What if archboston.com was a town?

I thought you wrote "No College of Christian Science".

No self-healing, apparently.
 
With the 128 OFFICE PARK ABORTIONS defeated once and for all, the shaky alliance between the Skyliners ("Rallying cry: Stuck in the 1980s!) and the Pedestrians (Rallying cry: Stuck in the 1960s!) dissolves into a bitter and protracted partisan conflict.
 
There is no rule that says skyscrapers can't have amazing street levels. It's just never been done. In archBostonville (archBostonia?) it will be mandated.
 
Any political alliance would crumble in the race to come up with the best one liner about how much a given proposal sucks.
 
It doesn't have to be a magical wonderland. Just being another part of the streetscape is fine. For example, when you stand next to the ESB, you won't notice that it's the tallest building in the city, unless you're looking up...

It's hard enough to get to that outcome, due to the deadly combo of architect egos demanding large empty plazas to showcase their "work" and city-hating NIMBYs demanding large "greenspace" or parking lot buffers around every tall building.
 
Right, which is why archBostonia will be so great. Architects don't get to do any of that stuff and NIMBY's who demand it will be ignored.

Of course, we may run into a problem with getting developers to agree to build tall buildings with really small floor plates. They might rightful argue that business tenets don't want to spread their large operations over 40+ floors.

I don't have a solution to that.
 
In archBostonia, tall buildings will mix with short, so everyone can find something they like ;)

(Well, besides people who hate variety. But screw them!)
 
No superblocks and buildings actually get built after city approval (instead of building rights being packaged and sold)
 
statler said:
Right, which is why archBostonia will be so great. Architects don't get to do any of that stuff and NIMBY's who demand it will be ignored.

Of course, we may run into a problem with getting developers to agree to build tall buildings with really small floor plates. They might rightful argue that business tenets don't want to spread their large operations over 40+ floors.

I don't have a solution to that.
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Buildings that are both tall AND wide.

Or several tall buildings in succession... with gerbil tubes every 8~12 stories!
 
Oh archBoston, look at you all growing up and entering your angsty post modern years...*sniff* brings a tear to my eye!
 
statler said:
This surprises me. If anyone on this board understands the importance of neighborhoods and communities within a city while still valuing the needs of the city as a whole, it would be you. And I mean that as the highest compliment.
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I appreciate that, statler. Terms like "ward boss" give me the creeps.

We live in a city and region where people don't know the difference between politicians and leaders. This is perhaps the most broken thing about our society. Someone way smarter and charismatic than me will need to fix that.

The idea of pouring drams of Bruichladdich and Bunnahabhain appeals to me because I like eye-to-eye conversations. Sadly, we don't engage with each other this way nearly enough. Most of the things worth knowing I learned with my foot on a bar-rail.

As an alternative, I'd accept the role of Managing Director of the archBOSTON Symphony Orchestra.
 
I've never burst out laughing so many times then the first two pages of this thread.

The only open space would be farmers markets and bier gardens. No need for street lights either as signage requirements would require garish animated neon 24/7. Kowloon Walled City would have nothing on our density.

Hugh Ferriss did some preliminary renderings already.
 
Fack, I would live in Ferrissville in a heartbeat.
 
This would be Nirvana.

A City Where Everything is a 15 Minute Walk Away - Atlantic Cities

The 1.3 square-kilometer Great City, designed by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill will be a massive new development that is completely sustainable, affordable, and, most strikingly, car-less. The masterplan, which has been planned for 80,000 people, will be built around a massive transit hub at its center, with all destinations to be within a few minutes walk, a planning innovation that would make “Great City” China’s (and the world’s?) first pedestrian-only city.
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^Just the latest iteration of Ebenezer Howard's garden city. I'ts not surprising to see this idea reemerge now with the green movement currently so in vogue. It's a match made in heaven.

I like the idea of having everything 15 minutes away, but this particular model is a little too extreme for me. In Archbostonia I'd like to see a decentralized network of self-contained, yet integrally connected nodes, maybe roughly 1/2 mile in diameter. Within each node one would be able to find all the things one needed for everyday life, as well as transit connections, parks and other amenities.
 
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