>One comment regarding planned versus un-planned development. All sides
>seem to be assuming that un-planned development is totally bad and
>planned development is totally good. However, let's examine that
>assumption a bit more closely. Recall that the most interesting,
>lively, pretty, and romantic parts of the city are almost always those
>that were tossed together with the least planning -- e.g., North Beach,
>Chinatown, the Mission, Burnal Heights and Potrero Hill, et cetera.
And it's also true that the ugliest exurban "greenfield" development is the
least planned.
The minimal requirements or "hassles" placed on developers for development
where there is the least restriction is part of the attraction for such
development to
developers.
I think we've lost the ability to do the kind of development that was done
80 or 90 years ago...
that built the areas Donald refers to. Not just in S.F. The same is true
just about
everywhere.
One thing that is characteristic of those more interesting places that
Donald refers to
is that they tended to be broken up into many small or smaller lots, with
only the
street as the "glue" uniting them. This allowed many different individual
initiatives
to unfold, and so not all the buildings are identical. The diversity tended
to increase
over time because of the increasing variation in age of the buildings.
Nowadays
developers want only large parcels and one of the main "helps" of cities to
developers is "parcel assembly" (aka urban renewal). Also, building of
houses
in the early '20th century was more often done as custom construction or
small
numbers of houses. Not massive tract developments.
There is a builder in Orance County that has lately taken to building
"cottage" style houses on highly variant designs precisely because
their market research indicates that people
can't stand the uniformity of tract housing. Builders in Calif. now tend
also to build
to greater density because of the high land prices. But they still don't
build
multi-use areas that favor doing things by walking, with commercial spaces
integral with the housing. And it isn't because of gov't rules. Historically
in Calif.,
even when there were zoning rules, developers have more often than not been
able to use their influence to get variances or changes to the rules. The
use of
"neo-traditional" design is happening partly because it's a fad, partly
because people
have come to recognize some of the limitations of the type of suburban
development built
in the postwar era, but the builders are just pasting it on as a superficial
design element (e.g. porches on a street where no one will ever walk).
Hasn't changed the fundamentals of the situation.
One of the reasons that I proposed that would-be residents be allowed to
work with
builders/architects to design places to fit their preferences is because I
was trying
to think of a process that would re-insert more diversity and make places
that
people can be attached to. Looking at the ugly
boxes the "live/work" developers are building, this could only help. Today
only
the rich can custom design the places they live in. But Christopher
Alexander's
methods would allow custom design of houses built to low cost.
Tom Wetzel