News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on College campuses are designed at human-scale – cities can be too. Parent comment

Re:College campuses are designed at human-scale – cities can... by throw0101a on Friday January 08, 2021 @07:19AM (#25683904)
> Cities and universities serve very different populations.

As Jane Jacobs observed many decades ago: you don't live in a city, you live in a neighbourhood.

* https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/jane-jacobs-st...

You design the urban environment where, with-in a fifteen minute walk, you have grocery stores, butchers, coffee shops, dry cleaners, pubs, a library, dentists, doctor offices, elementary school, bakery, flower shops, etc.

It's not that hard: we were doing it for a long-time before WW2.

You can have big houses:

* https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Westminster+Ave,+Toron...

And small houses in it:

* https://www.google.com/maps/place/100+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+...

All with backyards and (laneway) garages. Throw in some (medium-rise) apartment buildings while you're at it:

* https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Fermanagh+Ave,+Toronto...

High enough density for pubic transit, which makes car ownership optional and not a necessity.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:College campuses are designed at human-scale – cities can... by ulucs on Friday January 08, 2021 @10:19AM (#25685497)
Toronto is a bad example for sane housing, you have to pay over a thousand dollars for a single room that gets sunlight and the prices just kept rising until covid
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:College campuses are designed at human-scale – cities can... by ghaff on Friday January 08, 2021 @01:30PM (#25687962)
The parent also mentioned Jane Jacobs who a lot of people like to remember for getting highway construction blocked and, as they say, supported walkable neighborhoods that were communities. I would also guess that Jacobs would also have been perfectly fine with Wet Village "NIMBYs" blocking high-rise residential construction if they didn't want it. Livable neighborhoods probably correlate better to high housing prices than low.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:College campuses are designed at human-scale – cities can... by throw0101a on Friday January 08, 2021 @02:37PM (#25689224)
Is high-rise (>10 storeys) really needed? Or would mid-rise (5-10) be sufficient?

Certainly some areas could use high (near major transit hubs), but towers don't have to be planted everywhere.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:College campuses are designed at human-scale – cities can... by throw0101a on Friday January 08, 2021 @02:36PM (#25689202)
Toronto is a good example where you can decent density without high rises.

The fact that so much land was wasted building low-density (North York, Scarberia) sub-divisions (not even getting into McCallion and her disaster of Mississuaga) now means there is high demand but limited supply. Of course now the regions of Peel and Durham (etc) have 'found religion' with regards to density.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:College campuses are designed at human-scale – cities can... by nutshell89 on Friday January 08, 2021 @05:57PM (#25691613)
It's also a bad example of density for a major North American city. Toronto (4,334.4/km2) has lower pop. density than San Francisco (7,255.12/km2), and Boston (5,531.93/km2) and its nearest comparison is probably Chicago (4,573.98/km2).
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:College campuses are designed at human-scale – cities can... by throw0101a on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:19PM (#25691848)
"Toronto" now officially includes things like North York, Etobicoke, etc, which are car-centric, post-WW2 bedroom communities.

Old Toronto is 8,210.4/km2 (21,265/sq mi):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Toronto

Even Etobicoke may not be very low-density in places like Long Branch and Mimico.

[ Parent | on HN ]