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So you realize, that traffic is a problem, but by promoting a car dependent lifestyle you are contributing to the problem yourself. It's a circle. However even in connected streets there is a distinction between busy main streets and calm side streets.....
No, we're talking about, in the real world context of people driving through neighborhoods, the difference between a grid (where all your residential streets become cut-throughs) and a "dendritic structure" where the quiet residential streets don't provide cut-throughs. Although it seems to be an unexamined article of faith in the neo-urbanist community that the grid is better, actual real world experience shows that the grid layout leads to more traffic on neighborhood streets from people trying to avoid main streets and the cul-de-sac layout where a neighborhood has one or two ways in and out at maximum leads to quieter less heavily traveled neighborhood streets.
People in my neighborhood have tried on multiple occasions to have speed bumps put in but to no avail. Yes, there are sidewalks - but only on the north-south streets, which of course is just nutty; I have no idea why there aren't sidewalks on the east-west streets, especially since this subdivision was built right at the end of a streetcar line and the logical walking path for people coming from the streetcar stop would have been down those east-west streets. However, in 1939 there was no money for much of anything so that's probably where it got started, then after the war the streetcars were shut down.
At any rate, you still have to cross the street which is troublesome when there's a constant stream of cars at 30 mph, even if you can walk along a sidewalk for most of the way.
Yes, there should be walking paths connecting cul-de-sacs. Of course there's enormous variation from one subdivision to the next but I have the general impression this is quite common, at least to leave a little easement between houses at the end of any dead end street. After all the utility companies have to be able to get back there. We haven't lived in a lot of cul-de-sac areas but when we have, there's almost always been such an easement every few houses. It's a pretty minor matter to throw down some gravel for a path.
My real objections are to the way increased density is promoted as a panacea for eveything that's wrong with American cities, and at least some of the promoters on this forum simply refuse to acknowledge the negatives that come along with more people in less space - more noise, more congestion, crime, increased difficulty in getting people to keep their homes maintained, increased demand on all city services, and so on.
Their fantasy of a Norman Rockwell neighborhood where you've got shops on the ground floor and apartments above with happy cheerful big Italian families and the kids playing stickball in the street and everyone's just hap hap happy all day long is something that never even existed when it did. You know, there's a reason why the very INSTANT that US homebuilding capacity caught up to demand after the war, all the GIs enthusiastically used the GI Bill to buy - not apartments in central cities! no, they ran out as fast as they could to buy SINGLE FAMILY HOUSES on separate lots. Why? They'd had a bellyfull of boarding houses apartments and army barracks and they wanted to have a place of their own, no shared walls, a yard, a garden, place for kids to play OUT of the street, etc., etc.,etc.
Now, 80 years down the road, the revisionists and neo-urbanists are trying to tell us those people were all brainwashed and had it all wrong, that they would have been far happier moving into apartments, riding the streetcars, and living over the barbershop. Well, maybe they WEREN'T stupid. Maybe they DID know what was going to make them happier with their housing. Now we're even seeing Stadt-uber-alles-guy ADMITTING that in the US people prefer the single family house to the apartment; but he's got a new set of intellectual backflips to account for that.
Look, I'm not unaware of reality here. I understand that with continued population growth, environmental degradation, inflation, etc., people are going to be living more crowded in the future. And I know that people in the highly crowded apartment blocks, rowhouses, etc., of the future will still make ways to have fulfilling lives. But don't try tell people that moving from a world where the standard is the detached single family house with two cars, to a world where the standard is a flat or rowhouse with subways and streetcars, will be an IMPROVEMENT in the standard of living. That's just lying to people, and people don't like being served weenies and being told it's steak. If you can't afford steak and all you can afford is weenies, fine, call it weenies and be honest about it.
I never said Americans prefer apartments over single family homes, nowhere, that's a strawman some of you have built up yourself. I said, most Americans prefer to live in urban areas as contrary to rural areas. That's a matter of fact backed by migration patterns and where most Americans do live according to the US Census Bureau. I also said, that most Americans don't know any better, because most of them have never lived in livable and family frendly places with apartments around. The concept of family friendly apartment complexes is mostly unknown in the US.
Your basic argument here is correct and accurate, but there's one detail that throws off the narrative a bit:
As both the FHA and VA mortgage guarantee programs were also intended to stimulate housing production, they could only be used to purchase new homes, and I believe that didn't change until sometime around the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. I could be wrong here, but don't think I am as far as the decade of the 1950s is concerned.
