How Can Cities best work to solve the housing crisis?
by loosening zoning laws to make greater density possible
by implementing rent control
by creating community land banks
by building social housing again
by funding new developments in their cities
prioritizing Office to Residential Conversions
Vacancy Tax
Land Value Tax
Legalizing and building ADUs
See ResultsUrban Design Concept of the Day
Parking Minimums
A parking minimum is the minimum amount of parking allowed for a business to have for it to legally be built. It is typically based on sq. footage, number of units or maximum occupency. They are terrible. This is because of how they make proper density almost impossible and destroy land for parking that will never be used outside of black friday. This ensures car dependency. Also many in US city’s parking minimums are unnecessarily high leading to the problem of empty parking lots that can’t legally be redeveloped being even worse. Luckily they are being gradually removed from most real cities.
Urban design concept of the day
Dedicated lanes
Transit needs a dedicated ROW to move efficiently, but sometimes there isn’t enough space or budget to build underground or elevated tracks, that’s where streetrunning comes in. When you run a line like a tram, lightrail or BRT on the Street it is significantly cheaper to build but slower and less safe with the chance of getting stuck in traffic, hit by a car or by having a car park in front of the vehicle. This can be solved by slightly increasing costs and giving the transit it’s own lane and signal priority as if cars can’t drive where the transit is, then the transit can move at considerably higher speeds. Basically giving transit a dedicated transit lane on a street makes it cheaper to build but still keeps the trains fast and efficient
I am going to say it, the thing that people say about how American cities kinda suck is true. But you know what, I still love them, they are where I live and they are improving and I am so glad to live in a time where there is an actual effort to contract and undo the damage done to our cities. We are expanding and building transit for the first time in half a century, more bike lanes are being built that ever, freeway removals are beimg proposed, in general I think almost every major US City will be a better more livable place in 2030 than it was in 2010
Urban Design Concept of the Day
Redundancy in Transit
Redundancy is a key element to good transit design, always make sure that there are multiple ways to get between locations in a city. if there is only one way to get between two locations, then there is an exponentially higher number of points of failure on a system and it is harder to get between locations as there are fewer options, overallit makes transit less appealing as a method to move about in a city. This is why things like ring lines are so important to the design of transit systems. The lack of redundancy and interconnectivity in our transit systems is why American transit systems lag behind European and East Asian Cities in terms of ridership
Urban design concept of the day
Pedestrian Plazas
A pedestrian plaza is an urban open space designed for pedestrians to exist in. They help to improve the walkability of an area by giving people a place to exist without any requirements acting as way finding markers, space for small businesses, and a place to meet people. They play a key role in adding in Greenspace and escapes from urban environments to our cities. Plazas differ from parks due to how they focus on being just open space and not a natural space. They have evolved from the town squares and commons of europe and early American cities. Often times they are small taking up a city block or 2 at most and will have shops surrounding them. A small one may be as simple as a closed off alley with seating or it may have public art, a market or many other purposes.
So one of the most common criticisms of Urbanism I have seen is the fact that people don’t want to live in incredibly dense areas, and that’s fair. But here’s the thing while density helps to get good transit and services, incredibly high density is not needed. Here are some photos of 2 places I would consider 15 minute cities that aren’t dense like a New York or Hong Kong
These are disconnected houses with front and back yards with nature around them, the 15 minute City just means a place where your needs are within 15 minutes. A grocery store can easily support itself with only a few thousand people within a mile of it. So can a school or a restaurant. Every historical city was a 15 minute city because people needed to be able to reach their needs in walking distance before cars and bikes were invented as horses were only available to the wealthy. The reason we are told that good urban design requires you to live on top of other people is because there is a vested interest in making good places to live seem scary by making it seem full of people and devoid of nature because it helps auto companies and big box stores make even more money. This post is not to say that density is a bad thing, it is a good and helpful thing, what this post is saying is that the fear of density being needed for good urban design is a myth
A very messy diagram of the urbanist community
Urban Design Concept of the Day
Streetcar suburbs
The Streetcar suburb is a form of transit oriented development where a neighborhood is oriented around a Streetcar stop. They grew to prominence between the 1880s and 1920s during the height of streetcars in north america. Drspite the removal of streetcars they havr still thrived as urban neighborhoods even today as a result of of how they differ from modern suburbs by being denser, having mixed use zoning and being more Walkable making them a healthier, more environmentally friendly form of the suburb. Examples of Streetcar suburbs can be found in Louisville with the Highlands, West Philly, Shaker Heights in Cleveland, Somerville in Boston, and West Hollywood in LA
Urban Design Concept of the day
Bicycle Infrastructure
Bicycle Infrastructure is infrastructure built to accommodate and encourage cycling as a means of transit. It can exist as separated bike lanes, bike paths, separate bike intersections or other things involving separating bicycle traffic from cars. It can also be bike stands and street trees which make it easier for people to bike. In general the goal of bicycle infrastructure is to design a space to be able to be used by a cyclist instead of just a car owner