Car-free neighborhood in USA opening soon

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33101087

by ninethirty • 4 years ago

24 17 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

On an empty lot near Phoenix, perhaps the most auto-addicted city in America, a start-up is betting $170 million on a more walkable future.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/business/culdesac-tempe-phoenix-sprawl.html

https://culdesac.com/

https://opticosdesign.com/work/culdesac-tempe/

dexwiz• 4 years ago

I see almost no shade in the mockups.

It's car addicted, because it's the hottest city in the USA. It has days over 100F almost 1/3 of the year. You go from your car with AC to a building with AC. Sounds like this experiment would be better run in about any other city, and the project leaders likely chose the location because of cheap land.

aintmeit• 4 years ago

Let them learn the hard way.

nchudleigh• 4 years ago

https://culdesac.com/blog/guide/plaza-shade-structure

Not saying its enough, but seems they have perhaps considered the fact that its hot.

dlivingston2• 4 years ago

Even though PHX is a very dry & low humidity climate, the air at the nadir of summer is - almost literally - bitingly hot.

You need shade, of course, but this won't do anything but block the sun.

The breeze will just push the surrounding extremely hot air under this glorified gazebo.

terminatornet• 4 years ago

I appreciate that they're trying to make a walkable community but every one of these store/restaurants renderings looks like a chipotle. Just no personality in the architecture.

I hope they succeed and hire better designers.

ecshafer• 4 years ago

I would love to live in a car free city. I think this looks like a bad implementation of one. A few mistakes I see:

1. It is Arizona, which means it will be blisteringly hot the entire year. 2. The mock ups just don't look very pleasant to be in. There are no trees around, there are some sterile looking buildings. It looks like an amusement park. 3. The building lot sizes should be smaller. This is one thing that gives cities the nice organic feel.

If I were to do this project. Start with a train mass transit line into a city nearby, it might be worthwhile to go to the end of a line, buy some land and pay to just extend it. I would do it somewhere with temperate climate. In the charter of the city have no cars (except emergency vehicles), don't allow parking spots, etc. Then build a nice big square near the transit stop with a nice park and plaza, which is the standard american planned town that worked quite well. Divide it out into a few blocks. Build some initial apartments and missing middle style row home / shops. Then sell the land in half acre slices for some row homes around the town. If you don't have anything there no one will come, but if its all planned no one will want to go. Basically just follow the Philadelphia city plan https://hsp.org/education/primary-sources/a-map-of-the-origi...

dlivingston2• 4 years ago

I moved from New Mexico (impossible to live in without a car), to Tempe Arizona (extremely difficult to live in without a car), to the greater Boston area (trivial to live in without a car).

I love the idea of car-free neighborhoods. I didn't used to, but Boston and a recent trip to Greece completely changed my mind.

With that said, this seems like a horrible implementation of a good idea.

1. Arizona? AND the greater Phoenix area of Arizona? HARD pass. Give me AC 24/7 or give me death. I'm sure this will be lovely for the several weeks in winter that AZ is tolerable.

2. Go on Google Street View and start at Boston Commons and "walk" up to Faneuil Hall. That's what a cozy walkable city looks like. This just looks like something between the ASU campus and the Mesa Riverview outdoor mall.

3. A walkable city, in my view, is not "no cars anywhere!!!" It's where you can get from arbitrary point A to arbitrary point B just on foot/bike, in safety, with generous sidewalks and pedestrian lanes, and thriving businesses & gardens & foliage along the way.

MrFoof• 4 years ago

Even in the cities immediately surrounding Boston, a lot of them are also walk-able. You just have to be a bit picky on location if you still want quick access to subway stations.

I'm just outside Boston and within a 15 minute walk of me is:

* Multiple supermarkets, plus multiple specialty or small grocers. TWO more supermarkets another 5-10 minutes further walk out.

* FIVE playgrounds. Three of which are proper parks.

* FIVE different brands of bank branches.

* FIVE different gyms or fitness centers.

* Three clinics or health care organizations.

* Three pharmacies.

* A department store, with another just another 10 minutes further walk out.

* A primary school, middle school, and high school.

* A public library.

* A subway station.

* A bus stop that goes to said subway station is 100 feet from my back door.

Never mind restaurants, fast food, specialty shops, barbers, nail salons, lawyers, garages, tailors, general contractors, convenience stores, etc.

Around 2009 after moving here I stopped using a metal box on wheels as a conveyance after about 8 months. I do have a car, but it's only for long trips (family) and for fun on backroads. My primary mode of transportation is walking, followed by subway for long trips where I need to go into Boston/Cambridge or other surrounding cities.

eyelidlessness• 4 years ago

I moved from New Mexico (impossible to live in without a car), to Tempe Arizona (extremely difficult to live in without a car)

This is astonishing to me as a person who’s visited both many times. I find Santa Fe more walkable than Tempe by (sorry) a mile. And Albuquerque at least moderately more walkable. Both according to your clarification of walkability.

Again I’ve only visited all these places and haven’t lived in any, so it’s possible my impressions are distorted by that fact. I’m definitely not disputing the statement! But I’d rather walk in many of the random places in LA (that I’ve also only visited), than walk anywhere in whatever counts for the core/downtown of Tempe.

Boston

I grew up in the DC metro (northern VA) but spent little time in the city before I moved to Seattle. Walkability drops sharply off from any east coast city heading west regardless of the city size, with Chicago being a major outlier. Some parts of the VA burbs are more walkable than some parts of Seattle, which is quite walkable despite terrain. It took 20 years and a family health crisis to go back and see just how much difference in density there is in the city and how much difference that makes. I’d never move back if I can help it, but I immediately felt at home dropped into this city I barely knew even growing up by it, and without autonomous access to a car even if it had occurred to me to want that.

DwnVoteHoneyPot• 4 years ago

Good luck to them. I hope it works. Even if it fails, maybe we can learn something from it.

From my experience it's a bad idea because it's a slippery slope. Once they start restricting one thing, it opens doors to restricting the next thing. In my city, they closed down a downtown street from cars. But then they banned bicycles. And they shoo away skateboarders. In nearby grassy park/trail they paved a walkway. Then paved even more to segregate bicycles. Now the grassy area has the original road beside it, a walk way and a bike path... less and less grass.

In this neighborhood, they'll probably come up with some rules that you have to park your bike in designated areas. Or don't allow electric bikes... crazy stuff like that.

Queue up Casey Neistat's "bike lanes" video on youtube about stupid rules.

EDIT: in their website (https://culdesac.com/), why do they have a food truck parked in the open area?

hoosieree• 4 years ago

City planners could just make narrower streets (like 1-way alley kind of narrow). No need to ban cars, instead design the streets so other modes of transport are more convenient.

As a bonus the land you would have used for wider streets can be used for something better.

jim-jim-jim• 4 years ago

The language on the site suggests that you can only rent. Really hope this doesn't catch on.

paxys• 4 years ago

A single giant apartment complex owned by a private entity isn't exactly what people have in mind when they talk about car-free neighborhoods and cities.

It's also funny that the first few benefits they tout on their website are complementary Lyft Pink and subsidized rental cars.

cableshaft• 4 years ago

Car-free but in a state that is likely to have permanent water shortages and restrictions (and in two or three decades or less, no water). Should have picked a different state if they wanted something sustainable.

hoppyhoppy2• 4 years ago

Car-free neighborhood in USA opening soon

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