"Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends." - Lewis Mumford
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Andrew Price
@AndrewAPrice
Father. Husband. Software Developer. Urbanist.
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This is great news. Merely allowing small lots will not suffice if the process of subdivision is too complex or costly for small developers. Alternatives, like Nashville's workaround of a "horizontal property regime" are solutions to a problem that need not exist.
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ITEM 23: (My item!) Approves a resolution to create an easier, cheaper process for subdividing small lots, which will make the process more accessible for more Austinites across the cityShow this thread
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This is the main road in Laurel, Florida (12k population).
Imagine if you visited a small Italian town with the same population and you saw this monstrosity..... Car-centric infrastructure has destroyed the appeal of so many small towns in the USA.
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Before and after in Farringdon, London
A 1970s office is retrofitted, I think superbly, with a brass cladding that fits with the geometry of neighbouring buildings
The new facade makes it a much more pleasant walk at street level and makes the building a better neighbour
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I'm at final reviews as a guest critic at architecture school.
Really great to see the work they are doing. Any one of these graduates would be a fine addition to a firm or graduate program.
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This is the current world record of distance landscape photography: the Alps as seen from of the Pyrenees
[read more: ow.ly/gZpk50yYUpk]
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this is literally the entire United States
we have a crushing housing shortage, and our cities are going broke, because of car culture
too many of our city leaders value empty parking spots more than they value their children and economies and communities, and that’s a fact.
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this is what policy failure looks like
the underused parking lots and empty freeway pictured here sit on some of — if not *the* — most valuable land in all of Wisconsin
meanwhile, Milwaukee is going broke and we’re facing a severe housing shortage
you can’t make this stuff up
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Courtyard apartment buildings are some of the finest structures any city can have!
They allow for a high density that doesn't feel imposing, quasi-public space (or quasi-private depending on design), much light, air, and organic social interactions. Let's build more!
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Why can't the wealthiest country on earth build simple high-speed trains?
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Part #3 in "North America is too spread out for high speed trains"
Turin
MilanBolognaFlorenceRomeNaplesSalerno
BostonNYCPhiladelphiaBaltimoreDCRichmond
Not only is the Italy line longer, it also has 1/3 less population than the USA line. twitter.com/FuckCarsReddit…
TurinMilanBolognaFlorenceRomeNaplesSalerno
BostonNYCPhiladelphiaBaltimoreDCRichmond
Not only is the Italy line longer, it also has 1/3 less population than the USA line. twitter.com/FuckCarsReddit…290
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“The cheapest teacher for those who in self-defense have become city blind is shoe leather. It is no accident that powerfully motivated planners (like Haussmann) have been great walkers.” — Frederick Gutheim, 1963
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There’s the “freedom” to own a car and travel great distances with speed and protection from the elements.
Then there’s the “freedom” to live without car insurance, maintenance fees, gas, parking, tickets, traffic, and the constant threat of crashes.
“Freedom” is perspective.
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To build timeless buildings, one must...
1. Understand the past
2. Have peace in the present
3. Have confidence in the future
Our modern culture has none of these. But all of us can and must do our job to promote these ideals starting with ourselves and our families.
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When asked to draw their trip to school, children who walk to school drew a more vibrant picture than those driven in a car. Every student should have the option to walk or bike to school in a safe manner, full stop. (via Margrit Stamm)
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Excess parking is a financial drain on cities.
Housing is the heart of cities.
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"This book is an attack on current city planning."
-Jane Jacobs, 1961
"I love Jane Jacobs. She just meant the 1961 city planning."
-Current city planner
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When people claim we can't build like we used to, that doesn't pass muster, as we didn't build all that intricately in the past, or for that much money. These are mainly boxes with some detailing at highly visible points that our eyes are naturally drawn to.
Importantly, much… Show more
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HAAVAN VOI PARANTAA
Uusi, vuonna 2022 valmistunut #julkisivu palautti alkuperäisen hahmon Konigsplein 10:een Amsterdamissa.
A WOUND CAN BE CURED
The new #facade was built in 2022.
Konigsplein 10, #Amsterdam.
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Local leaders need to create street design teams. Appoint a non technical person to run it.
Make the engineers work for them, not be the person in charge (whose values and priorities dominate). You'll get their expertise where it's helpful, opposing views where it's not.
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Car dependency and sprawl are so inefficient that a metro area of 6 million people is being asked to work from home because of the traffic generated by two concerts.
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Opening a small coffee shop or a hair salon here is illegal. It would wreck the "character" of the neighborhood.
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The last hundred years of planning and architecture has been a machine to turn the first into the second.
Where is the reverse button?
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Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it did not matter.
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Reading about urban history continually surprises with the SPEED with which we used to change places.According to Wikipedia, Herbert Gribble won the design competition in March 1869 & they started building in June the same year. Inconceivable today.
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Beautiful buildings don't just appear.
Like McEwan Hall, where the University of Edinburgh holds graduation ceremonies. It was paid for by a local businessman...
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Superficial architecture is virtuous because it prioritizes the happiness of your neighborhood and community over personal gratification.
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Level of Service is used to grade intersections as acceptable or unacceptable. It has NOTHING to do with safety. It's based entirely on vehicle delay.
Using letter grades was a marketing stroke of genius, because it mimics school. What they don't tell you is that LOS A can be… Show more
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Most people don't realize the amount of wasted public money we funnel into tiresome road widenings.
We can widen the turnpike to maybe save a few minutes, or for the same $ on transit for the chance to half commutes, connect people to new opportunities, and change lives.
The… Show more
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There is $30B planned for Turnpike highway widenings in NJ. If you are interested in seeing more no-brainer transit alternatives everywhere, check out Effective Transit Alliance's new report on how transformative redirecting the money to transit can be: etany.org/alternatives-t
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Most windowless facades are dispiriting, and it is easy to suppose that they must be at least somewhat worse for the loss of their 'architectural eyes'. Here we see that this need not be so: this facade does not seem even slightly 'faceless'. Via
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The paradox of the 21st century:
We can hop on a plane and visit humanity’s most beautiful creations in a matter of hours,
Yet it is more difficult than ever to build anything remotely beautiful at home.
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college is sometimes the only 4 years Americans experience car free spaces, mass transit, density and bike friendly commuting.
no wonder they always have fond memories and miss it
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Engineers: "It's complicated."
Engineers' Code of Ethics: "It's not complicated."
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Making a good facade need not be difficult. String courses, tall casement windows, lime plaster, narrow frontages, simple metal window guards, and flowers. No expensive materials and no mysterious craftsmanship required.
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I just need to understand why a $700 million climate and research hub only accessible by ferry needs 200 parking spaces. Do we really love cars this much?
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