KB Homes is dropping out of the downtown hirise venture. Apparently it no longer fits their core model of suburban sfr construction. Amazing how a whiff of economic reality can wipe out years of urban cheerleading.
LA is the embarrassing end product of every FOAMER (Forces Of Anti-Mobility) and SmUGLER (Smart Urban Growth LovER) and NUTSO (New Urbanist Transit Supporter) and TROGlodyte (Transit Only Groupies) plan. It’s amazing to hear every single time: “We don’t want to become like LA” and hear the solutions attempt to replicate every urban feature of Los Angeles. I
particularly recommend the insight of Mr. Cox in recognizing VMT/sq mi as agreat QoL and congestion indicator.
The advocates of SmUG avoid substance. They liken sprawl to pornography, they know it when they see it. They call SUVs, gas-guzzlers, ignoring the fact that they generally replace vehicles with poorer mileage. They decry the paving over of America despite 5.2% or less of the nation is even developed. They ignore 9 decades of sociological data that speaks to density and degree of urbanization. They manufacture crises such as affordable housing or global climate change and then claim to be the
solution. They misallocate limited public resources to transit. They confiscate huge swaths of private property for use as public space.
If there exists a public imperitive for afforbable housing then th4e taxpayers should pay for it. Truth is the taxpayers won’t pay and there is no public policy interest so would be social engineers posing as planners impose unreasonable demands upon developers.
2 comments:
Addressing the first part of your excellent reply:
Yes, the trend towards "public spaces" is ultimately very bad. Crime, general economy, everything does better when the least amount of property is in the hands of collective ownership. Didn't we learn anything from communism?
Even urban street design is pathetic. Why should a cul-de-sac have a huge radius, full curbing and sidewalks? And tertiary streets, why make room for sidewalk-greenstrip-curb/gutter-parking-traffic lane-traffic lane-parking-curb/gutter-greenstrip-sidewalk. Where I grew up it was 22 feet of asphalt. That's it.
Robert,
First of all, cul-de-sacs are not really urban but suburban. As to the design, it is to accomaodate Emergency vehicles. DCA's in most states dictate these design standards which are not planner designed but engineer designs based on AASHTO turning templates.
I have long argued against cul-de-sacs for being wasteful and have had it out very publicly with my state's DCA commissioner at a transportation conference.
As for affordible housing being somehow manufactured by planners, well that is specious as zoning decisions are made by politicians and their appointees. If planners were involved then land would be more intensely used and thus creating more opportunities for housing. But most places just want to closed the door after themselves.
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