I
don't know of anyone who has come closer to my ideas of the Traditional City
than Carfree.com. While I have allowed for some motor vehicles, these cities are
carfree from first principles -- which is a fine idea I think, at least as a
thought exercise, and maybe in real life too. We saw a few weeks ago that
Venice functions perfectly well with no cars at all, not even commercial
vehicles. This is no surprise, because all cities were carfree only a hundred
years ago. Cities had been carfree for over two thousand years, even 5500
years if you go all the way back to Sumeria.
I like
that term "carfree." It sounds like you are released from bondage
-- which is about right. If you say "No Cars," that immediately
makes people think they are lacking something, or being banned from
something.
Venice
is one of Carfree.com's central role models. So, you would think that the
proposals made by Carfree.com of the Carfree City of the Future would be a
lot like Venice, or at least the Traditional City of which Venice is such a
fine example.
Nope.
Instead,
we will use Carfree.com as an example of how not to do it -- because so many
of the mistakes made (in my opinion) are exemplary of the common modes of
failure we find today when people try to design cities. We really are
complete retards. Why do you think I make things so simple? Just make Really Narrow Streets
with Buildings Side
by Side and No
Cars. It's supposed to be so simple that even retards can do
it, and get a good result.
Carfree.com
begins with the "six lobe city design."
"The
Design Standards for carfree cities as established in the Introduction can be
achieved in a city that offers an excellent quality of life.
Considerable thought has been given to the arrangement of a city which best
fulfills the design standards.
The resulting Reference Design described below and on the Districts and Blocks
pages is for a city of about one million people, but the design can be
adapted to cities with populations between about 300,000 and 3,000,000.
The Reference Topology was developed in great detail for Carfree
Cities."
Carfree.com
Topology Page
The
text is right off the website. I swear I am not making this up.
OK,
let me ask you a question.
Does
this:
A)
Look Like Venice?
B) Not
Look Anything At All Like Venice?
I know
this is difficult, especially for retards, so you may want to consult your
local Professor of Urban Studies before proceeding.
Here's
another question:
Where
the heck IS this city?
OK, I
already know the answer. In The Middle of the Green Box. I have always assumed
that the carfree cities of the future would be the cities of today, rebuilt.
Because, that is what we have always done with cities, at least in Europe and
Asia. Build them over and over again. This idea of building a city from a
green field is really an American notion, and not really appropriate even for
the U.S. What we have actually done is expand
existing cities with greenfield development -- mostly Suburban
Hell development, with a little Hypertrophic City development. New York is
still New York, and it will continue to be for some time hence. You don't
just go rebuild New York in the middle of Utah. This "topology"
apparently makes no allowance for terrain of any kind -- an ocean (most big
cities are on oceans), a river (the rest are on rivers), cliffs, hills,
mountains (Los Angeles? San Francisco?). I suppose we are building this in
the middle of Kansas. Which then begs the question: Why build in the middle of Kansas?
("Because that's where the Green Box is!") A city needs
to have some economic purpose, known as "jobs" in layman's terms.
More
questions...
What
the heck is a "Reference Topology"?
Does
any Traditional City have a "topology"? Does the city you're living
in have a "topology"?
This
was not just a careless slip of the tongue, either. The whole page is named
"Topology".
Is
this city connected to the outside world in any way?
Is
there a road out? A rail line? An airport? A helipad? A zeppelin dock? A port
or marina? A space shuttle launch facility? It apparently exists in perfect
symmetric self-sufficiency. I suppose the economy is based on photosynthesis.
At
first glance, this pleasing little pattern looks like a nice design for a
necktie. It is only a bit later that you realize that this is really supposed
to be a real city. I have mentioned that one of the major failings of City
Design in the last century has been the tendency towards the helicopter viewpoint.
Traditional Cities, as I've said, look like grey mush from the helicopter.
When you design anything from the perspective of a helicopter, you are almost
certain to fail, because cities (especially carfree ones) are actually used
by people on foot. It is almost impossible to design something that actually
works, for a person on foot, from the helicopter viewpoint. Especially if you
are a retard.
How
would you do it? "Get in the helicopter and design some grey mush!"
You can't. It's like trying to write a love letter with a paint roller.
