
Toyota will transform 175-acre Japan site into a ‘prototype city of the future’ - sndean
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/6/21052324/toyota-woven-city-japan-bjarke-ingels-ces-2020
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jmg8766
Shouldn't a prototype city of the future be built around walking and public
transit with cars being more of an afterthought?

~~~
flippyhead
I don't understand why cars are bad. ICE are bad because they contribute to
global warming, sure. But things that move small numbers of people to exactly
where they want to go -- are those bad?

In fact, a lot of science fiction I can think of describe Disney-style people
mover things that quickly and efficiently take you exactly where you want to
go. I guess they aren't exactly cars, but they aren't exactly trains either.

~~~
munmaek
As someone who grew up in the States, I never really understood this either,
until I lived in Korea and visited Japan.

There, residential zoning is mixed with business zoning. There is no such
thing as a "suburb", because you have apartments nestled right next to grocery
stores, cafes, and restaurants. I don't think I ever had to walk more than 2-5
minutes to get to a convenience store. Cars still existed of course, but so
many people walked, rode bikes, or took public transit. (It helps that both
countries have extremely good public transit systems).

Once I realized how nice life could be, I started hating suburbs. I hate
having to drive 10-20+ minutes just to get food or groceries because the only
thing around you is a vast sea of houses. I hate that public transit is
basically nonexistent, or if it does exist, it's slow and not on time. I hate
having to drive, which is both unsafe and prohibits me from studying or
getting work done, because I have to pay attention to the road.

Centering around a suburb model is one of the US's greatest structural
failures.

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mikefivedeuce
These kinds of announcements are always full of hype. Panasonic has a similar
concept in Denver. Google / Sidewalk Labs in Toronto. The practicalities of
executing on real estate development at scale is always underestimated or
neglected. Between regulations, the labor force, and tastes of eventual
residents, the end result ends up close to the mean because the stakes (amount
of capital involved) are so high and many decisions are prohibitively
expensive to reverse.

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Dumblydorr
This reminds me of when blogger Mr Money Moustache proposed a car free city in
Colorado, and then was flooded with media requests about when he was building
it and how.

[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/02/27/how-to-create-
rea...](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/02/27/how-to-create-reality/)

~~~
CalRobert
I want this so badly it hurts. I ache for it. I _hate_ the fact that I'm too
terrified to let my kids cycle on city streets, or suburban streets, or
country roads, and they're completely trapped on a small patch of land
surrounded by asphalt ribbons of death on all sides.

[https://culdesac.com/](https://culdesac.com/) is close, but only in Arizona I
believe

~~~
rayiner
> I _hate_ the fact that I'm too terrified to let my kids cycle on city
> streets, or suburban streets, or country roads, and they're completely
> trapped on a small patch of land surrounded by asphalt ribbons of death on
> all sides.

This is an irrational fear. In 2016, there were about 245 children under 14
killed by cars as pedestrians in the entire year:
[https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...](https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812491).
There are about 75 million children under 18, so let's say 40 million between
ages 5 and 14. That's 0.6 child pedestrian deaths per 100,000 ambulatory
children. That's about 1/5 as likely as the risk of a white person being
killed in a homicide in any given year.

Moreover, about 332 children ages 5-14 were the victims of homicide in 2017:
[https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/LeadingCauses.html](https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/LeadingCauses.html).
Us urbanists ridicule suburban parents for worrying that their kid will be
shot if they live in an urban neighborhood. Your child being killed by a car
while playing in the street is even less likely, and having any special
anxiety about it--apart from the general terror of parenthood--is equally
irrational.

We could certainly do better on this front. I'm pretty lucky to live in a pre-
zoning code suburb with narrow little streets and houses close together, where
I can let my seven year old play outside with my one year old as long as
they're more or less within visual range. Neighborhoods like mine are illegal
to build today. But, I grew up in a standard suburb, and we played on standard
suburban streets starting at age 6+. It's pretty common outside big cities and
pearl-clutching millennial parents.

~~~
CalRobert
Those kids were killed despite a culture that puts "NEVER GO IN THE STREET"
front and center in how children should interact with their built environment.
This came as a result of cars killing many, many people - cars that showed up
on streets where kids (and adults) had walked for centuries without being run
over.

I mean, if I fill the local pool with sharks it is indeed true that shark
deaths will fall to 0 pretty quick.

~~~
harryh
_This came as a result of cars killing many, many people_

When was this? I can find no time period in which child pedestrian fatalities
were all that significant.

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jelliclesfarm
I am writing a futuristic version of Italo Calvino’esque Impossible Cities. I
started with coming up with designs of fully automated farms and then figured
it was also fun to imagine cities and towns and futuristic village.

I have so far written 17 chapters of Jellicles farms, villages and cities. I
am doing city design now. Any inspirational material to read would be much
appreciated.

During farming season, I spend most of my time writing about imaginary future
automated farms as I am _in the zone_ already. Off season now and I have more
time to read and write about new cities. I have been reading old archeology
finding reports, JBS haldane and Sci fi..old will be new again. Only better.

~~~
bpiche
Please keep it up. That book is a treasure. Do you have a draft copy?

