Thanks for the link, good read. Good to see Mr. Kuntsler is still fighting the good fight, haven't come across him for a long time.
> Now, the funny thing is that the New Suburbanists don’t hold any other urban place as an ideal either. They don’t point to a single urban place in the world and say, “yes, this is what I want.” But the fact is, the world has a good selection of functioning, enjoyable, pleasant metropolises. Tokyo is my favorite
> My definition of an urban environment is one where it is easier to not own a car than to own one.
Totally agree with this, and I simply can't understand why neighborhoods like this are so rare in North America. Tokyo, from what little time I've spent there, strikes me as a near perfect lifestyle, such a high proportion of completely walkable neighborhoods, plenty of green parks, plenty of incredible and cheap places to eat, and all connected by an efficient train system. Granted, population helps a lot in this, but it's certainly not something we could work towards in most places.
Vancouver Canada has quite a few neighborhoods that are fairly similar, but the problem with moving forward is the demand for housing is so high such that as soon as something is zoned for building towards this model, the price of the land immediately rises to the point where you practically have to be a millionaire (at least) to buy anything more than 500 square feet. Because of this, this city center is doomed as far as I can tell, but I see no reason we couldn't start building mini-self-sufficient towns like this in the suburbs with the "town centre" surrounding the train station...yet, I'd bet money that we will not for reasons unknown to me.
You don't have to buy property somewhere to live there and most people throughout history have not done so, and as far as I'm aware most continue not to do so now in places like NYC, Paris, Tokyo, etc.
> Now, the funny thing is that the New Suburbanists don’t hold any other urban place as an ideal either. They don’t point to a single urban place in the world and say, “yes, this is what I want.” But the fact is, the world has a good selection of functioning, enjoyable, pleasant metropolises. Tokyo is my favorite
> My definition of an urban environment is one where it is easier to not own a car than to own one.
Totally agree with this, and I simply can't understand why neighborhoods like this are so rare in North America. Tokyo, from what little time I've spent there, strikes me as a near perfect lifestyle, such a high proportion of completely walkable neighborhoods, plenty of green parks, plenty of incredible and cheap places to eat, and all connected by an efficient train system. Granted, population helps a lot in this, but it's certainly not something we could work towards in most places.
Vancouver Canada has quite a few neighborhoods that are fairly similar, but the problem with moving forward is the demand for housing is so high such that as soon as something is zoned for building towards this model, the price of the land immediately rises to the point where you practically have to be a millionaire (at least) to buy anything more than 500 square feet. Because of this, this city center is doomed as far as I can tell, but I see no reason we couldn't start building mini-self-sufficient towns like this in the suburbs with the "town centre" surrounding the train station...yet, I'd bet money that we will not for reasons unknown to me.