Anyone Interested in Urban Design?

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Is anyone interested in urban design and planning, e.g. street plans, rapid transit, urban economy and culture and the function of the city?

I have read a bit about urban planning in "Cities of the Ancient Andes", I found this paper by MIT interesting and have read other books about urban planning and I decided to design some cities of my own for my alternate world for fun, as can be seen here: http://sites.google.com/site/mbinhgany/ ... siwe?pli=1 .

How many "designed" cities are successful? Most cities grow organically and are not centrally planned.

ruveyn

Chan Chan, Qusqu (Cuzco) and Wari were all carefully planned yet they were successful.

They had less potential for as rapid population growth as modern cities, lacked a modern transportation infrastructure that would drastically change the economy, and thus the needs of the city in a short period of time. Modern cities need to be flexible in their growth and not tied up in massive balls of economy killing red tape.

Adelaide and Canberra are designed cities which have kept to their original layout to a large extent. Melbourne to a lesser extent. As to success, Adelaide and Melbourne are in the top ten most livable cities in the world, at positions 8 and 1 respectively.

http://www.businessday.com.au/business/ ... 4669119171

I've been designing a city that started out as just a bunch of skyscrappers, and eventually turned into a city planning exercise. Currently dubbed "South Beaverton" until I find a better name for it, it is to be an economic hub/twin to Portland on par with Seattle and Houston. It will expand the portland metro area by 3 times its current size and giving this metro almost 6 million residents from its current 2 million. It will add both a NW group of suburbs and a SE ring that expand out from Lake Oswego to Troudale, and towards the country, these suburban cities(what looks like a bunch of colorful puzzle pieces pieced together):

Here is a look at the downtown core that powers both the city, the suburbs that feed it with talent, and the region as a whole:

Here's a side shot, and yes it has a bridge just for fun, one that crosses over a large body of man-made lakes throughout the city:

It's been a fun exercise in getting some of my skyscrapper ideas out.:

And most importantly, I've had to do a ton of research into city designs, what powers cities of both the past and the present, and where their headed tomorrow. My latest obsession is studying mixed-use buildings. I get all warm and fuzzy when I see a space designed well, and also well-utilized. That's one bummer I have about malls, or business districts. They are purpose built to serve a specific purpose, but why not have that space fully utilized in the mourning to well into the night, all days of the week? The business district of SF is very quiet and very underused on the weekend, but that could change if the bottom most level of many of its buildings had restaurants, cafe's, or theaters, the lower middle through upper middle can remain business office for the tenant(s) of the building, but apartments can sit atop them in the middle to upper half of the building while 10+ million dollar condo's can sit atop the entire building. It's almost an obsession of mine to imagine an apartment or business office atop every bestbuy, grocery store, strip mall, or business park I drive by:



My city will probably take many many years to perfect, I still have to paint and texture the buildings and the environment, so it is an on-going process. But it is one of my top 5 passions so it will most likely happen. If you'd like to learn more about cities and why they work, feel free to follow these blogs that I visit almost daily:

http://www.urbanophile.com/
http://www.newgeography.com/
http://newurbandesigner.com/
http://americancity.org/
http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/
http://www.streetsblog.org/
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/
http://urbanomnibus.net/
http://technologyandthecity.blogspot.com/
http://www.joelkotkin.com/
http://www.humantransit.org/
http://www.tnr.com/blogs/the-avenue
http://www.creativeclass.com/
http://www.america2050.org/
http://irjci.blogspot.com/

You do realize that if you tried to build all that on a short timeline it would probably wreck the economy, right? The price of building materials would skyrocket, many construction projects would go bankrupt before they are completed, many others would end up having cost overruns that would likely end up in foreclosure shortly after they are finished, and the price of real estate would crash from having more building space than bidders. That's not including the risk of out of control inflation and the upset such a huge bubble would cause on wall street. We don't have the industry anymore to make the construction materials for such a project so we would have to import it at full market value.

EDIT: It's a very nice looking city, but in real world economics, it would end up inspiring a Call of Duty game and be a nightmare for police.

@John_Browning

City development takes ages. You put the streets in so that it can take growth. One does not need to build every skyscraper. I assume that MarketAndChurch is using this as a test bed for ideas.

The reason I like city development ideas is that I get sick and tired of cities that just throw people into suburbs with no planning like they are being flung by some centrifugal force.

@MarketAndChurch, you should consider making an application for the evolo skyscraper competition. They love mixed use buildings.

lol no, it's not buildable. I wish it were though. It would animate millions of college students from all over the world to fly in and attend sit-ins around every tree that would be taken down. It would enflame farmers, and perhaps rightly so, since the land I'd use is amongst the most fertile and rich soil on earth. It would raise land prices exponentially and require Metro(The transportation and land-use planning agency of the three major counties around Portland) rights that are unconstitutional, as in taking away property, and amassing all sorts of unfathomable powers to make this work. And of course, all of the reasons you cite. Plus it would also probably largely financed by foreigners. It is but a dream. But oh well.

http://www.evolo.us/competition/

I just looked it up, and it sounds kick***! But I am one enthusiast who still has a good lot to learn about design, architecture, and urban planning before I feel ready to take on a such a task. But the proposition does excite me as I see a great many places throughout my city that would serve this sort of project well. Reading it further... I might just give it a shot, I would also love if other WP'ers also entered this competition.

i also don't know any good programs to model my buildings in, and sketchup won't do. I'd like to be able to render these types of works:
[img][800:1501]http://static.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/10832_1_madison%20bbig.jpg[/img]

i think a healthy city that is great for the lower middle class all the way up to the rich is Houston Texas.

Though to promote houston as an ideal is probably to promote what you are also against. Sprawl houston style might work better everywhere if this sprawl was better planned. Vancouver BC is amongst the most well planned cities on earth, yet it is a nightmare for the middle class as it is also the most expensive real estate in North America. Even the so-called "best" cities such as Chicago, LA, and Seattle take a backseat to the suburbs around them as that is where all the economic growth is coming from. They are no longer the engines of growth they once used to be and a great many of them are unfavorable towards the middle class, immigrants, families and college graduates looking to get ahead because of their expensive real estate and cost of living, and most importantly, it is difficult to own an automobile in the city, and transit only services 10% of the employed public well, the other 90% most likely work outside the city.

I don't see how the city can foster a thriving middle class, it almost seems like the only ones who the city are for are hipsters, tourists, the wealthy, and the working poor they subsidize, oh, and the homeless. That's why the metropolitan that services the city are so important as they provide upward mobility for a good many of us who are priced out of a decent quality of life. Salt Lake City, Portland, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Boston, NY, Dallas, and Releigh to name a few cities(and their metro's) who represent what a great city looks like. Most of the ones mentioned are largely because of how well their suburbs have been drivers of growth, and have given the masses a chance at moving up in life. But even if we develop our suburbs better, our cities still need attention. What are some suggestions that you have on this? (Especially from an Australian perspective)

I think so too, Houston would be a fantastic place to live.



True, Vancouver was great when it was an undiscovered gem, now its far too expensive, rather like Sydney.



Suburbs can be planned in detail too. Places like Elizabeth and Golden Grove have been well integrated into greater Adelaide. With access to affordable housing, car manufacturing, higher education and defense, they give people from pretty much all classes access to opportunity. Although my favorite suburban development strategy is Subiaco in Western Australia. It has everything the middle class needs, from cheap widespread public transport to access to uncongested transport corridors. That said, western Sydney is an utter mess.