- - The original note follows - -
Newsgroups: alt.architecture
Path:
psuvm!news.ysu.edu!malgudi.oar.net!caen!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!news.yale.
edu!morse-college-kstar-node.net.yale.edu!user
From: churayj@xxxxxxxxxx (raymond Chung)
Subject: Amsterdamned streets
Message-ID: <churayj-290193193632@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Followup-To: alt.architecture
Sender: news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: morse-college-kstar-node.net.yale.edu
Organization: peanut brittle college
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1993 01:11:45 GMT
Lines: 33
Recently I posted a comment on Chicago's planned cul-de-sacs. NOW I've
read that Amsterdam is actively trying to eliminate car traffic from its
downtown. Lou Kahn probably would not have liked this idea, but they're
doing it anyway (the blasphemers). They've narrowed the streets, widened
the pedestrian sidewalks, created separate bike routes, and halved the
city's parking spaces. The policy is a direct response to their failed
plan of creating a greenbelt with suburbs (it drained the downtown). What
happens when cities can't have cars?
I imagine city residents becoming fiercely proud of their city: with the
absence of safety-glass barriers, people have to talk to each other, walk
past each other, know each other -- and so Amsterdam becomes the first city
of the post-industrial age to regain community in the old sense. (Less
pollution, too.) Architects would love that, wouldn't they? Any building
you design would respect the proportions and scale of the rest of the city,
because everyone would be living next to where they're working next to
where they're hanging out next to where they're buying stuff... There
would be no need to accommodate commuter habits (work here, live there, and
shop way over there in the mall). You could conceivably build what malls
are trying to replicate: main street.
Well I can dream, can't i?
Another note of anti-car interest: LA is starting their subway system
tomorrow (Sat, jan 30). If it works, I'll be impressed. Don't LA people
love their cars, like most good Americans? Also, the enormous spread of LA
seems to me too large to be efficient. But as they say, you can fix any
problem by throwing more money at it. No wait, it's not like that, is
it?...
? = ! > .
raymond Chung
Newsgroups: alt.architecture
Path:
psuvm!news.ysu.edu!malgudi.oar.net!caen!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!news.yale.
edu!morse-college-kstar-node.net.yale.edu!user
From: churayj@xxxxxxxxxx (raymond Chung)
Subject: Amsterdamned streets
Message-ID: <churayj-290193193632@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Followup-To: alt.architecture
Sender: news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: morse-college-kstar-node.net.yale.edu
Organization: peanut brittle college
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1993 01:11:45 GMT
Lines: 33
Recently I posted a comment on Chicago's planned cul-de-sacs. NOW I've
read that Amsterdam is actively trying to eliminate car traffic from its
downtown. Lou Kahn probably would not have liked this idea, but they're
doing it anyway (the blasphemers). They've narrowed the streets, widened
the pedestrian sidewalks, created separate bike routes, and halved the
city's parking spaces. The policy is a direct response to their failed
plan of creating a greenbelt with suburbs (it drained the downtown). What
happens when cities can't have cars?
I imagine city residents becoming fiercely proud of their city: with the
absence of safety-glass barriers, people have to talk to each other, walk
past each other, know each other -- and so Amsterdam becomes the first city
of the post-industrial age to regain community in the old sense. (Less
pollution, too.) Architects would love that, wouldn't they? Any building
you design would respect the proportions and scale of the rest of the city,
because everyone would be living next to where they're working next to
where they're hanging out next to where they're buying stuff... There
would be no need to accommodate commuter habits (work here, live there, and
shop way over there in the mall). You could conceivably build what malls
are trying to replicate: main street.
Well I can dream, can't i?
Another note of anti-car interest: LA is starting their subway system
tomorrow (Sat, jan 30). If it works, I'll be impressed. Don't LA people
love their cars, like most good Americans? Also, the enormous spread of LA
seems to me too large to be efficient. But as they say, you can fix any
problem by throwing more money at it. No wait, it's not like that, is
it?...
? = ! > .
raymond Chung