Our design of metropolitan areas is extremely inefficient...

Not exactly sure where I'm going with this but I was thinking that our cities are poorly designed, causing high density living, higher concentrations of pollution, extreme traffic conditions, longer commutes, higher cost of living, more crime, all creating less 'community'.

So my general question is; how would societies be different and/or better if there was a building code not allowing any construction higher than let's say four stories?

 

Better yet, make it more economically advantageous to abandon big cities altogether and let everyone live and work in small towns.

 

There is already another thread about this:
http://www.politicalforum.com/political-opinions-beliefs/233368-design-our-cities.html

I really think our cities need to be better designed. Unfortunately, I am not sure if I trust the government to do this. My city government, at least, just messes up on everything they spend money on. They throw around money like it grows on trees. I am not against a city spending money to better the community, but they have absolutely no sense of fiscal responsibility.

My city makes a big fuss about helping the environment and making the city more pedestrian friendly. But when it comes down to it, they do not actually do anything to make a difference. They went on a huge building spree, but failed to design any of their buildings to incorporate more natural light. Many of the rooms inside do not even have windows, so lights have to be turned on in the day. How is that environmentally friendly? Then the city had to pave over grass fields to build big parking areas for their new buildings, and then cleared previously natural areas to push the recreational fields further away. While these parking areas are filled during occasional events, most of the time they are nearly empty. In one of the buildings they keep the front door locked so one has to go all the way around to the back side, which happens to be where the parking area is. It is a big building so it takes around 7 minutes to walk around. This is not convenient for pedestrians. But the city council wouldn't know, none of them actually walk. The city clearly has no idea what it is doing. I could go on and on.

 

Your city is grossing me out, dude. My city and every city I ever lived in is a grossout. City government is where anal retentives get their start, mixing it up, with obsessive-compulsives. Their kids run for higher office, and they sell out, to AIPAC and the prison guards' assn. and big oil and who knows what.

The city where I live now likes to go a-building, now and then. When they re-did the downtown fare, some years ago, they didn't allow room in traffic, for bicycles, which are all over the place.

The 4-story limit leads to a certain need, for cars, rather than a tendency, for cars to accumulate.

 

I would like to see another Homestead Act type program in which we relocate a couple of million people to rural areas, lease 20-50 acres for $1/year, farming whatever can be farmed on the respective properties.

I also have written about the US government, in partnership with the private sector, to create the largest civil project in the history of the USA, with the goal of bringing potable water to most areas of the USA. This requires more reservoirs and water sources, and the transport of the water across the USA in canals/pipes. This solves the potential water crisis, creates more acres of arable land, creates millions of middle-class paying jobs, and allows development to take place away from the current high-density areas.

An ingredient of this thread is too many people living in high-density areas IMO will keep unemployment higher. Give people more options to work outside the cities and in doing so build some tangible stuff that benefits the citizenry...

 

I suspect most of municipal design is driven by private for-profit development. The fact that we develop every square inch in some areas is certainly profit-motivated. And I'm 100% for business profits but only within a framework which is beneficial for the community today and many decades into the future.

In the OP I suggest nothing over four stories in height but obviously the next question is how to handle mixed-use within this lower profile? I say if a city is going to entertain one or more businesses which are considered large employers, then these types of businesses not only must be located in separate areas, but they must also be served by effective mass-transit.

As some of us think forward, which must include global climate change, potential oil crisis, water crisis, pollution, etc. and how we must create 'sustainable' communities, it won't be easy but we really need to be open-minded about designing different types of municipalities. Unfortunately, like so many other issues facing us today, it is unlikely any consideration will be given to stuff like this; no interest, no one wants change, no one wants to fund anything...

 

How do you feel about a four-story limit, however, the surface streets have adequate bicycle lanes, pedestrian lanes, and an above or below ground mass-transit system which is accessible within 4-6 blocks of all locations, with large swaths of public/park lands to compliment the brick & mortar? All large-scale projects, like a football stadium, a civic center, public education facilities, shopping mall, industrial area, medical center, etc. are required to be accessed by the mass-transit system.

I personally would love this type of development! I can walk/bicycle/mass-transit anywhere, I can access local mom/pop shops for daily needs, I have open spaces to enjoy, and the only thing missing would be beer in the water fountains!

I think of people in three groups; kids under the age of 18, adults from 18 to 65 going to university or a career, and those over 65 who might be retired. The scenario I suggested above, IMO, works well for all three groups...

