Designing Americas Future

Designing a greener future, does it not occur to anyone that America is badly designed, it is in fact not designed at all, It just evolved into the mess that it is today.

American cities are incredibly inefficient, most people in America drive 20 or thirty miles to get to work, They have to have a car just to pick up groceries, go to school, go to work visit the doctor, go out to eat.

Designing an efficient city would eliminate the need for most families to even own a car. This would save possibly 2 cars per family.

Try and imagine an efficient design for a city, take the number zero and stretch it vertically into a tall zero maybe 5 miles long and 1 mile across. This would be the basis of a commuter system that used a light rail system somewhat like BART which is the BaY Area Rapid Transit system.

Everything necessary to a normal American life could be situated around the track, schools, shops, jobs, factories, hospitals, dentists, doctors.

Further refinement could be that people lived close to the most frequently used destinations. That a short walk or a bicycle trip of a mile or less was all that it took to get to work or to school.

I know Americans are trained to believe that having a car is everybody's right. Like freedom of speech etc. but is it really true.

A secondary advantage is that owning and running a car is a big chunk of the average families budget. Eliminating the need for two or three cars per family would make a huge difference to the cost of living.

Car rental would be available for any occasions that required an automobile, this currently costs about thirty or forty dollars a day. which would be easy to afford on the occasions such as visiting relatives in other states or cities.

The green aspect of this concept would be built into the design to the greates extent possible. Including Solar Power, Heavy insulation, double glazing. Wind Power, and Hydro Electric.

The Location of such proposed new cities would take into account not building on Valuable arable land, proximity ideally to local hydroelectric power. Which also implies a mountainous area. This would provide a source of building materials ie natural stone as opposed to man made bricks that require a lot of energy to be converted from clay to brick.

Would enjoy hearing who would find moving to such a new city an appealing prospect.

[Deleted by Amazon on Apr. 13, 2008 1:44 PM PDT]

How much does it cost you to own and run a car.?

Add up all the things you have to pay because of car ownership.
License or registration fee.
Insurance fee.
Oil Change fee.
Tolls.
Gas Bill.
Repair bills.
Auto loan payment.

If you lived a convenient distance from a commuter rail, would you choose to use it.?

What is a convenient distance, my suggestion is a Kilometer max as roughly a thousand paces.

American homogenization has blended the geography of America into an unappealing sameness that stretches from coast to coast. Visiting any small town in America leaves the visitor devoid of any visual understanding of just where in the country they truly are located. The same chain stores and Fast Food joints cover the continent. Regional diversity has been eliminated.

This loss of cultural and historical diversity impoverishes the nation. We were better served by the variety that has been destroyed by rampant commercialism.

Commercial propaganda, brainwashing by the Automobile and Oil and Tire companies has convinced Americans that owning a car and freedom are synonymous.

Who amongst you can perceive the benefits of not needing an automobile for daily life. How much better a lifestyle saved from the financial burden of owning a car could provide.

What would an extra $10,000 dollars a year do for you. Consider also that you could eliminate an hour or more a day of not sitting in traffic jams, what about eliminating an hour or two of work each day to make the money required to pay for having a car. This surely would allow more time to spend in actually raising kids, remove some of the stress from life and make for a happier experience for all the individuals that comprise the nation.

Yeah, and don't forget about the time you spend imprisoned in traffic. Your car is a small prison cell which you are confined to for dozens of hours a week.

If things were designed into more of a community scheme, people might actually... umm... er... TALK... to each other.

I know that sounds scary to you righties out there - that must be why you support the status-quo so vocally. Unquestioning, blind loyalty to your slave masters who, in return, don't care about you one little whit. That should make your (already-puffed-with-patriotism) chests full with pride.

Sorry, I have to go hurl now.

City's designed to eliminate cars would offer the poor an easier start in life. Poor families have difficulty in providing their children with car, which tends to be almost step one in growing up to be a valuable member of society. Just finding a job is a difficult chore for most young people without experience and the inadequate training provided by the dysfunctional American school system.

The transition in America from child to adult is made much more difficult when you add on the additional financial burden of acquiring a car to get to work. Typically the wages available for unskilled and inexperienced workers make impossible the combined cost of paying rent and making the auto payments for a vehicle to actually get there.

These difficulties are clearly to much for many poor kids, who do not have a strong family structure to support there efforts. The difficulties involved in doing the right thing have to make crime seem like a reasonable alternative to the kids who find themselves in this situation. Thus society winds up paying for the failure to help those in need. By paying I mean the cost of keeping them in jail. The cost of impaired security that results from creating predatory classes, intent upon robbing your home or stealing your car or your wallet.

Youth gangs in America are another symptom of the difficulties faced by young Americans, After discovering that a normal life is just to difficult and unrewarding, gang membership and drug dealing seem like much easier alternatives. You do not have to get yourself to work on time, you don't need a car to get their. You don't need to buy nice clothes to make yourself look presentable for work.