However,
we begin here not from the helicopter
viewpoint, but from the satellite
viewpoint. From the satellite viewpoint, all cities look like
grey mush, even Hypertrophic ones. Carfree.com's primary objective, it seems,
is to make something that looks like a nice necktie design when viewed from
the space shuttle. They even use it as the site
logo. This is such a 100% guarantee of the most miserable failure
that I chuckle to even consider it.
I bet
if you suggested a seven-lobe
city design -- just for kicks, because, you know, mine goes to 11
-- the Carfree.com people would have a shit fit. "Noooo -- it's gotta be
six and only six!" I get the impression they are rather attached to
their six-lobe Reference Topology.
What
could cause such a person -- well-meaning and intelligent by appearances --
to make such colossal errors right out of the box? Let's talk about
motivations.
1) The
primacy of "innovation." This design is
conceived from the perspective of the Professor of Urban Studies. The
Professor of Urban Studies will never design a city in his life, not even a
little neighborhood. Thank God for that! The goal of the Professor of Urban
Studies is to get tenure.
Getting tenure
and designing cities
have absolutely nothing to do with each other. You don't get tenure by saying
"make it just like Venice." You can design a city that way -- a
good one! -- but you can't get tenure that way. No, you have to be creative. You have to
be a contributor to your
field. Throughout the 20th century, this has meant making up
nonsense that is nothing like what has come before. It must be innovative. It must be
revolutionary.
It doesn't actually have
to be any good. Today, we have these highly institutionalized
rituals by which organization dweebs demonstrate the asked-for revolutionary
spirit on demand.
2) The
tendency towards central planning. Urban planning
(not City Design) is one of the last great holdouts of pure Soviet central
planning ideology. For some reason, when people think about City Design, they
think they are planning a moonbase. Thus the tendency to start from the
satellite perspective. Real cities grow in a somewhat organic fashion, and
are motivated by capitalistic considerations.
We
see, thus, not just some clumsy thinking by Carfree.com, but rather the
manifestation of certain repetitive mid-20th-century thought processes, which
are common to many academic sectors (and arts).
Moving
right along, we come to a description of Districts:
Carfree.com:
Districts
We see
some great ideas here. First, the Really Narrow Streets. Good! I also have to
congratulate Carfree.com here for avoiding The Grid, which seems to have
imprisoned the minds of city designers for two hundred years. The 19th
Century Hyptertrophic City has The
Grid in the form of the grid of streets, exemplified by
Manhattan. The 20th Century Hypertrophic City has The Grid in the form of the
placement of its identical megabuildings.
The
Grid, 19th century style.
The
Grid, 20th century style.
I
could write a whole page (or two) just on The Grid. It wasn't confined only
to street layout, but also expressed itself in architecture.
The
Grid, 19th century style.
The
Grid, 20th century style.
People
were absolutely insane for the stupid Grid. It was part of the factory
aesthetic of the first two centuries of industrialization.
Maybe
they were into tennis rackets rather than neckties in those days.
So, I
am not kidding when I say that to design anything
that is not based on The
Grid represents a major step forward. Really, it is. Plus, we
see some little squares and plazas, which are a traditional element of the
Traditional City. And, we see that the buildings are side-by-side, and about
four stories high. Wow, that's great! No more ersatz-farmhouses, the standard
pattern of Suburban Hell. Really
Narrow Streets ... buildings side by side ... no cars ... we
are really on track to success here.
At
first, I thought this was a sort of standalone example of the basic pattern
of Traditional City design. Like Venice.
Ummmm,
what's with the
circle?
And
then it dawns on you ...
The
circle is the same circle that makes up the six-lobed necktie design.
Oh my
GAAAAAD.
Could
anyone actually be so retarded?
It
makes me weak in the knees to even consider that people take this seriously.
Honestly, I had no idea that things were this bad.
I
could mention some funny features, such as the fact that two of the
"districts" are plopped right in the middle of a river. Nothing must come in the way of
the Reference
Topology!
Ummm ... do you know what happens to rivers when it rains?
I
should probably make some jokes here about the "sustainability" of
cities built on floodplains. After many decades of bad experience, people
finally figured out not to build on river floodplains. In fact, the
floodplain can be a great place for all your Green Space fantasies, like golf
courses and soccer fields, which can be easily replaced after The Event From
Which The Floodplain Derives Its Name.
