Bend, Oregon Gets Its Comeuppance
- Thread starter jamesdeluxe
- Start date
The troll is requesting sustenance.Marc_C":1t5q7ce9 said:
rfarren
New member
Marc_C":16hzrjer said:
Whats more monotonous and repetitive than a suburb/sub-development? They used brownstone because it was locally available and looked old while being new, and as such creates character for the city. Does vinyl siding do it for you? Is that the height of architecture? My god man sometimes...
BTW, $/sq ft is function of people wanting to live there. If people didn't want to live in Park Slope they could find cheaper land in the suburbs. The reason why your real estate is less valuable than NYC's is because fewer people want to live in SLC than in NY.
Very true. I wonder what $/sq ft are those condos between Alta and Snowbird?
Geoff
New member
rfarren":33t0713o said:Yeah, but I have world class opera, museums, orchestras, cuisine, and architecture. I very much enjoy where I live, even if there isn't skiing nearby. Did I mention the bagels?
[ Post made via Mobile Device ]
I realize this is wildly off-topic but I personally hate suburban sprawl. I think the Europeans have it right. Greenspace is zoned greenspace. A farm remains a farm forever. A forest remains a forest forever. People live clustered together where they can walk to things and where they have effective public transportation. I look at a row of brownstones as an attractive place to live. You can walk to get a cup of coffee. You can do your daily grocery shop at local specialty stores where you get your bread at the bakery, your meat at the butcher, your produce at the ubiquitous asia produce shop. You have great public transportation so you can mostly exist without a car. It's great for teens since they don't require soccer moms to lug them around town to their ultra-structured activities. It's great for the elderly who can no longer drive and the population density is high enough that you can get things delivered once you are old enough to have mobility issues.
rfarren
New member
Geoff":3oayv0as said:
I really couldn't agree with you more Geoff. It's part of the reason why I like East Coast towns. They tend to have downtowns, with row house and such. It sort of reminds me of Europe in a weird way.
I will say however, that in Europe that style of living is changing, even if slowly. The suburbs there are growing as well. Towns are becoming more americanized. I witnessed that in France around Avignon, I thought I was in south florida. For me it is sad, but who knows. As the price of energy rises, sprawl becomes far less useful.
Patrick
Well-known member
Marc_C":1d42e8kh said:
Don't feed the throll.I personally prefer the first option over the second. I'm serious here, but I actually dislike the second. Talking about wasted land and urban sprawl. :roll: Give me dense neighbourhoods were you can walk everywhere, on this note, I'll walk over to Bluesfest and go see the Church (Blues? - yeah, I know :roll: ).
Continue on...
rfarren":1d42e8kh said:
I agree on everything that Rob (and Geoff) is saying, except that Montreal Bagel are way better. :mrgreen: Some people from New York come just for the Bagels.
Marc_C
Active member
Let me get this straight...you're actually using the second photo as an example of wasted land and urban sprawl??? ]Patrick":3tkj42rv said:I personally prefer the first option over the second. I'm serious here, but I actually dislike the second. Talking about wasted land and urban sprawl. :roll:
That's Midway, Utah. It's a farming and ranching community of under 4000. There's nothing even remotely urban about it. It even has a quaint downtown loaded with charm and Swiss character. (There's an annual celebration called Swiss days, as there was a large influx of Swiss settlers in the 1870's, when Midway experienced it's large population boom, well before the automobile and strip malls.)
But I agree, it does lack the urban charm of a place like New York City and the pleasant walks you can take there:
The summer I spent in Montreal, I lived one block from this place:
http://www.stviateurbagel.com/main/?locale=fr
Montreal bagels really are better IMHO... not as big and doughy as the NYC variant.
rfarren
New member
jamesdeluxe":3hdqs17v said:
Even H&H...? I'm partial though, I grew up on the same block as H&H bagels on 79th. I've heard people say this about montreal bagel variety. I'm sure some are as good as New York. Then again, not all bagel places here of equal quality.
Marc_C":3hdqs17v said:Let me get this straight...you're actually using the second photo as an example of wasted land and urban sprawl??? ]
That's Midway, Utah. It's a farming and ranching community of under 4000. There's nothing even remotely urban about it. It even has a quaint downtown loaded with charm and Swiss character. (There's an annual celebration called Swiss days, as there was a large influx of Swiss settlers in the 1870's, when Midway experienced it's large population boom, well before the automobile and strip malls.)
