Comments by "seneca983" (@seneca983) on "City Beautiful" channel.

  1. 0:53 "the world's most [...] dangerous national capital" Mogadishu: Am I a joke to you?
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  2.  @gj1234567899999  Let's call it un-21st century then instead. ;)
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  3. 6:13 "Blank concrete surfaces aren't appealing to anyone." Brutalist architects might disagree.
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  4.  @shaungordon9737  The suburban sprawl in the US is really post-WWII. Most US cities are older than that. Age doesn't really explain that.
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  5.  @Frahamen  But I think that's a point in favor of it being a city-state rather than against. I would argue that Luxembourg is closer to what the "classical city-state" than the so called "true city-states" mentioned. The classical city-states in e.g. ancient Greece were small states centered around a single major city but they were not super small. E.g. Athens' territory was composed of the entire Attica with most of it being rural. The modern region of Attica is 3,800 km² which is over 50% bigger than Luxembourg. Granted, ancient Attica was smaller than the modern region but I think it was still larger than current Luxembourg. Also, ancient Attica also had Piraeus which, at least back then, was a clearly separate city from Athens itself. Modern states like Singapore that are basically all urban area are very different from the classical city states. I say Luxembourg is more of a "true city-state" than Singapore if by "city-state" you want to make a comparison to ancient Greece.
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  6.  @EstebanRapido  The ancient Attica (territory of Athens) was even larger than Luxembourg today so by that logic Athens wasn't a city-state either. My point was that the ancient city-states were larger than just one city (though they were still small states centered around one major city). In this sense Luxembourg does resemble a classical city-state.
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  7.  @kjeldschouten-lebbing6260  "Because project developing firms can cramp more row-houses and small appartment complexes in the same footprint [...] Result: Only row and mid-rise and almost no R1." Is that a bad outcome? If potential occupants aren't willing to pay enough premium for that R1 to make it more profitable for the developers then it seems that R1 isn't in high enough demand to make economic sense.
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  8.  @safe-keeper1042  Doesn't Sweden have some gated communities? I think I've read of at least one called Strandudden.
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  9.  @jbjaguar2717  "Why would there be no busses at night?" Because the bus meetings happen at night when there are no busses. :)
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  10. "I was also starting to get sick of explaining to people..." Oof, sorry for asking about Houston. I didn't realize it was such a frequent question.
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  11. "the less the cars, the more expensive and exclusionary everything become (ie gentrification)" An area becoming more expensive is just a symptom of it becoming more desirable. If you want to make an area cheap you can do it by making it undesirable.
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  12.  @Joshlama  WikiTravel says of Mogadishu: "As of May 2017, the city remains extremely dangerous and near suicidal for independent travelers. Armed warlords and Islamic militant factions still have a large presence in the city, and foreigners are a prime target. Do not wander the streets alone for any reason. Gunfire and random explosions are frequent. If you must venture around the city, you should be accompanied by armed and well trained security personnel and ride in an armored vehicle. These arrangements should be made in advance through private security and tactical firms which specialize in these types of environments. Most employers and governmental bodies that might send you here are well aware of the situation on the ground and will do their best to keep you safe, but your head must be on a swivel to your surroundings 24×7. Make 100% certain that any hotel accommodations that are made come with 24 hour private security, which is standard at most hotels in the city catering to foreigners. Even so, hotel bombings and suicide attacks are frequent." Things are, of course, different for locals in both Mogadishu and Pyongyang but I'd estimate that ever for them Modadishu is more dangerous. In Pyongyang you can just keep your head down so as not to attract the ire of the regime. For many North Koreans the biggest threat may often be things like starvation but if you're even allowed in Pyongyang that's probably not such a big risk.
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  13.  Joe Becker  The ancient Greek (and other) city-states also had a lot of vegetation. Why would it make them non-city-states?
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  14. It depends on the kind of business.
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  15. Crime can't be a problem if no one lives there anymore.
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  16. I have an acquaintance who at one point spent 2 or 3 days a week in Switzerland and the rest here in Helsinki, Finland.
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  17. I'd say it makes more sense to think of the player as an entire organization (mayor + council + whatever) rather than a single person in games like C:S.
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  18.  @Joshlama  "Mogadishu actually looks like a nice city to be in" Apparently it has the nickname "Pearl of the Indian Ocean".
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  19.  @Jay-ho9io  I personally don't. To me, the bare concrete surface looks both boring and kind of "dirty". IMHO the surface should be at least painted. I googled the college you mentioned and I indeed didn't like how the surface looked even though the shape of the building was interesting. But everyone has a different taste.
