jon c. 

This isn't strictly a zoning issue. Actual urban areas tend to allow for such a mix and such a mix often existed at one point but people abandoned smaller local stores to drive to larger stores offering lower prices and greater variety. Suburbs do tend to have retail and commerce, they just aren't walkable. Because nothing is walkable in American suburbs. And mere changes in zoning can't fix that. Suburbs are just not laid out in such a way that walkable stores would be feasible.

In my small city, urban neighborhoods have seen supermarkets leave the area due to market conditions. Zoning can't fix that. The suburbs have commercial and retail sectors on the main roads but they're walkable to only a few nearby apartments. The homes stretch out on winding streets leading away from the main highway and are too spread out to facilitate walking. And most every city I've lived in has been similar.

Viich

And the suburbs were planned out to be that homogeneous mess. The problem was created by single-family only zoning, and you can absolutely encourage "densification" as suburbs age with both redevelopment and fill-in development, along with building municipal works that try to narrow the gap between the convenience of the car and everything else. Sidewalks and paths can be built to allow pedestrians and cyclists to get around without having to follow the mouse-in-a-maze routes that cars do in suburbs - harder after the initial development, but can still be done.

You can require mixed-use and mixed-density in new development. You can give preferential property tax treatment to the development you want. You can run good public transit, and you'll get development near your line - high-end condos have sprouted up all along the new rail line being built in a city I'm thinking of, especially right at each of the stations.

StarBiker

(Month old post)
Not here.....I can walk to many things or bus to them in the suburb, and they are all in the suburbs. Or I can end up at Hopkins if it takes that much care, about the only one of a handful of times I am in the city through the course of the year. I bike often, and hate people regardless of my mode of transport!

StarBiker

I am like that no matter what.

StarBiker

I live in the fifth highest population density state in the US. You don't have to encourage densification, it's here.

Viich

Sure. But if you extremely dense housing with no grocery store within 15min, then something needs to change. There's a market there, people buy food. There must be a disincentive to setting up a store. City planners need to figure out what that disincentive is and change policies to put an incentive there.

StarBiker

What, like Freddie Gray? Getting angry, destroying your neighborhood? That kind of thing? And the police were acquitted by a mostly black jury.

You have to have a Tax Base, and some safety would help........where both are access to shopping is as well.

Everything is out here.......Most people still drive. The only cyclists I see think they are in the Tour De France. I rarely see a regular rider like myself. (DC Metro would be much better for cyclists)

And I still do most of my riding on sidewalks. To many dangerous roads with a LOT OF TRAFFIC.

Viich

I have no idea what you're talking about or where you are from. I'm not from USA, you seem to be dropping hints that you think should make me change my mind about something, but I don't even know what you're arguing at this point.

StarBiker

StarBiker

Depends on the Suburb, and how close you live to the commercial zone. I can walk to anything. Or walk across the street and wait for the bus. All depends on where.

Polaris OBark

There is an article on the NPR website about Fifteen Minute Cities and the crazy conspiracy theories the proposal is encountering. Some of them are nuttier even than the ones that have been posted here.

Viich

But that's the whole "15min city" concept. To get what you already have, be able to walk to everything you absolutely need.

RChung

Thanks. That was a nice article.

Hmmm. No, I'd say they're just about equally nutty. Sorta makes me wonder where they got this stuff but after a moment I'm mostly glad I don't know.

Dokiz

I've been living in Paris for a while now, and the concept of "15-minute cities" really resonates with my experience here. Paris is often cited as an embodiment of this idea, and I can vouch for that. The compact urban design, coupled with efficient public transportation and bike-friendly roads, has made it incredibly convenient to get around and have a variety of experiences within close proximity.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo's initiative to further transform Paris into a 15-minute city has been quite visible (sure you have to tolerate the constant works for bike lanes but that's a pain I'm ready to endure ).

StarBiker

Europe does not have the Car culture the US has. Paris would be a neat bike ride city, and probably has the cycling infrastructure to support it.

