New "Anti-Shadow" Laws Proposed for Boston

We want more shadows!

Let's hear it for more shade on the Greenway Desert.
 
So. To reengurgitate. If this is DESERTWAy, and I think the place of ANTIHISTORY. One can plant NON-shadow desert specie of cacti. IT IS COLD in the desert. Like here. AND. Certain palm specis have the NORTHERN range, but pushed back by glashers. PLUS. Gene splice tthe taller palms for the HARDIE type to take cold.
 
I am starting a new lobbying group: Citizens to Clear Cut the Common.

Who wants to be among the charter members?
 
^^^Moonbat virus. Perhaps nature is telling us to cull the herd?
 
Ironically, there are (very) early, tentative rumblings that suggest Oklahoma City may be becoming a more urban, livable place -- and one more open to growth -- than other US cities ... possibly including (cough, cough) the ones that pass laws against shadows, breezes, beetles, excessive sunlight or whatever other ridiculous nuisances busybodies are trying to legislate against.

These two articles caught my eye today:

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/greg-lindsay/aerotropolis/natural-gas-giant-goes-green-oklahoma

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/realestate/commercial/27devon.html

Having never been to Oklahoma City, I wouldn't advocate anyone moving there any time soon (or, perhaps, ever). But they do seem -- oddly, shockingly -- to have a more developed sense of what makes a successful urban place than Boston under Boss Menino and his brain trust at the BRA.
 
itchy said:
Ironically, there are (very) early, tentative rumblings that suggest Oklahoma City may be becoming a more urban, livable place -- and one more open to growth -- than other US cities ... possibly including (cough, cough) the ones that pass laws against shadows, breezes, beetles, excessive sunlight or whatever other ridiculous nuisances busybodies are trying to legislate against.

These two articles caught my eye today:

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/greg-lindsay/aerotropolis/natural-gas-giant-goes-green-oklahoma

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/realestate/commercial/27devon.html

Having never been to Oklahoma City, I wouldn't advocate anyone moving there any time soon (or, perhaps, ever). But they do seem -- oddly, shockingly -- to have a more developed sense of what makes a successful urban place than Boston under Boss Menino and his brain trust at the BRA.
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Thats because nobody lives downtown. Once downtown has a residential area, there will be NIMBYs to stop further growth.
 
A city that takes its inspiration from Indianapolis is not bound to go very far.
 
True, they're starting low, and you'd have to be an absolute clown to see Oklahoma City as a shining example (or even a dull one) of urbanity.

But they are doing some things that Boston is not: building a trolley line downtown (versus the highways that surround the Rose Kennedy Lawn), building a mile-long downtown canal and boating facilities (I recall ideas about a "Canal District" on the SBW ... that sure would beat what we're getting), putting up the state's tallest building (versus Boss Menino's plan to whittle the "Boston Arch" down to 200 feet or whatever), building new urban parks surrounded by skyscrapers a la one of New York's great parks (Bryant, Central, Union Square, Washington Square) ... versus our limiting Rose Kennedy Lawn development to one-story 7-11s and banning shadows, for crying out loud.

In looking to Indianapolis for inspiration, the Oklahoma City people are clearly well behind Boston to begin with and betray their still-existing yokel sensibilities. But they've got some forward momentum we could learn from ... and Indianapolis is probably a better inspiration than a sprawling, treeless backyard in Topsfield, or whatever other shadow-free geographies our lawmakers, NIMBYs and other non-producing meddlers so admire.
 
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itchy said:
... whatever other shadow-free geographies our lawmakers, NIMBYs and other non-producing meddlers so admire.
Click to expand...
They don't admire the results so much as they admire themselves spouting theories.
 
itchy said:
In looking to Indianapolis for inspiration, the Oklahoma City people are clearly well behind Boston to begin with and betray their still-existing yokel sensibilities. But they've got some forward momentum we could learn from ... and Indianapolis is probably a better inspiration than a sprawling, treeless backyard in Topsfield, or whatever other shadow-free geographies our lawmakers, NIMBYs and other non-producing meddlers so admire.
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I think you just hit on why I am such a fan of tall buildings. I grew up in Topsfield and all our backyard had were trees (unlike our neighbors of which you speak) - we didn't have more than a patch of grass (growing up on wrong side of the upper-middle class tracks).

I HATE TREES.
 
Indianapolis at least has an urban city center. Monument Circle is very impressive, especially filled with crowds gawking at the big, conic, string light sculpture. I mean, Christmas tree.

6s5puc.jpg
 
Monument Circle is nice, and there are bits and pieces of Indianapolis, which if woven back together,would make it a nice city. You can say that about a lot of Midwest cities. Dayton is a good example.
But the fact the a Simon Mall gobbles up downtown Indianapolis says most of what you need to know about the place.
 
Is an enclosed shopping mall necessarily a bad thing to have in a central business district? We have Copley Place and the Prudential Center. Providence has Providence Place.
 
An enclosed shopping mall isn't inherently a bad thing, but if it dominates the area, it becomes a problem. Copley is offset by Boylston St., Newbury St., and the surrounding city. But look at Cambridgeside, it basically dominates the area, and we all know how lively Kendall is. I've never really spent time in Providence, so I don't know about that.
 
kennedy said:
Indianapolis at least has an urban city center. Monument Circle is very impressive, especially filled with crowds gawking at the big, conic, string light sculpture. I mean, Christmas tree.
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Boston's City Hall Plaza is very impressive, especially when filled with crowds cheering on a major sports championship, which of course happens nearly every day.
 
Indianapolis has very little downtown retail other than the mall, which in a way is appropriate since Simon is headquartered there. The retail mix in the mall is typically generic Aeropostale, Orange Julius, etc. The aspiring 'hip' Indianapolitan seems to look to Chicago.

(The video arcade off the food court is pretty killer though, definitely the best thing in the downtown.)
 
czsz said:
Boston's City Hall Plaza is very impressive, especially when filled with crowds cheering on a major sports championship, which of course happens nearly every day.
Click to expand...

Not with how the Celtics choked today.

tobyjug said:
IThe aspiring 'hip' Indianapolitan seems to look to Chicago.
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Same with St. Louis, and I assume, most smaller mid-western cities.
 
... sorry if I turned this into a referendum on whether or not places like Indianapolis or Oklahoma City are "good" or not. ... For the record, I'm 100% sure both of those places are pretty atrocious.

It seems some hucksters from OK City went up to Indy, saw some street life and a vaguely urban environment, and wanted to replicate it. Of course Boston at present is a better place than either of these towns. Of course Boston would be a better model for either of them, since we had hundreds of years of normal city-building that resulted in many successes.

The point is that even those crappy places are actively trying to be more, not less urban, in key ways. Does that mean that OK City won't be building any new surface lots? No. But it wants to be a more important city architecturally as well as economically, and it wants to be a more dense, urban place.

I would never in a million years suggest either OK City or Indy compares to Boston. But even if OK City's model sucks, it's model is a city. In Boss Menino's Boston, our model seems to be an idealized suburb with 8-story PoMo office parks ... and the sort of open space that plagues lesser cities like OK City and Indy ...
 
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