It might well be the case that had recipients been able to purchase existing homes, they still would have sought out new ones, for Americans, in general, tend to prefer the new over the already there. But I'll wager there might have been some buyers who might have opted to buy in a neighborhood they already knew.
One of the points I try to make here is that more density doesn't mean apartments for everyone (that seems to be what Stadtmensch argues, and I'm not even sure he totally argues for that, for many of those German cities have lots of single-family houses as well; they just tend to be either attached to their neighbors or on smaller lots). I will concede this to your argument, though: Even a rowhouse with a front and back yard would be seen as a step down in the eyes of many suburbanites. But would a block like the one I live on be similarly regarded?
Where did I argue "apartments for everyone"? I just think that far more apartments would be build if they would be less surpressed. The supply is artificially limited, but the demand is there. It's the more environmentally friendly way of living, that's for sure and apartment complexes allow cities to be more walkable, but I never said everyone needs to live there. A lot of US cities are missing the middle, the middle housing, which is why they look so crazy with high rises in downtown and a sharp cut into areas filled with single family homes, but little middle housing in between. Higher density housing is surpressed in the US. We aren't even talking about forcing people into apartments. That narrative is a reversal of reality.
No, we're talking about, in the real world context of people driving through neighborhoods, the difference between a grid (where all your residential streets become cut-throughs) and a "dendritic structure" where the quiet residential streets don't provide cut-throughs. Although it seems to be an unexamined article of faith in the neo-urbanist community that the grid is better, actual real world experience shows that the grid layout leads to more traffic on neighborhood streets from people trying to avoid main streets and the cul-de-sac layout where a neighborhood has one or two ways in and out at maximum leads to quieter less heavily traveled neighborhood streets.
That's nonsense, nobody is going to cut through a sidestreet that allows for much lower speeds than a main street.
Also acknowledge that the autocentric lifestyle and autocentric urban planning causes most of the problems related to noise, safety and walkability of an area. Most of the noise in a city is coming from cars, not density. Density does not cause significant more noise than low density, but more cars do.
The other way around, people are pressured into an autocentric lifestyle i.e. by NIMBYs. R1 zoning, minimum setbacks, minimum parking requirements or road planning are forcible government policies that force people into an autocentric lifestyle. It's also a good way for the government to track you down by forcing you to put a number plate on your vehicle. Single family homes are also very good at locating where people do live. There is no escape in alleyways or tunnels. Anonymous lifestyle is impossible in low density areas, where all suspicious activity is reported by neighbors. It's impossible to have a walk in a neighborhood you are not living in yourself without being watched very well by others. If there is going to be a police state, the American suburban lifestyle is a perfect fit. There is also a cultural authoritarian/totalitarian aspect of it, as we have seen in the movie "The Truman Show".
Another false premise.
In USA cities: "Nearly 537,000 cameras monitoring a population of 48.9 million people. This gives an average ratio of 11 cameras per 1,000 people
Atlanta was the most surveilled city with a ratio of 124.14 cameras per 1,000 people
New York City had the highest number of cameras in total: 70,882"
How about London which seems to be the most surveilled city in the world outside of China:
"Research by Clarion Security Systems estimates that there are over 942,562 CCTV Cameras in London, meaning there is 1 CCTV camera for every 10 people in the capital. You are likely to be captured on London CCTV up to 70 times per day. (2022)"
It is pretty easy to be tracked in your so called " anonymous city lifestyle" by loads of government cameras. We also cannot forget about the cell phones we all carry that track all of us.
How about London which seems to be the most surveilled city in the world outside of China:
"Research by Clarion Security Systems estimates that there are over 942,562 CCTV Cameras in London, meaning there is 1 CCTV camera for every 10 people in the capital. You are likely to be captured on London CCTV up to 70 times per day. (2022)"
It is pretty easy to be tracked in your so called " anonymous city lifestyle" by loads of government cameras. We also cannot forget about the cell phones we all carry that track all of us.
There are no government cameras in my suburb.
Ask yourself why those cameras are needed, because it's difficult for the government to control urban areas. Protests do mostly happen in urban areas. Most revolutions were performed in urban areas. Urban areas are perfect for anonymous living, for hiding in the crowds. That's why the government needs cameras to have some basic level of control.
