London's skyline is a growing mess (Commentary)

[Crawford]

Jakarta is on Google Streetview, so you can look around.

It may be dense, but looks like a horrible place for walking. It appears to be random auto sewers crossed by pedestrian bridges and tiny side streets with shanties.

The main streets look almost unwalkable. Sidewalks don't seem very common, anywhere.

Dhaka is on Streetview too, and looks even denser and crazier.

[ChargerCarl]

In my experience even when they are available in Indonesia its better to walk on the street than risk stubbing your toe or tripping on their cracked, uneven sidewalks.

The small neighborhood streets are great, however.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

In my experience even when they are available in Indonesia its better to walk on the street than risk stubbing your toe or tripping on their cracked, uneven sidewalks.

The small neighborhood streets are great, however.

Looks like the poor mans Japan.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Looks like the poor mans Japan.

That's what I thought.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Downstate/Upstate is a matter of perspective, like Downtown/Uptown.

If you live in the City, Westchester is Upstate. If you live in Poughkeepsie, you have a very different definition that might not start until around Albany or so.

Personally, I think Upstate begins roughly where Metro North ends.

Your post just brought to mind that famous cover of the New Yorker by Saul Steinberg from the seventies. The map of N.Y.C. comprised a very slim upstate that bordered on Canada. NYC as a center of its very own univoice.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Jakarta is on Google Streetview, so you can look around.

It may be dense, but looks like a horrible place for walking. It appears to be random auto sewers crossed by pedestrian bridges and tiny side streets with shanties.

The main streets look almost unwalkable. Sidewalks don't seem very common, anywhere.

Dhaka is on Streetview too, and looks even denser and crazier.

Safety is also an issue in Jakarta. Expats there working for Western companies are generally provided drivers, because they don't want you getting around any other way. At least that was the case circa 2010.

[King Kill 'em]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Probably a result of slums or overcrowding. This for example, is (I believe - based on this little map anyway) one of the more densely populated neighbourhoods in the city: https://goo.gl/maps/pdoRFmvsFDS2

Most of central Jakarta is pretty low-slung, comprised of mostly 1-3 storey buildings like that. Though from above you can see there's a lot more happening behind street level: https://goo.gl/maps/E5RsHoiBUDB2

I'd imagine in most cities of the developing world you'd see similar spikes in density around their poorer neighbourhoods. For example, Dharavi in Mumbai, with an estimated 750,000 people living in just 2 sqkm:


http://indianexpress.com/article/ind...ocess-2945006/

The following blows my mind. In the West our densest neighborhoods are about 50,000-100,000 people per square mile. The densest would probably be the upper East Side with about 120,000. In developing countries, there are slums that are 300,000 to 500,000 people per square mile. What's crazier is how the slums are low rise while our densest neighborhoods are mid to highrise. About 150 years ago during the industrial revolution, London and New York's working class tennement neighborhoods probably had similar densities as today's third world urban slums though.

[chris08876]

Paris Density

Took some screenshots off a clip. Clip found below under credits.






Credit: Night Scape

[picard]

La defense shows paris doesnt do tall buildings very well. A walk around la defense was a major dissappintment for me, just feels kinda cheap, not great quality buildings, dilapidated surroundings even, not like a shiny new cbd should look or feel like. If it was in the city centre they might be better quality, design, height. But canary wharf is not in the centre of london yet looks and feels much sleeker, and more modern.
Maybe if they removed all the crumbly stained concrete, and the windswept brutalist feel of la defense and put up some taller, better quality glass and well designed (iconic even) towers it could save la defense from its current out of town office park feel. Imagine a new cluster in central paris, would be surely better than what they have at la defense. Or just dont bother with tall buildings at all in paris, stick to google style campus offices

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by picard

La defense shows paris doesnt do tall buildings very well. A walk around la defense was a major dissappintment for me, just feels kinda cheap, not great quality buildings, dilapidated surroundings even, not like a shiny new cbd should look or feel like. If it was in the city centre they might be better quality, design, height. But canary wharf is not in the centre of london yet looks and feels much sleeker, and more modern.
Maybe if they removed all the crumbly stained concrete, and the windswept brutalist feel of la defense and put up some taller, better quality glass and well designed (iconic even) towers it could save la defense from its current out of town office park feel. Imagine a new cluster in central paris, would be surely better than what they have at la defense. Or just dont bother with tall buildings at all in paris, stick to google style campus offices

There goes that "iconic" term again. Used to be an icon was a small picture of a saintly theme. Now, the business world has sucked it up and spit it out as a vehicle for selling everything from handbags to condo towers.

