
The Irresistible Urge to Build Cities from Scratch - m_haggar
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-02/the-irresistible-urge-to-build-cities-from-scratch
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lou1306
Since nobody has cited it yet, see Christopher's Alexander "A city is not a
tree" [0] for an architect's take on "natural" vs. plannes cities.

[0]:
[http://worrydream.com/refs/Alexander%20-%20A%20City%20Is%20N...](http://worrydream.com/refs/Alexander%20-%20A%20City%20Is%20Not%20A%20Tree.pdf)

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travisjungroth
Wow I enjoyed this essay. I'm enthusiastic about graphs, and have spent a few
dinners with my girlfriend imagining designing our perfect city. I didn't
expect to run into a well-written article at the intersection of those topics.

For anyone interested, the ethos of our dream city is walkability. High
density, mixed use buildings. The main "streets" are walking and biking only,
with limited roads for service vehicles. Public parking and transit at the
city edges allow people to leave their car behind when visiting.

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jimmy1
Your city sounds very unfriendly to people with disabilities, that are out of
shape, or temporarily disabled that does not allow them to bike or walk (think
having surgery on your leg, undergoing chemo, etc). I would at least have a
tram, trolly or cable car, some type of green transportation that can get you
from A to B quickly.

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tango24
Perhaps there could be a subway system (complete with elevators) under, at
least, the inner portion of OP's imaginary city?

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barry0079
I'm a huge fan of the winding maze like structure of cities built upon the
old. It's nice to be able to wander and explore. I suppose blank slate cities
(like most in America) are a lot more convenient to navigate though.

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cperciva
I enjoy being a _tourist_ in winding mazes. But when I want to get to work?
Give me wide straight roads.

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romwell
>But when I want to get to work? Give me wide straight roads.

Why? Is getting lost on the way to work a problem? A month into working
anywhere, you learn all the ways to get there anyway.

And a 45-minute tram ride to work on winding streets beats a 1.5 hour traffic
jam on a nice, wide, straight 101 North any time.

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souprock
Wait, what? You think a 45-minute commute is good? The 1.5-hour thing is
simply beyond the pale.

You need to get out of the urban megacity.

I've lived in several parts of the USA. My worst commute was 20 minutes by
car, and my current commute is 3 minutes by car or 15 to 20 minutes by foot.
These were all software development jobs.

The reason is that I choose small cities. I choose places that have suburban
density, though they aren't technically suburbs because people aren't
commuting into an urban megacity. The jobs are local.

Another nice benefit of this choice is my expenses. Houses go for 10% to 20%
of what you pay in a place like the Bay Area, not even counting the extra land
you get. Nearly everything else is cheaper too. Gas is half the price.
Groceries are cheaper. Taxes are much lower.

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romwell
Well, my current commute is 30 minutes by bicycle (South Bay), but that's
about to change.

And yes, I guess living in NYC for a while seems to have affected me in many
ways :)

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amelius
Seems like architects have similar urges as software architects :)

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kartan
Yes. And they also underestimate the cost and time to build such a thing.

From the article, "The project is closely identified with President Xi
Jinping, which means it’s unlikely to join a long list of Chinese “ghost
cities” financed by local governments."

A lot of initiatives are started by people with an idea but without resources
or knowledge to execute it.

I think that city planning is an awesome idea. I grew up in Barcelona and the
results are very good
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample)).
But creating a new city from scratch is more difficult. And it is harder to
get the experience to do it right as the execution of the project will take
decades.

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baybal2
Big point totally missed by the article is that Shenzhen - an undisputed
success story, is itself is a "from scratch" development.

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tartoran
Interesting case study:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia)

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woliveirajr
And isn't an amiable city to live in. You basically live inside your car,
there are very few opportunities to do things within walking distance.

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vondur
Most of the cities the Romans founded were based on a grid system and were
logically laid out. Even Paris as we mostly know it today was built in the
1850’s during the reign of Napoleon III.

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cylinder
Are there any cities which are a series of concentric urban rings with
parkland between them?

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doombolt
Moscow to some extent, and traffic is disaster. Rings are especially jam-
prone.

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nine_k
Moscow had plans for "chordal" roads that would connect radial roads in a
faster way than concentric-ring roads do. But the land allocated for these
roads was all built upon in 1990s, so the traffic problem stays.

As in e.g. NYC, subway in Moscow is generally a faster commute than a car, if
there's a station where you need to go. Unfortunately, Moscow subway is _also_
concentric rings + radial lines mostly, and has the same problem of getting
somewhere "diagonally" without hitting the crowded central hub stations.

Moscow is still pretty walkable, compared to many US cities, with sidewalks,
crossings, etc. Though in areas built past ~1960 you have to be ready to walk
for significant distances.

