<story><title>A Traditional City Primer</title><url>http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20131204.php#.U9PdSPmSz6A</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>twelvechairs</author><text>This is my field. I trained as an architect and work as an urban designer (somewhere between an architect, landscape architect and planner). This article hits on some good points but misses a lot of others. Some dot points to keep it short:&lt;p&gt;* People (especially those with children) often prefer to live in houses with space which are more private rather than in narrow apartments (required if you want low building heights and for everyone to walk everyhwere) on top of their neighbours. Do you really want to hear 3 screaming babies next door every night. Because that&amp;#x27;s how it works.&lt;p&gt;* Modern business don&amp;#x27;t work in low desnity environments like this. You simply need to be as accessible as you can to as wide a market (of workers and other businesses you work with) as possible. Maybe once we are all working on the internet it will shift this way - but it hasn&amp;#x27;t gone far yet.&lt;p&gt;* Even the &amp;#x27;traditional cities&amp;#x27; shown will have outskirts with houses which are a pain to walk to rather than just apartments in a centre.&lt;p&gt;* There is no single &amp;#x27;traditional city&amp;#x27;. There are differences even across Europe. England has its widened-road market squares. Italy has its hill towns. Places like Japan usually built out of timber (which doesn&amp;#x27;t last) rather than stone. Etc.&lt;p&gt;* There are plenty of examples of tower cities with bustling urban environments and low car ownership. Like Hong Kong. Dehumanising? Perhaps. It depends on your definition.&lt;p&gt;* Most &amp;#x27;traditional cities&amp;#x27; couldn&amp;#x27;t be built for anywhere near the same cost as a modern development.&lt;p&gt;Overall though, this is pushing in the right direction, just not quite thought through as thoroughly as it might be.&lt;p&gt;[edit] Perhaps the most successful attempt at building in this vein in the west recently has been Poundbury, England. It was Prince Charles&amp;#x27; pet project. It has done some things well (like managing to break the highways codes) but in the end perhaps still isn&amp;#x27;t as nice as a traditional town or as attractive a location for modern living as other places being built. You can see it in streetview here:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/maps/@50.712904,-2.463939,3a,75y,145.8h,79.11t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sP_ymofrDtmlmk2aW3jaL5w!2e0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;maps&amp;#x2F;@50.712904,-2.463939,3a,75y,145....&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Joeri</author><text>As someone who deliberately left behind suburbia and its mandatory car ownership to find a better quality of life in a traditional city i find it saddening to hear you argue against human-friendly urban planning. I find your arguments unconvincing.&lt;p&gt;* Just because apartments are small doesn&amp;#x27;t mean you hear your neighbors, or live uncomfortably. I&amp;#x27;ve lived in three different apartments the past decade and the only time i had noise issues was with a neighbor who played techno at full volume at 3 am, which would be an issue in any city design, dense or sparse. The notion that hearing three crying babies every night is just how it works is only true in hollywood movies which fictionalize poverty in the inner city. In real world apartment life you have a mixed habitation pattern, and soundproofing.&lt;p&gt;* suburbia is even less dense than any sort of city. It&amp;#x27;s not the density that&amp;#x27;s the issue, it&amp;#x27;s the ability to commute. In a city where commuting can be done on foot or through public transit, like many european cities, it&amp;#x27;s simply not an issue. I walk 5 minutes and then take the tram to work, reading HN while commuting.&lt;p&gt;* There&amp;#x27;s no such thing as a traditional city, yet you&amp;#x27;re arguing against it. The article was quite clear on what is meant by the traditional city.&lt;p&gt;* Having low density at the edges is a feature, not a downside, because some people prefer the isolation. Anyway, if we built all cities in this pattern, there would be a better density distribution. City edges would blend. In high density urban construction everybody struggles to reach the center and get back out again, every day during rush hour. Having ten smaller less dense cities without suburbs instead of one big dense one with a lot of suburbs seems like it would have fewer traffic problems and a better quality of life. Maybe it&amp;#x27;s just my personal preferences talking though.