doghouse
King Of The Elite Idiots
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In Britain zoning has been a disaster. 20th c. planners thought they knew better than the centuries of accumulated knowledge, this combined with the venality of property developers and the cluelessness of local councils.
There does seem something of a revival though, especially in Manchester and Liverpool (the cities closest to moi) where many of the old city centre Victorian warehouses (many historic and dating from the industrial revolution) have been turned into flats, making for a vibrant city centre after hours.
This is a great article.
We're going through some truly awful development processes here at the moment.
In my opinion it really bottomed out post war when you had the zoning zealots and utopians get together.
I do like some modernist architecture, but the planning aspect was an unnatural abomination.
The concept of ''the suburbs'' is a large delta ranging from the North Paris ones, Rio ones, the multi-multi millionaire ones of Wassenaar here in The Netherlands, the uniformed sprawl of the USA to the tree lined utopia of a stately home estate for the working class in the UK. People have been writing off the suburbs for quite sometime, they're not going away yet!
The authors betray their elitist pretensions as living in the city as ultimate in green living credentials. Really?
What about those city dwellers who drive out of the city to do their grocery shop at much larger hyper-markets with car parking which they don't have in the city?
Those that don't work in the city?
Or people like me who have several trees in their garden? Do I have to move to an apartment in the city to be green?
Why did people move from the cities in the first place, if the suburbs were so impoverished and crap?
Would I want to live in a heritage zone in Amsterdam where there is no sound proofing and cannot be between me and my neighbours?
Would I want to live in what became of the Barratt suburban housing estates of the 1970s in the UK?
The issue with the UK, along with poor and brutal urban planning was corruption - in the cities that is. Colin MacInnes was writing about this in 1959. Hence everyone who could moved out....into the suburbs. With some exceptions of course.
The revival of the Victorian warehouses is not only in Liverpool....over the river, Birkenhead and in Ellesmere Port the Telford built ones.
It all boils down to how much quality you can afford to live and where, in the suburbs or urban environment.
Welcome to school pickup in the modern eraWow, that is fucked up!
It looks like complete madness.
formby wouldn't joke about this sort of thing.
Jazz cabbage is wonderful. Much better than alcohol, though it comes in behind coffee. Shame on you for implying otherwise. Embrace the herb, monWe cannot have a sensible conversation on the subject unless we define "vibrant".
Because where I live, "vibrant" = hordes of noisy, smelly, violent, pot-smoking, drug-dealing ethnic savages (and their white clients)
One thing is having a place to walk, we can all agree that's the goal for a livable city, it should also feel safe to do so.
I'm fortunate enough to live within walking distance of both my children's schools, a bus stop, two train stations, a large shopping centre and plenty of shops and cafes in an older, established area with plenty of greenery. I can walk out of my front door and be at my workplace in the city centre in twenty minutes. It's a great place to live. It's also very expensive, particularly if you want to live in a house, as opposed to a small flat/apartment.
There are some newer housing developments on the city fringes that are being constructed with shopping, recreation and other needs in mind - one has an artificial lake, a large shopping centre with cinemas and a restaurant plaza, and an outdoor pool/aquatic play area surrounded by a sizeable park with groves of established trees and a creek running through it, plus a new train station. Unfortunately, though, that's far from the norm with most housing developments - they tend to be in the middle of nowhere, have little in the way of amenities, and no public transport. So everyone ends up having to drive everywhere and no-one walks at all.
This is the problem in The Netherlands and explains why massive middle class and family flight out of the cities
There's actually a net gain of family and middle classes to the cities in the Netherlands right now. Sorry.
Hard to figure out what's up and down, without having concrete numbers. Link to statistics from cbs.nl?
Hard to figure out what's up and down, without having concrete numbers. Link to statistics from cbs.nl?
No one takes the cbs stats seriously. I have to fill in cost details every Q and then if there's what they deem an irredeemable fluctuation against their model contracts it is challenged with a justification and no doubt that spurious data is removed. When I took them seriously I was told by Dutch lawyers and accountants it was an organisation not to take seriously and don't worry about it.
Lots of official stats have contradicted themselves within weeks of appearing. I've posted examples previously.
But the classic one, over the North Sea, a different country, is that in the London of 2060 the native cockneys will finally be in a minority.....that was in the mid 1990s.
The truth is a mixture of all sorts, but the growth in the big cities in the Netherlands is not being primary delivered by the middle class and middle class families. Either living there or flocking back from the provinces and god forbid, the dreaded suburbs.
Lol.
Yeah, stats don't tell what you want to hear, so just make up what your emotions feel is right.
The stats here are manipulated like elsewhere with obvious criteria avoided for PC reasons.