But I agree, it does lack the urban charm of a place like New York City and the pleasant walks you can take there:
Right... So, you're going to take a picture taken in the bronx from the 1970's, during a period of unprecedented fight to the suburbs. That neighborhood was destroyed by a highway that went right through it.
I believe Patrick's point was that the town above uses way more land than is needed for 4000 people. In switzerland a town of that size would use a quarter of the land used by midway.
BTW I looked on street view on google maps. Where is the swiss style downtown? All I see is a gas station. Thats quite a bit of swiss charm... It looks like you would pretty much need a car to do anything there. Oh... I found 1 sorta swiss looking building.
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=...vCNiGucF5v-BVeOi-sPK0Q&cbp=12,280.65,,0,12.13
Geoff
New member
Patrick":160gdz0u said:
Veering even more off-topic: From my point of view, NYC and Montreal bagels are both several orders of magnitude better than anything I can get. ....just like I can't get anything that comes close to a baguette, a samosa, or Dim Sum.
Personally, I'm hopeful that soaring energy costs will produce the market forces that cause suburban sprawl to end. I think you can maintain a high quality of life living in a smaller/denser footprint where you can walk/bicycle to things and have cost-effective public transportation. Vancouver, BC has a lot of English-style 33 foot frontage houselots where there is an alley on the back side of the lot. I think that is the ideal compromise. The population is dense enough to support electrified bus service. It's also dense enough to support ample walk-to shopping.
Marc_C
Active member
Other than degree of upkeep, I see no particular difference between that photo and the earlier one of park slop in terms of the desirability of living there. It's a human density akin to that of a hamster cage. And just as enticing.rfarren":2304zxyh said:
Probably the most idiotic single statement on this board the entire year.rfarren":2304zxyh said:
BTW, Midway has slightly under 4000 people in 3.3 sq miles, giving a density of 1212 people/sq mile. In contrast, Appenzell-Ausserrhoden has 53,189 people in 243 sq km, which is 93.822 sq miles - a density of 566 people / sq mile. So your suggestion about land use of a Swiss town is basically full of unsubstantiated crap.
rfarren
New member
Marc_C":1zoiomrj said:
The reason why the southern bronx went into disarray was because the human density declined at an incredible rate. In fact, I'm pretty sure when that photo was taken the human density was far less than park slope is now. Nobody was living there. Hence, the empty buildings.
Marc_C":1zoiomrj said:
Your way of calculating population density is not entirely correct. For example, Rome's city border is actually larger in land size than Brooklyn. Yet, a huge chunk of the land within the borders is farmland surrounding the city. However, if you were in downtown rome you wouldn't say that the population density is less than that of Brooklyn's. In fact, I'm sure you would say it's more. My guess though is by your measurement the population density of Rome would come out as less than that of Brooklyn's. That would be very misleading.
I've been to Switzerland, and Midway looks nothing like a swiss town. Where's the charm? You would need a car if you wanted to live there wouldn't you? Many European towns are not like that. Have you ever noticed in Europe when you enter a township, often you pass a sign with farmland surrounding you. Then you enter a fairly compact town. Traditionally in Europe, farmers would live in a compact town and go out to their farms, on the surrounding land, during the day. They would then return to town before night. That's a fact.
The reason why I choose to live in Park Slope, is because it's not too crowded as some neighborhoods in Manhattan are, but has enough people to make it interesting. I can walk to do anything I want here: buy bread at my local baker, meat at my butcher, vegetables from my green grocer. I can pick up a coke or snacks at my corner store. I can walk to get a slice of pizza. I have a local cafe' which I walk to every morning for a cappucino and a pastry. I can go any bar I want without having to drive home. I'm surrounded by local boutiques for clothing and other nitnacks. I can do this all just by walking. I don't have to have starsucks for coffee and I never see drive through. I also can actually say hi to all my neighbors on the street because they walk too. I walk to work most days, and when I have to take the subway, I sit down and read a book.
If your too much of misanthrope that you need to live in a house where you can't see your next neighbor I understand that. But I thought you lived in SLC, which, with all due respect, isn't exactly private. From what I've seen it's a lot of sprawl. Don't get me wrong, I love visiting there for skiing and the nearby mountains, which are readily available with a short drive. I just don't think I could reconcile living in a sprawled out community such as SLC.