 

I agree. One of the major obstacles to the unemployed being productive is unaffordable rents and the high cost of land around the centers of economic activity.

 

The problem is that cities were never really designed as whole units. They grew up from individual neighborhoods, business, and industrial disticts that merged and formed what our cities are today. Very few cities were ever really planned to be anywhere near the size that they are today. "Fixing" the problems in the way that our cities are designed would essentially require tearing them down and building them all over again. Even if you did it one neighborhood at a time, the cost and time required to do it would be immense, and completely prohibitive. That's not to say our cities are lost causes. Here in New England both Providence, RI and Hartford, CT have found ways to revitalize their downtown areas in the last decade. Both have used their riverfront locations as focal points for arts, community, and public spaces that people can enjoy and liven up the community. The city of Worcester, MA is once again trying to re-invent its downtown area through a major building project. We'll have to see how it works out over the next decade.

 

There are currently ~3.8 million job postings in the USA. I suggest the reason they are not quickly filled is two-fold; lack of qualified workers, and, people are not located where those few jobs might be located.

There must be tens of millions of Americans who live far outside of the major employer areas. How many smaller towns popped up because of a large single employer, like a mine, or power plant, or factory, etc. and that town relied solely on that one business being sustained forever? The moment the mine closes, the town folds. If there was some way to greatly increase the number of small business owners, like farmers, or fisheries, or timber producers, etc. which over time will allow the population densities to improve, this is a start. But how can a nation, for example, add 2 million farms? We need 2 million people willing to do this. We need property across the nation. We need seed money/loans. We need knowledge. We need potable water. We need sustainable local markets. Things like this can be done but are they insurmountable? Can we think in a proactive fashion? Do we have public funding to initialize these types of programs?

Very complex issues...

 

I agree with your sentiment. However, we don't really have much choice to change something in the future. Population growth is non-stop with another 90 million projected by 2050. 90 million over 310 million is a 29% growth problem! Take all of our pollution and traffic and crime problems etc. today and they will be exacerbated by 29% or more. In parallel with this, what's the potential for catastrophic oil crisis, water crisis, energy crisis, global climate change crisis? Where I live we have 6-8 lane freeways today; it is not fathomable to consider 10-12 lane freeways?!

We obviously hate change and we obviously don't like to fund stuff like this, and a third obviously is this stuff will remain on the very back burner until our asses are on fire. Our problems today will pale in comparison to our problems of tomorrow...

 

You are absolutely correct on all three of those points. The biggest impediment to fixing these things is going to be people like ME. I have no great use for large metropolitan areas. I have always and probably will always live in the suburbs, or a little further out from the large cities. I have no use for their population density, their politics, and their way of life. To that end, I do not want to see my tax money used to rebuild and refurbish these places at the expense of the suburbs and more rural communities.

 

You can see on this forum from the lack of interest in threads like this one that this stuff is a bore to most people. And I have no issue with their choice of what excites their brain mass, but I do get tired of the constant complaining which typically ignores root issues and spends the rest of the time polarized in politics. These same people complain about traffic, and unemployment, and outsourcing, and cost-of-living, and taxation, etc. but don't realize most of this stuff is intertwined. Maybe if we modified how we develop our cities and rural areas we can help resolve many of these issues. But...too many people demand instant gratification and they ain't gonna get this when talking about how to better design our cities...besides, just like national debt, it's easier to let future generations deal with this stuff...

 

Trust me, it's the same way everywhere, both in real-life and online. It's much easier to whine, moan, complain, and wait for someone else to fix it than it is to do anything about it. My problem isn't so much the idea of fixing things, but the fact that for the most part I fundamentally disagree with the ways they go about trying to fix them. Then again my views on how to fix things in our society have been referred to over time as: Outdated, Barbaric, Uncivilized, Brutal, Cruel & Unusual, and Horrific.

 

I suggest the reason they are not filled is because employers want trained workers with experience but are not willing to pay good wages. And many low wage workers cannot afford to live in areas with high costs of living.

 

Employers are willing to pay decent wages for people who have skills and who are willing to put in the effort to help the business. If you're an unskilled or only minorly skilled worker who doesn't go out of their way to do the best they possibly can every shift, you're not going to get paid anything more, and you shouldn't. The Minimum Wage was never intended to be a Living Wage. Those Minimum Wage Jobs were never intended to be used to support a couple and their children.

 

Where would you get the water from? How would the water transfer effect the habitat it is being taken from?

