Also a huge number of people in the US travel to places that are walkable:
- Disney World
- Las Vegas (The strip is anyway)
- DC
- NYC
Why is the architecture and placement so bad tho? And narrow. Seems like a poor southern Italian village, but uglier. Or like a dark futuristic movie set.
Open walkable spaces can be pretty, does wonders for (populations) mental health.
Oh that’s gonna be premium in a year or two. Welcome to your ‘block.’. You get sunshine indirectly between the hours of 11 and 1. Curfew is at 10. Be back in your cube by then.
We have the capacity to build green open neighborhoods using existing block structures and infrastructure… we just chose not to because it’s prime real estate. Roads and repairs are expensive… but if we replace it with more homes it’s better revenue generation.
I’d love to see a proper balance struck but for an idea to take root the seed must be blessed by capitalism. For it to grow it must, above all, be profitable. For adoption it must be accepted by the elite.
I cannot go into details but - I’ve seen some outstanding ideas of how to convert a city block by block and they do give me hope… but listening to discussions and debates on it is soul rending.
I’d genuinely love to see it in my lifetime- And in a form that strikes a balance that is both sustainable and actually an improvement in living conditions.
Yeah direct sun can be a problem too - it’s getting toasty out. That said there are unquestionably better ways to do that without making anti car into a maze of alleyways.
@Evil_Shrubbery this, why is it so full of dark and creepy spaces?
I wrote that comment before reading the article - it’s supposed to be fancy/expensive. Wtf. Prisons have better views then those (and bigger windows).
I hope they are not innovating slums for middle class, lul. Tho they can be good, fun, & cozy (just not rich), James May portrayed one nicely in his India season of Man Abroad
If you image search Culdesac Tempe Arizona there’s some ground-level imagery. Most of it is artists’ impressions of what looks like people wandering aimlessly in the outdoor spaces of a mall.
The answer is to create shade. At those angles, you can find shade at any given time.
This is in frigging Phoenix Arizona. Nothing is walkable in 120 degrees.
Phoenix has a couple of these self contained communities already. The parking lot could be for people outside the community to come and visit the shops.
That’s like 48°C, pretty hot! I don’t think I could walk around in that. I take back some of my criticism.
Surely they need trees and covered areas though, not just boxy houses jammed in together like crooked teeth.
This part is my speculation, but the tightness, aside from shade, might be to give the illusion of small community solitude from the inside. Tempe is a very built -out city. More open, and you’ll be looking at all the typical American sprawl bullshit and probably a freeway or two
Shade is good - been in the south for 8ish years for work - It gets toasty down here.
A combination of artificial shade and greenery can have multiple benifits. (where applicable obviously - not all regions can support it nor should they try)
Shade can be functional too. There’s been some interesting research into panels/pigments that radiate infared light at the wavelength that can escape our atmosphere producing a cooler than ambient surface that could have a variety of uses. A ton of recent advances in solar technology as well.
I watched a YouTube video on it and they mentioned they designed the structure to maximize shade.
This combined with the white buildings knocked more than 20° off of the ambient temps within the neighborhood.
Edit:
The video.
Kirsten Dirksen tours a lot of homes / areas that focus on sustainability or break the mold.
I don’t suppose you have a link to said video? I’d be curious to see it in more detail.
Yeah, I don’t understand, were trees or solar panels not available? Not to mention that maximizing shade could be achieved with a simple pattern and taller buildings or rooftop gardens/panels. Even a simple mesh tarp (mimicking leaves) over the allies does the same trick without claustrophobia :). At such latitude shading from the top is way more effective than from the sides.
And what walkable city/neighborhood doesn’t have a piazza for people to gather & eat, drink, shop, etc?
Dense structure placement like that def looks like developers maximizing buildings per land, not for the community.
A shade structure in Phoenix’s Civic Space Park
I do agree with you this would be a very sensible and effective solution. I also was disappointed that seemingly no thought was put into integration of solar / shade plants.
However I do want to stress the importance of having access to a broad view of the horizon and sky.
That said they totally could have made little pockets with this lattice and 10x’d the environment on the passageways and generate power/food.
Have you watched the video and has it changed your mind? I’m curious if it’s just the article only giving that shitty overview photo. I only watched the video and thought it was quite nice for high density urbanism. An alternative to suburbia modeled after classic European cities.
Besides shade, narrow streets might also reduce amount of walking distance. So if you make it bigger you end up with less functionality.
I’m sure if they replicate the concept it could look quite different in other climates.