Washington Village | Andrew Square | South Boston

Re: Andrew Square Mixed Use Development

JohnAKeith said:
Might as well rename this thread "Washington Village", no?
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true - except man, how scriptedly trite can a development name possibly get. seriously!?
 
Re: Andrew Square Mixed Use Development

FK4 said:
true - except man, how scriptedly trite can a development name possibly get. seriously!?
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Don't care about the name as long as the darn thing gets built.
 
Re: Andrew Square Mixed Use Development

whighlander said:
Bottom Line Cars are not going away nor is the need for parking
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This is patently false. The "need" for parking is totally artificial. As humans, we are born with legs to take us places. We are not born with cars attached to our hip. If you build a zero parking building then maybe people who want parking will be discouraged from living there, but there are plenty of carless people in the market in Boston that will gladly swoop it up.
 
Re: Andrew Square Mixed Use Development

datadyne007 said:
This is patently false. The "need" for parking is totally artificial. As humans, we are born with legs to take us places. We are not born with cars attached to our hip. If you build a zero parking building then maybe people who want parking will be discouraged from living there, but there are plenty of carless people in the market in Boston that will gladly swoop it up.
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Data -- -the history of our evolution as a species has been the invention of things that extended us -- this in the most fundamental way is why we are now the dominant species and the most successful one


We were not born:
  • the strongest so we invented a myriad of tools to improve our grip, throwing ability, lifting ability, hauling ability
  • the most visually acute so we invented telescopes and microscopes
  • hearing acute so we invented microphones and digital signal processing
  • olfactorily acute so we invented Dogs and mass spectrometers
  • the fastest or most efficient "pack" animals so we invented a succession of means to make us faster in getting us and things from one place to another
    • horses
    • horse pulled carriages and wagons
    • a whole succession of "roadways" to travel on
    • motorization of the wagons based on steam
    • motorization of the wagons based on centrally generated electricity
    • motorization based on the internal combustion engine
    • ice skates, roller skates, segways, BMX...
    • skis, water skis, personal water jets
    • others things under development .....
  • flyers -- airplanes, helicopters, airports, cruise missiles, personal drones, sail planes, wing suits
  • swimmers -- ships, submarines, jet skis
  • outer space explorers -- Saturn V, ISS
  • ...

actually only a brief summary of some of the limitations which we have overcome with inventions

Someday with the perfection of efficient, Exoskeletons we will be able to rebuild out cities without paved roads and elevators

We will leap from building to building with our burdens on our greatly enhanced backs and climb their ziggurat-like exteriors -- but until then Personal Vehicles will be driving from place to place carrying people and things and Needing Roads and, Yes, Parking
 
Actually the creation of cities and success of them is often considered to be a bigger reason that we as a species became as successful as we did. Transportation does help but the key is fast reliable transportation between cities not to rip open the city for cars thereby destroying what a city needs to function at its best which is density that allows for numerous and varied connections to be made. We don't as a species truly need cars to be the best we can be we need our brains that is what has made us the most dominant species along with our social structure.

Also that image of the future you came up with just isn't realistic I don't see us moving towards that anymore than we moved towards a true realization of the tower in a park with freeway city that was envisioned in the 50s or at least not a truly successful version.
 
Re: Andrew Square Mixed Use Development

whighlander said:
Data -- -the history of our evolution as a species has been the invention of things that extended us -- this in the most fundamental way is why we are now the dominant species and the most successful one


We were not born:
  • the strongest so we invented a myriad of tools to improve our grip, throwing ability, lifting ability, hauling ability
  • the most visually acute so we invented telescopes and microscopes
  • hearing acute so we invented microphones and digital signal processing
  • olfactorily acute so we invented Dogs and mass spectrometers
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  • - and soon, electronic noses to replace the dogs. research ongoing.
 
