How would you fix the major issues in urban design of big American cities

[Zinneke]

Discuss

[Del Tachi]

TCJA was on the right track with opportunity zones.

[Sol]

Some combination of:

Housing and zoning
-Streamlining the process of construction and permitting approvals to encourage multifamily housing
-Banning single-family zoning and encouraging mixed use zoning.
-Upzone urban cores and inner urban neighborhoods
-In areas with especially bad housing crises, building UK-style new towns to dramatically increase housing supply, ideally at an extremely high density.
-Developing and buying a good chunk of the housing stock to serve as scattered-site public housing (~25-35%) to serve as a safety net to decrease the impacts of gentrification.
-Create urban growth boundaries to minimize sprawl. This would probably need to be done intelligently, because it can potentially amplify housing crises if done incorrectly; in cities with a better housing situation it could be done right away. In other cities with bad housing crises and policies like this in place already, it probably makes sense to remove large sections of the boundaries for the development of the aforementioned new towns.
-Require areas near transit stops to be zoned for high-density housing and commerce.
-Areas of cities especially at risk for natural disasters, like flood plains or coastal areas receiving a lot of erosion could undergo managed retreat, with residents being abundantly compensated and receiving new housing.
-Cities would have undertake a systematic audit of their planning practices to figure out the best things they can do to prep for large-scale disasters.

Transportation
-Shift funding formulas to make public transit the primary priority over highways in urban areas
-Increase the gas tax dramatically in urban areas, with the funds from the gas tax used to supplement welfare programs
-Require city governments to undertake large transit projects in house, rather than outsourcing them to contractors. This should help control cost.
-Ban new urban highway construction or expansion -- you can maintain existing highways and deal with urgent safety issues, but you can't widen them or build new ones.
-Make highway removal funds readily available to municipalities.
-Require metro areas above a certain population threshold to build large-scale heavy rail.
-Require bus and trains to run at a high frequency (sub 15 minutes) to encourage transit use.

Health and Safety
-Require audits of planning practices and currently existing infrastructure to find patterns of racial and economic discrimination, forcing cities to undo those patterns.
-Fund police departments enough to do their jobs, but impose certain strictures -- i.e. bans on military grade weaponry, an end to qualified immunity, bans on chokeholds, mandatory bodycams, strengthened institutional review boards, and stricter enforcement of ethical rules (i.e. zero tolerance for racism).
-In many cities, a northern Ireland style remaking of the local police is necessary.
-Require cities to have available crisis numbers to call in addition to the police.
-Make housing abundantly available for the homeless (using the policies in the first section).
-Increase funding to make dignified residential treatment for the mentally ill and those experiencing addiction affordable, even for the very poor. This would probably need to be part of national healthcare service.

Municipal Structure
-Amalgamate metro areas into one city to avoid issues of resource hoarding, allow for tax dollars to go to areas with more need. This also would apply to school districts.
-States should devolve more power and funding to the municipal level.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing. Most of this stuff is not politically feasible alas.

[Dr. MB]

mandate grid patterns for roads and new neighborhoods would be a good start along with transforming all neighborhoods into mixed use areas

[ProgressiveModerate]

mandate grid patterns for roads and new neighborhoods would be a good start along with transforming all neighborhoods into mixed use areas

Disagree with mandating grid pattern. In denser urban environments, the occasional diagonal or curvy street can add some nice variation, help break things up, and create unique lots for public amenities like parks. In general, most lots (90%) should have some rectangular shape though, and there should be clear continuous corridors that make it easy to get around the city.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Some combination of:

Housing and zoning
-Streamlining the process of construction and permitting approvals to encourage multifamily housing
-Banning single-family zoning and encouraging mixed use zoning.
-Upzone urban cores and inner urban neighborhoods
-In areas with especially bad housing crises, building UK-style new towns to dramatically increase housing supply, ideally at an extremely high density.
-Developing and buying a good chunk of the housing stock to serve as scattered-site public housing (~25-35%) to serve as a safety net to decrease the impacts of gentrification.
-Create urban growth boundaries to minimize sprawl. This would probably need to be done intelligently, because it can potentially amplify housing crises if done incorrectly; in cities with a better housing situation it could be done right away. In other cities with bad housing crises and policies like this in place already, it probably makes sense to remove large sections of the boundaries for the development of the aforementioned new towns.
-Require areas near transit stops to be zoned for high-density housing and commerce.
-Areas of cities especially at risk for natural disasters, like flood plains or coastal areas receiving a lot of erosion could undergo managed retreat, with residents being abundantly compensated and receiving new housing.
-Cities would have undertake a systematic audit of their planning practices to figure out the best things they can do to prep for large-scale disasters.

