25 Years of Urban Growth and Density Change in 66 Global Cities

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

it's not about me being for or against anyone, it's about me laughing when someone says something to the effect of "oh, those east coast cities have the worst sprawl ever. if only they would look to a place like plano to learn how to build good, dense, responsible suburbs."

plano is nowhere close to what i would deem a "good suburb", hence why i found it so strange and funny.

it'd be like me saying "god, that connecticut horse country is so horribly sprawly. if only those metro new york developers would look at a place like schaumburg, then they'd really know how to build a proper suburb". it's just absurd.



but at any rate you like plano and think it's a nice, worthwhile place; an example of a decent suburban built environment.

i have the exact opposite opinion.

it's probably time to agree to disagree, as i very highly doubt we'll ever see eye to eye about the merits (or lack thereof) of places like plano and schaumburg.

Right, I’m not a snob but pragmatic. Perhaps it’s an age thing, you give a distinctly older, curmudgeon vibe... what’s wrong, the Cubs won’t the World Series a couple years ago. I can’t help with the Bears or Bulls.

I don’t have strong feelings towards Plano one way or another, I just can see things pragmatically.

Take care.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

Perhaps it’s an age thing

nah, i've been shitting on schaumburg basically my entire life.

and i doubt i'll ever stop.

seriously.


take care as well.

[eschaton]

Bridging the gap a bit:

1. I'm unaware of a single "good suburb" which has been built out anywhere in the country after 1945. All of the "good suburbs" have a core which began as an independent city or railroad suburb.

2. The Northeast has more areas with a "sense of place" just because it was more built in the prewar period. There's nothing intrinsically better about it.

3. New urbanist developments have their problems it's true. But larger-scale ones are by and large only possible in the Sun Belt. You would never see something like Ballston in Arlington County, VA, or Bellvue WA develop in the Northeast, because the more localized system of governance (and zoning) gives NIMBYs way too much power to defeat anything which they perceive to slightly inconvenience them.

Thus, I say Texas suburbs do indeed suck. But it's a whole lot more likely that a Texas mega-burb might decide it wants a "proper" downtown and urbanize than a random suburb outside of NYC or Chicago.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

this is never going to be a place where people say "l think i'll walk down to the corner store to grab some eggs and a 6-pack", regardless of how much retrofitting is attempted.

it's always going to be a "car-first", auto-centric place.

i've seen all kinds of corporate suburbs densify. my houston office is in one of these big mixed use suburban developments with boatloads of mixed use, class a, etc, which beats the pants of the rolling meadows office. my st. louis office is also one of these denser mixed use suburban nodes too with huge amounts of office space, garages, restaurants, retail. chicagoland is in a great position to do this, i'm sure it's already happening. that being said, downtown chicago is probably getting a huge amount of the class A that would be going to these kinds of development, relative to many other cities.

they aren't perfect but they are light years better than before, so change is possible.

[Kenmore]

imagine defending an auto sewer like schaumburg, place is trash

[jtown,man]

I think a lot of this conversation is people letting the perfect get in the way of the good(or better).

A small 'urbanist' styled suburban development with semi-dense housing(something like Mueller in Austin), some townhomes, and a few apartment buildings with store fronts(fast food, Panera breads, and 7-evlevens of the world etc) is 100% better than what most of suburban America is today.

Will it ever be Lincoln Park Chicago? No.

Will the residents ever give up their car completely and live only by walking and public transport? Most likely not.


Will they use their car slightly less, probably more likely meet their neighbors, go for pleasant strolls and overall impact the environment a tiny bit less? Absolutely.


I'll take that any day over what 99% of suburban development is today. It *is* better and to say otherwise is being an urban snob. Plano will never be what a Chicago neighborhood is. But it can develop semi-dense nodes(with rail) which give its residents somewhat of a choice to walk to get some food, go to a park, or get on a train to commute to downtown Dallas.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Kenmore

imagine defending an auto sewer like schaumburg, place is trash

Imagine being so small minded you can't accept that other people might have different preferences than yourself.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

There are so many excellent points made in your post that I had to quote the whole damn thing.

Congrats, my friend, you just won SSP today!

why thank you

For all this talk of western sunbelt suburbs having the potential to turn into something more urban and walkable, does anyone have examples of this actually occurring? I don't mean streetcar or inner ring suburbs, and I'm not talking about new urbanist communities either, but rather true auto-centric, sprawly places. I can think of many suburbs that have gotten denser, but can't really think of a situation where the entire character of a suburb has shifted from auto oriented to pedestrian or transit oriented.

Here is a typical 'dense' suburban area near the periphery of Las Vegas:
https://www.google.com/maps/@36.2960...7i13312!8i6656

- Even though the tract housing is dense, it is literally walled off from the main connecting streets, meaning there is no porosity in these developments to allow people to walk places.

- Houses are oriented toward the interior of these developments, so if the walls were torn down, the back of people's homes would front the streets rather than the front- a total inversion of pedestrian friendly design principles.

- Even if there were pedestrian connections to these streets, there is nothing to walk to because there is single use zoning for miles in all directions.

So, no, I don't really see how a place like this is an any way preferable to a lower density exurb in the east. It would take a massive amount of work and political will to turn these places into anything other than the suburban hellscapes they were designed as. When the core city is not much better in terms of urbanity and pedestrian friendly environments, what hope do these places realistically have to change?

