Minneapolis 2040 Upzoning

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by osmo

Geography is a poor excuse for SF and it's affordability problems. Both Paris and SF are the exact same size for thier city proper and Paris holds 2.5 million versus the 750k in SF, all with no skyscrapers. SF and it's problem is all due to land use polices and rabid NIMBY groups.

You can't have 2.5 million people in S.F. city limits, because of its geography. Coast, mountains, bay, parks.

It's not an inland river city that can develop outwards in all directions.

L.A. maybe, give it a century to catch up to ancient Paris.

[maru2501]

I have only recently starting going to MPLS in the past couple of years due to a relative moving there. It's a quality midsize city for sure. And it is pretty progressive and I think it wants to urbanize.

It is emphasizing its light rail and wants to densify, was my impression. And there are lots and lots of neighborhoods adjacent to downtown where it is suddenly single family housing that feels much too close to center city.

My cousion-by-marriage lives in one of these. She moved from Chicago, where she was in a 3-flat with a roommate. She couldn't find that, so she moved into a SF house near downtown MPLS which was owned by someone else and occupied as a rental by her and two roommates.

she told me this kind of setup is everywhere near the center of town because they don't have that kind of classic row house type flat housing that is so prevalent in the cities that MPLS seems to want to emulate.

I took this upzoning as an attempt to remedy this, so I guess I wasn't surprised. Good for them

[dubu]

it sounds nice, but i wouldnt want to live there, its a perfect size city but its a regular old us city. if chicago was that size then that would be cool

[digitallagasse]

This is fantastic! I wish them the best and will be following closely. Hopefully more cities look to this as well.

That and all the cities that say they can't possibly add more people in many cases that isn't true. For example San Francisco says it can't really add any more people. Yes it very much can. Below is one such area in the city that can very much be upzoned. You are looking at mostly two story structures and on a good street grid. These could easily be four or six story structures. Zoom out and you can see how large an area of the city this is. You will also see other similar such areas in the city as well. That isn't to say everywhere in the city is suitable for such upzoning but a bunch of it is. That is still human scale built form. The same area could go full highrise and fit in far more as well. So can't is untrue. It is purely that the NIMBYs will not allow it.

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7340...!3m1!1e3?hl=en

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

You can't have 2.5 million people in S.F. city limits, because of its geography. Coast, mountains, bay, parks.

It's not an inland river city that can develop outwards in all directions.

L.A. maybe, give it a century to catch up to ancient Paris.

Sure you can, for the exact reason he stated. Paris fits 2.5 million people into a geographic area smaller than the 49 square miles for SF. Now, I'm not saying that this is desirable or possible politically, but it certainly is possible without having a single skyscraper - just upzone everything to 6-8 stories and you'd be there even without touching parks, etc.

[osmo]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

You can't have 2.5 million people in S.F. city limits, because of its geography. Coast, mountains, bay, parks.

It's not an inland river city that can develop outwards in all directions.

L.A. maybe, give it a century to catch up to ancient Paris.

What geography limits the peninsula city?

This is all a myth. Again SF is the same, if not larger then central Paris. Paris is able to fit 2 million people with nearly zero skyscrapers.


-Upout.com

Do we need Paris style density in North America? Maybe not, but SF could easily handle double the amount of people within its borders - it simply makes the choice not to - and as result, ridiculous housing prices are the result. No reason SF can't be 1.5 million within its borders.

[SIGSEGV]

The outer neighborhoods of SF are not that dense, although without decent transit in a lot of the neighborhoods (the muni is too slow as it is right now, although it could probably be upgraded). Castro, Forest Hill, the Mission and the the area around the Balboa Park and Glen Park BART stations can definitely densify quite easily to 6-8 stories though.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by osmo

This is all a myth. Again SF is the same, if not larger then central Paris. Paris is able to fit 2 million people with nearly zero skyscrapers.

I wouldn't call them skyscrapers by today's standards, but it's interesting to note that Central Paris actually comprises a number of residential buildings roughly 100m / 300ft / 30-floor tall, all built in the 1970s for the late modern era.

See this comprehensive list if curious.

Navy blue little squares => built. The rightmost field in the table shows completion dates too.
All in the 1970s.

Logements means residential.

There's quite a few of them. Far from enough to explain the central density, but they must help a little bit, somehow.

[dc_denizen]

paris is one of the densest built environments in the western world, the only peer is manhattan. might also ask why is frankfurt or stockholm not as dense as paris.