Cities already tend to have a greater cost of living, which deters people. What I mean is the people who live in cities generally do so because they like living in an urban environment. Access to large amounts of entertainment, jobs, people, living in a place that never sleeps.

 

I live in an area where I can be in more than half a dozen mid-sized or larger cities within a 90 minute car ride; but I also enjoy the fact that I do not live IN any of these metroplexes on a daily basis. I get to take in a game at Fenway Park in Boston or go see the Pipes in the Valley Scottish music festival in Harford or shop at Providence Place Mall without having to live in any of those three ultra-urban areas.

The problem is that those ultra-urban areas seem to be encroaching on the suburbs more and more these days. The only real way these cities are going to be able to fix a myriad of their issues is going to be through growing into these suburban areas; taking the property, taxes, etc... and giving exactly what back in return?

 

Cites do not account for a large percentage of land in the US and the suburbs surrounding them are there because of their close proximity to them. The people who do live in them are by choice. They are huge revenue, culture, business centers.

I just do not see cities has the problem centers others seem to perceive them as. Nor do I think relocating people out of them would solve any problems, it would just be moving the problem.

 

Bush was supposed to be a 'uniter' and then Obama promised to 'unite' the nation yet every day the nation becomes more divided!

IMO this is like a sporting event, except we only have one team who occupies the WH at a time, and half of the people either hate or love the team that is in place. The entire sporting effort is to defeat the current team and replace with another team. Since this 'main event' takes place every four years, and in order to hire tens of thousands of campaign workers and solicit hundreds of million$ from the party sheep, this process starts on the first day in office and continues to the next election. This means from day-one the outed party spends all of their time trying to defeat the current party. This means from day-one we have a 100% divided nation, divided voters, divided local governments, divided business, and divided media. It also means the current president and party start pandering for votes on day-one so it's really this pandering that decides the agenda of the USA.

This is the political dogma we are burdened with today, and when these idiot candidates are given access to million$/billion$ campaign funds, these candidates are now owned by the money trail instead of what's best for the USA...

 

An employer cannot conduct business in a specific location unless they can attract and maintain a qualified workforce. No matter where the business is located, no matter the cost-of-living, the employer must pay wages and benefits at a rate which attracts a workforce. If they don't, and they can't hire the right people, then they go out of business or relocate.

An employer cannot be concerned with 'willing to pay good wages'. Wages are determined by supply and demand and competition. Wages are usually a significant cost factor in doing business so wages are very carefully scrutinized.

What happens if many of those 3.8 million jobs cannot be filled? Outsourcing to contractors, outsourcing off-shore, more green card workers brought into the USA, unfulfilled order commitments, etc. all of which are bad things.

If our society required 'effective' mass-transit in and out of dense business areas, although this still forces bedroom communities, at least it allows more people to penetrate those higher cost-of-living areas for work...

 

You're right that the cities are centers for many things; including crime, immorality, and many of the other destructive forces that are tearing this nation apart on a daily basis. That's why I choose not to live in a city and to only go into them when I can do so armed, or to locations that provide appropriate security.

The problems would increase by moving people out of the city. What I was suggesting is that the cities are slowly going to consume their suburbs as a means to try to balance their boooks and increase their tax base.

 

Go to the outlet of any fresh water river in the USA and you will see billions/trillions of gallons of water flowing into the ocean. There's no reason why 50% of this cannot be reservoired and used for farming and other development.

We also have oceans circling the USA in which we can desalinate salt water. The process is not greatly efficient but over time the technology will improve.

Most jobs are located in these cities. Demand to live in these areas is high so the costs are high. Even if building codes require affordable housing, those people living in that affordable housing still need to pay $15 for a hamburger.

If we would simply install effective public transportation this will allow all people to easily move around for work and living and play...

 

Anyone who has traveled a little in the USA surely experience favorite places only to revisit years later to find growth has made them a pain to visit. Why must growth always be handled in this fashion?

Because as a nation we don't service rural areas very well with public transportation, energy, security, fire protection, water, sewage, etc. people huddle in masses in these high-density cities. Whatever all the problems that exist in these areas today might be, they are guaranteed to worsen as growth continues. Most of us complain about the 'rat race' yet we just continue down the rat race path.

My little area was 8000, and now it is 12000, and I can just see how this will become 20000 and more in the future...which will ruin the very reason for living here in the first place. I place most of the blame on local governments who seem hell-bent on creating their government empires...

 

Have you ever considered that maybe those people in the rural areas are not interested in many of those things you suggest we don't service them well with, or that they have decided that they're not worth paying the taxes for?