If anything Kwin, the exact opposite has been reinforced over the last several years.

When asked (more than once), this administration stated that they believed it's an American's right to use as much energy as they want. Their policies have been designed specifically to INCREASE consumption. The result of this (crime-against-humanity) belief system ?

People now live in gated communities, drive their kids to/from school in military-style vehicles and seek to keep their interaction with the public to an absolute minimum, including TYPING over the internet instead of knocking on their neighbor's door and having an actual conversation.

This society is nuts.

Wooden Houses are a sign of Americas illogical insanity. Wooden homes seem to last about sixty years before they deteriorate into slums neighborhoods. Wooden homes consume forests that are vital in restoring the air we breathe. Wooden homes are a fire hazard, a recent documentary on The History Channel explained that the fire brigade made more than two million visits a year to tackle fires in America.

Termites and termite protection is a significant industry in the billions of dollars. If we suddenly got smart enough to quit using wood to build homes, we would have a lot of manpower suddenly available to build permanent homes and cities that would last for hundreds of years, instead of the fifty years that seems to be the life expectancy of a modern home.

Yes homes that were built of rock, stone or bricks would cost a little more. They would have better insulation requiring less energy to maintain a habitable environment. They would last longer allowing society to devote more effort to improving the quality of life as opposed to rebuilding houses that had been destroyed by fire and termites.

The political system we have makes what has happened inevitable and predictable. The people making money have a vested interest in creating the problems that there source of income is derived from. Thus a company that supplies the police force needs more crime, so that we need more police, so that they will buy the equipment. Homebuilders want people to buy more houses, so they want designed obsolescence and building failure to be built into the products they manufacture.

They provide politicians with money based upon an anti social agenda that will enhance profits. This spin somehow keeps turning into negative consequences for the population.

The best current example is how profitable war can be for the defense industry. the contracts that result from using up all the vehicles and munitions create a profitable opportunity for those involved in this industry. So they naturally reward the politicians willing to go to war, with all the money necessary to get elected.

bushmustgo says:
People now live in gated communities, drive their kids to/from school in military-style vehicles and seek to keep their interaction with the public to an absolute minimum, including TYPING over the internet instead of knocking on their neighbor's door and having an actual conversation.

This society is nuts.

Really it's all money Kwin.

I don't think the result would be much different in ANY political system based on self-interest and greed. Call it whatever you like, the controlling interest is money, and money = power.

The Chinese still call themselves communist, but they are going down the same depraved road we're travelling, just a few miles behind but catching up.

Historically cities have been located in the worst places for the best reasons. One hundred years ago and more when the location of our modern day cities was selected. The dominant reasons would have been the availability of food and water. The next two most significant reasons would in many cases would have been access and profit.

These four motives would have been sane and logical at the time they were the best reasons to select the chosen locations. They no longer make sense. The historical reasons for there locations are now inherently destructive of the sustainable future we have learned is sensible to make plans for.

Many Cities appeared at the site of a ford across a river, its existence tended to focus traffic at the point where traversal of the river boundary could be achieved. This traffic afforded an early opportunity to make profit from the travelers congregating at this location. Travelers might be induced to spend money for lodging, for supplies, for a doctor or a blacksmith. Thus a profit potential added to a water supply and arable land on the banks of the river provided tha natural elements necessary to form a community that would later evolve into a modern city.

The availability of modern and efficient transportation now frees us of the need to exploit the earliest locations historically chosen. The adverse effects of the choices are becoming increasingly apparent. Building on arable farm land is a waste of a finite resource. Sewerage and effluent from human habitation is degrading the most important resource we should be protecting.

Moving people to the right locations is a really sensible way of helping our planet to sustain us all.

The American lifestyle is envied around the planet, that is why we must start to set a better example. By employing an intelligent and sustainable example to imitate. Science provides all the information necessary to do a better a job. We must devise a better way of making the politicians listen to the people that care.

bushmustgo says:
The Chinese still call themselves communist, but they are going down the same depraved road we're travelling, just a few miles behind but catching up.

What you are seeking are planned communities from scratch. There are a few like that in existence. The successful ones seem to be mainly retirement communities. My guess is because they have very self-motivated and vigilent resident associations.

Celebration, Florida near DisneyWorld is a larger more general planned community. No longer directly controlled by DisneyWorld.

The Levittown concept of tract homes in suburbia had some of the elements of what you want except for mass transit.

[Deleted by the author on Sept. 30, 2008 7:37 PM PDT]

[Deleted by Amazon on Apr. 13, 2008 1:44 PM PDT]

[Deleted by the author on Sept. 30, 2008 7:38 PM PDT]

Traditional cities grew by accretion - more units added at outward edges and vertically into the messes we have today. There were social experiments to fit many people economically into highrises mainly in the 1970's. Alas, they became the tenements riddled with crime. Good in concept but elements of society turned that social engineering dream into a nightmare.