SF's 'surburban' areas like the sunset are as dense as Paris suburbs. there is simply just more apartment and 6-8 story building density in Paris, whereas this typology is basically nonexistent in SF.

meanwhile Paris has no rowhouses, which while urbanistically fantastic are not all that dense.

http://mapmerizer.mikavaa.com/#16;37...se;false;false

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

You can't have 2.5 million people in S.F. city limits, because of its geography. Coast, mountains, bay, parks.

It's not an inland river city that can develop outwards in all directions.

L.A. maybe, give it a century to catch up to ancient Paris.

Paris city proper is actually almost exactly the same size as San Francisco proper geographically.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by osmo

Do we need Paris style density in North America? Maybe not, but SF could easily handle double the amount of people within its borders - it simply makes the choice not to - and as result, ridiculous housing prices are the result. No reason SF can't be 1.5 million within its borders.

Theoretically you could, but this is a very different time than when central Paris was built and in a totally different culture.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by The North One

Paris city proper is actually almost exactly the same size as San Francisco proper geographically.

And?

The two cities couldn't be anymore different.

E] If S.F. had the geographical setting as Atlanta, it would be more affordable. But it doesn't, because it's in California, along the coast, on a peninsula, surrounded by water on 3 sides, unlike an inland city like Atlanta or a Paris.

Originally Posted by osmo

Geography is a poor excuse for SF and it's affordability problems. Both Paris and SF are the exact same size for thier city proper and Paris holds 2.5 million versus the 750k in SF, all with no skyscrapers. SF and it's problem is all due to land use polices and rabid NIMBY groups.

Geography is everything in S.F.'s case. It is almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the Bay Area, unlike Paris.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

paris is one of the densest built environments in the western world, the only peer is manhattan. might also ask why is frankfurt or stockholm not as dense as paris.

Frankfurt and Stockholm also aren't some of the most expensive cities in the world. They're not as dense because they don't need to be as dense.

SF's 'surburban' areas like the sunset are as dense as Paris suburbs. there is simply just more apartment and 6-8 story building density in Paris, whereas this typology is basically nonexistent in SF.

meanwhile Paris has no rowhouses, which while urbanistically fantastic are not all that dense.

Not sure if you're actually familiar at all with Paris suburbs or if you've just spend 2 minutes on google maps, but attached housing mixed in with small apartment is pretty typical of the first ring of suburbs: https://goo.gl/maps/ZanmQyp8goE2

[digitallagasse]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

And?

The two cities couldn't be anymore different.

E] If S.F. had the geographical setting as Atlanta, it would be more affordable. But it doesn't, because it's in California, along the coast, on a peninsula, surrounded by water on 3 sides, unlike an inland city like Atlanta or a Paris.




Geography is everything in S.F.'s case. It is almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the Bay Area, unlike Paris.

Which is even more important to upzone the land you have. Land will be expensive when it is in a desirable location. Even more so if in limited supply. On top of that even more so if what is built on the land is limited. San Francisco has the first two by location. The last one is self inflicted. If you can't create more land and it is desirable to make the most out of it.

Even for cities that do have more room to grow outward that only works so well. Land value on the fringe of a metro is cheaper for a reason. Land closer to a desirable location tends to be more expensive purely because it is closer. A healthy metro would be both intensifying already built areas while also expanding out if possible. Failure to intensify the already built form only leads to a more rapid expansion outward. Get in early when a closer in house is affordable and it might not be so bad. When affordable is now a couple hours outside the city not so much. It is a major reason people are moving from the larger size metros to mid size metros. In the large metro what they can afford is a two hour commute. In the mid size metro it may be a 30 minute to one hour commute. I hear this all the time from people moving from both NorCal and SoCal to Vegas. The same also applies to people moving from Hawaii to Vegas as well.

For the love of all that is good stop artificially limiting supply and natural intensification.

[osmo]

Originally Posted by The North One

Theoretically you could, but this is a very different time than when central Paris was built and in a totally different culture.

I agree. In North America, we have good examples, on a micro level, of hyperdensity that is done well.

Union City archives ~27,000 people per square mile and does this all without towers. It is made in the USA density:



-Strong Towns

Very good example there of what could be done to an extent.

You can't make the streets more narrow but you can eliminate or ease up on front set-backs. Allowing upzoning citywide to allow for up to 4-storeys. Eliminate parking minimums. Doing these two things would incremental spread around density to various pockets of the city.

[Chef]

Originally Posted by osmo

I agree. In North America, we have good examples, on a micro level, of hyperdensity that is done well.

