buffer zones; even the sidewalks in some places I have lived were nearly unused).

I think he makes a pretty good case (I am referring to his entire website, not just the link in the OP). The modern car-dependent culture sucks more than we can imagine, we consider it to be the way things have to be because it is the only reality we know. His website goes a bit more in depth than just the reduction of cars, addressing issues of living space, building design, education, human nature and social habits, economy, art, esthetics and more.

He does paint a rosy picture of his ideal world and does not seem to realistically address its shortcomings, but I am definitely going to look for more exposition on the topic. I see many of the replies so far in this thread seem to accept modern living standards as inevitable and unchangeable, and potential hurdles to the authors ideas as insurmountable.

Robert Foster

After visiting the site referenced to I have to admit, I am totally unimpressed. After reading his proposals I kept thinking of ants. What is being described is every science fiction future nightmare. It is Blade Runner, THX1138 and Logans Run combined. It is nothing new and it is highly unlikely that this country, short of having a major breakdown, would even consider working towards such a concept. The microcities that would have to be within the bigger city would take enormous infrastructure. Something not practical with the current cities and not desired by society as we know it for future cities.

But I also admit I don't seem to be the target the article is trying to reach. I like to travel and visit places. I like to go places and see things outside of my own neighborhood, county and state. I don't see much attraction to moving about elbow to elbow like lemmings at less than normal walking pace. (hyperbole mine) I wouild rather ride my bike than squeeze into a gym on the seventh floor or a high rise. I want to see mountains or trees when I look out of my window or maybe even the ocean. The side of another big building being the only thing I see sounds a bit depressing to me. I am sure they could put up pictures so we can remember grass and trees but I am not sure it would be the same. I like getting together with 15 or 20 other riders and riding 2.5 hours or more three times a week, I am not sure a 2.5 hour walk on a jamed packed street would be as interesting.

Newspaperguy

Look for information on Smart Growth, which gets into a lot of densification issues. It's designed for existing cities instead of trying to create new cities. And the Smart Growth movement has people who have studied urban planning and know their material well.

cooker

I agree it may be a bit dense for my taste as well, but if everybody did live in compact cities like that, there would at least be a lot more trees and mountains out there that wouldn't be covered by subdivisions. And a lot more beautiful winding country roads as well, unspoiled by continual off ramps.

cooker

No prob. I think the Canadian in you still shines through!

Robert Foster

Not within walking distance. I still say the whole idea is way too sci-fi for me. Some kind of time machine trying to move us back to the 1700s?

KD5NRH

It was done here for years, but none of those little shops were very successful, all of them have gone out of business, and no new ones can open due to minimum parking requirements that the old ones were grandfathered under. (The parking requirements are in place to keep people from using the neighbors' driveways, but very few residential lots are big enough to provide the minimum.) There are still neighborhoods with one or two light retail zoned lots in the middle of them, but the only financially sensible use is a primarily web-based business or having it rezoned back to residential.

Roody

Walmart is already facing this problem. At this point the only way they can grow further is to move into cities and inner suburbs. Also, Walmart's planners are convinced that in the near future, outer suburbs will continue to lose population to city centers. So Walmart is testing new stores with MUCH smaller footprints in urban neighborhoods. Not only are the stores much smaller, so are the parking lots. They anticipate that more people will walk, bike and take public transit to these new stores.

Roody

I think the need for density is overstated both here and by Crawford. IMO, big apartment blocks are unnecessary. With a well planned streetcar system, narrow urban lots with single-family homes provide plenty of density. Everybody lives within 2 to 3 blocks of a trolley stop, and the trolley goes everywhere in the city. This worked in the early 1900s, and it can work again.

As for your earlier comments, I think it's impossible to have cities that are walkable and bikeable while still having large numbers of fast-moving cars. If you know of a way to make this work, I'd like to hear it.

Newspaperguy

And that's something like what I've seen in some of the Smart Growth proposals, although with other transit systems instead of trolleys.

The densification here is needed because otherwise cities will sprawl and encroach on valuable farmland. Once a housing development goes onto a property that was formerly a farm, it is almost impossible to reclaim that land for agriculture.

As to your other question, walkable, bikeable cities with cars are quite possible. However, measures are taken to keep the speeds low. The issue isn't necessarily cars on the road. It's fast-moving motor vehicle traffic. It's something already in place in a number of larger, older cities where vehicle traffic moves quite slowly when not on arterial roads or highway bypasses. In the city itself, there simply is no way to move very fast.

Roody

My point exactly.

Cosmoline

Sometimes the folks in the car-free movement sound a lot like Khmer Rouge yammering about the Year Zero.

Why would you want to get rid of bikes? They're zero emissions, incredibly efficient, and permit a person to haul heavy loads without having arms like Popeye.

Case in point. My bottom bracket went "BANG" on Friday. So I was bikeless for the weekend. I did my usual routine anyway, but the normally nice trip to the farmer's market turned into the Bataan Death March as I was weighed down with six giant cabbages and a bunch of other vegetables. These would have fit comfortably in the BOB, but carried in the hands they were a nuisance even for a mere one mile walk.

Then I wanted to go on my planned hike, but without the bike I had to get a cab.

chewybrian 

Cosmo, I thought the average forum member had 5 or 6 bikes. You could at least get a cheapo yard sale bike, for the reason Foghorn keeps his feathers numbered.

dygituljunky

Until we stop subsidizing the automobile, those of you who don't want to live like ants have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, those of us who DO want to live like ants have to struggle to find affordable places that are walkable/bikeable and where the car is NOT king.

(By automobile subsidization, I mean local ordinances requiring a minimal number of vehicle parking spaces for retail and dining establishments and even for new neighborhood construction. I also mean that oil is subsidized through tax breaks and by not reflecting the true cost of militarily securing access to petroleum sources. I'm not intending to start a political discussion but those are the primary impediments to dense urban layouts in the US.)