In the low density areas, control is exercised through humans, not cameras. Neighbors spying on each other. Small communities are known to have a high degree of social control. Someone unknown is walking down the street in a typical suburban neighborhood. You can be sure someone is watching him, he/she may call the cops on him/her. The lack of alleyways, tunnels, crowded streets and places gives perfect shelter for those who want to hide. Hiding in a suburb is a task of near impossibility. The dendritic streets and the lack of pedestrian infrastructure gives provides zero opportunity.
That said, London is an extreme example of a more dense city with lots of cameras.
You will find surveillance cameras in low density areas as well:
Low density communities are perfect for a totalitarian state.
1. It's harder for individuals to associate with others and organize resistance.
2. It's pretty good for separating people from each other.
3. Dendritic streets are even better for it. The totalitarians just need to block the access road to imprison a lot of people on their properties.
4. The large spaces between buildings, the lack of complex physical infrastructure such as tunnels and alleyways give little opportunity for hiding and escaping.
5. There is a high degree of social control through smaller community scales on the same area.
That's nonsense, nobody is going to cut through a sidestreet that allows for much lower speeds than a main street.
Also acknowledge that the autocentric lifestyle and autocentric urban planning causes most of the problems related to noise, safety and walkability of an area. Most of the noise in a city is coming from cars, not density. Density does not cause significant more noise than low density, but more cars do.
Well, your first point is simply not accurate. When the main street is stacked up and travel speed is zero, yes, people will cut through a residential neighborhood even though they can only go 25 mph there. You need to come over to the US and drive in rush hour.
As to noise, no, automobiles are not causing Subwoofer Sammy to run his video gaming console at 2 am in the apartment over mine. Since Sammy's 6 foot 6 and 255 lbs and the nephew of the apartment manager, when I complain and he says "that's nonsense, you can't hear me" and slams the door, what it means is I'm stuck there till my lease expires. If it's a condo then I'm stuck till I can sell out (and incur the closing costs). This is real life, not a hypothetical. I had these experiences in my 20s living in apartments; I had the same experiences in my 40s living in apartments. I have sworn that I will neven share walls or ceilings again until I'm in the assisted living facility at which time hopefully I'll be either so deaf or so loopy I won't care.
And have you ever heard what a streetcar or trolley sounds like when it goes round a tight corner?
Automobiles are also not causing the constant helicopters hovering over the city, nor are they causing the constant sirens of police cars and fire trucks (yes, of course, those vehicles are automobiles, but we can expect that even in the urban-utopia-to-be, there'l still be police cars ambulances and fire trucks, and people being people will still commit crimes, get ill, and have fires.)
Where did I argue "apartments for everyone"? I just think that far more apartments would be build if they would be less surpressed. The supply is artificially limited, but the demand is there. It's the more environmentally friendly way of living, that's for sure and apartment complexes allow cities to be more walkable, but I never said everyone needs to live there. A lot of US cities are missing the middle, the middle housing, which is why they look so crazy with high rises in downtown and a sharp cut into areas filled with single family homes, but little middle housing in between. Higher density housing is surpressed in the US. We aren't even talking about forcing people into apartments. That narrative is a reversal of reality.
Since the City of Philadelphia's 10-year property tax abatement for new residential construction and improvements to existing residential property was cut in half in 2021, the only residential properties being built here now are apartment buildings. "3-over-1s" and "4-over-1s" — these terms refer to the number of apartment floors over a floor of commercial space — plus some purely residential four- and five-story buildings have been sprouting like weeds in several outlying neighborhoods, including the one I call home. In the city core, I can count at least seven buildings of 10 or more stories under construction right now. And I spoke yesterday with a developer who's turning several office floors of a historic hotel that had been divvied into a mixed retail-office-hotel property into residences.
Most of the residential property in Germantown is single-family — rowhouses (the dominant SFR type in the city; a higher percentage of Philadelphia's housing stock consists of rowhouses than in any other US city), then twins, then a few (usually large) freestanding SFRs scattered around the neighborhood in pockets.
Truth to tell, this city comes close to what I think you'd like to see in most US cities. But it stands out from most of them as well.
