Sprawl comparisons

[mean]

Absolutely incorrect.

Perhaps you need to be reacquainted with the words "practically" and "exurban".

[Spartan65]

Have you ever even been to Georgia let alone Atlanta?

(And I MEAN Atlanta, not Cobb or Gwinnett or any other shit-tastic suburban county.)

[GRID]

What the hell is the point of this thread?  Can somebody summarize???

Sprawl is bad?  BTW, I think some of you need to revisit some of these towns, comparisons and descriptions being thrown around here seem pretty off.

I would check out Atlanta for sure.  It's a far more dense and transit oriented city than you might think.

Showmekc,  What is your utopia city and is there one that exists in this world that meets your expectations?

[kcmetro]

Showmekc,  What is your utopia city and is there one that exists in this world that meets your expectations?

ShowMeKC, you're going to shit your pants when you get into the real world and it doesn't conform to your liking. There's a reason Jane Jacobs wasn't a practicing planner. She would've been fired once and never hired again. Don't let that happen to you. 

[mean]

Have you ever even been to Georgia let alone Atlanta?

Uh, yeah.

[eliphar17]

What the hell is the point of this thread?  Can somebody summarize???

Sprawl is bad?  BTW, I think some of you need to revisit some of these towns, comparisons and descriptions being thrown around here seem pretty off.

I would check out Atlanta for sure.  It's a far more dense and transit oriented city than you might think.

For the LAST time, no one is trying to say that Atlanta or Houston or any of these other cities consist only of harmful sprawl. There is no need, Spartan and GRID and BVC, to try to counter that perception. However, what is being said in this thread is that regardless of (or perhaps despite) their urban development, these cities still have sprawl problems which cannot be ignored.

What is so hard to understand about that?

[SouthKC1985]

Sprawl isn't good. Everyone knows and unfortunately, it's caused a lot of people to have negative perceptions of these cities. So does anyone have a solution before Kansas City grows into a city that falls into this category?

[kcmetro]

Sprawl isn't good. Everyone knows and unfortunately, it's caused a lot of people to have negative perceptions of these cities. So does anyone have a solution before Kansas City grows into a city that falls into this category?

Too late.

[ShowMeKC]

GRID, there are plenty of cities out there, most of them are in Europe. However, many American cities are headed in the right direction in their urban areas.

If she was so wrong, why is it that there is a huge movement going on inside planning to where planners are following her principles, and many others like it? Not to mention that neighborhoods being based on her principles are being shown to be more successful than suburban ones.

Just because this is America doesn't mean we can't have successful, vibrant, diverse, dense, and walkable urban areas. In fact, I believe it would be easier for America to accomplish that.

I don't think any of us really know the point of this thread...

IMO, Kansas City needs to get rid of sprawl, work on it's urban area and inner suburbs before other cities do. KC is a very beautiful place, not too many other cities are like ours, our bluffs and hills are great vantage points, we have two rivers passing right by our Downtown, we have numerous lakes and creeks, we have a great park/parkway/boulevard system (that sadly, has also fallen to the vehicle), I could go on and on. It's just sad that our city has suffered so much because of sprawl, the automobile and inner city decay. Not to mention we are also sitting in a very wonderful state, get outside of the city, and you can see just how beautiful it is, and we have a duty to preserve it, not consume it with sprawl.
IMO, KC is a different sort of place than other cities, our city has natural beauty in it's landscape, as well as having a great inner city (that has unfortunately suffered). I haven't been there, but I'd say the only other place in the world that I might like almost as much as KC and Missouri would be Switzerland.

[LenexatoKCMO]

Why don't you all direct your attacks toward LA and Phoenix. Atlanta and Houston have stopped building mega-freeways for now, so find another target to blaspheme.

I will gladly attack LA and Phoenix as well.  I have long considered them to be two of the most shitastic cities in the world.  You have two sadly underused DTs surrounded by the worlds largest collections of strip malls. 

[BVC]

Perhaps you need to be reacquainted with the words "practically" and "exurban".

Practically typically means something like for all practical purposes, if memory serves correctly.  For all practical purposes, there is not a connection between Chattanooga and Atlanta and the area is hardly exurban by definition.

[BVC]

For the LAST time, no one is trying to say that Atlanta or Houston or any of these other cities consist only of harmful sprawl. There is no need, Spartan and GRID and BVC, to try to counter that perception. However, what is being said in this thread is that regardless of (or perhaps despite) their urban development, these cities still have sprawl problems which cannot be ignored.

What is so hard to understand about that?

Look at it this way, a city is as sprawled as you let it be despite all of the supposed facts.  We are simply stating that fact.  I and many others like me in Atlanta have chosen not to live in Suwanee, Kennesaw, or Peachtree City.  Sprawl only affects those who choose to live that way.  That is the point, a choice to let sprawl take you down or beat it by living in urban areas.  We are simply bringing examples to support that their perceptions are not exactly reality for the city as a whole.

