Cities: A Smart Alternative to Cars

kennedy said:
Absolutely agree. I wouldn't call Lowell, Melrose, Fitchburg, or Arlington (or wherever else Ron mentioned, suburbs. They follow my idea/wish of having zero suburbs (suburbs defined as auto-centric, strip mall dependent, and sub-divided) and only having smaller cities.
Click to expand...

then wouldn't you call Los Angeles a suburb?


Ron Newman said:
But even Framingham is becoming a cultural center ... for Brazilians. And parts of Orange County, California became Little Saigon. Culture can spring up in places you wouldn't first expect.
Click to expand...

good point.
 
Parts of Los Angeles feel like city to me: Westwood Village, Hollywood Blvd, Melrose Ave, Beverly-Fairfax (old Jewish neighborhood), downtown Santa Monica, Venice Beach, the Sunset Strip, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, for examples.

And it would be hard to deny that the place bristles with culture: live music, theatre, independent film, art galleries and museums, LA Philharmonic, etc. I sometimes miss it.
 
Los Angeles has about contiguous 70 square miles (and many outside of that) with an average density (twice the city average or 15000+/sm) well exceeding that of Boston, and in many places the population density goes over 100,000 per square mile. And this is all in land that is the product of subdivision. (what's categorically wrong with subdivision anyway? Does somebody not understand the diversity and history of that process? I wonder)
The assumption that suburbs don't have "culture" is next to assinine, I can't even address that.
That said, getting back to the point of this thread, population density does not a walkable city make. There are many walkable suburbs, and unwalkable dense urban areas. The issue is very complex, has to do with land use arrangements, the way automobile congestion is addressed, many other factors, and certainly can't be summed up in an exceedingly crude breakdown of "city" vs "suburb".
 
a630 said:
Los Angeles has about contiguous 70 square miles (and many outside of that) with an average density (twice the city average or 15000+/sm) well exceeding that of Boston, and in many places the population density goes over 100,000 per square mile. And this is all in land that is the product of subdivision. (what's categorically wrong with subdivision anyway? Does somebody not understand the diversity and history of that process? I wonder)
The assumption that suburbs don't have "culture" is next to assinine, I can't even address that.
That said, getting back to the point of this thread, population density does not a walkable city make. There are many walkable suburbs, and unwalkable dense urban areas. The issue is very complex, has to do with land use arrangements, the way automobile congestion is addressed, many other factors, and certainly can't be summed up in an exceedingly crude breakdown of "city" vs "suburb".
Click to expand...

LA is much larger and much denser than Boston, but does that make it more urban? As for walk-ability, I've always generally thought an urban area must be walkable, while a suburban area must be auto-centric. Sub-divisions are categorically wrong because they contribute to auto-centrist sentiments, and are inherently un-walkable. As I've said before, by dividing areas, you create issues with getting from one place to another on foot efficiently. You'd need a car. Which is anti-urban, and not a city. Which is why Boston (in some areas) is more urban than Los Angeles (in some areas).
 
"Subdivision" just means "dividing a large lot into smaller lots for separate development". The large lot might have formerly been a farm, ranch, estate, etc. Without subdivision it would be hard to build anything at all.
 
Excuse me, I meant the thrown around form of the word (the noun)-not the practice of dividing larger lots (the verb). For example:

2dazio6.jpg


Very dense, very unwalkable.

Or this:

o8f6fl.jpg

Not dense, not walkable.

Too tired to think hard now (sorry if I'm seeming rude), need to study comparative government. Blech...
 
kennedy, i agree with your assessment of the two photographed examples. both of these do occur, but they do not represent the scope of what is happening currently in terms of subdivision anywhere in the country, and certainly not historically. The vast majority of Boston is the product of subdivision. See Ron's comment.
You may want to read about the history of subdivision regulation whenever you're done with comparative governance.
 
True, but usually there's more to ethnic enclaves than just restaurants. Visual and performing arts venues often follow.
Click to expand...

Ron, you're missing the point once again. It's not about the content of the development, but the form the development takes (in the case of the suburbs being discussed here, wastefully autocentric).
 
But the claim I was responding to is that the suburban form precludes 'culture'. I don't see sufficient evidence to support that claim.

if we're going to argue for cities (and I'd like to do that), we have to base our arguments on solid ground.
 
a630 said:
Los Angeles has about contiguous 70 square miles (and many outside of that) with an average density (twice the city average or 15000+/sm) well exceeding that of Boston, and in many places the population density goes over 100,000 per square mile. And this is all in land that is the product of subdivision. (what's categorically wrong with subdivision anyway? Does somebody not understand the diversity and history of that process? I wonder)
The assumption that suburbs don't have "culture" is next to assinine, I can't even address that.
That said, getting back to the point of this thread, population density does not a walkable city make. There are many walkable suburbs, and unwalkable dense urban areas. The issue is very complex, has to do with land use arrangements, the way automobile congestion is addressed, many other factors, and certainly can't be summed up in an exceedingly crude breakdown of "city" vs "suburb".
Click to expand...

