The Off Topic Topic

[The Larch]

I saw that same Twitter thread yesterday. 

[Sheilbh]

Should've guessed.

[The Larch]

Hehe.

I was not surprised to discover that we have the most densely populated cities in Europe, we're very good at packing people together. What surprised me is the magnitude to which we do in comparison with other countries. Only Paris itself (not anywhere else in France) and for some reason Bucharest can compete with what we do in Spain in that regard.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah and Paris has areas close to Barcelona level density (50k plus) but even Bucharest which is next is below 40k. It's at another level and far more widespread in Spain. No idea why.

Also interesting that in Spanish ones there are areas with loads of non-residential space but still loads of people - like this where it looks like there's really very little residential space:

[Josquius]

(The language and type setting used here sucks yes. But first that googled up)

    Boomers are like 80 years old and the Loser Generation is still whining about them!

Maybe if the Losers stopped trying to blame someone else and took responsibility for their own actions, the world the Losers built wouldn't look so shitty.

Yeah. As it's totally people in their 30s who decided in the 20th century that car focussed urban design was the only way forward.
It's like the moaning about participation trophies. Its not the kids receiving them who decided that was a good system, its those giving them out.
Saying its the generation before boomers who deserve most of the blame would be a fair argument,though the boomers are certainly complicit in doubling down. But to say its those who are just coming into power today....

]

There's no way to discuss things with you if you keep making up stuff on the fly.

Just read the Wikipeida article. It's not made up at all.

[Iormlund]

Zaragotham's are some older working-class neighborhoods, very well located (Las Fuentes, Delicias and San José in that order). Then comes the city center proper, which only the rich can afford.

I live in one of the former, but not for long. Fed up with all the noise that comes with old buildings and multiculturalism (as if Spaniards weren't noisy enough!). I'm moving to a newer, more expensive area.

[Syt]

On that!

Someone did some stuff working out the mostly densely populated square km in the UK. Then he did all of Europe - full thread here, plus video down there of most densely populated square km in every country:
https://twitter.com/undertheraedar/status/1622625736992468992?s=20&t=L8LV7g-V7xOs5F1GvQAuzcm2W1DTFl6BPFME5kKJvoA

Square kms with over 30,000 people:


140 in all of Europe and 89 of them are in Spain and fairly widely distributed too.

Some great - wildly different street layouts across Europe too

 

[Caliga]

It also doesn't look as crazy from another perspective - though certainly full of truck stop vibes.

Pretty sure that's the Miracle Mile in Carlisle (PA), which looks that way because converging interstates make it a prime location for truck stops and distribution centers.  Driven through there many times... it's on my main route from Kentucky to Philly.

[grumbler]

Yeah. As it's totally people in their 30s who decided in the 20th century that car focussed urban design was the only way forward.

  Yeah, it's like the "boomers" have had total control over global urban design since they were six years old and stretching to today.

The car-based urban design predates the boomers and postdates them.

It's like the moaning about participation trophies. Its not the kids receiving them who decided that was a good system, its those giving them out.

It is.  Scapegoating is an ancient way of trying to evade responsibility and is just as alive and well today as ever.

Saying its the generation before boomers who deserve most of the blame would be a fair argument,though the boomers are certainly complicit in doubling down. But to say its those who are just coming into power today....

It is every generation.  The world didn't come into being in 1945 and people don't change based on made-up "generational" labels.

[grumbler]

It also doesn't look as crazy from another perspective - though certainly full of truck stop vibes.

Pretty sure that's the Miracle Mile in Carlisle (PA), which looks that way because converging interstates make it a prime location for truck stops and distribution centers.  Driven through there many times... it's on my main route from Kentucky to Philly.

It also looks like Breezewood PA, where I-70 meets the Pennsy Turnpike.

But those places all probably look alike.

[The Larch]

Yeah and Paris has areas close to Barcelona level density (50k plus) but even Bucharest which is next is below 40k. It's at another level and far more widespread in Spain. No idea why.

Barcelona is so high in density because the city itself has very limited terrain to expand, it is very constricted between the mountains and the coast, so the limited space available is developed to the maxxx, and as the population grew exponentially during the XXth century it got more and more cramped and the total population can't go beyond a certain point (the city itself is more or less capped at 1'6 million people, while most of the population live in the metropolitan area surrounding the city, which goes beyond 5 million people and are the only areas that can still grow).

Madrid doesn't have those limitations of space, so it keeps growing and growing. It's beyond 3 million people already (and 7 in the whole metropolitan area), with most of its growth taking place after the Spanish Civil War and until the 70s, when there was a mass exodus from the rest of Spain to the capital. That's when most of the residential construction took place in the country, and the chosen method of the time were large appartment buildings, which is how you achieve such high densities.

[Syt]

https://twitter.com/roykeanereviews/status/1623228877311991811

Roy Keane's Film Reviews
@roykeanereviews

"If music is banned then you're not going to dance your way out of the problem. To think you can solve a whole town's problems is frankly arrogant. The title doesn't even make sense, it sounds like a season ending injury."

 

[celedhring]

Footloose 

[Josquius]

Yeah. As it's totally people in their 30s who decided in the 20th century that car focussed urban design was the only way forward.

  Yeah, it's like the "boomers" have had total control over global urban design since they were six years old and stretching to today.

The car-based urban design predates the boomers and postdates them.

It's like the moaning about participation trophies. Its not the kids receiving them who decided that was a good system, its those giving them out.

It is.  Scapegoating is an ancient way of trying to evade responsibility and is just as alive and well today as ever.

Saying its the generation before boomers who deserve most of the blame would be a fair argument,though the boomers are certainly complicit in doubling down. But to say its those who are just coming into power today....

It is every generation.  The world didn't come into being in 1945 and people don't change based on made-up "generational" labels.

Amazing. Its pointed out that your complaint is daft and another would be more valid so you decide to switch and pretend my critique is in fact yours.

[celedhring]

Yeah and Paris has areas close to Barcelona level density (50k plus) but even Bucharest which is next is below 40k. It's at another level and far more widespread in Spain. No idea why.

Barcelona is so high in density because the city itself has very limited terrain to expand, it is very constricted between the mountains and the coast, so the limited space available is developed to the maxxx, and as the population grew exponentially during the XXth century it got more and more cramped and the total population can't go beyond a certain point (the city itself is more or less capped at 1'6 million people, while most of the population live in the metropolitan area surrounding the city, which goes beyond 5 million people and are the only areas that can still grow).

Yeah, Barcelona proper stopped growing population-wise in the 1980s. There's been a ban on new residential high-rises since the 1990s to keep density from growing even more, otherwise we'd on the way to Hongkongization. Of course, as a result rent in the city is crazy high.

I think one of the reasons for the density of Spanish cities is the low emancipation rates - many families live together in pretty small apartments. Part of it is cultural, but 15 years of fucked up economy for one reason or other have made things worse.