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  20. 1:37 Holy crap, that looks dangerous! Did he actually fall down?
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  21.  @kgkbuugj  Public transportation won't need as much road because it takes less space than cars. You could save a lot of valuable space and money in cities if fewer people drive.
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  22.  @frida507  Check Strandudden. According to Wikipedia it is a gated community (grindsamhälle).
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  23. Differences could be due to differences in the definition of homelessness.
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  24.  @brucenadeau2172  That kind of pricing model isn't optimal, though it's simple which is probably why they chose it.
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  25. Helsinki and neighboring Espoo only have about 900,000 inhabitants combined but they still have a metro system, albeit a fairly small one.
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  26. "In Japan and many parts of Asia being homeless [...] carries a negative stigma." Isn't that the case almost everywhere?
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  27.  @kgkbuugj  Why waste taxes on infrastructure for cars?
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  28.  @EvsEntps  "the vast majority, when polled, aspire to suburban living in the long-term" But I think poll answers aren't what matters the most when we try to figure out what people want. Rather, what matters is how much those people are willing to pay for living in a low-density suburb vs. some kind of denser neighborhood. At least in high demand areas, people collectively are usually willing to pay more for higher density neighborhoods because you can fit more paying families into the same scarce land (unless people are willing to pay a lot more for a home in a lower-density suburb). In places like that, higher density is really in demand, poll answers notwithstanding. Any decision to zone such areas with single-family units only is a decision imposed from above. It might make sense to also have some low-density suburbs but probably not to the extent we see in the US today.
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  29. I think they deliberately change their methodology so that the ranking would change year to year. If it stayed the same or only change at a glacial pace it would soon get boring for the readers. Excitement is more important than accuracy.
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  30.  @SihirbazTsar55  I don't feel that public transit is inconvenient, though that's of course a subjective experience. I don't find myself locked into a schedule. I just choose the fastest route whenever I embark. I have never owned a car. I do have a license though in retrospect that was mostly a waste. I find driving to be boring and annoying whereas on public transit I can entertain myself with a book or my phone. I think using a car would bring with it the inconvenience of maintenance and trying to find parking space though I can't be entirely sure because I lack that experience.
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  31. A part of the reason might be that in Brazil it's not necessarily possible to choose to live as spread out as it is in the US. A lot of the big Brazilian cities, like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, are on the coast and have limited space to sprawl out due to the proximity of mountains.
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  32.  @mz4ahs  Boromir: "One does not simply walk in Atlanta."
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  33. In a city one should be able to do those 6 mile trips with a bus or a tram.
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  34. I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about e.g. the ancient Greek city-states and the likes of Singapore being similar. The ancient city-states were small states centered around a single city but in those times the city itself contained a fairly small part of the population. Most of the population still lived in rural areas controlled by the city in smaller towns, villages, and farms. E.g. modern-day Singapore is very different. In Singapore almost all of the land area is urban and basically everyone lives in an urban area.
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  35. Does that make you an infracommuter?
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  36.  @laurencefraser  If you increase them in some other area.
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  37.  @edipires15  Why not?
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  38. Just charge in there with laser tag gear and see what happens.
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  39. How dense is "very dense". I myself live in Helsinki and checked and compared the densities. It seems Helsinki is about 10% denser than LA City. It's not a huge difference but LA is a much bigger city than Helsinki and Helsinki sometimes feels a bit more spread out than it needs to be.
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  40.  @proaudiohd  Construction costs aren't an argument against allowing new construction. If building new housing units costs too much to be profitable then developers won't do even when allowed because they want to make a profit.
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  41. "I'd like to see a city planner that isn't so car [...] focused" Caesar III. :P
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  42.  @bri1085  It's the source of the etymology of his surname.
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  43. I feel that some of the arguments given in this video exist mostly because car users aren't being charged for their usage of roads & streets and hence the need to compensate. It might be more efficient to charge both for their use of a limited resource.
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  44.  @qjtvaddict  "they all suck" That "least" should still apply to some city (by some standard) unless there's a perfect tie, which seems unlikely.
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  45. Surprise, different dialects exist.
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  46. 7:23 Why is it unfortunate?
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  47.  @SihirbazTsar55  Covid is not something that happens every year.
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  48. @El Dimos Karam The Roman citizens could vote and be elected to positions too so it wasn't that far off.
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  49. @El Dimos Karam After a certain point plebeians too could be elected to the highest office of consul. Even before that, all citizens could vote in the consular elections.
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  50.  @artcurious807  "hyperloop?" I'm quite pessimistic about the economic viability of the hyperloop. There are just so many technical challenges and the cost of solving them will likely add up to too much.
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