Comments by "" (@timogul) on "City Beautiful" channel.

  1. That really isn't an issue though if you mostly stick to a single mall for your shopping. What does it matter if every mall has a Hot Topic? All that matters is that your mall has a Hot Topic.
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  2. It's because people don't want strangers cutting right past their yards all the time, especially if the neighborhood does not have high walls around each yard.
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  3. I don't know if any states allow 15yo to get licenses. It's typically 16. You can get a learning permit at 15.5 though, which requires an adult driver to be in the car, and only during daylight hours.
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  4. The Tested channel recently did a sponsored video on how cruise ships get made, and apparently all the cabins are built next door and then slotted into place on the ship. You could apply a similar concept to buildings, at least as high as you could get a decent crane.
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  5. @ That only applies in metro areas though. Anywhere in 99% of the country, cars are faster. It would take me over an hour just to bike into town, when by car it's about 15 minutes. I almost never even drive into the downtown area, everything I need is in the suburbs and within a minute or two from an interstate. If I did go downtown, there would be parking fees, but the suburban shopping has plenty of free parking.
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  6. Air traffic controllers at every stop light?
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  7.  @anteveic327  One, most people in your neighborhood ARE strangers, to most people, and two, people from outside that neighborhood could certainly use those footpaths as ell, if they wanted. This is a ridiculous argument.
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  8.  @Coffeepanda294  Well, you argued that they couldn't. If say a group of thieves wanted to sneak around, they could park in one part of a neighborhood, use footpaths to travel around it, and then hit homes that are less traceable to their vehicles. Without footpaths, they would also be able to move through back yards, but would be much more conspicuous while doing so. In any case, if home owners do not want strangers walking beside their homes, then that is their business, not yours. If they choose to buy homes in neighborhoods that prevent such things, then that is their choice to make.
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  9.  @Coffeepanda294  You say it's "basic infrastructure that improves the neighborhood." That is your opinion, and you can use that when talking about your own neighborhood. My point is that it offers both benefits and costs, and that some "neighbors" might view those costs as being of more importance to them than the benefits you are so interested in. As for "strangers," we do have more crime in the US than in some other countries. None of us like that, but ignoring it won't make it go away either. We have to operate under the reality that it is an issue, whether we like it or not. If you want walkability to take precedence over safety in people's minds, then you would need to solve the safety issue first. Also, walkability does not reduce crime, at least not in these broad subruban areas, because criminals tend to operate when people would be less likely to be walking the area for legitimate means. The walkability only eases their access. Criminals would be more likely to be spotted by someone driving a car than by someone walking.
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  10. Shopping malls are like a nice, highly walkable urban neighborhood, but one in which a hundred times as many potential customers can conveniently access it, and they are much easier to stock and staff. Also they don't have rain.
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  11. I wish someone would make a city builder game in which the public actually responded realistically to the chaos you cause by moving things around all the time, and if you tore out one road to build another, it would disrupt the economy for years and people would riot, so you would need to move more carefully.
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  12. This is why people purchase mobile air conditioning units.
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  13.  @TheSuperappelflap  The cost of batteries come down as production increases. Nothing comes without a cost, and it's a bit ridiculous to complain that the cost is not "zero."
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  14.  @mindstalk  But most drivers do not live in urban areas, and most roadways are not in urban areas, so most roadways are not designed around urban areas. Suburban marking is not mandated, it's built because the stores want that parking, because that's how they get customers. Only (limited) urban parking is mandated.
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  15.  @barryrobbins7694  Automobiles.
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  16. I never parallel park, I hate it, but you also need to make sure you have sufficient parking garages nearby. My local city is very walkable, but it has accessible parking garages every block or two. I do think it's good to have "quick spaces" that allow you to park for a few minutes, which tend to mean they don't park too close together.
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  17. While I think most drivers want to reach their destinations as fast as possible, driving is still the fastest way for them to reach those destinations, so no alternatives would actually improve things, other than teleporters or flying cars, I guess.
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  18. More importantly, when they do renovate existing infrastructure, they want to make it MORE convenient to their constituents, not less, so they wouldn't reduce the ease of use of the roads just to add pedestrian infrastructure.
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  19. The reason for cul-de-sacs is that they maximize the number of housing plots and the yard space for those plots per acre of land. You could put a walking path that cuts between two yards, but then people would be passing through that walkway, past those people's houses, which would reduce the value of those homes. To a lot of people who buy these homes, these factors are much more important than walkability is.
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  20.  @StephenRichmond89  Yeah, some things can be tricky. The Disney Contemporary has a monorail running through it, but it's harder than it might seem, and even then it's only like 50ft off the ground. I think it's a better idea to build relatively small archology towers, equivalent to a small town, but then you could have multiples of them within blocks of each other if you wanted. On the other hand, if you had a single massive city, then you could also invest in massive "industrial supports," like having entire 50-story towers within it that are just massive freight elevators, capable of lifting entire houses up to a higher level if you wanted, and then broad boulevards along the way that link areas of the building.
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  21. Bikes do not have air conditioning.
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  22.  @TheSuperappelflap  Hydro pumping works in SOME areas, but is not possible in most places, certainly not feasible. We're developing new energy storage mechanisms all the time, and some of those can go into EVs as well, but for the near future, the same batteries that go into cars are the only reasonable storage mechanism for most renewables. I follow these areas closely, and am aware of all the technologies being discussed.It is nowhere near as open and shut as you wish it were.
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  23.  @NJ-wb1cz  But regulations are crafted by politicians, and politicians are elected by home owners to represent their interests. One home owner not wanting a footpath near their home should not necessarily get their way on that, but if the community agrees that they prefer a lack of footpaths to having them, then the regulations should reflect that.
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  24.  @NJ-wb1cz  If the community wants that, then it can happen. If the community does not want that, because they don't want the increased traffic and noise such a shop would generate, then they can regulate to prevent it. Find a community that fits your interests. Also, I don't think socialism gives you any more freedom to do whatever you want with your property. Some socialist governments might give more or less freedom in this regard, just as some capitalist systems would. That is not a particularly "socialist/capitalist" wedge issue. It's more of an "anarchy" thing.
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  25.  @NJ-wb1cz  In a democratic society, the government Is the people. The people passing regulations are doing so because they were elected by the people of that area to make policies that they would prefer. If the people in a given area do not like their regulators, they can vote them out. Also, socialism does not mean that you don't own anything. I have no idea where you got that from. As for noise and traffic, while it is possible to regulate that directly to some degree, preventing, say, loud music or something, any reasonably successful business will have a minimum amount of noise and disruption from customers coming and going, you cannot "regulate that out" without making the business impossible to run. Not to mention that it could attract rowdier customers that would care less about following "regulations" of their behavior. You propose solutions that might work in some ideal scenario, but not in the real world.
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  26.  @ghostD0C  Ok, well in America, it does, and I think the video was talking about America.
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  27.  @mindstalk  If you're counting suburbs as "metro areas" then you also have to concede that most "metro areas" by that definition are not walkable and cannot practically be made walkable, because they are too spread out for that. Walkability demands a certain level of density that suburbs cannot meet.
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  28. It's because the accidents are only a tiny fraction of the total time spent on the road, and most drivers wouldn't experience anything like that personally. It's like watching footage of people dodging lightning strikes. It's impressive and scary, but not a reason to stay indoors all the time.
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  29. That's because cars provide an essential service, whereas things like guns do not.
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  30. TL;DR, "Public transit is great when you don't care about convenience!"
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  31.  @TheSuperappelflap  We don't need to reach zero emissions. The Earth does sequester carbon at certain rates, so while we need to have a net negative carbon footprint at a global level, that would still allow a fairly significant amount of carbon output, it would just be offset by carbon sinks elsewhere in the system. But again, a lot of the carbon produced in manufacturing and transporting cars and batteries can be reduced over time. For example, green cargo ships would greatly reduce the carbon costs of transportation. Public transport is good for areas where that can be done effectively and efficiently, but that is not true in many areas. There are tens of millions of Americans who cannot reasonably be serviced by public transport, because they are too spread out and it is not worth building public transit in their areas. It's worth noting that while you claim "batteries are bad," most green energy relies on batteries too. Even if you have a 100% electrified public transit network, that would almost certainly require massive batteries to maintain the power to it, as most of the green forms of energy are transient. So, you're completely wrong on all counts. please educate yourself before commenting again.
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  32. You point out how each house in a suburb is "bland" because they are very similar, but isn't the same true of apartments? If you have a large apartment building, holding dozens of families, isn't each of their homes no different than the one next door? What difference does it make, other than each suburban home coming with a yard and a lot more space to live in? And sure, you can build fancy craft-built homes instead of prefab ones, but those will cost more, and not everyone can afford that. The whole point here was to provide a house that more families could afford. As for "corner stores," putting a "corner store" in an average suburb would be a bad idea, because they could not get enough foot traffic to sustain their business. Not enough people would live nearby to it at once. That is why car-centric shopping makes more sense in suburbs, although many modern communities are built with a large "commercial hub" within a reasonable walking/biking distance of the homes, for people who choose to visit them that way. A development that started around 2000 or so in our area has a grocery store and dozens of other businesses in a roughly central location to many of the new homes, but you can't build out too many different stores spread too thinly, or none could get enough business to be sustainable.
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  33.  @KevinBauman  Well, to some extent this is the case. but mainly it's just because walkability is not considered a factor. If a retail area is built, they don't necessarily consider how foot traffic will access it, because everyone, including those within a mile or less, are expecting to drive there and park. I live in an area with some pretty walkable developments nearby, so it does happen, especially with more recent projects, but it does tend to be a mix, because there's not enough retail available to be local to every block of housing.
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  34.  @rogerwilco2  That's for the home owners to decide though, whether they think it would be a problem.