~~~
jelliclesfarm
Yes, I have a work in progress draft. English is not my first language. While
I don’t struggle to communicate, I find that mental images are harder to write
in English. I guess I still ‘think’ in my native language when I write/think
for myself. So..to write this, it is like I am translating myself for myself.
When I showed it to someone, they didn’t quite see it as I did and so now I am
changing how I write/choose themes and words. For example, the choice of a
colour means a whole lot more to me than just a hue. For others, it’s just a
colour and the nuances that are easily accessible to my mind is lost to them.
Blue to me means meandering and I think they see it as curvy streets as I
do..but they don’t.

I want to finish at least 36 by this year end. I want to have had at least one
blue print per month since I started but I have been lagging behind.

It was to be a five year project ending in 2020. 60 seems unrealistic at my
pace, but I would feel better if I did 3 years worth of cities. I am lagging
behind because lots of research involved. But I will finish it! I only wish I
could do 3D models. I never learnt that when younger or could cultivate the
skills needed for model building. My dream would be to create miniature model
cities with forests and oceans and farms and mountains. And keep connecting
these cities. Keep building out. My vision of the future is clusters of city
states. No more nations and countries.

------
ekianjo
2000 people is not even remotely like a 'city', it's the size of a remote
island village, especially in Japan.

~~~
Grue3
It's called a "danchi". Basically a company builds a little town and settles
its employees in it. Usually they are pretty boring, but I guess Toyota
decided to spice it up.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danchi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danchi)

~~~
ekianjo
I know what it is, but that's not what's written in the article since they
especially mention "prototype city". That's not what people understand by
"city". It's a 'dormitory' in English.

~~~
nitrogen
The word prototype is important, and the phrase is probably supposed to invoke
EPCOT.

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jhoechtl
Fordlandia!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia)

~~~
leoc
Kaizenland, or maybe Demingworld.

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francisofascii
Historically related, reminds me of Futurama, an exhibit at the 1939 New York
World's Fair, sponsored by General Motors, which included multi-lane highways
within a futuristic looking city.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama_(New_York_World%27s_F...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama_\(New_York_World%27s_Fair\))

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tomrod
Disney tried this too, as well as other companies. They don't tend to turn out
well because when things get complicated the profit motive tends to win for
these companies serving as shepherds of the communities.

~~~
jagged-chisel
Disney didn't actually try. Walt had plans and died. The Walt Disney Company
board couldn't see the endeavor as profitable and so changed EPCOT plans into
another theme park.

~~~
shiftpgdn
Disney did take another swing at it in later years with Celebration, Florida.
Unfortunately like EPCOT the Disney Board didn't see the profit in it and let
the project go.

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hkt
Car manufacturer's vision of the future seems likely to be something less than
wholesome given what people need. My guess is this will be a city where
everything is made to measure the environment, and the consequence will be
that everything, including its occupants, will be managed in a way few other
cities ever have been.

~~~
dredds
Aboard Axiom: "Leave The Flying To US! AUTOPILOT", also "Hoverchair!", and
"Family Values! Because at BnL we know that the family that 'Pays Together,
Stays Together'".

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davidw
These things almost never end well. Real cities evolve gradually over time,
because they're impossible to plan out to a finished state. But hey, maybe
we'll learn some stuff along the way, so good to see experiments.

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walrus01
I'm really leery of the whole idea of living in housing provided by your
employer. We've tried this, with mining company towns and such, turns out it's
terrible for workers' rights.

~~~
mustaflex
Not everywhere I assume, my grandfather worked 20 years as a miner in Belgium
and his employer left the housing to the city only if they will let the miners
stay there for a symbolic some (+-50€). Once the owner died the city
immediately tried to change the rent to 500€, but the local miners union
fought it and kept the old rent until the union chief died also of old age.
There were no one capable of Fighting the legal battle. Basically the city
ignored the owner's will to profit from coal miners.

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thdrdt
Well I believe Bjarke Ingels (BIG) could be the right guy for the job. He
already designs buildings that look like the future.

But overall this is just an announcement that BIG will design employee housing
for Toyota.

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elric
Is anyone living in Masdar City yet? This was supposed to be a planned city in
the Abu Dahbi, using all kinds of fancy tech, while also being "green".
Haven't seen any updates re that in ages, so I'm assuming it got canned?

