Let’s Take a Traditional City Break 4: Many Variations, One Theme

Let’s Take a Traditional City Break 4: Many Variations, One Theme
September 25, 2011

Really Narrow Streets
Buildings side by side and up against the street
No cars

Most “city design” websites I’ve visited are pretty pathetic. A lot of open-ended blahblah about things that don’t matter that much, general griping about the present state of affairs, and solutions that are mediocre at best.

At best.

Not to mention, way too many white picket fences. Please.

The one and only exception: the extraordinary Charles Gardner at oldurbanist.blogspot.com. He is very much in tune with what we are talking about here, but he has his own style and inspirations which add an enormous amount to our discussion. Among the crowd of muchkins he towers above as a top-class intellect. We need another dozen or so websites like his.

Charles recently did an excellent series about some New Urbanist projects on the coast in Florida. You know I like to kick around the New Urbanists, but these projects are surprisingly good! Yes, they come nowhere close to some of the epic successes that we like to chronicle here. They could be improved, and they show the results of fuzzy thinking. Nevertheless, I see real progress, as opposed to some other New Urbanists projects which are basically just 19th Century Hypertrophism, with maybe a back alley added and a whole lot of congratulatory verbiage. Charles Gardner’s comments are also right on: brief, insightful, focused on the important things. What’s with those academics and their hideous academic babble? They are so useless.

Exploring Seaside
The Successor: Rosemary Beach
Alys Beach: New Urbanism Samples the Old
Last Look at Seaside

More nice townhouses from San Francisco.

What if you combined this, just like this right here, with a Really Narrow Street of about 16 feet wide? Seems like it would be pretty nice if you ask me.

July 31, 2011: How To Make a Pile of Dough With the Traditional City 5: The New New Suburbanism

Tokyo apartment building. Note the street width here.

Simple townhouse, Tokyo. Parking on the first level.

Townhouses with parking.

Trying to fit the cars in.

What did you think those teeny cars are for? Teeny streets!

More Tokyo. Lovely backstreet. All of those signs denote small restaurants and bars.

It’s good to have a few photos with people. Things you can do when you get rid of the CARS.

Look at the architecture in the back. Nice.

Reno, Nevada. 1940s I think.

Australia.

Athens, Greece.

Brussels, Belgium

Now that is some spectacular architecture.

This is how you are supposed to do it.

Busan, South Korea.

Chengdu, China.

Somewhere in Europe…

Corniglia

Yes, people live here. Why not?

Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Where are the CARS?
Even on the more “arterial” type streets, with separated sidewalks and two full lanes in the middle, the cars just sort of disappear.

I thought it was a time for a miniskirts-in-winter photo.

Nice, France.

“Planking,” South Korea.

A pair of very narrow townhouses. Setback in front allows for parking (bike parking in this case).

The store on the right is a hair salon.

Huanglongxi, China.

If you’ve been following along, you know that we have had a constant back-and-forth between Asian-style contemporary hugger mugger (lots of fun, doesn’t look so hot), and European gentility (looks great, not nearly so much fun). In some of these more historical Asian areas we have a splendid combination of fabulous hugger-mugger that also looks great. Let’s just pause here to appreciate their accomplishments.

Back into the hugger-mugger …

Here’s a set of photos of ways to provide parking without the “wall of garage doors” effect.

Parking on the right.

Look at the street width here.

A little spooky if you ask me, especially in an earthquake-prone place.

This is pretty much your typical “big blank two car garage door at street level,” but for some reason I think it works here.
You wouldn’t want all the houses to look like this, but if some of them do that is OK.
The trick is to integrate it into the facade of the building in a pleasing way.

A sort of “half-carport.”

Other commentary in this series: