Very good summary of how we got here. Relaxing zoning won't help many places though. For eighty years development has been planned around freeways, which became necessary because of bedroom communities, and they are the "rivers" creating "islands" in the cities. There won't be any easy way to make 15 minute cities with this infrastructure and the subsequent sorting of all hotels in one area, all junkyards in one area, all medical centers, etc. All the power station routing, all the water routing that supports those concentrations.
Pretty hard to burn down freeways. Maybe I just see that because I'm surrounded by stacks of them. If even a little section of one is closed, the traffic diversion affects the area around them for miles, including other freeways. Brings home, literally, what a seething mass of movement is constantly going on in a big city and how supplies are distributed, or not.
Another dumb idea in the current reality. Don't get me wrong, I hate them. But 15 minute cities would require displacing about 200,000,000 people while all the places where they live and work and go to school and recreate are torn down, and the people are restacked in apartments with ground level malls and offices so that all the services one would need are within a mile. As long as all those selfish (/s) people insist on having yards and freedom to choose their services, they will need freeways, because they will be spread out.
True, but everything around them usually burns. Once the homes and businesses are destroyed and insurance companies are bankrupted from mass claims, the area is ripe for a land grab. Its one of many ways to drive out the ordinary population to be able to steal their property, but probably the most efficient.
Our city freeways all have buffer zones of gravel and tall concrete walls. Even tanker crashes don't go far. Recycling yards (and they are a necessary evil) have more dangerous fires. We've had 2 4-alarm fires in a week and a propane yard fire before that, they all affected their neighbors . There's a zoning issue that must be common in cities. Recycling requires acres of stacked up flammables. It also creates big areas which are now too toxic for anything else.
Phoenix had a "neighborhood" plan some years ago. Then the mayor and council all became Democrats. Now it's tear down old neighborhoods, build apartments, stack 'em up, make them ride the light rail.
Very good summary of how we got here. Relaxing zoning won't help many places though. For eighty years development has been planned around freeways, which became necessary because of bedroom communities, and they are the "rivers" creating "islands" in the cities. There won't be any easy way to make 15 minute cities with this infrastructure and the subsequent sorting of all hotels in one area, all junkyards in one area, all medical centers, etc. All the power station routing, all the water routing that supports those concentrations.
Looks like the plan is to burn it all down.
Pretty hard to burn down freeways. Maybe I just see that because I'm surrounded by stacks of them. If even a little section of one is closed, the traffic diversion affects the area around them for miles, including other freeways. Brings home, literally, what a seething mass of movement is constantly going on in a big city and how supplies are distributed, or not.
Early in 2021, AOC suggested dismantling freeways around major cities and Biden supported it.
Another dumb idea in the current reality. Don't get me wrong, I hate them. But 15 minute cities would require displacing about 200,000,000 people while all the places where they live and work and go to school and recreate are torn down, and the people are restacked in apartments with ground level malls and offices so that all the services one would need are within a mile. As long as all those selfish (/s) people insist on having yards and freedom to choose their services, they will need freeways, because they will be spread out.
True, but everything around them usually burns. Once the homes and businesses are destroyed and insurance companies are bankrupted from mass claims, the area is ripe for a land grab. Its one of many ways to drive out the ordinary population to be able to steal their property, but probably the most efficient.
Our city freeways all have buffer zones of gravel and tall concrete walls. Even tanker crashes don't go far. Recycling yards (and they are a necessary evil) have more dangerous fires. We've had 2 4-alarm fires in a week and a propane yard fire before that, they all affected their neighbors . There's a zoning issue that must be common in cities. Recycling requires acres of stacked up flammables. It also creates big areas which are now too toxic for anything else.
Phoenix had a "neighborhood" plan some years ago. Then the mayor and council all became Democrats. Now it's tear down old neighborhoods, build apartments, stack 'em up, make them ride the light rail.