Well, your first point is simply not accurate. When the main street is stacked up and travel speed is zero, yes, people will cut through a residential neighborhood even though they can only go 25 mph there. You need to come over to the US and drive in rush hour.
As to noise, no, automobiles are not causing Subwoofer Sammy to run his video gaming console at 2 am in the apartment over mine. Since Sammy's 6 foot 6 and 255 lbs and the nephew of the apartment manager, when I complain and he says "that's nonsense, you can't hear me" and slams the door, what it means is I'm stuck there till my lease expires. If it's a condo then I'm stuck till I can sell out (and incur the closing costs). This is real life, not a hypothetical. I had these experiences in my 20s living in apartments; I had the same experiences in my 40s living in apartments. I have sworn that I will neven share walls or ceilings again until I'm in the assisted living facility at which time hopefully I'll be either so deaf or so loopy I won't care.
And have you ever heard what a streetcar or trolley sounds like when it goes round a tight corner?
Automobiles are also not causing the constant helicopters hovering over the city, nor are they causing the constant sirens of police cars and fire trucks (yes, of course, those vehicles are automobiles, but we can expect that even in the urban-utopia-to-be, there'l still be police cars ambulances and fire trucks, and people being people will still commit crimes, get ill, and have fires.)
You need to understand that the sum of decisions that were made related to urban planning and lifestyles resulted in this disaster.
I have never seen cars cutting through residential side streets to get faster to their destination. We have busy highways and rush hour as well.
I also never had any problems with loud neighbors. If that is the case you can call the cops. Being loud after 10 pm and on Sundays is prohibited in Germany. Your ceilings are made of thin material. In Germany apartment buildings are made off thick concrete/stones. You won't hear anyone walking in his apartment, except if that person is dancing.
I live next to a streetcar line. I don't hear anything.
In general it is relatively calm and quite here in my Cologne neighborhood relatively close to city center, especially on Sundays you don't hear anything, but birds.
Helicopters? Last time I have heard an helicopter was 2 months ago. I would say you hear one helicopter per month hearing it for for half a minute when flying over my building. Our police doesn't make excessive use of helicopters here. Most helicopter flights are ambulance flights.
The same with sirens. You may hear one emergency vehicle siren per day. Somedays you hear none. It's not really something that bothers me a lot.
In addition sound design is part of urban planning here.
Today I was walking in the city district of Westhoven in Cologne and I filmed a short clip:
You can hear almost no sounds, but myself breathing. I did not edit this. It's the real sound of this high density area. Here is the location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/vGnHLaKDEXN8efP49
As you can see, a grid layout with densely built up houses.
Yes, the US isn't Germany, bu you Americans just don't have the experience of living in dense cities and thus haven't invented the solutions yet, that other countries around the world have figured out to make life in cities a more relaxed and a better experience. There are technical and planning solutions to all these issues you brought up.
Last edited by Stadtmensch; Yesterday at 05:01 PM..
So you realize, that traffic is a problem, but by promoting a car dependent lifestyle you are contributing to the problem yourself. It's a circle. However even in connected streets there is a distinction between busy main streets and calm side streets.
I can judge whatever I want. It's called free speech. It seems that some Americans need lessons about constitutional rights such as property rights (e.g. the right to build an apartment complex on your own property) and other fundamental unalienable rights.
Yards are government population control. By living in detached single family homes with yards as opportunity to spend much of your time there, you have created clearly identifiable personal locations, the government can find any person much more easily at any time, as contrary to finding people who are spending time in crowded public areas such as parks.
That said, yards are pretty useless for the most part, not entirely, but most of the space is never fully utilized. Yes, this is a fact, wherever you like this fact or not is irrelevant to the matter of the fact. 20% of Americans own a dog. Even if everyone of them would live in an urban area, the vast majority doesn't need giant laws for their dogs. And the majority of Americans also never hold barbeques that utilize the full 23,301 square feet of lawn.
The average lot size in Houston is probably 7500 sq ft. Ours is 11,000 and is very large by Houston standards.
Yards are population control? That's ridiculous.
Keep in mind that the City of Houston does not have zoning. There are thousands of lots in central Houston that have gone from 1 SFH to being full of townhomes, increasing density organically and in a manner supported by the market and the people who live in the new homes.
I've been to Germany. There are many places where not having a car means you don't get to do much. Walldorf, for example. Heidelberg is better than Walldorf, but still very car centric.
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