Since many people do not want to live in congested and even hazardous environments, there was creation of suburban communities - somewhat planned by private developers.

Your dream is a grand one but requires regional planning on a scale seldom done. A large developer who wants to build yet another community along with a government willing to help defray the enormous costs of either roadway or light rail construction. As much as I would like to see this happen, do you think there is any possibility of promoting the latter? I think the costs of a private monorail and custom new roadways may be daunting.

The closest models to your idealized community are upper middle class and super rich retirement communities. Those people have defined needs in common, mutual interests, affluence, and do not need to commute to an adjacent city to work. It's a good start. We have to start somewhere to transform how we live to adapt to a time when we can no longer burn fossil fuels for propulsion.

That't an awful lot of work, Avraham. You're going to be exhausted.

I think it is hard to "move people to right locations" unless there are incentives.

Manhattan actually has very decent public transit - rail and buslines can get you all over the island. A car is not needed if you can walk at most 3 to 4 blocks.

It's just disgustingly filthy in some parts because some people don't care enough. *That* is hard to change.

[Deleted by Amazon on Apr. 13, 2008 1:44 PM PDT]

[Deleted by Amazon on Apr. 13, 2008 1:44 PM PDT]

Thanks guys for all the great posts, I suppose this is the beginnings of a book I have been refining concepts for several years, hoping to offer solutions to many of the problems we face that only seem to grow worse.

Feed back and comment on each aspect of the concept is valuable and helpful. Kind of a cheap and random survey of other peoples ideas of what is viable and any flaws in the viability of the plan I have not thought to account for.

Your initial enthusiasm is a bit of a surprise as experience in these forums has conditioned me to expect a negative response to any change of viewpoint.

A couple of you inquire how to make this happen, I have a few ideas that might help. The first is in identifying how it can integrate the cure of many social projects into an holistic design that can serve many intractable problems.

Sorry I have never written a book before and recognize that my skill set is not ideally adequate to the task. I hope to both get better at writing and find some help along the way. I feel that my ideas are worthy of sharing and might make a difference to the happiness of a lot of people.

Thanks for participating I look forward to sharing the project with anyone that wishes to contribute.

Intrepid01 says:
What you are seeking are planned communities from scratch. There are a few like that in existence. The successful ones seem to be mainly retirement communities. My guess is because they have very self-motivated and vigilent resident associations.

All great ideas start somewhere, and by definition usually begin in one head. Someone somewhere figured out the wheel was going to be a great idea.

A few words is a great place to begin, turning this into something beyond a just great idea. Last night I listened to a black Mayor from somewhere in New Jersey he seems sincere in worrying about how to fix problems that poor people face. He cared but had no solution. I think that my concept can fix a lot of insoluble problems.

So I request your help in brainstorming a solution, one aspect at a time, as it is the acceptance of the components that is most valuable at this stage not the Book Review that you might give me at the end of the book.

This project has little prospect of becoming profitable, I hope to sell it for a small price with any amount received used to put it in the hands of the Mayors and Governors of the states of America who could make it happen. Along with the Congress and the Senate. who could accelerate the progress toward making it happen.

For the moment let me again request that you respond to each aspect presented analyze and critique each post and I will try and refine my presentation to take account of all the opinions presented.

I thought in advance that the idea of not having an automobile would hit instant resistance. Seemed that Americans were so conditioned as to how essential owning a vehicle was that they would immediately attempt to squash the concept.

I have lived in Sydney Australia and London England both cities had a fairly good public transport system. Nothing like as good as could be done if the city had been designed to use it as the key component of designing the city.

One key ingredient is how much more could be accomplished with a given amount of money, if you were not trying to super impose it on the most expensive real estate in the country. Buying buildings so that you can knock them down to build a light rail system has to be an extraordinarily expensive solution to impose upon the people. Consider instead an unused rocky valley between two mountains, that could be transformed into a beautiful city of tomorrow.

Avraham says:
I like it a lot, but this is all talk. We are encouraged to own as many cars a possible, in order for them to sell all that oil to us.

EPCOT center at Disney World was Walt Disney's "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" his idea that a designed community using science and planning was very close to my own concept. What we got instead was a mutilated version modified into a theme park attraction. I suspect it was not intended as a money making concept, it was instead supposed to offer a more rational environment in which to live.

I have heard of and read a little about "Celebration, Florida near Disney World" it did not seem to offer much that complimented my design. Still I know little of the project the articles and references were brief.

Intrepid01 says:
Celebration, Florida near Disney World is a larger more general planned community. No longer directly controlled by Disney World.