Chicago103
Dec 12, 2006, 8:53 PM
These areas are pretty decent.....There's mile after mile of development like this in Chicago (the "bungalow belt") and similar development in streetcar suburbs like Oak Park. The problem is, it's high-density enough to still have a traffic nightmare on weekends, but just a bit too low-density to really support any transit other than commuter rail without heavy subsidization. There's not great pedestrian activity since most people still would need to walk more than 1/2 mile to get to their destination, so they drive (unless they're going downtown, in which case transit is fine). But since it's somewhat dense, that's enough people driving that it's a traffic nightmare: Ask anyone who tries to drive on Chicago's North, Northwest, or Southwest sides on the weekends or during weekday rush periods. It's kind of an awkward density, 10,000-15,000 ppsm: High enough that you get bad traffic need some transit, but low-enough that it can't support much vibrant street retail or any transit other than commuter service sans heavy subsidization.
My point being, I'm going against the conventional wisdom of this thread and saying that this is a bad middle ground, and optimum densities would either be much higher (city) to encourage almost entirely ped- and transit- activity, or somewhat lower (suburbs) to allow for decent traffic levels for auto trips, with commuter rail service for downtown work trips.
I think that this is a good middle ground and oftentimes there is enough street retail that people can do their day to day activities on foot, depending on where exactly they live. For instance my grandma lives five houses down from a bus turnaround, a Walgreens, a grocery store and a block or less away from two major commercial strips (Archer and Harlem), now for the people that live a few blocks up from her further away from Archer would have a more difficult time walking places but for those that live right next to the commercial strip you certainly can have a walkable existence. Thats not to say that everyone takes advantage of that but I can gurantee you there are more people walking who live closer.
The main problem is that people's standards have simply changed, when my grandma's neighborhood was first layed out in the early 1960's there were few cars on the street, the population of the neighborhood peaked in 1970, declined a little for two decades and then started growing again in the 1990's but I am sure even today the population hasnt exceded 1970 levels. The problem is that the average person's walking and public transit tolerance has decreased even from just 30 years ago, what people used to consider a no brainer to walk it is now a no brainer to drive. The old people die off and younger people move in (younger as in 40's instead of 65 plus) and yet for some odd reason the younger people walk less, middle aged people complaining that they are too old to walk acting like they are virtually handicapped before hitting 50 when my grandma didnt start walking less until she hit about 80.
With the chronic laziness in the american people I am surprised that life expectancies havent decreased, I suppose our medical technology is the only thing that is preventing that, but I have no doubt that life expectancies are higher in Japan and some European countries becauase there is less sprawl and people incorporate walking more into their daily lives. In this country people just take south beach diets, walking on the treadmill at the gym that they drove to in hopes that they wont have their arteries clogged at age 40.
My point being, I'm going against the conventional wisdom of this thread and saying that this is a bad middle ground, and optimum densities would either be much higher (city) to encourage almost entirely ped- and transit- activity, or somewhat lower (suburbs) to allow for decent traffic levels for auto trips, with commuter rail service for downtown work trips.
I think that this is a good middle ground and oftentimes there is enough street retail that people can do their day to day activities on foot, depending on where exactly they live. For instance my grandma lives five houses down from a bus turnaround, a Walgreens, a grocery store and a block or less away from two major commercial strips (Archer and Harlem), now for the people that live a few blocks up from her further away from Archer would have a more difficult time walking places but for those that live right next to the commercial strip you certainly can have a walkable existence. Thats not to say that everyone takes advantage of that but I can gurantee you there are more people walking who live closer.
The main problem is that people's standards have simply changed, when my grandma's neighborhood was first layed out in the early 1960's there were few cars on the street, the population of the neighborhood peaked in 1970, declined a little for two decades and then started growing again in the 1990's but I am sure even today the population hasnt exceded 1970 levels. The problem is that the average person's walking and public transit tolerance has decreased even from just 30 years ago, what people used to consider a no brainer to walk it is now a no brainer to drive. The old people die off and younger people move in (younger as in 40's instead of 65 plus) and yet for some odd reason the younger people walk less, middle aged people complaining that they are too old to walk acting like they are virtually handicapped before hitting 50 when my grandma didnt start walking less until she hit about 80.
With the chronic laziness in the american people I am surprised that life expectancies havent decreased, I suppose our medical technology is the only thing that is preventing that, but I have no doubt that life expectancies are higher in Japan and some European countries becauase there is less sprawl and people incorporate walking more into their daily lives. In this country people just take south beach diets, walking on the treadmill at the gym that they drove to in hopes that they wont have their arteries clogged at age 40.