Anyway,
this is nothing remotely resembling a Traditional City.
Obviously.
Let's
just take a moment to catch our breath.
For
our purposes, lets just forget about the whole six-lobe thing, and the
circles and all that crapola. Let's just take this pattern as a representation
of a portion of our sorta-traditional Carfree City of the Future.
There
sure is a lot of green in this picture. Indeed, the legend says that the
green represents "green area."
Uh oh.
You
know what I think about Green Space.
October 10, 2009: Place and Non-Place
The
Traditional City has all sorts of elements that include vegetation. These
are:
1)
Yards (often an urban townhouse will have a backyard)
2) Interior
courtyards
3)
Parks
4)
Sports fields
5)
Squares and plazas can have grass. This is more common in the English example
than the Italian, where squares and plazas are usually paved.
However,
this "green area" is none of those. The designer has apparently
picked up the tendency for people to think that Green Space is an improvement
(why?), even a necessary part of the Sustainable City of the Future.
("Where will we graze our goats?") I don't know of any actual
Traditional City that has large amounts of Green Space. It doesn't need any,
because Green Space is really a buffer to make the car-stuffed roadways and
parking lots a little more tolerable ("the solution to pollution is
dilution"). Once you get rid of the cars, you don't need Green Space
anymore.
Let's
take a closer look:
Carfree.com: Blocks
Here
we can see the individual buildings. And there's that Green Area.
What
is this Green Area?
1) Is
it a park? It is publicly owned, like most parks?
Can someone sell it? Does it have public access? It doesn't appear to. If it
is a park, do we need so many parks?
2) Is
it a backyard? It doesn't appear to be divided into
individual backyards. Are there any trees, or is it just mowed grass? It
appears to be communally-owned. Like a condo-backyard?
3) Is
it a square or plaza? A square or plaza is normally located at
the intersection of streets. In any case, we certainly don't need so many
squares and plazas.
4) Is
it a sports field? You would normally find a sports field
associated with a park or a school, or occasionally as a professional arena.
5) Is
it an interior courtyard? An interior courtyard is normally
surrounded by a single building. A courtyard for a personal residence might
be 9x13 meters or so, or even smaller, while this appears to be about 70
meters across. You could have a larger interior courtyard, for an office or
large apartment building/complex. However, that does not appear to be the
case here. This is not an interior courtyard.
Of
course it is none of those things. It is Green Area -- just as it is labeled.
Duh!
"Interior
courtyards admit daylight to building interiors and provide green space adjacent to
virtually every building."
This
"Green Space" concept really is deadly poison. Beware of it.
One
thing's for sure: it looks nothing like Venice.
In the
end, Carfree.com was not able to fully embrace the Traditional City, in the
form of Venice. We ended up with a sort of Suburbia/Venice hybrid, with
plenty of Green Area.
One of
the reasons that the Traditional City does not have a lot of Green Space is
that the land is valuable. You could build some buildings on it, which would
be a much higher-value use of the space than devoting 40% of your city to
make a nice place for your dog to take a dump. If you owned that much empty
space, you would sell it off or develop it. This can go a little overboard,
actually, which is why the city government intervenes and introduces some
parks, which are normally publicly owned. These parks are known as
"parks," not "green area." I'm all for parks, even large
ones. The classic Italian cities are definitely a little short on parks.
However, you don't need a park on every block. The amount of space devoted to
parks could be about 25% of the space devoted to "green area" in
this design (or about 10% of the total), and the area devoted to buildings
could be 2x what we have here. Then, it would be more Venice-like, with 100% Place, and no
Non-Place in the form of "green area."
I
think that what actually happened here, is that Carfree.com came upon some
guidelines for "urban planning," which were really directed toward
Suburban Hell. The guidelines stated that a certain percentage ("a
minimum of 25%" for Clackamas County, Oregon) would be "green space."
This idea got incorporated here, although it is completely inappropriate.
Finally,
Carfree.com has some notes on street width:
Narrow
Streets
Streets
average
25 feet
(7.5 M) wide. A boulevard 100 feet (30 m) wide connects all the districts in
a lobe and provides a high-speed bicycle thoroughfare. The metro system is
constructed beneath this central artery. Other streets should be at least 16 feet
(5 meters) wide to allow for access by emergency vehicles. Small alleys not
long enough to require direct emergency access can be much narrower - as
little as 6 feet (2 meters). Varying widths add interest to an area.