Transportation
-Shift funding formulas to make public transit the primary priority over highways in urban areas
-Increase the gas tax dramatically in urban areas, with the funds from the gas tax used to supplement welfare programs
-Require city governments to undertake large transit projects in house, rather than outsourcing them to contractors. This should help control cost.
-Ban new urban highway construction or expansion -- you can maintain existing highways and deal with urgent safety issues, but you can't widen them or build new ones.
-Make highway removal funds readily available to municipalities.
-Require metro areas above a certain population threshold to build large-scale heavy rail.
-Require bus and trains to run at a high frequency (sub 15 minutes) to encourage transit use.

Health and Safety
-Require audits of planning practices and currently existing infrastructure to find patterns of racial and economic discrimination, forcing cities to undo those patterns.
-Fund police departments enough to do their jobs, but impose certain strictures -- i.e. bans on military grade weaponry, an end to qualified immunity, bans on chokeholds, mandatory bodycams, strengthened institutional review boards, and stricter enforcement of ethical rules (i.e. zero tolerance for racism).
-In many cities, a northern Ireland style remaking of the local police is necessary.
-Require cities to have available crisis numbers to call in addition to the police.
-Make housing abundantly available for the homeless (using the policies in the first section).
-Increase funding to make dignified residential treatment for the mentally ill and those experiencing addiction affordable, even for the very poor. This would probably need to be part of national healthcare service.

Municipal Structure
-Amalgamate metro areas into one city to avoid issues of resource hoarding, allow for tax dollars to go to areas with more need. This also would apply to school districts.
-States should devolve more power and funding to the municipal level.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing. Most of this stuff is not politically feasible alas.

Really like all your points.

One thing I'd ad for housing is policies that somehow encourage greater diversity in the housing stock. In NYC always a bit frustrating how most of the new developments are pretty much the same - like literally the same style of apartment block and the same floorplan. There is a lack of new housing that's really built for families; 3 and 4 bedroom units are increasingly rare outside ultra-luxury buildings.

Perhaps having denser middle class multi-family townhome kinds of developments where someone can actually raise a family of 2 or 3 kids would be nice.

[Dr. MB]

mandate grid patterns for roads and new neighborhoods would be a good start along with transforming all neighborhoods into mixed use areas

Disagree with mandating grid pattern. In denser urban environments, the occasional diagonal or curvy street can add some nice variation, help break things up, and create unique lots for public amenities like parks. In general, most lots (90%) should have some rectangular shape though, and there should be clear continuous corridors that make it easy to get around the city.

Yeah no issue with that, but grids should be the baseline

[dead0man]

end single party rule, end most single home on a lot zoning, end letting known violent people out of prison

[GoTfan]

Paging John Dule . . .

[Alcibiades]

mandate grid patterns for roads and new neighborhoods would be a good start along with transforming all neighborhoods into mixed use areas

I mean, grid patterns are an extremely American thing — the various European cities which are often cited as models of mixed-use urbanism certainly don’t have them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

[dead0man]

mandate grid patterns for roads and new neighborhoods would be a good start along with transforming all neighborhoods into mixed use areas

I mean, grid patterns are an extremely American thing — the various European cities which are often cited as models of mixed-use urbanism certainly don’t have them.

do they keep up the insanity in new areas that get built up?

[Dr. MB]

mandate grid patterns for roads and new neighborhoods would be a good start along with transforming all neighborhoods into mixed use areas

I mean, grid patterns are an extremely American thing — the various European cities which are often cited as models of mixed-use urbanism certainly don’t have them.

We're talking about fixing big American cities and grid models are what we've used and it's something that's proven to work. Like NYC or Chicago or Seattle or any other major city is usually built on a grid pattern. It's preferable to the sprawl design.

[Electric Circus]

End all direct "community review" in planning and development. Reduce speed limits on surface streets. Increase traffic enforcement. Put in red light cameras. Throw the book at anyone who runs down a pedestrian. Embrace broken windows theory. Run progressive prosecutors out of town on a rail. Defeat bail reform. Refuse to tolerate public drug use. Crack down on fare evasion. Pick up the trash. Treat sidewalks and crosswalks as essential infrastructure. Make even the humblest bus stop a site to be proud of. Zone for growth near public services and commercial centers.

[Sirius_]

mandate grid patterns for roads and new neighborhoods would be a good start along with transforming all neighborhoods into mixed use areas

I mean, grid patterns are an extremely American thing — the various European cities which are often cited as models of mixed-use urbanism certainly don’t have them.

They aren't strictly grids but they function more similarly to American grid cities than to American curvy road sprawl. They are essentially like irregular street grids. The key aspect is the density of connections which makes it easy for pedestrians to get around.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Declare war on NIMBYs, and this applies to Canadian cities as well.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

end minimum parking regulations. encourage one-way streets & medians, keep most streets narrow.   plant more trees. allow smaller housing options. encourage building materials and designs that are appropriate to the local climate.