
The next great urban reset - jas_far
https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2018/02/26/next-great-urban-reset
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jakecopp
I feel like I'm not really getting this article, though I am super interested
in city planning. It feels too vague.

Are they proposing the two most likely scenarios are 1. Everyone going back to
running their own farms and 2. Continued urban sprawl?

What is the reason for this reset? Millennials priced out of the housing
market?

I'd be very grateful to hear some clarification about this this piece from
someone a lot more knowledgeable than I in urban design.

~~~
RobertRoberts
I am actually skeptical of any plan that calls for us to smash more people
closer together. A development near my home wanted to smash 5 houses into the
same location where 1 was before. With only 12 feet between, (6 feet of yard
space for each house) chop down huge trees, etc... I won a small victory at
city hall, got a bunch of people to show up, even measured the land and found
their plans were 15 feet short! (greedy liars, it was unreal)

I found out that this developer had a history of paving over wetlands and
doing whatever they wanted. (they were in lawsuits with the state over this)

And the kicker? He was a part of an initiative called "open spaces". The idea
behind "open spaces" was to save the natural landscape, guess how they do
that? By cramming in as many people into smallest housing they can, and by
discouraging land ownership.

Greed is disguised at many levels, and I no longer take any writer's
suggestions or criticisms at face value anymore, especially when money is
involved.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Theoretically, I think it makes sense that the less resources people use,
including space, the better it is for the natural landscape.

~~~
viscanti
People should be forced to use and own more resources than they want/need. Who
cares that 6 individuals or families might have wanted an opportunity to have
affordable housing and didn't need a larger personal area (because they
couldn't afford it)? Shouldn't they just be priced out of the area so that
existing home owners can preserve their monoculture? Seems like a cause worth
fighting for.

~~~
RobertRoberts
I guess this situation can be easily misunderstood, we are talking small rural
area here. With very cheap housing already.

The town near us already had this kind of housing built and it was all empty
because they couldn't sell the houses because they were built too poorly.
Plenty of older homes available.

This is _not_ San Francisco.

Edit: > _Seems like a cause worth fighting for._

Only where it makes sense, if there is 100 square miles of open space around
you, forcing the living space inside a small town isn't the same as using the
left over space in a big city wisely.

~~~
closeparen
Why shouldn't a small town be compact and walkable?

~~~
RobertRoberts
I think you may not have ever lived in a small town. The town I grew up in is
3 times the size of my current town, and I walked all over it by 4th grade.
Another town we visit frequently is almost 6 times the size of my current
town, and is very easy to walk all over.

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contingencies
Reset threat #0: Police become ineffective, increasingly working only for
corporations and politicians and increasingly militarizing through 'free' gear
hand-me-downs. As a result, us-versus-them and FUD mentalities come to
dominate, and the increasingly shrinking middle classes retreat from any form
of community, leaving them at the mercy of commercial greed which farms
neoslums in the workerdrone mass commute peripheries that come to circle all
major urban expanses.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
Politics is a funny thing. The extreme right and left tend to meet. People in
Utah and other areas have been complaining about the power of our government
over its people for long time.

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cimmanom
For anyone else who's having trouble reaching the server:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20180304061602/https://www.cnu.or...](http://web.archive.org/web/20180304061602/https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2018/02/26/next-
great-urban-reset)

~~~
icebraining
Thanks.

Also, for those like me who didn't know what CNU was, it's the Congress for
the New Urbanism:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism#Organizations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism#Organizations)

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rexgallorum2
This was definitely aimed at specialists and advocates of new urbanism. The
writer is correct to a degree--post war urban planning (sprawl building) in
the US has been a disaster and the paradigm is on the verge of changing (and
it will be a generational shift). In some areas it has already changed--this
is one issue the author talks about when referring to 'retreat' to urban
districts that predate sprawl. I think that bit was referring to the recent
tendency for 'walkable' pre-war urban districts to experience rapid
gentrification, while post-war sprawl areas (in some cases inner ring suburbs)
lag behind and decay. This model doesn't apply everywhere, but it is emerging
in some places nonetheless. Right now you can easily find examples of new
sprawl construction and rapidly rising property values in pockets of pre-
modernist neighborhoods in a single city.

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jeffreyrogers
I'm not sure what the point of this article is, but given that the largest
cities in the world are still the most desirable place to live for young
people (despite the high cost of living), I don't think the status quo will
change anytime soon.

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rexgallorum2
I think we are currently watching a number of cultural currents and counter-
currents (re)emerging, and the increasing interest in new urbanism and
walkable, mid-density, mixed-use neighborhoods is one of them. You could tie
it to a broader rejection of modernism and capitalist realism and a dozen
other -isms that have defined the look and feel and very substance of life in
the US since 1945, and an increasing tendency to look to the past for traces
of alternative presents/futures that never came into being (see Mark Fisher).
Hipster retro fetishism is only the tip of the iceberg.

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matt_wulfeck
> _How it will play out exactly is uncertain. My bet is that financial
> pressure from broke Millennials to central bank asset bubbles finally
> running out of steam will converge with new technologies such as ‘automated
> everything’ to produce the perfect storm, toppling the current paradigm_

When complex societies collapse, is it right to say they will rebuild with a
simpler system, not a more complex one? To realize the vision of these cities
requires strong central planning leadership and money.

I imagine imagine both of those qualities lacking in round 3.

~~~
marcosdumay
The article is not about society collapse (something the West does not see
since the beginning of the Middle Age). It is about urban collapse, something
that happens from time to time, mostly when new technology appears.

That later one can go into either a more or a less complex direction. You'll
have to dig some better targeted evidence to predict it.