Not sure if there are (m)any examples of prototype cities or planned cities
that ever amounted to anything?

~~~
nwah1
Cities are some of the biggest capital outlays that humans create, and they
generally sprout up naturally in prime locations of some sort.

There are exceptions, like Las Vegas, of course. Or many newer Chinese cities.

To acquire hundreds of acres of prime land suitable for an urban environment
is generally something only a government can do. And to additionally provide
for the infrastructure and/or buildings would send the cost into the
stratosphere.

Masdar has been canned, yes, but they have talked about replacing it with a
new city called NEOM. It is projected to cost at least 500 billion dollars,
assuming they stay within budget. No private actor has that kind of cash to
spend.

Smaller private company towns have been commonplace, though. And many existing
towns meet that definition.

Disneyland, Disneyworld, and Celebration, Florida are more obvious examples.

Lesser known examples would include Pullman, Illinois or Columbus, Indiana (no
relation to the capital of Ohio)

~~~
hylaride
_Masdar has been canned, yes, but they have talked about replacing it with a
new city called NEOM. It is projected to cost at least 500 billion dollars,
assuming they stay within budget. No private actor has that kind of cash to
spend._

Indeed, I can only think of a few ground up examples for cities that
"suceeded" and they're almost always new capital cities where the Government
can literally create demand for jobs via moving the bureaucracy. Examples
include Washington DC, Brasilia(Brazil) and Canberra(Australia). But these
cities often do not have a lot to offer unless you work for the government. DC
has a large private sector, but it's attached to Federal work.

The rigidity of top-down planning removes the ability of the city to adapt to
new things and it often misses the nuance of what makes a place livable.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
DC wasn't started from the ground up. There were two mid-size cities already
inside it when it was chosen as the federal district: Georgetown, MD and
Alexandria, VA.

~~~
hylaride
Yes, but considering how it grew after it may as well have been.

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Johnny555
I wish Walt Disney had lived long enough to complete his vision for EPCOT
(turning it into a real community) instead of it becoming just another theme
park.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_\(concept\))

~~~
taywrobel
It strikes me as weird to see no mention of Disney or EPCOT in the article,
given how similar the concepts are.

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simonebrunozzi
I have dreamed of building the city of the future for more than 20 years now.
My last startup even tried to do something about it (then pivoted to something
else in real estate).

I will keep dreaming.

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sebastianconcpt
If they make it semi-lattice instead of trees it could work [https://cpb-
us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.northwestern.edu/dist/6/...](https://cpb-
us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.northwestern.edu/dist/6/2724/files/2019/01/2016-2-5-vernon_review-1rwczjj.pdf)

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snickmy
To everyone reading this topic: I would love to work on a project like this.
Really, doesn't matter if it is this one, or Google SideWalk, or Microsoft
secret project. IF any of you are working on this already, I'd love to chat!

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bndw
Seems like a lot of deep-pocket tech cos are investing in building "future
cities". What does it look like when tech companies start burring lines with
government? What does "privacy" look like in this future?

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jagged-chisel
Seems all the commenters here want a socially idealized city, and that's fine.
Toyota's not going to build that.

If _we_ want that, _we_ need to write plans, find residents to invest (?), buy
land, and build it. Who's with me?

~~~
ghaff
Or perhaps more practically,

1\. Try to drive change by local involvement. Many US cities have become
incrementally more bike and pedestrian friendly over time

2\. Make an effort to move somewhere that's closer to their ideal even if it
means giving up salary and other aspects of where they're living today

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focom
It's seems like out of smart cities concept only smart grids really happened.
Autonomous vehicles are still a long way off.

~~~
mikece
If a city (or small neighborhood) were specifically designed for autonomous
vehicles (with sensors and guidance tech everywhere) then it would probably
work. Ironically, I think this could backfire by showing just how much
additive and connected tech -- and demarcated lanes where humans shouldn't
step -- will be required for properly operating fully self-driving vehicles.
Folks living in "legacy" neighborhoods will look at this and say "No way" for
the most part.

~~~
erikpukinskis
What kind of guidance tech would we need beyond lights, lines, and signs?

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Zarath
A corporate sponsored city is a city of the future? I actually think it is,
sadly.

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jelliclesfarm
I expect a lot would be elder friendly. And robots to exclude manual labour.

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brudgers
2000 people on 175 acres is a very modest density.

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asdff
Another Epcot.

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RenRav
Waste of money and space.

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calewis
This is why big incumbent car companies will lose against people like Tesla.
The amount of organisational energy and capital required for a project like
this is huge, and it's pay off..? Not so sure.

~~~
akerl_
This is exactly the kind of project that Elon would announce. Things with high
upfront cost, nebulous goals of improving the state of the art for technology,
and a gamble on future payoff, are essentially the checklist for Elon Musk
projects.

Now, there’s potentially a worthwhile discussion about why Elon has seen more
success with these kinds of endeavors than larger incumbents have seen, but
it’s exactly an Elon-style project.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Can you name a big ambitious investment Tesla has made with a nebulous goal?

~~~
akerl_
I was talking about Elon’s overall portfolio, of which Tesla and SpaceX are
both examples. But if you’re specifically curious about Tesla, I’d point out
that Tesla’s mission was to give everybody an electric car, and they decided
to start from ~“make a crazy fast electric sports car” and go from there.
Along the way, some ancillary nebulous goals ~“also become experts in building
our own batteries” and ~”also solar for everybody’s homes”.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Those goals all seem very concrete? What does nebulous mean to you?