To me, all you get out of these types of environments is the worst of both worlds. You don't really get the space and privacy of the suburbs, you're still entirely car dependent, and you're way out on the edge of the metro, so your commute is also probably terrible. And in terms of environmental sustainability? Anyone who really cared about sustainability wouldn't live in a place like Las Vegas- an environment entirely dependent on irrigation and air conditioning to be habitable.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by edale

Anyone who really cared about sustainability wouldn't live in a place like Las Vegas- an environment entirely dependent on irrigation and air conditioning to be habitable.

Eh, you can say this about any city. How long do you think NYC would last if you cut the power and water lines coming in?

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Eh, you can say this about any city. How long do you think NYC would last if you cut the power and water lines coming in?

Boy, that's a false equivalency if I've ever seen one.

[Doady]

Population, 2010/2011

Mississauga - 713,443
Brampton - 523,911
Markham - 301,709
Vaughan - 288,301
Richmond Hill - 185,541
Oakville - 182,520

Aurora - 170,490
Naperville - 128,358
Joliet - 106,221
Elgin - 93,412
Arlington Heights - 78,001
Schaumburg - 75,386

# High-Rises

Mississauga - 294
Brampton - 77
Markham - 60
Vaughan - 45
Oakville - 42
Richmond Hill - 41

Schaumburg - 13
Joliet - 4
Arlington Heights - 3
Aurora - 2
Elgin - 1
Naperville - 1

Transit Boardings (Millions), 2017

MiWay (Mississauga) - 55.9
Brampton Transit - 40.3
York Region Transit - 30.9
Oakville Transit - 4.1

Pace Suburban Bus - 35.5

...

If Brampton is just another Plano, then I would take Plano over Schaumburg any day.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Boy, that's a false equivalency if I've ever seen one.

How so? Cities are inherently unsustainable, Las Vegas is just a little bit worse than most.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Doady

If Brampton is just another Plano, then I would take Plano over Schaumburg any day.

i'd take none of the above.

i don't care how many towers-in-a-park they build, or how many people ride the bus, or how close they smoosh the SFH's together, brampton is still largely a pretty anti-urban place: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7149...7i13312!8i6656


EDIT:

at least brampton has the queen/main historic town center area, so it's not a complete waste: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6859...7i13312!8i6656

that wins it a couple of urban points, but brampton is giant (103 sq. miles) and the VAST majority of it is just prototypical post-war sprawl (with smaller yards, zippity-doo-dah!).

[edale]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Eh, you can say this about any city. How long do you think NYC would last if you cut the power and water lines coming in?

LOL so believe it or not, but NYC was a really, really big city by the time air conditioning was invented. Las Vegas had all of 25 people in 1900, and Phoenix had 5,000. These cities would not exist as we know them if not for air conditioning. I've seen the claim (can't find it now) that Toronto spends more energy during the 3 summer months than the rest of the year, simply because AC takes so much energy.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i'd take non of the above.

i don't care how many towers-in-a-park they build, or how many people ride the bus, or how close they smoosh the SFH's together, brampton is still laregly a pretty awful place: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7149...7i13312!8i6656

Brampton is an awful place, but Schaumburg is 10x more awful. Not everything has to be black or white.

If density and transit makes a difference for cities, then it makes a difference for suburbs too. Anything else is just a double standard.

You don't care how many people ride the bus in Brampton, so if you were a politician there, you would pull the plug on that system? Do you think that cancelling Brampton Transit would not have any effect on Brampton or its neighbours (including Toronto)?

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by edale

LOL so believe it or not, but NYC was a really, really big city by the time air conditioning was invented. Las Vegas had all of 25 people in 1900, and Phoenix had 5,000. These cities would not exist as we know them if not for air conditioning. I've seen the claim (can't find it now) that Toronto spends more energy during the 3 summer months than the rest of the year, simply because AC takes so much energy.

He said power, not just A/C. NYC could survive without electricity or running water? However, I think that wasn't a very good point that you were replying to.

[10023]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

How so? Cities are inherently unsustainable, Las Vegas is just a little bit worse than most.

lol

All of your posts in this thread are so wrong.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

How so? Cities are inherently unsustainable, Las Vegas is just a little bit worse than most.

That line of thinking converts humans into bacteria in a small pond competing for resources. Or humans are viruses.

I don't think it's very helpful to say in 2018 that we shouldn't have built these cities where they were. At this point we need to get incrementally better.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by edale

LOL so believe it or not, but NYC was a really, really big city by the time air conditioning was invented. Las Vegas had all of 25 people in 1900, and Phoenix had 5,000. These cities would not exist as we know them if not for air conditioning. I've seen the claim (can't find it now) that Toronto spends more energy during the 3 summer months than the rest of the year, simply because AC takes so much energy.

It was a really big city without AC because it didn't exist then and people knew no better. Its like some Indian cities today, extremely hot yet huge portions of their population lack AC. Of course its possible to live without AC, but we are a rich nation.

If LV and Phoenix can become 100% reliant on renewable energy I would dare say they would be much much better for the environment as they are building on desert instead of on farmland and forest.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by Doady

Brampton is an awful place, but Schaumburg is 10x more awful. Not everything has to be black or white.

If density and transit makes a difference for cities, then it makes a difference for suburbs too. Anything else is just a double standard.

it really depends...lots of European cities and suburbs are less dense than Mississauga, with fewer highrises, yet urbanistically superior.

Mississauga's built environment, aside from the towers in a park at major intersections, is relentlessly suburban. Compare below:

Mississauga / Dupage County, IL

For the record, I wouldn't call Brampton awful. this is awful.