[mhays]

In SSP type discussions it usually refers to something famous, or emblematic of something.

For example if a move shows a building and half the audience immediately recognizes the city, that's an icon.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by mhays

In SSP type discussions it usually refers to something famous, or emblematic of something.

For example if a move shows a building and half the audience immediately recognizes the city, that's an icon.

Everyone knows what iconic means and how it's used.

Montréaliste is just having an "old man yells at cloud" moment. Nice job derailing.

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

In my experience even when they are available in Indonesia its better to walk on the street than risk stubbing your toe or tripping on their cracked, uneven sidewalks.

The small neighborhood streets are great, however.

I just spent an hour exploring the street view. Man, that city is a maze. Those small businesses are really small. Looks like some residents use their garage as their store.

I'd hate to park a motorcycle (or scooter) there, and then forget where I parked...

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by The North One

Everyone knows what iconic means and how it's used.

Montréaliste is just having an "old man yells at cloud" moment. Nice job derailing.

I am telling it the way I see it. Every single project a developer builds is automatically iconic nowadays. It is a tired but recent subversion of a word meant for something religious but also quite mundane, and therefore ordinary.

When advertizers program your brain to behave like a robot, your use of languish suffers. The words you find innocuous are just that, when they have been washed, wrung, spun, hung out to dry in repeated cycles until they have no meaning. There.

[mousquet]

Ha ha ha, it is now official; this section's the no-go zone of the forum, where people drop their trolls to let off steam.

This was supposed to be a London thread ...
Anyway:

@picard, you're a rude and sort of extremist individual, aren't you? But your point about la Défense ain't so wrong. It's true that it needs billions of euros of upgrades. That's what they're doing to it at the moment. Three towers U/C right now, and a lot more coming up.

Including the Hermitage towers, a 3-billion-euro mixed-use project that will be built right along the Seine river, just across a little bridge from Neuilly-sur-Seine, a most affluent town / district of the inner metro area. It is widely residential with breathtaking views on the entire central city. You'll love it, picard, although some are shocked because it is so obviously meant for people of great wealth. Those who'll live in there will have the entire city down to their feet. That's a disturbing symbol to many locals.

However, I for one have a mad respect for the French-Russian developer doing this.
First, because he's ballsy, and I like those badass entrepreneurs. They're a little sick, but quite helpful at the same time.
Second, because his project is precisely what we need to take la Défense to a better contemporary level with luxury products over there.

By the way, modern development over the district is older than in Canary Wharf, which must explain the concrete buildings and some others you don't like over there. La Défense was developed as a modern business district from the late 1950s. I believe that was sooner than anything comparable in London.

It is also larger. There are actually some quality buildings over there, that you'd enjoy if they sat on the City of London, but you probably didn't walk around the entire district. It is large and its huge pedestrian public room is confusing to strangers. So you actually hardly saw it.

I would suggest you to come back by the mid 2020s. You might be jealous then. Hé hé.

Fucking troll...

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by mousquet

Ha ha ha, it is now official; this section's the no-go zone of the forum, where people drop their trolls to let off steam.

This was supposed to be a London thread ...
Anyway:

@picard, you're a rude and sort of extremist individual, aren't you? But your point about la Défense ain't so wrong. It's true that it needs billions of euros of upgrades. That's what they're doing to it at the moment. Three towers U/C right now, and a lot more coming up.

