Syt's Pictorial Collection of Stuff and Things (image heavy)

Started by Syt, June 07, 2015, 02:08:30 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Josquius

Rather more (on my phone so very bleh)



Everyone is 10 minutes from a station. Mixture of express and local trains to give full access to everyone whilst at the same time minimising how long it takes to travel long distances.


And hey. The best house in the world is no good if it takes you forever to get there and there's no town centre to go to for leisure time.
██████
██████
██████

Maladict

Quote from: Valmy on October 13, 2020, 03:15:16 PM
Quote from: Tyr on October 13, 2020, 03:11:32 PM
I never said Britain had it right either. We are one of the worst in Europe, especially when you consider how much we threw away to get here. :contract:

So we should aim for this:



So very compact.

Bad example, Paris is a really compact city for its size.

Maladict


Sheilbh

Quote from: merithyn on October 13, 2020, 12:34:40 PM
It's interesting watching a discussion about car usage between Europeans and Americans. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine who'd just moved to Chicago from London. He was being interviewed for a job and they asked if it was possible for him to come into the office for a face-to-face interview. (This was 25 years ago, so video conferencing wasn't really available.) He said sure! He was going to be in New York in the next couple of weeks and he would just "pop over" to Chicago for the interview. His plan was to drive there with a friend for a "couple of days" because that sounded fun anyway. Then he mapped it. Then he priced flights. Then he priced the train and looked at train schedules.

It never occurred to him that even though the map shows Chicago as only "this far" from New York, it would amount to 1000 miles (~1600km).

Distance in the US (and Canada, to an extent, though most of their cities are packed along the border) is not comparable to European distances. Even cities are spread out for the most part, compared to Paris, London, Rome.

So trying to say that the US wastes time/energy on cars is almost silly. Unless one stays completely within a city - and not all cities have good public transit - cars are essential. One can get by in some cities without a problem, but for most Americans, it's just not optional.
People keep mentioning the US despite the fact I said I wasn't really talking about big places :lol:

My point is the reason cars are not optional for people is because we have constructed a society that is based on and revolves around access to cars. If we make different decisions, we get a different result.
Let's bomb Russia!

Tamas

I think you have it mixed up. We created a society to which car is the optimal answer.

grumbler

I would agree that crs in big cities created the very problem they were designed to solve:  lack of freedom to easily get from point A to point B.

Different solutions would have required different priorities.  Technology in the form of self-driving cars which can be pooled rather than individually owned may change that solution, though.  We can hope.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

The Brain

Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Razgovory

Quote from: Tyr on October 13, 2020, 03:01:47 PM
Your conclusion doesn't match the rest of the post there.
American cities being so horribly spread out is not the natural way they must be. Pre war they were far more compact and along a similar scale to European cities. With public transport.
Instead of following this more efficient path America instead lead the pack in the disasterous mid 20th century trend of car focused urban design.


Uh, no.  Most American cities were not compact like European cities.  Most American cities were platted out in a grid well before much building started.  Land was cheap so spreading out made economic sense.  Most European cities were not planned out so streets and buildings were just put where ever.

Keep in mind that cars replaced something much dirtier and less efficient: Horses. Pre-automobile cities required significant infrastructure to feed, stable, and maintain horses.  Horse waste is a also a problem.  In pre-automobile cities the streets were covered in horse shit.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Josquius

That's not a city you're talking about, it's a county.
Horses were a few steps behind cars. They were already on the way out with trams.
In actual cities not many people bar the very wealthy had a horse (and carriage and driver)  in the way people have a car today.
██████
██████
██████

garbon

Quote from: Tyr on October 13, 2020, 03:28:41 PM
Rather more (on my phone so very bleh)



Everyone is 10 minutes from a station. Mixture of express and local trains to give full access to everyone whilst at the same time minimising how long it takes to travel long distances.


And hey. The best house in the world is no good if it takes you forever to get there and there's no town centre to go to for leisure time.

Why would someone be bothered about a town center?
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Josquius

Quote from: garbon on October 13, 2020, 04:47:46 PM]

Why would someone be bothered about a town center?

Some people like other people, concerts, clubs, restaurants, etc...
██████
██████
██████

garbon

Quote from: Tyr on October 13, 2020, 04:50:24 PM
Quote from: garbon on October 13, 2020, 04:47:46 PM]

Why would someone be bothered about a town center?

Some people like other people, concerts, clubs, restaurants, etc...

Those things don't have to all be in one location.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Josquius

Quote from: garbon on October 13, 2020, 04:54:37 PM
Quote from: Tyr on October 13, 2020, 04:50:24 PM
Quote from: garbon on October 13, 2020, 04:47:46 PM]

Why would someone be bothered about a town center?

Some people like other people, concerts, clubs, restaurants, etc...

Those things don't have to all be in one location.
They are far more effective when they are.
Not to mention the prospect of encouraging drink driving.
██████
██████
██████

garbon

Don't see why that needs to be the case. Seems they would be better spread out, less crowding.

Also, perhaps people shouldn't aim to get blotto when going out. :contract:
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Razgovory

Quote from: Tyr on October 13, 2020, 04:43:07 PM
That's not a city you're talking about, it's a county.
Horses were a few steps behind cars. They were already on the way out with trams.
In actual cities not many people bar the very wealthy had a horse (and carriage and driver)  in the way people have a car today.

No, I'm describing cities in the US.  Cities in the US were not like cities in Europe.

Trams were pulled by horses.  Horses were by no means restricted to the wealthy in the US.  The average American was much wealthier than his European cousins and horses more common.  Now people didn't own horses the same way people owned cars but they were common.  If you ran a business you needed something to move goods from the train station or dock to your establishment.  That meant horses.

Something else that should be considered is that many American cities didn't become large until after cars were invented.  Denver is a midsized American city.  It has 600k people today.  In 1880 it had 35k.  Phoenix has 1.6 million.  In 1880 it had 1.7 thousand.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017