Re: Andrew Square Mixed Use Development

datadyne007 said:
If you build a zero parking building then maybe people who want parking will be discouraged from living there, but there are plenty of carless people in the market in Boston that will gladly swoop it up.
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Data -- if you build a parkingless building atop South Station you might attract a certain crowd who do not want a car and can travel by public transport from there at mostly there will. But even you must see that a Zip Car might want to be parked near by for the 3 AM journey to a sick uncle in Framingham or Wellfleet or Hookset

You know that this is not innovation -- in the Golden Age of the Back Bay the horses and all those associated with such lived and were housed quite a way from the "Carless" rich who had the nice houses on Commonwealth, Newbury, Beacon

I'm sure that at the Uber level of MT and FourSeasons that Jeeves will call for an Uber or Boston Coach when the Master or Mistress of the house needs to journey out somewhere

However, why not build a building with parking available at a further cost just as some may want a balcony or an extra bedroom and let the market decide?
 
citylover94 said:
Actually the creation of cities and success of them is often considered to be a bigger reason that we as a species became as successful as we did. Transportation does help but the key is fast reliable transportation between cities not to rip open the city for cars thereby destroying what a city needs to function at its best which is density that allows for numerous and varied connections to be made. We don't as a species truly need cars to be the best we can be we need our brains that is what has made us the most dominant species along with our social structure.

Also that image of the future you came up with just isn't realistic I don't see us moving towards that anymore than we moved towards a true realization of the tower in a park with freeway city that was envisioned in the 50s or at least not a truly successful version.
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City -- that future was highly exaggerated and extrapolated version of where things have progressed with respect to robotics and exoskeletons -- aka the Jetsons

More seriously is the suggestion which I just posted
why not build a building with parking available at a further cost just as some may want a balcony or an extra bedroom and let the market decide?
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Of course the city and the farm gave us the time to work on artificial noses, etc

And of course we don't need only cars as today Gerbil Tubes or tunnels with moving sidewalks can take us short distances at speeds double or more what we can do with walking

I'm sure that automated pods*1 will travel in similar tubes carrying things for us

^1 much more practical in a dense urban environment than drones
 
Today's Globe has an article on proposed up-zoning for Dot Ave between Broadway and Andrew square.

VZVKG1x.jpg


The "Washington Village" development plans fit into this zoning pretty well.
 
That's pretty dramatic. I prefer the first one for the sake of variety.
 
The city should push for more affordable housing in this rezoning. Southie has seen so much gentrification over the last decade that what the developer is proposing, given that 6,000-8,000 new residents could move in over the next 20 years, is no where near enough to soften the blow. What the city is proposing is massive on a scale that is on par with the waterfront and not much else. They really need to mandate 50%.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
The city should push for more affordable housing in this rezoning. Southie has seen so much gentrification over the last decade that what the developer is proposing, given that 6,000-8,000 new residents could move in over the next 20 years, is no where near enough to soften the blow. What the city is proposing is massive on a scale that is on par with the waterfront and not much else. They really need to mandate 50%.
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You will wait a decade to get this built then. It is really hard to finance 50% affordable. The One Greenway project approaches that level, but took ACDC nearly a decade to pull together. The math simply does not work easily.
 
aaaaaa said:
Eliminate the parking garage and use the cost savings to increase percentage of affordable housing units. I'm with vanshnookenraggen on this, although I prefer the city just to build much (much) more affordable housing.
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Parking garages tend to pay for themselves in the city (the spaces generally are not free). I agree that we don't need a lot of parking at the transit-oriented location, but that won't free up money for units (space for more units, maybe).

The challenge is the cost of construction in Boston, and the lack of meaningful affordable housing construction funds -- just complicated tax credits. You want more affordable housing, pony up some tax monies.
 
aaaaaa said:
And I totally agree that we should increase taxes to raise funds to build more affordable housing (and alleviate poverty), though.
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Take from the rich and give to the poor - how is that working our in Venezuela, Russia, etc.?
 
navigator4 said:
Take from the rich and give to the poor - how is that working our in Venezuela, Russia, etc.?
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Claiming Russia is an example of downward redistribution has to be the funniest thing I've seen on this board, and we have people who like the look of city hall!
 
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