&lt;p&gt;* I&amp;#x27;ve been to NY, as a tower city with low car ownership it is impressive, and i was glad to visit, but also glad to leave. The best living in NY is in traditional city areas like greenwich village. High rise is not the answer to quality of life in urban planning.&lt;p&gt;* The cost argument is a red herring. We don&amp;#x27;t know how to build traditional cities cheaply because we haven&amp;#x27;t done it enough recently. It would solve itself. Business finds a way when forced to.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, whatever design is used, there is a sort of universal understanding what a city that is nice to live in is like, and it&amp;#x27;s one without cars. Cars simply don&amp;#x27;t belong inside a city where people actually live. I hope urban planners everywhere eventually realize this and force cars to remain at the edge, where they belong. Usually the people who want to drive their car inside the city don&amp;#x27;t even live there.</text></comment>
<story><title>A Traditional City Primer</title><url>http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20131204.php#.U9PdSPmSz6A</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>twelvechairs</author><text>This is my field. I trained as an architect and work as an urban designer (somewhere between an architect, landscape architect and planner). This article hits on some good points but misses a lot of others. Some dot points to keep it short:&lt;p&gt;* People (especially those with children) often prefer to live in houses with space which are more private rather than in narrow apartments (required if you want low building heights and for everyone to walk everyhwere) on top of their neighbours. Do you really want to hear 3 screaming babies next door every night. Because that&amp;#x27;s how it works.&lt;p&gt;* Modern business don&amp;#x27;t work in low desnity environments like this. You simply need to be as accessible as you can to as wide a market (of workers and other businesses you work with) as possible. Maybe once we are all working on the internet it will shift this way - but it hasn&amp;#x27;t gone far yet.&lt;p&gt;* Even the &amp;#x27;traditional cities&amp;#x27; shown will have outskirts with houses which are a pain to walk to rather than just apartments in a centre.&lt;p&gt;* There is no single &amp;#x27;traditional city&amp;#x27;. There are differences even across Europe. England has its widened-road market squares. Italy has its hill towns. Places like Japan usually built out of timber (which doesn&amp;#x27;t last) rather than stone. Etc.&lt;p&gt;* There are plenty of examples of tower cities with bustling urban environments and low car ownership. Like Hong Kong. Dehumanising? Perhaps. It depends on your definition.&lt;p&gt;* Most &amp;#x27;traditional cities&amp;#x27; couldn&amp;#x27;t be built for anywhere near the same cost as a modern development.&lt;p&gt;Overall though, this is pushing in the right direction, just not quite thought through as thoroughly as it might be.&lt;p&gt;[edit] Perhaps the most successful attempt at building in this vein in the west recently has been Poundbury, England. It was Prince Charles&amp;#x27; pet project. It has done some things well (like managing to break the highways codes) but in the end perhaps still isn&amp;#x27;t as nice as a traditional town or as attractive a location for modern living as other places being built. You can see it in streetview here:  &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.google.com/maps/@50.712904,-2.463939,3a,75y,145.8h,79.11t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sP_ymofrDtmlmk2aW3jaL5w!2e0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;maps&amp;#x2F;@50.712904,-2.463939,3a,75y,145....&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lliwta</author><text>&amp;gt; * Most &amp;#x27;traditional cities&amp;#x27; couldn&amp;#x27;t be built for anywhere near the same cost as a modern development.&lt;p&gt;Why is this? E.g. The author points out that narrow streets should be cheaper to build and maintain.&lt;p&gt;I grew up in suburbia, lived in a typical American city, and now live in a traditional city abroad. My best guesses as to why building a traditional city is more expensive are 1) construction might be more expensive because of the constrained space; 2) lots of roads are cobble stone rather than pavement; 3) maybe infrastructure (e.g. fire hydrants etc)&lt;p&gt;Are there other more important reasons? I really can&amp;#x27;t figure it out.</text></comment>