[LenexatoKCMO]

Look at it this way, a city is as sprawled as you let it be despite all of the supposed facts.  We are simply stating that fact.  I and many others like me in Atlanta have chosen not to live in Suwanee, Kennesaw, or Peachtree City.  Sprawl only affects those who choose to live that way.  That is the point, a choice to let sprawl take you down or beat it by living in urban areas.  We are simply bringing examples to support that their perceptions are not exactly reality for the city as a whole.

Its not just about your personal choice though.  Some metros have facilitated and encouraged the worst types of sprawl much more than others. 

Unfortunately many cities that have actively discouraged sprawl are undermined by surrounding communities, but at least they are doing their best.  Cities like LA, Phoenix, Atlanta, and sadly, KC spent decades trying to fill their corporate boundaries with nasty sprawl as fast as they possibly could.   

[KC0KEK]

Atlanta and Houston have stopped building mega-freeways for now, so find another target to blaspheme.

Wrong on Atlanta, which is constantly adding lanes to existing freeways.

[KC0KEK]

Not to mention that neighborhoods being based on her principles are being shown to be more successful than suburban ones.

So show us. And don't pull that nonsense like in the B&V thread.

[kc-vino]

I'm confused on the measurements for density.  How does one account for the density? Is it units per acre or millage of city space? Or is it units per acre/mile?  How does one account for park space?  For instance, is Penn Valley or Swope Park factored into space in KCMO, despite their being no residents or units located there. 

Another comment why are we even mentioning NYC in the sprawl thread.  Their are more people in the upper 20% of Manhattan Island than their are in the whole KC metro.  Furthermore, their is 5 times + the population of the KC metro on an island in NYC that is half a quarter the size.  Even factoring in the outer districts it is poor form to attack this area for sprawl. 

Thirdly, Los Angeles never gets credit for its amount of green belt.  Look at any map and 20-25% of Los Angeles is state or federal park space.  All the mountains are protected and development stops a shortly up the mountain.  LA is very dense in its older districts and with the ocean and mountains all land is utilized rather well.  But in attacking los Angeles you can have cities with dense development while still giving way to automobiles.  This can in part be blamed on having more than one (typically 4-5) strong points of focus.  LA has always suffered from the....what is downtown, where is the main part of this city? syndrome.  KC has downtown, Midtown, Westport, Plaza but nobody argues where are urban core is, and it doesn't go out as far (only 60 blocks from the river).  Where LA has its traditional downtown with businesses and skyscrapers but it is a commuters downtown.  It also has old Hollywood (Wilshire and hollywood blvd), newer hollywood (UCLA, Rodeo drive), Anaheim-Orange country, and than all the hotspots on the beach which all get focus.  I think you could argue their are other cities/areas that go out far, have a dense environment, all while still having good mass transit.....You could probably fit the SF-Oakland-San Jose area "Bay Area" into this category.

[LenexatoKCMO]

All the mountains are protected and development stops a shortly up the mountain. 

And than picks right back up  halfway down the other side in one continuous strip mall, most of the way to AZ. 

[KC0KEK]

Another comment why are we even mentioning NYC in the sprawl thread. 

Probably because of its suburbs, such as those on Long Island and in New Jersey, Westchester and Connecticut.

[kc-vino]

Probably because of its suburbs, such as those on Long Island and in New Jersey, Westchester and Connecticut.

This is silly.  Again lets not even mention and fault NYC for cities such as Hartford, Westchester, an island and Newark.  These all combined are weak in comparison to the population of the big apple and they are separate cities all together.  I have family all over the east and cities on Long Island, Hartford and smaller towns in Westchester are all quite dense, since they were all basically developed post WWII/Car.  If we get this loose with our grouping lets just attack the whole northeastern seaboard for being so busy and having no greenbelt. When in reality we should be hailing these cities for having that many people in such little millage.

And than picks right back up halfway down the other side in one continuous strip mall, most of the way to AZ. 

And you can't disregard this fact. If you have 200 miles of city and 50 of it is off limits and completely undeveloped, why are we attacking the fact that development happens on the other side of the hills.  Look at the raw amount of space in the LA metro that is bureau of land management. If they had opened that up years ago (thank god they didn't) the city would not have sprawled as much into the desert before you reach The Grapevine or east of Riverside

[LenexatoKCMO]

If you have 200 miles of city and 50 of it is off limits and completely undeveloped, why are we attacking the fact that development happens on the other side of the hills.  Look at the raw amount of space in the LA metro that is bureau of land management. If they had opened that up years ago (thank god they didn't) the city would not have sprawled as much into the desert before you reach The Grapevine or east of Riverside

I might buy it if A) the city actually had any control over the state parks; and B) if it weren't for the fact that the ridiculously disgusting San Fernando Valley, on the far side of the northern hills is actually a part of incorporated LA and the the city actually encouraged all of that disgusting crap to be created.