Dokiz

And seeing how difficult it is in Paris to build all these infrastructures, in a small walkable city in a country that does not have a car culture as strong as the US', I cannot imagine how difficult it might be in "car cities" such as LA.

RChung

Hmmm. I'm not sure what you mean by that but there are plenty of car companies, car owners, car enthusiasts, car collectors in Europe. Until COVID, I'd say that Paris was pretty inhospitable to cycling. I've spent roughly a quarter of the last couple of decades living in Paris and the difference pre- and post-Hidalgo is pretty stunning (the difference pre- and post-Delanoe was also big, but the Hidalgo difference was larger). The bottom line is that even in a city like Paris, which used to be pretty hostile to bikes, a change can happen quickly, if the right vision and incentives are in place.

StarBiker

The bottom line is you would have to completely redesign many cities to accomplish what many of you continuously dribble about in this silly forum.

It's laughable. Especially the tax dollars that would have to go towards implementing it. Not gonna happen in the US. Not in large cities. Especially smaller in size but still have larger populations. Older eastern cities immediately come to mind.

People don't feel safe, and they have the money you can forget it! Cycle for leisure, drive everywhere else.

RChung

Paris has not been completely redesigned.

StarBiker

Western cities have a normal city core, and a suburb, than an outer suburb, and they call all that a city....it's quite insane.

StarBiker

Neither has here either. Share the road.....makes most cyclists feel safe.


This is a US forum the last time I checked.......

RChung

I used to think that most cycling infrastructure was unnecessary (I still think that some types of infrastructure probably are). But I try to be persuaded by evidence, and the evidence is that Paris has been transformed over the last three years. We split our time between the US and Paris because my wife's job is split between the two, and my work is pretty portable. I ride both here in the US and there, and have for years; she's been commuting by bike to campus here in the US for several years but was quite reluctant to commute by bike in Paris. I actually disliked the (few) bike lanes in Paris and avoided them. However, since Hidalgo instituted this aggressive bike infrastructure program during COVID, she's been commuting by bike. In fact, she's been biking across the city to her parents' homes. She absolutely never did that before. Although I avoided the bike lanes (because I can and have been comfortable taking the lane) she says they were a key to why she's been riding in Paris just like she does in the US. She's not alone: several of her colleagues now also bike into work, and they didn't before. The evidence is that bike infrastructure made a difference to lots of riders.

That said, a lot of the new infrastructure started off as paint, and re-timing of traffic lights, and better signage, not physical barriers. Many of the large busy streets already had bus and taxi lanes, and now bikes are generally allowed in those lanes, which is why I said above that Paris has not been completely redesigned.

I was pretty skeptical that Paris would ever be like Amsterdam or Copenhagen. Because I can be convinced by evidence, I'm less skeptical now.

I'm pretty sure there are a lot of international forum members: even though the majority are US residents, I don't ever recall that when I signed up there was a requirement that we all be.

SkinGriz

I went to Paris with some friends 20 years ago. One guy was really scared of the subway even after I explained it to him. So we walked across Paris.

I wouldn’t consider it that small of a city.

Dockhead

Zoning restrictions trying to keep non-residential uses out of residential areas are long gone, as far as I know -- an obsolete 1950's idea. That being said, in single family housing suburban areas the distances resulting from spreading people out that much still kill the 15 minute city idea.

European cities are pretty much all 15 minute cities and always have been. I live at the moment in Tallinn, Estonia, 5 minute walk to groceries and barber shop, 15 minute walk to a really good shopping center with cinema etc., 2 minute walk to coffee shops, bars and restaurants, 18 minute walk to the national opera, other cinemas, theatres, etc. and all of that 5 minutes by bike with good bike paths leading there. 10 minutes by bike to farmer's market, market hall, train station. I wouldn't want to live otherwise. I'm happily carless. I budgeted using car sharing twice a week but it's more like twice a month -- if that much.

SkinGriz

“Zoning restrictions trying to keep non-residential uses out of residential areas are long gone”

Are you saying those type of zoning restrictions no longer exist?