@cfabbro Reposting this as a top level comment for spotting more easily: https://archive.is/QlbBN Looking at that rendering this "revitalized downtown" looks like a 6 block by 4 block area with...
Looking at that rendering this "revitalized downtown" looks like a 6 block by 4 block area with another 4x2 block area of surface parking and a building that, I assume, is a multi-level parking garage. The article text says they expect 2,000 parking spaces around the region to accommodate 1,000 housing units and over 100 retail and dining spaces. That's both way too much parking to have a walkable region in the future and also not nearly enough to accommodate everyone if we expect each household to have 1 car and and also expect everyone who doesn't live there to drive in. There is no mention of bus service or any kind of transit in the article and, without that, I just don't get how this is going to be pleasant destination to get to. It leaves the looming questions of how do people get here without needing to drive/park?" and the "how do people who live here get elsewhere without needing to own a car?" It doesn't feel like they're really serious about "hitting reset" if there is no mass transit plan.
It's good that this sort of mixed use development is spreading. But if this is what passes for a "reset button" that's kind of bleak. I would just characterize this as basic infill development. The parking requirements just hobble any attempt to make this as good as it can be.
You don't bring people from sprawling suburbs to downtown, you bring people from other areas of dense population to downtown, like the streets comprising large apartment complexes and condos. If...
You don't bring people from sprawling suburbs to downtown, you bring people from other areas of dense population to downtown, like the streets comprising large apartment complexes and condos. If you build the transit and relax the zoning laws around it, the suburbs eventually become dense like the downtown is.
This was the development pattern for Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland around the metro corridor. You can actually see the clustering of dense housing and retail over time around where the transit exists. Once the transit corridor is in place, real-estate development builds around it and creates a tax base to sustain itself. But you need a critical mass of housing, offices, and entertainment/shopping/dining all along the transit access way for it to work.
Yeah but this isn't a property of the soil, it's a product of the investments made in transit infrastructure and zoning reform. DC was a shit-hole outside of a few very rich neighborhoods from...
This is bascially one of those SuperStar Cities.
Yeah but this isn't a property of the soil, it's a product of the investments made in transit infrastructure and zoning reform. DC was a shit-hole outside of a few very rich neighborhoods from basically the 70s until the 90s. Its turnaround didn't really start until the late 90s/early 2000s and only kicked off in earnest in the second term of the Bush administration with major reforms to zoning laws and upgrades to transit investment.
The density comes when you build the transit backbone to support it. The more sprawling car dependent development pattern is not actually financially sustainable. It doesn't yield enough in property tax revenues per acre to justify the maintenance expenses. Being penny wise by neglecting transit funding just ends up being pound foolish in the end.
Yeah that's partly work from home, partly unemployment, partly people moving. I think it'll take some time for this to shake out into a steady state. I wouldn't extrapolate general trends from...
Yeah that's partly work from home, partly unemployment, partly people moving. I think it'll take some time for this to shake out into a steady state. I wouldn't extrapolate general trends from anything between 2020 and 2025 honestly. Even if WFH becomes more prevalent, it's critical to the vitality and health of cities.
Suburbs are cheaper largely due to subsidy and esoteric accounting details. If we subsidized trains and bus lines the way we subsidized highway expansions with favorable credit/bonds the math would go very differently.
I applaud their ambition, there's a lot of cities that are hanging onto decaying downtowns like this. Though my first thought was similar to the parting comment in the article, that large sweeping...
I applaud their ambition, there's a lot of cities that are hanging onto decaying downtowns like this. Though my first thought was similar to the parting comment in the article, that large sweeping renewal plans like this can easily go sideways. I hope that they've allowed themselves the legal and infrastructure flexibility to adapt as needed as times continue to change. Who would have predicted 30 years ago that malls as a concept would ever go away?
Yeah let me make a prediction right here: this still looks pretty awful, and while it might end up containing a few successful businesses it will not at all be that kind of "walkable downtown"...
Yeah let me make a prediction right here: this still looks pretty awful, and while it might end up containing a few successful businesses it will not at all be that kind of "walkable downtown" that non-North-American people would think of. It still has cars everywhere, made even dumber by the fact that there are two massive parking lots right next to the development - why can it not be developed as an extended pedestrian area then? Is walking from the parking lot to the corner shop too much? Instead, of course cars need to not only be able to drive through it (note that obviously they'd be driving on the wide, fast main road anyway), they even need street parking.
Honestly, it makes my head spin when I read what the theoretical idea is, and then the actual proposal looks like one of the bad new developments in the UK... with quite a lot of additional parking.
