neat urban planning stuff

P

Patrick

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To help slow traffic, planners pick beige

ba-sfinsider23_p_0497525533.jpg


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/23/BARQ19QUGI.DTL

and, what is being called new 'RURALISM'
http://www.terrain.org/unsprawl/24/
http://www.agritopia.com/

and, the return of streetcar architecture in Portland, Oregon

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/06/portlands_streetcar_architectu.html

If you think these are interesting I'll post more as I read them
 
That Agritopia sounds a lot like the original suburban ideals of Frank Llyod Wright.

Love this stuff, thanks for posting.

Also if y'all don't know you should check out the Van Allen Inst for awesome Urban Planning proposals.
 
it sorta does seem broadacre-ish, but somewhat more farmy at the same time
 
That Van Allen website is impenetrable. Just because you can make something look cool doesn't mean you should.
 
^ That's pretty interesting in a futurama/sci-fi sort of way even if it's just a crazy design idea.
 
One of the problems with Chinese urban population and area statistics is that they tend to count entire municipalities, there being no real sub-level measurement for the built-up areas of cities that are within these province-level divisions. This problem is worst for Chongqing, which is part of a vast municipality of 30+ million people recently carved out of Sichuan, leading some to erroneously declare it the largest city in the world.

Despite its density, Shanghai's area is so large relative to its population because most of Shanghai municipality is farmland. Here the purple border is the municipality limit, and the orange is actual built-up area:

shanghai-municipality-map.jpg


Check out the insanely long bridge to nowhere at lower right. Shanghai actually plans to rebuild its container port on those little islands, which have better access to deep water:

shanghai-donghai.bridge.jpg
 
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Thanks for the insight, czsz. Makes more sense now.
 
I wonder what China would look like if they went the American suburbanization route? With that many people I'm sure it would be like our worst suburbs x100.
 
Wholy crap, I was looking at that bridge on Google Earth and it is just insane. Interesting idea though, I wonder what Boston would look like with a giant bridge out to one of the Harbor Islands that was built up as a giant container port or airport?

Edit: At second glance there are no harbor islands that could really fit the bill for something larger than what already exists. Still an interesting concept.
 
Edit: At second glance there are no harbor islands that could really fit the bill for something larger than what already exists. Still an interesting concept.
Click to expand...

The islands Shanghai built on were basically rocks jutting out of the sea. Almost all of the container port is filled in around them.
 
I've been a huge fan of Emergent Urbanism for a while but since it hasn't been tested (and probably won't for another decade at least), I have to take it with a grain of salt. Old cities look the way they do because of the economic forces of their day. Cities of today look the way they do because of our own unique economic forces. Trying to force a design of future cities by designing future economic conditions seems foolhardy to me. I say let the dominoes fall as they may and leave the rest up to architects; lord knows they'll need the jobs.
 
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