Union City archives ~27,000 people per square mile and does this all without towers. It is made in the USA density:

You can find examples of 20,000 ppsm density in Minneapolis that barely even feel like it. They still have setbacks and a lot of green but make up for it with a lot of three and four story apartment buildings. This neighborhood is a bit over 20K but I don't think anyone would call it a concrete jungle, part of the motivation of the plan is to turn more of the city into this:

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9617...7i13312!8i6656

This is actually significantly denser than most rowhouse neighborhoods in the Midwest, but it carries its density "lightly". If you replace a few more of the single family houses with apartment buildings you could probably get the density up to 25k without changing the neighborhood too much. After the new plan goes into effect it will be zoned Interior 3 (three stories) and the commercial street the next block over will be Corridor 6 (six stories) so that is a possibility.

Getting rid of S1 zoning that only allowed single family houses seems to be the part of the plan that has gotten the most press, but upzoning the commercial corridors and getting rid of parking minimums will probably have a bigger impact on the built form of the city. The city has upzoned all the commercial corridors in the inner half of the city to allow six story mixed use and in the outer neighborhoods to allow four story mixed use. It is very likely that a lot of the commercial corridors out in the neighborhoods will start to see a lot more midrises. That process of densifying those corridors began a decade and a half ago and has been accelerating over the last few years but this will probably push it even harder.

[Segun]

I think people are severely underestimating Minneapolis.

1 - Minneapolis a respectable amount of walkable urban commercial boulevards. Once you establish good commercial neighborhood districts, dense housing follows and falls into place nicely. This is where it differs from Houston. Houston's commercial districts are lacking.

2 - St.Paul is it's own major city, not an edge city, it has its own downtown, neighborhoods, and different sides of the city. It has that Midwest, comfortable urbanity, where your neighborhood commercial street might feel gritty like the East Coast, there might be a few apartment buildings here and there, but its mostly single family homes with backyards on a close-knit city grid, and it's connected to Minneapolis by a major street with rail transit that runs frequently. One could potentially turn University Avenue into a Twin Cities version of Wilshire, but with transit.

[Sun Belt]

Why are you guys still talking comparing S.F. to Paris in a thread about Minneapolis?
Maybe compare Minneapolis to S.F. first and then Minneapolis to Paris.
S.F. resembles Paris in just about nothing and it doesn't want to be a Paris.

Originally Posted by digitallagasse

Which is even more important to upzone the land you have. Land will be expensive when it is in a desirable location. Even more so if in limited supply. On top of that even more so if what is built on the land is limited. San Francisco has the first two by location. The last one is self inflicted. If you can't create more land and it is desirable to make the most out of it.

Why would anybody [besides SSP nerds] ever want to cram 2.5 million people in the city limits of S.F.? Let's get real.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Chef

You can find examples of 20,000 ppsm density in Minneapolis that barely even feel like it. They still have setbacks and a lot of green but make up for it with a lot of three and four story apartment buildings. This neighborhood is a bit over 20K but I don't think anyone would call it a concrete jungle, part of the motivation of the plan is to turn more of the city into this:

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9617...7i13312!8i6656

yep, that's how chicago achieves so much of of its neighborhood density as well. it's not about attached rowhouses and zero setbacks and tiny little 15' wide streets. it's about flat buildings that put 2-4 homes on every little plot of land where there would otherwise only be one home. intersperse some corner and courtyard apartment buildings and you can easily get a super leafy, super green, wide-open feeling city neighborhood with 25,000 ppsm and nothing over 4 stories tall.

here's a random residential street in my chicago neighborhood (tract density of 26,000 ppsm): https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9671...7i13312!8i6656


the aesthetics are quite a bit different than those older east coast rowhouse neighborhoods in philly or baltimore or pittsburgh or wherever, but you're still putting 20,000+ people in a square mile, there's just a lot more grass and trees and bushes and flowers and shit. it's how chicago earned its motto in the 19th century "Urbs in Horto" (city in a garden). i feel it's a great, appropriately midwestern model for minneapolis to continue following. it's a great way to move some of those quasi-urban 10,000 ppsm SFH streetcar neighborhoods into the more solidly urban 20,000 ppsm realm, while still preserving minneapolis' leafy side street feel.

this is really cool news!

[creamcityleo79]

Originally Posted by dubu

it sounds nice, but i wouldnt want to live there, its a perfect size city but its a regular old us city. if chicago was that size then that would be cool

This is a pretty ignorant comment. A "regular old US city" we are not. But, I guess you'd have to come here and experience it yourself to know that. Why do you think we're simultaneously the coldest major metro in the country and one of the fastest growing Midwest metros?