This is a good start. Perhaps in Moorhead this will be the beginning of further similar growth in their downtown area. Like others have said there is lots of room for improvement. I keep wondering...
This is a good start. Perhaps in Moorhead this will be the beginning of further similar growth in their downtown area. Like others have said there is lots of room for improvement.
I keep wondering why some rich person or org doesn't just buy a large plot of land and copy paste a suburban/urban area from Europe over here and see how it goes.
Please don't copy-paste entire articles into a comment like this. That's the kind of thing that can get the site in trouble for copyright infringement.
@cfabbro Reposting this as a top level comment for spotting more easily: https://archive.is/QlbBN
Looking at that rendering this "revitalized downtown" looks like a 6 block by 4 block area with another 4x2 block area of surface parking and a building that, I assume, is a multi-level parking garage. The article text says they expect 2,000 parking spaces around the region to accommodate 1,000 housing units and over 100 retail and dining spaces. That's both way too much parking to have a walkable region in the future and also not nearly enough to accommodate everyone if we expect each household to have 1 car and and also expect everyone who doesn't live there to drive in. There is no mention of bus service or any kind of transit in the article and, without that, I just don't get how this is going to be pleasant destination to get to. It leaves the looming questions of how do people get here without needing to drive/park?" and the "how do people who live here get elsewhere without needing to own a car?" It doesn't feel like they're really serious about "hitting reset" if there is no mass transit plan.
It's good that this sort of mixed use development is spreading. But if this is what passes for a "reset button" that's kind of bleak. I would just characterize this as basic infill development. The parking requirements just hobble any attempt to make this as good as it can be.
You don't bring people from sprawling suburbs to downtown, you bring people from other areas of dense population to downtown, like the streets comprising large apartment complexes and condos. If you build the transit and relax the zoning laws around it, the suburbs eventually become dense like the downtown is.
This was the development pattern for Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland around the metro corridor. You can actually see the clustering of dense housing and retail over time around where the transit exists. Once the transit corridor is in place, real-estate development builds around it and creates a tax base to sustain itself. But you need a critical mass of housing, offices, and entertainment/shopping/dining all along the transit access way for it to work.
Yeah but this isn't a property of the soil, it's a product of the investments made in transit infrastructure and zoning reform. DC was a shit-hole outside of a few very rich neighborhoods from basically the 70s until the 90s. Its turnaround didn't really start until the late 90s/early 2000s and only kicked off in earnest in the second term of the Bush administration with major reforms to zoning laws and upgrades to transit investment.
The density comes when you build the transit backbone to support it. The more sprawling car dependent development pattern is not actually financially sustainable. It doesn't yield enough in property tax revenues per acre to justify the maintenance expenses. Being penny wise by neglecting transit funding just ends up being pound foolish in the end.
Yeah that's partly work from home, partly unemployment, partly people moving. I think it'll take some time for this to shake out into a steady state. I wouldn't extrapolate general trends from anything between 2020 and 2025 honestly. Even if WFH becomes more prevalent, it's critical to the vitality and health of cities.
Suburbs are cheaper largely due to subsidy and esoteric accounting details. If we subsidized trains and bus lines the way we subsidized highway expansions with favorable credit/bonds the math would go very differently.
I applaud their ambition, there's a lot of cities that are hanging onto decaying downtowns like this. Though my first thought was similar to the parting comment in the article, that large sweeping renewal plans like this can easily go sideways. I hope that they've allowed themselves the legal and infrastructure flexibility to adapt as needed as times continue to change. Who would have predicted 30 years ago that malls as a concept would ever go away?
Yeah let me make a prediction right here: this still looks pretty awful, and while it might end up containing a few successful businesses it will not at all be that kind of "walkable downtown" that non-North-American people would think of. It still has cars everywhere, made even dumber by the fact that there are two massive parking lots right next to the development - why can it not be developed as an extended pedestrian area then? Is walking from the parking lot to the corner shop too much? Instead, of course cars need to not only be able to drive through it (note that obviously they'd be driving on the wide, fast main road anyway), they even need street parking.
Honestly, it makes my head spin when I read what the theoretical idea is, and then the actual proposal looks like one of the bad new developments in the UK... with quite a lot of additional parking.
This is a good start. Perhaps in Moorhead this will be the beginning of further similar growth in their downtown area. Like others have said there is lots of room for improvement.
I keep wondering why some rich person or org doesn't just buy a large plot of land and copy paste a suburban/urban area from Europe over here and see how it goes.
Paywall
It wasn't paywalled for me.
Straight from Deimos:
Which is usually why we link to archives/mirrors instead. E.g. https://archive.is/QlbBN