[HN Gopher] Car-free neighborhood in USA opening soon
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Car-free neighborhood in USA opening soon
On an empty lot near Phoenix, perhaps the most auto-addicted city
in America, a start-up is betting $170 million on a more walkable
future. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/business/culdesac-
tempe-phoenix-sprawl.html https://culdesac.com/
https://opticosdesign.com/work/culdesac-tempe/
Author : ninethirty
Score : 17 points
Date : 2022-10-05 20:48 UTC (2 hours ago)
| cableshaft wrote:
| Car-free but in a state that is likely to have permanent water
| shortages and restrictions (and in two or three decades or less,
| no water). Should have picked a different state if they wanted
| something sustainable.
| [deleted]
| jim-jim-jim wrote:
| The language on the site suggests that you can only rent. Really
| hope this doesn't catch on.
| dlivingston wrote:
| I moved from New Mexico (impossible to live in without a car), to
| Tempe Arizona (extremely difficult to live in without a car), to
| the greater Boston area (trivial to live in without a car).
|
| I love the idea of car-free neighborhoods. I didn't used to, but
| Boston and a recent trip to Greece completely changed my mind.
|
| With that said, this seems like a horrible implementation of a
| good idea.
|
| 1. Arizona? AND the greater Phoenix area of Arizona? HARD pass.
| Give me AC 24/7 or give me death. I'm sure this will be lovely
| for the several weeks in winter that AZ is tolerable.
|
| 2. Go on Google Street View and start at Boston Commons and
| "walk" up to Faneuil Hall. That's what a cozy walkable city looks
| like. This just looks like something between the ASU campus and
| the Mesa Riverview outdoor mall.
|
| 3. A walkable city, in my view, is not "no cars anywhere!!!" It's
| where you can get from arbitrary point A to arbitrary point B
| just on foot/bike, in safety, with generous sidewalks and
| pedestrian lanes, and thriving businesses & gardens & foliage
| along the way.
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| See also
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28133585 (Aug 2021)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21574850 (Nov 2019)
| terminatornet wrote:
| I appreciate that they're trying to make a walkable community but
| every one of these store/restaurants renderings looks like a
| chipotle. Just no personality in the architecture.
|
| I hope they succeed and hire better designers.
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| A single giant apartment complex owned by a private entity isn't
| exactly what people have in mind when they talk about car-free
| neighborhoods and cities.
|
| It's also funny that the first few benefits they tout on their
| website are complementary Lyft Pink and subsidized rental cars.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I would love to live in a car free city. I think this looks like
| a bad implementation of one. A few mistakes I see:
|
| 1. It is Arizona, which means it will be blisteringly hot the
| entire year. 2. The mock ups just don't look very pleasant to be
| in. There are no trees around, there are some sterile looking
| buildings. It looks like an amusement park. 3. The building lot
| sizes should be smaller. This is one thing that gives cities the
| nice organic feel.
|
| If I were to do this project. Start with a train mass transit
| line into a city nearby, it might be worthwhile to go to the end
| of a line, buy some land and pay to just extend it. I would do it
| somewhere with temperate climate. In the charter of the city have
| no cars (except emergency vehicles), don't allow parking spots,
| etc. Then build a nice big square near the transit stop with a
| nice park and plaza, which is the standard american planned town
| that worked quite well. Divide it out into a few blocks. Build
| some initial apartments and missing middle style row home /
| shops. Then sell the land in half acre slices for some row homes
| around the town. If you don't have anything there no one will
| come, but if its all planned no one will want to go. Basically
| just follow the Philadelphia city plan
| https://hsp.org/education/primary-sources/a-map-of-the-origi...
| dexwiz wrote:
| I see almost no shade in the mockups.
|
| It's car addicted, because it's the hottest city in the USA. It
| has days over 100F almost 1/3 of the year. You go from your car
| with AC to a building with AC. Sounds like this experiment would
| be better run in about any other city, and the project leaders
| likely chose the location because of cheap land.
| aintmeit wrote:
| Let them learn the hard way.
| nchudleigh wrote:
| https://culdesac.com/blog/guide/plaza-shade-structure
|
| Not saying its enough, but seems they have perhaps considered
| the fact that its hot.
| dlivingston wrote:
| Even though PHX is a very dry & low humidity climate, the air
| at the nadir of summer is - almost literally - _bitingly_
| hot.
|
| You need shade, of course, but this won't do anything but
| block the sun.
|
| The breeze will just push the surrounding extremely hot air
| under this glorified gazebo.
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| Good luck to them. I hope it works. Even if it fails, maybe we
| can learn something from it.
|
| From my experience it's a bad idea because it's a slippery slope.
| Once they start restricting one thing, it opens doors to
| restricting the next thing. In my city, they closed down a
| downtown street from cars. But then they banned bicycles. And
| they shoo away skateboarders. In nearby grassy park/trail they
| paved a walkway. Then paved even more to segregate bicycles. Now
| the grassy area has the original road beside it, a walk way and a
| bike path... less and less grass.
|
| In this neighborhood, they'll probably come up with some rules
| that you have to park your bike in designated areas. Or don't
| allow electric bikes... crazy stuff like that.
|
| Queue up Casey Neistat's "bike lanes" video on youtube about
| stupid rules.
|
| EDIT: in their website (https://culdesac.com/), why do they have
| a food _truck_ parked in the open area?
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(page generated 2022-10-05 23:02 UTC)