Hmmm.
"Narrow Streets." Not Really Narrow.
When I
say "Really Narrow Streets," I don't mean that they are, actually,
really narrow. They are ridiculously narrow
if you are trying to drive. But, for a pedestrian, they are a
perfectly appropriate width, and not "too narrow" by any means. So,
I really mean a normal-size pedestrian street, not an automobile street.
Since
this is a Carfree City, doesn't it make sense to have pedestrian streets? I
think the answer is yes.
I am
absolutely apeshit about Really Narrow Streets, which is to say pedestrian
streets, because we've already seen how the American Village (and eventually
all American urban places) were fucked up from the start by streets that were
waaaaay too wide -- not at all like the Traditional Cities of Europe or Asia.
They had buildings side-by-side (at least in commercial areas), and of course
there were no cars since this was over a hundred years before cars were
invented. Nevertheless -- it was a failure, and the beginnings of 19th
Century Hypertrophism, which I promise I will write about someday. In large
part, I think we created our automobile disaster because we started off with
streets that were sized for automobiles, instead of people. Once you've built
automobile-sized streets, doesn't it make sense to fill them with
automobiles, even if it took over 100 more years to get to that point?
July 26, 2009: Let's Take a Trip to an American Village 3: How the
Suburbs Came to Be
July 19, 2009: Let's Take a Trip to an American
Village 2: Downtown
July 12, 2009: Let's Take a Trip to an American
Village
So,
what is the width of a Really Narrow Street, exactly?
Let's
go back to Venice and find out.
October 18, 2009: Let's Take Another Trip to Venice
October 7, 2007: Let's Take a Trip to Venice
About
12 feet. This is not a tiny side street either, it's a fairly significant
commercial street.
There are plenty of people, but it doesn't seem "crowded."
About
16 feet, narrowing to about 10 feet.
Seven feet.
About 14-15 feet.
15 feet.
12 feet.
Ten feet.
Twelve feet.
About 14 feet.
Eight
feet, narrowing to about four feet.
15 feet.
15 feet.
13
feet.
So you
see, the average street width in Venice is nowhere near 25 feet. It is
perhaps half of that. Certainly a "minimum" of 16 feet is
excessive. However, these streets do not seem "too narrow" do they?
Even where there are plenty of people, it is not "crowded." Venice
is not a particularly exaggerated example of typical pedestrian streets,
either. You find about the same street width all over the world.
Kyoto,
Japan. This is reconstructed to represent a typical pre-1850 Kyoto street.
Look
at the kooky rationalization given by Carfree.com for their wider streets:
"Other
streets should be at least 16 feet (5 meters) wide to allow for access by emergency vehicles."
Talk
about a bad reason for fundamental urban design choices. It reminds me of the
superwide streets of 19th Century Hypertrophism, supposedly to allow wagons
to make U-turns. Once again, we end up with a sort of Suburbia/Venice hybrid.
Actually,
Venice's 10-15 foot streets are perfectly fine for the occasional emergency
vehicle. I am sure there are a few medical emergencies from time to time in
Venice. They get by somehow. A standard automobile traffic lane is about
eight feet wide, so 10-15 feet is more than enough. Plus, there's no rule
that says you can't make the vehicles smaller too. In general, European and
Japanese vehicles are quite a bit smaller than the U.S. versions.
Japanese
ambulance, Enoshima. This street is about 11 feet wide.
Making
a carfree Traditional City is easy. There's no reason to make it difficult.
Nathan
Lewis
Nathan
Lewis was formerly the chief international economist of a leading economic
forecasting firm. He now works in asset management. Lewis has written for the
Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal Asia, the Japan Times, Pravda, and
other publications. He has appeared on financial television in the United
States, Japan, and the Middle East. About the Book: Gold: The Once and Future
Money (Wiley, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-470-04766-8, $27.95) is available at
bookstores nationwide, from all major online booksellers, and direct from the
publisher at www.wileyfinance.com or 800-225-5945. In Canada, call
800-567-4797.
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