Giving you options for links because I'm comradely like that:
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https://invidious.weblibre.org/watch?v=5ZwbZWrKbGI
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https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=5ZwbZWrKbGI
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http://c7hqkpkpemu6e7emz5b4vyz7idjgdvgaaa3dyimmeojqbgpea3xqjoid.onion/watch?v=5ZwbZWrKbGI
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZwbZWrKbGI
Not sure I agree with the thesis or not, but it's interesting to think about. It's true that there are lots of very good non-grid cities. I've always thought that the main purpose of grids is to be understandable to the human mind, which maybe isn't that important a goal, and lots of things flow well in a complex way: look at our own circulatory systems.
Actually it sounds like the channel is just a neoliberal grift made from stolen content.
Reminds me of "Strong Towns", the astroturf group dedicated to making people hate roads but also to hate all other forms of transportation.
I really want to look up their finances, I'm convinced that the new libertarian urbanism pitch is a comibation of developers and capitalist interests using them and certain "content creators" to build consensus that actually, you want to live in a 500 square ft room and live in a city that only has bus rapid transit. Does anyone know how to look up non-profit finances? I used to have a tool at my old job where I could do this easily but I dont have access to it anymore
They aren't directly connected as far as I know but Chuck Marohn used to write a new urbanist series in the American Conservative. They mainly try to appeal to conservatives with their fiscal arguments and it resonates with some.
Yeah and I know the Manhatten insitute has praised some of the "New Urbanism" in Somerville NJ near me which has been done mostly through tax cuts and subsidies to developers. I think something stinks because there does seem to be some right-wing interest in this stuff.
Chuck Marohn? The president of their organization as listed on their 990s from 2013-2015?
Starting point would probably to try and find their tax ID?
Googled them, found it. TIN: 27-1459378
Also found this
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/271459378/201823199349316362/full
While not completely transparent they can't really hide who they are. Big donors need to know who they are supporting through their largesse, which is why nonprofits will always have a page full of pr headshots and bios for their board members and usually list their corporate sponsors.
Gotta run to the doctor soon but some of this is good info. Seems like there's one big chicago finance guy who is using his foundation to give to them. Seems a lil sus to me and worth looking into
I wasn't aware of the second part, they do that? I found them in like 2018 and don't remember that angle. But I already biked and bussed regularly.
I started seeing them about the same time. Read a few of their articles and, once you get down below the fold, they never seem interested in any kind of answer other than "deregulation" and "stop spending money on things". Its very nakedly libertarian the farther in you go.
Chuck is fairly libertarian and conservative, and he makes the case for walkable cities purely through a financial lens. He is a recovering engineer, with all that entails. It is decidedly NOT an astroturf group, but it is full of folks that still think conservatives can be reached through facts and logic so take it for what it's worth.
It's not Big C cultural conservative, but it is decidedly small c don't let any actual locals do self governing conservative.
No. It's mostly about complaining over common local regulations on building codes and road construction.
I remember digging into them a couple years ago when I first encountered them and the conclusion was that they had some association with an Omidyar-esque figure.
yeah like density+public transit is good but something I've seen is a take that we should do transit oriented development without transit. Seems to me to be a neo-liberal attempt to juice more money from public spaces while providing less public services and simply telling people they should suck it up because the charts and graphs tell them it's a good thing.
Is that group involved with the NotJustBikes youtube channel? Or maybe they just reference "Strong Towns" a lot.
I really like Manhattan. In this non-grid city the streets are arbitrarily named using different themes and no clear logic behind which street is where. It took me months to have a mental map despite it being much smaller. Two days in Manhattan and I could reasonably navigate without using google maps.
:this:
human scale permeability is what matters, and 'grids' can be pretty good for that if you just abolish car dominance
Grids can really suck for navigation if your city has waterways- for example places can be about 500m in a straight line but the actual course to it is like 1.5km b/c of limited travel options :kitty-cri:
There's really not much you can do if your city has waterways. Bridges are expensive.
Yeah, that's true - I mean most places with canals/etc are pretty nice to look at, which really softens the blow I think.
I think the correlation argument is flawed. Grid cities tend to be new, younger, American cities built for cars. Non-grid cities tend to be old, European, built when walking and horses were the primary means of transportation. I think that being built for cars is affecting QoL. The video suggests that grid cities have lower QoL because they're worse for cars. But these European high-quality-of-life cities are not good for cars either.
Chicago poster here so I'm biased. I like our grid, although some of the utility has eroded since everyone has Google Maps now. Also it's cold as fuck in the giant wind tunnels downtown, maybe I didn't understand the video's claim about heat efficiency.
Haven't watched the video :gigachad: but if it's either grids or streets based off whatever would fit around the Boston milk market I'm taking grids 100%
I've not read any of the arguments on this, but I think maybe this is a semantic terminology issue. I'll refer to the dutch design as an example. Permeability - as in having human scale ped and bike connecting paths across areas that can be described as grid-like are really awesome for urban life. You can take a walk/ride on various routes that are all fairly efficient while also not always taking the most direct route. The cars do not have this ability though, as they are not allowed to use the 'grid'. Cars have to take an indirect route and only briefly can enter into the human scale spaces. This is somewhat like the terrible suburbs model but done in an effectively urban context.
The trick is to maintain permeability for people at this local scale, which is grid-like, but not necessarily a street grid built for cars going 20+ mph. Maybe this is addressed in the links, but that just my off-the-cuff reaction to the post title.
edit: and now seeing the arguments, this is just another reason why a hex grid would be better
I listened to the Trueanon people explain rhizomes three times and gave up
I only get that they are the way plant roots are structured, with all the roots branching out to wherever without an obvious stucture, so I guess the opposite of a grid city is a rhizomatic (rhizomatous?) city but I'm thinking about it and maybe it's not that correct.
