Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Robert Shannon's avatar

Yes we need to build new cities but it's not a matter of remembering how to build things, it's more a matter of thinking differently of how to build. New cities can't just be bedroom communities, there has to be areas of commercial and industrial development to keep jobs close to home. In the 60's I managed properties in inner city Detroit where there was a white flight to the suburbs. The flight was not necessarily racial, but because the outdated factories were moving out of the downtown arena and many people wanted to be closer to work. Tech type institutions like we have in Silicon Valley can't be a sole source. There are still manufacturing plants needed. Over time many will become obsolete and there will be a repeat of Detroit. We can't assume all people will want to live on top of one another either. But build, we should on the best sustainable platform and this old man wishes you and people like Elli will keep pursuing it.

Expand full comment
Bryce Tolpen's avatar

I like the idea of new cities. I lived in Reston, VA for many years, which is something between a planned community and a small city. (As you probably know, it's not incorporated in Virginia as a county, city, or town.) I loved Reston's vibe and the (for its time) mixed uses.

I wonder about two things. First, I'm big on Jane Jacobs and James C. Scott, both of whom have a distrust for utopian cities. Scott has it out particularly for cities built from scratch, such as Brasíila, where mixed use doesn't happen. I probably need to get my urban planning up to date; I know it has swung in Jacobs's direction in recent decades.

My second hesitation has to do with aesthetics. Here I turn to my suburban experience in a neo-traditional neighborhood. The look was better (in my opinion) than the standard suburban single-family neighborhoods surrounding ours. But there was an artificiality to our neighborhood. It sort of said, "We wish we were an old New England town, but we'll do the best we can under the budget constraints and the state's and county's strictures," such as road widths and zoning, which prevented narrow roads and foot traffic.

I love that photograph of “Ghibli-Hobbit” architecture, but how can you build something to look as if it were built by accretion over decades, as “Ghibli-Hobbit” architecture does? Trying to look like something from the past didn't entirely work in our suburban neighborhood.

Of course, you're talking about entire cities and not just neighborhoods. I love the mixed uses, walkability, and transit systems that your diagram suggests.

Thanks for your cool and stimulating thought experiment here.

Expand full comment
17 more comments...

No posts