At least it's more accurate than social studies...

Trevor Salyzyn · Post by **Trevor Salyzyn** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 1:48 am

An Accurate Description of My Hideous City

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 3:39 am

Does anyone know any webpages that outline how to properly design a city?

In your opinions, what is the most inefficient way to design a city? and what is the most efficient way to design a city?

yougetajob · Post by **yougetajob** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 3:40 am

I have no self respect! I moved out to "Canada's Boiler Room" in 2005 for a sweet (ya right) oil patch gig. I left last fall. What a shithole that town is. Reading that reminded me why this is so.

Katy · Post by **Katy** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 7:30 am

Ryan R wrote:Does anyone know any webpages that outline how to properly design a city?

In your opinions, what is the most inefficient way to design a city? and what is the most efficient way to design a city?

Most inefficient way: Anything resembling Atlanta.
Really.
There's some ridiculous number of roads named Peachtree. I can't find a number but I can name around 10 without thinking too hard and I haven't ever even driven around the southern half of the city

Trevor Salyzyn · Post by **Trevor Salyzyn** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 8:41 am

Build up, not out. Make sure that there areas with high pedestrian traffic aren't going to have many vehicles spewing exhaust fumes. Covered connective walkways -- make it possible to avoid freezing to death in the winter.

A city built for pedestrians and bicycles is going to be much more efficient than one built for cars.

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 11:18 am

Trevor wrote:

A city built for pedestrians and bicycles is going to be much more efficient than one built for cars.

Yes, indeed. Also city planners/mayors/MPs should have some form of regulations over what sorts of businesses are able to move into an area. For instance: On the Main St in my small city, there are four gas stations along one strip, a strip bar, a pawn shop, along with five fast food restaurants, which illustrates the blind desire and competition operating rather than careful and artistic city planning.

I think the ideal city would involve building up as you say, and geared towards pedestrians, bicycles and metro transit rather than cars. And instead of allowing urban sprawl into the countryside with luxurious energy inefficient houses, and long drives into the city, the city should promote modest apartment complexes near the downtown in larger numbers.

Moreover, it is much more efficient to provide heat, electricity and water for large groups residing in an apartment complex compared to individual houses in the countryside.

sschaula · Post by **sschaula** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 11:52 am

You need a boulangerie.

Tharan · Post by **Tharan** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 8:11 pm

And a crazy chapelier.

Diebert van Rhijn · Post by **Diebert van Rhijn** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 2:12 am

Ryan R wrote:Does anyone know any webpages that outline how to properly design a city?

There's no way to design a city, only ways to design death traps for mind or body.

Cities grow, they're organic, alive and must be if they have to support living things. Well, support, the relation is something between symbiotic and parasitic actually.

So the best design would be to resist planning and let it evolve with only the most obvious clipping and grooming here and there. Hygienic measures.

I could list pages of sad examples to demonstrate the truth of this but I won't. Give me one example of a popular loved designed and planned city (as a whole, not just bits of the center) and I'd love to examine it.

Katy · Post by **Katy** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:36 am

Yes, but the inner city should always be planned at least to the degree of having a grid system of roads and such. I don't think it's possible to prevent growth, but you can still insist on logic in the transportation system.

Diebert van Rhijn · Post by **Diebert van Rhijn** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 6:13 am

Katy wrote:Yes, but the inner city should always be planned at least to the degree of having a grid system of roads and such. I don't think it's possible to prevent growth, but you can still insist on logic in the transportation system.

You cannot plan even an 'inner city' without having an 'outer city' in mind, in other words: one already decided that a large city has to be, like some Roman endeavor. We're not talking about planning expansions and additions as time goes by.

City planning is an artifact of the condensed time scale our society is creating. There's no sense anymore for ripening and this is the way things are being killed before they're even born. Like planning kids, in a way, squeezed out in between busy schedules.

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 9:41 am

Diebert wrote:

Give me one example of a popular loved designed and planned city (as a whole, not just bits of the center) and I'd love to examine it

.

Yes, well my examples are actually bits of the center, but the center (or downtown in most cases) is the most important part as it receives the most traffic, and represents the overall atmosphere of the city itself.

For instance: compare Manhattan to the downtown portion of many other cities that lacked careful planning. And the difference is apparent.

And I do agree that the city evolves, and changes through time, as it has an an organic component to it. So one must be careful what times of control are implemented over businesses, as this can have a negative affect. However, this doesnâ€™t mean that a skeleton cannot be a constructed.

Trevor Salyzyn · Post by **Trevor Salyzyn** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 11:42 am

I gave an example of a completely unplanned city. The only thing Edmonton has going for it is street and avenue numbers (streets run north/south, avenues east/west... or vice versa?), which is evidence of nothing more than an autistic obsession with counting on the part of city planners. We live on flat prairie, with no landmarks to show the heft of the land.

Every single street is overrun with potholes. The city is 10 years behind, because some stupid mayor 20-odd years ago decided to lower the city's infrastructure maintainance budget to abysmal levels for the sake of paying off some debt.

Diebert van Rhijn · Post by **Diebert van Rhijn** » Tue May 01, 2007 1:23 am

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:I gave an example of a completely unplanned city.

No, you posted an article from someone claiming it should have been planned more carefully or with more skill or sense.

Nevertheless, the problems with Edmonton seems be just another example of too much absurd designs or visions of grandeur during a couple of absurd growth spurts in the 20th century, not a lack of thought.
http://www.epl.ca/edmontonacitycalledho ... cfm?id=117

At the start you already see a choice:

On the other hand, the fact that the rails ended on the south side of the North Saskatchewan River confronted Edmontonians with a crucial choice; they could take the temptingly easier option of moving across the river, or they could stay put. Moving over could have made Edmonton an economic satellite of Calgary and it would probably have developed into a regional service centre like Red Deer. Staying on the north side, asserting the community's independence from Calgary and the CPR and re-asserting historic ties with the north provided at least the opportunity to create a major city.

More bold designs later on:

The early 20th century was a time of experimentation and enthusiasm for novel approaches to urban problems. No city in Canada entered more wholeheartedly into the spirit of innovation than Edmonton, whose leaders seemed determined to present the city as the most progressive in North America (...) Municipally-owned utilities could offer special rates to industries as an incentive to locate in Edmonton. City council regarded this as an essential tool in their ongoing competition with other western cities for economic assets.

Here you see clearly a vision, a desire for a specific future as city, a big and successful as possible, against all costs. But the major things were the big booms in population, each time encouraged and nurtured by the local government it seems - almost like Mao Zedong wrecked China with his designs.

The only thing Edmonton has going for it is street and avenue numbers (streets run north/south, avenues east/west... or vice versa?), which is evidence of nothing more than an autistic obsession with counting on the part of city planners.

So it's not an example of an unplanned city then after all... but detail planning is not really the issue: the larger vision, the priorities, the overall direction lie at the base of any budget spending. This can never be corrected by any wise-ass city architects hired after the fact.

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Tue May 01, 2007 1:25 am

Manhattan, Hong Kong, and any African Slum show some interesting contrasts.