Including the Hermitage towers, a 3-billion-euro mixed-use project that will be built right along the Seine river, just across a little bridge from Neuilly-sur-Seine, a most affluent town / district of the inner metro area. It is widely residential with breathtaking views on the entire central city. You'll love it, picard, although some are shocked because it is so obviously meant for people of great wealth. Those who'll live in there will have the entire city down to their feet. That's a disturbing symbol to many locals.

However, I for one have a mad respect for the French-Russian developer doing this.
First, because he's ballsy, and I like those badass entrepreneurs. They're a little sick, but quite helpful at the same time.
Second, because his project is precisely what we need to take la Défense to a better contemporary level with luxury products over there.

By the way, modern development over the district is older than in Canary Wharf, which must explain the concrete buildings and some others you don't like over there. La Défense was developed as a modern business district from the late 1950s. I believe that was sooner than anything comparable in London.

It is also larger. There are actually some quality buildings over there, that you'd enjoy if they sat on the City of London, but you probably didn't walk around the entire district. It is large and its huge pedestrian public room is confusing to strangers. So you actually hardly saw it.

I would suggest you to come back by the mid 2020s. You might be jealous then. Hé hé.

Fucking troll...

Wow. Harsh.

I stayed in La Defense area when I was there last. Its not great. The area surrounding it isn't great at all. About 10 mins away from the subway station I had a cop stop me and tell me to watch my belongings in that neighborhood. It was actually so bad we just ordered a taxi to get to the airport rather than the subway.

[dc_denizen]

Personally I like la defense. It's a nice concentrated skyline with good vantage points from the big boulevards...

Architecturally it's not too interesting but better than canary wharfs pomo.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Wow. Harsh.

I stayed in La Defense area when I was there last. Its not great. The area surrounding it isn't great at all. About 10 mins away from the subway station I had a cop stop me and tell me to watch my belongings in that neighborhood. It was actually so bad we just ordered a taxi to get to the airport rather than the subway.

Bah, picard had left an insulting comment in the thread of Beckham venturing to Miami.
That's why. Forget it, the mods removed his wrong message anyway.

Of course there are bad rough neighborhoods. You don't need the cops, any local would gently give you pieces of advice if you only asked them. For example, wandering around Nanterre is not exactly a good idea. There are still some commieblock ghettos out there, and all the frustrated population that comes along the French commieblocks.

Courbevoie, Puteaux and obviously Neuilly are nonetheless safe. In fact, the commieblock neighborhoods of Nanterre are just about the only bad area around la Défense.
I guess you made a wrong pick for your little ride.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Personally I like la defense. It's a nice concentrated skyline with good vantage points from the big boulevards...

Architecturally it's not too interesting but better than canary wharfs pomo.

I like La Defense too. It isn't beautiful but, to me, it speaks to the power of the French state. It's so monumental and representative of Mitterand and the Grands Projets era.

Something like La Defense would never be built in the US or UK. It could only be in Paris, hub of a super-centralized nation state.

Canary Wharf, to me, looks like any newer business center, anywhere. It may as well be in Dallas, Singapore or Toronto.

[nito]

Getting back on topic, Hayes Davidson who specialise in visualisations of buildings have created a 40 sq km 3D model of London which is accurate to 10cm. They have published some skyline shots of all known projects in the city that are either under construction or approved. Some before and after shots and a video are available here: http://www.hayesdavidson.com/londonfastforward

Video Link

Image sourced from Hayes Davidson: http://www.hayesdavidson.com/londonfastforward


Image sourced from Hayes Davidson: http://www.hayesdavidson.com/londonfastforward


Image sourced from Hayes Davidson: http://www.hayesdavidson.com/londonfastforward


Image sourced from Hayes Davidson: http://www.hayesdavidson.com/londonfastforward


Image sourced from Hayes Davidson: http://www.hayesdavidson.com/londonfastforward


Image sourced from Hayes Davidson: http://www.hayesdavidson.com/londonfastforward


Image sourced from Hayes Davidson: http://www.hayesdavidson.com/londonfastforward


Image sourced from Hayes Davidson: http://www.hayesdavidson.com/londonfastforward


Image sourced from Hayes Davidson: http://www.hayesdavidson.com/londonfastforward