Boston has about 1,000,000 people in 80 square miles.
 
czsz said:
Ron, you're missing the point once again. It's not about the content of the development, but the form the development takes (in the case of the suburbs being discussed here, wastefully autocentric).
Click to expand...

[Playing devil's advocate]
But isn't that the counterargument that cannot be ignored in this discussion? That culture will flourish in spite of "bad" architecture/planning or maybe more precisely just in spite of architecture or planning? Beyond the energy unsustainability and pollution arguments, what is the argument against the form the development takes if it is not that it stifles life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness?

No one has mentioned the New Urbanists who propose the exact counter-sprawl program being discussed. My take on that work is that it is too rule bound, restrictive, deterministic, expensive and ultimately elitist.
 
scootie said:
No one has mentioned the New Urbanists who propose the exact counter-sprawl program being discussed. My take on that work is that it is too rule bound, restrictive, deterministic, expensive and ultimately elitist.
Click to expand...

The same could be said for the creation of the Back Bay.
 
Ron - I guess its commonplace to argue that having a particular ethnic group concentrated in one area = culture, but its always seemed ridiculous to me.

We talk about "culture" in different senses, and often contrast high and low brow versions of it. I don't want to make much of that dichotomy. But the term is being thrown around too lightly in this thread.

It's one thing to be Harlem in the Jazz age. That's culture. Framingham today? I mean, sure you can probably get some delicious Brazilian food there, but if that's your standard for culture it's pretty low. You made the point that performing arts venues follow - is that really true? (I'd be happy to hear some suggestions)

I go to school in the Bay Area. There are no lily-white suburbs out here, and there are very many that are significantly non-white. That doesn't prevent them from being ugly and autocentric, nor does it qualitatively change ANYTHING about them. Trying to elevate that to "culture" just seems to impose an unnecessary and touristical sense of "otherness" - they are regular people living ordinary lives. You can make culture out of anything. I haven't seen the 'Ice Storm', but I hear it showcases WASP 'culture' pretty damn well.

Visual and performing arts operates at a different level, and the artists involved will mostly be motivated enough to gravitate towards already established cultural centers. In the Bay Area's case, that is SF, OAK, Berkeley. I've seen an extraordinary amount of Asian/Asian-American art in all of those places. Even Mountain View. But never Sunnyvale or Milpitas or Daly City.
 
blade_bltz said:
and the artists involved will most be motivated enough to gravitate towards already established cultural centers.
Click to expand...

I know this is true, but it has always bothered me.

I want my artists to be iconoclasts damnit!
 
I understand that everyone on this board values architectural and planning theories or else they wouldn't bother to be here, but I think a lot of us are over-estimating the ability of design and planning to influence culture. If anyone can cite a study on this, I'd be happy to read it, but until then, I'm going to avoid making the claim.

That being said, there has been a ton of work on the idea that cities are generators of ideas, business, innovation, etc. However, that being said, I don't believe that any of those studies would claim that design or planning had much to do with it. I could be wrong on this, but I think the claim is more that shear numbers has more to do with it than anything else. I guess you could extrapolate that to claim that the suburbs are inferior to the "urbs" in terms of innovation and therfore culture as well, but I think it might be a stretch.
 
MIT (Kendell Sq) & Silicon Valley* seem to support your position.

*unless you give SF the credit
 
blade_bltz said:
I haven't seen the 'Ice Storm', but I hear it showcases WASP 'culture' pretty damn well.
Click to expand...

You totally should. One of the finest films of the 90s, and some of Ang Lee's best work. A masterpiece.

blade_bltz said:
In the Bay Area's case, that is SF, OAK, Berkeley. I've seen an extraordinary amount of Asian/Asian-American art in all of those places. Even Mountain View. But never Sunnyvale or Milpitas or Daly City.
Click to expand...

Don't sell Daly City short. It's the epicenter of turntablism. Check out Doug Pray's documentary film, Scratch.
 
But isn't that the counterargument that cannot be ignored in this discussion? That culture will flourish in spite of "bad" architecture/planning or maybe more precisely just in spite of architecture or planning? Beyond the energy unsustainability and pollution arguments, what is the argument against the form the development takes if it is not that it stifles life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness?

No one has mentioned the New Urbanists who propose the exact counter-sprawl program being discussed. My take on that work is that it is too rule bound, restrictive, deterministic, expensive and ultimately elitist.
Click to expand...

This is why I don't fall into the trap of arguing against sprawl from a "cultural" perspective...it inevitably involves championing one idea of "culture" against another, usually equally valid one - in the New Urbanists' case, this conservative notion that small town life, with frequent neighborly contact, is an ideal. Most people who use culture as an argument for stifiling sprawl are making assumptions about what their audience values - and these arguments will only ever go so far.
 
I don't think there's literature arguing that suburbs are devoid of culture because it wouldn't get published. There's a lot criticizing its aesthetics, that I suppose makes good coffee table reading. There is far more literature on the culture and diversity of suburban areas around the globe, conferences every month, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top