CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS OF URBAN PLACES:

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CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS OF URBAN PLACES:

  1. FIXED TRANSIT ON ALL SECODARY CORRIDORS:

Fixed-rail transit helps to guide development and keep the streets busy. When development happens around fixed-transit, it is easy to get around on foot because everything is closer together. On the contrary, when transit isn't fixed, as with a diesel bus route, or it is designed around the auto, transit becomes impractical because everything is further apart. New York is an example of a walking city that grew up around fixed transit. Dallas is an example of an auto city built up around roadways. It is very convenient to get around without a car in a walking city built around fixed transit. This makes it so there are more people on the sidewalks, and businesses can thrive from walking traffic, without the need for parking. Fixed-transit can be light-rail, a subway, or a bus that operates from overhead wires. A bus way built for diesel buses is also fixed transit, but because the bus can leave the bus way it doesn't have the same positive impact on development and density as other forms of fixed transit.

  1. MIXED-USE NEIGHBORHOOD:

Mixed-use neighborhoods solve many urban ills. By intermingling commercial, residential, and civic functions in the same neighborhoods, you reduce dependence on automotive transport, since destination facilities are always close at hand: one can walk to the market, the salon, the library, school or university, administrative offices, what have you. This means denser development is possible without reducing living spaces; it also means more tax money for more amenities and social programs, since streets don't pay taxes and parking lots don't pay much tax, but homes and businesses do. Yet, since there is less road infrastructure to build and maintain, and utility infrastructure is more efficiently configured, such neighborhoods need less tax money to support their basic functions. This means one could then either lower taxes, or applies them to more desirable civic amenities, such as parks, squares, concerts, etc. More people walking also increases community feeling, reduce opportunity for crime, and allows for more interaction among the citizenry. It increases rider ship on public transit, making it more efficient.

  1. MIXED-INCOME NEIGHBORHOOD:

Mixed-income neighborhoods not only increase urban variety by mixing types and sizes of housing; they also increase the cohesiveness of a community. People from different walks of life come to meet and know each other, however superficially, and are thus less likely to make political or personal decisions based on stereotyped views. Rich, poor, and middle can discover common ground and not base their attitudes toward each other on envy, disdain, or spite. It's a matter of hybrid vigor: purebred ideas, like purebred animals, tend to be delicate, weak, and subject to "genetic" infirmities. We learn not by congregating with those similar to us, but by meeting those who are different. You could say it's the sexuality of the intellect: just as animals who exchange genes evolve into more efficient forms more rapidly than those primitive creatures that don't, so do societies whose members exchange ideas, social concepts, personal philosophies, what have you--even just gossip.

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  1. BUILDING OF DIFFERENT AGE, CONDITION AND SIZE:

Too often in the last half-century urban developers and city officials have approached revitalization by assembling multiple parcels, bulldozing what existed, and building new. This happens in commercial and residential areas. It is standards set by suburban development and a desire to compete with suburban development that leads to this practice. This will not, however, lead to a healthy city. The mix of old and new buildings provides an interesting streetscape. Older building in poor condition provides the incubators for entrepreneurs to start businesses. The newer buildings provide locations for the more ...

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