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  35.  @ThomasPublicThuene  Probably closer to 99%, but that only lulls you into a false sense of security so that when criminals pass by, you ignore them. If every person sneaking through your yard is someone who probably shouldn't be there, then you're more likely to be on guard.
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  36. @ As to your study of bike lanes, was this in high density urban areas, or suburbs? I highly doubt that bike lanes make even a dent in the foot traffic of businesses in subruban areas. Also, WHO is talking about street parking? I haven't parked on the street in. . . decades? "Parking" means parking lots, who parks on the street in anything less than a high density urban area already?
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  37. @MackDog777 Yeah, I do think that mixed residential/commercial structures are a lot of fun, and definitely shouldn't be deliberately restricted, but at this point more and more commerce is shifting online and the sorts of small businesses that typically go into such spaces are largely impractical anyway.
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  38. @ But also Europeans drive fewer miles per year than American do.
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  39.  @speedstyle.  Not by as much though. I wouldn't expect a 1:1 correlation, the more miles traveled, the proportionately more accidents you would expect, Double the miles traveled, quadruple the accidents.
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  40. @ If you believe that, then you believe that.
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  41. @ But people can't always choose to live close to where they work, particularly in mutli-income homes. Yes, you could make things worse for people who drive, if that's your goal, but Americans don't want you to make things worse for them, and in a republic, the people have a say in what happens.
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  42.  @shingshongshamalama  Well yes, every driver agrees that things would be better if they were the only driver on the road, but also, every driver prefers that they continue to drive, rather than to reduce traffic for everyone else while their own trip takes much longer by using alternate methods. So if you want to take drivers off the road, step 1 is to build the alternate methods that are faster for every driver than the current system is.
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  43. I think that the simplest change an "urban mall" project could make to balance with the community is to NOT build a parking lot or garage into the land plot itself. Instead, build it about one block diagonally from the mall, with convenient road-crossing mechanisms, such that mall visitors would have to walk past multiple intersections and at least two block-lengths of traditional urban fare before they get to the mall itself, and on the way back. It's slightly less convenient, but should not be overly burdensome.
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  44.  @StephenRichmond89 Generally, yeah, but "cost effective" is relative. So long as you have plenty of room to spread out as much as you like, it is not cost effective to build to this level of density. On the other hand, if you had a country with very little footprint to work with, and you need to get more and more out of every square foot, then building up is the only way to do that (aside from building down, which has its own issues). And you can't just build super tall, thin towers, because you run into issues where the elevators become super inefficient to use, and people end up "trapped" on the upper floors because it takes an hour to reach the ground, so if you're going to build tall, you also have to build wide in some way, and spread out goods and services so that people don't need to travel all the way to the ground most of the time,
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  45. If a car hits a pedestrian, it is far less often a case of "a driver killed a pedestrian," than it is a case of "a person wandered into the road and Darwin got involved." A pedestrian has far more options to avoid being hit than a car does to avoid hitting an expected pedestrian. Road rules require that everyone follow them.
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  46. I think circle cities look neat, but the plot shape tends to be impractical if you move toward the middle. I think "squared circles" work better, where the outer ring-road is circular, and the central plot is circular, but the middle ringroads are squares, and only the four cardinals are straight radials. The other major roads are just grids that cut between rings, so most of the plots are rectangular.
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  47. Who goes 6 miles on a BIKE? Do they even make a bike with air conditioning or heating?
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  48. I like the idea of arcologies, but they need to be carefully designed. "The Line" sounds dumb. There is an arcology I want to see made though, based around the concept of four tall towers about on the scale of the original Twin Towers, all linked at every 50 floors or so by open or semi-open promenade rings, allowing you to easily cross from building to building without having to travel more than 50 floors. You would have food and commercial spaces on the 1-2 floors around these promenades, making them similar to a mall, and commercial/light industrial spaces would be in the middle-most floors between these bridges (ie floors 25-ish, 75-ish, 125-ish, etc.), so furthest from the bridges. I assume that the housing nearest the promenade levels would be in most high demand, because they would be most convenient and get the best light, while those directly under the promenades would be the lowest value, but the goal would be so that nothing you would need in an average day would be out of reach within +- 50 floors of your apartment, and no service you would need on an annual basis would require you to leave the building, so plenty of people would stay in the building just a much as a New Yorker might stay inside the city.
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  49.  @MarioFanGamer659  Yeah, but The point is that they seem fine with "standardized housing" when it comes in the form of a hundred single family units with a single wall wrapped around it, but a hundred single family homes that take up several blocks is somehow the end of the world. My parents once lived in a "pre-fab town" like that, and apparently one of their neighbors bought up two adjacent homes and built an underground tunnel connecting them. That's thinking outside the box. :D Pre-fab architecture gives people a minimal option for acquiring a home of their own, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you have more money than that, then you can spend it to add on or even replace the original structure, you have options, but not everyone has that level of money, and that shouldn't keep them from ever owning a home where alternatives are available.
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  50. Well, I guess they could make it legal, but also if they also make hitting pedestrians legal, and frankly, I don't think it would be worth it.
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