Urban Design - Tumblr Posts
Front Yard Natural Stone Pavers in Chicago Inspiration for a small traditional full sun front yard stone landscaping in summer.
This is a dumb rant about a dumb argument I had ages ago but I am still bothered sometimes by this really, really stupid in-person argument I had once about urbanism, cars, trains, etc. this one time with a person who had the most absurd argument you could possibly imagine. I was trying to explain how trains are much more efficient and safer than cars because you need like hundreds of cars to transport as many people as you would with one train, combine multiple train routes and you have an extremely safe and accessible city, and that trains are on tracks instead of being like a highway and there's this constant stream of cars with drivers with varying levels of care for road safety. And they tried to tell me that no? Trains are not actually safe? Huh? Wuh? I explained that yes, they are. You wait for your train and you get on the train and then it takes you where you're going and there is one very well-trained driver for the entire train. You don't have situations where a pedestrian has to to cross a busy street and worry about somebody in a lifted truck not even seeing the top of their head while they mow them down, and this person I'm arguing with tells me that no, it's not safe... because, and I'm telling you, they provided no other reason besides this... because it's super easy to off yourself by jumping in front of the train? And then they simply would not acknowledge me when I tried to get them to understand that the exact same thing is true of cars??? Any suicidal person will have--at the absolute very least--a completely equal opportunity to jump in front of a car as they will jumping in front of a train? In fact, cars are probably a lot more easy to jump in front of because they are absolutely everywhere? Like, even in cities with lots of trains... the street is right outside your door? It's so much easier to just step onto that? This person tried to argue safety statistics, despite both of us having none prepared, and I tried to explain to them that even if we had such statistics to go off of, that statistics about suicide are not the same thing as statistics about accidental deaths... And then they acted like I was being... super fucking insensitive about suicide? Like, no, I'm not!? Suicide is about mental health rather than physical safety?! For the love of god?! It's not insensitive to point out that killing yourself on purpose because of bad mental health isn't the same as killing yourself by accident due to the hazards of a physically dangerous environment?! Because... like... think through this argument with me, right? You can make the world safer to be in by making less hostile architecture, better accessibility, etc. But to factor in making sure that the world is also safe enough that a person who is suicidal would not be physically able to kill themself? Like??? Think about what you are saying?? Do you realize that that very much in fact means we would basically have to toddler-proof the entire outdoor world? Which, is both a practically impossible task as well as one that would make for a really boring dystopia novel? You can't just get rid of every tall building!? You can't just get rid of every cliff or ravine!? You can't just get rid of every single person's access to every single dangerous environment, substance, or object?! And somehow I was the bad guy for pointing out that suicide is a mental health issue rather than a safe urban design question? How!? How on earth were they making this argument with me when I was trying to explain that trains are safer than cars?
Loft-Style - Family Room Inspiration for a large contemporary loft-style light wood floor family room remodel with white walls
There’s a lot of interesting history in the ways that urban planning and infrastructure development have been used to reinforce racism. Robert Moses, the guy who designed the roadways in New York City, made the bridges on the Long Island Parkway too low for the city busses at the time to go under, because he wanted to prevent the type of people who ride buses (wink, nudge) from getting to the wealthy white beachfront properties he was developing. He did a lot of other stuff like that to make it so that, in the most literal sense possible, the city was physically hostile to black people
Im not autistic about cars or makes or models but I AM autistic about crumple points and field of vision and blindspots and conflict points. do you understand. urban design, anti car dependency/anti car centric infrastructure, and so cars themselves are part of that interest. because car design is urban design. cybertrucks SUCK as cars and also dont function well in infrastructure thats designed to care about people. there are good cars and vehicles that are designed good and fit well with good urban design
Fiberboard - Exterior An illustration of a big, white, two-story concrete fiberboard house with a shed roof and shingles on the roofs.
I am super against light pollution, and have been for decades
but I am also super annoyed by the way it's framed as "without light pollution you can see how beautiful the night sky is" way more prominently than it's framed as "hey, did you ever stop to think of how much energy/resources/money are literally wasted by having so much light shine up into the sky?"
so people get the idea that light pollution can only be remedied by eliminating all night-time light, which would make being outside at night very inconvenient, instead of by making night-time light shine only on the ground where, y'know, the people who need it are
I've been thinking off and on about how our modern styles of home construction are badly suited to the environment everywhere (except probably England and New England) and really rely on central air in order to be livable during various seasons. And I've been thinking about that video of the woman talking about the advantages of thatched roof construction in the heat, and the fact that native building construction in Southern Florida has been palm-thatched since before colonial contact. You'd have open lengths at the tops of the walls to let air flow through, and a raised platform inside to keep your stuff dry.
(look at this by the way it's really cool)
and I've been wondering what, besides the obvious cultural supremacy coolaide, would stop us from pivoting back to regionally appropriate home construction. Here are the concerns a person raised on suburban housing might have:
keeping out pests, such as scavengers and spiders and snakes
the labor of upkeep. Thatched roofs do have to be changed out periodically, and we have limited hours in the day to do this in a capitalist hellscape
inaccessibility of skills and knowhow. At the present time, learning how to do this properly might be difficult.
there might be some concerns about wildlife in the rafters
So we probably wouldn't want to go back to the EXACT designs of the past, but certainly this could be the blueprint in the same way that older New England houses are the blueprint for modern houses? There must be a mix of modern and traditional solutions that are more sustainable than what we have right now.
For example, say we put screening along the inside of the crossbreeze gaps to keep out mosquitos and such. We can even put netting up along the underside of the thatched roof, like they have done in India in the past. Then you get the airflow, without the pests. And that's just off the top of my head, I know that there must be more innovative solutions out there too. We'd have to come up with new ways of storing perishables and wiring electricity, but it's not at all insurmountable...
I don't want street lights and advertisements lighting and blinding the skies!!! I want this-
Natural Stone Pavers - Traditional Landscape
Front Yard in Chicago
Design suggestions for a small, traditional front yard with stone landscaping in the summer.
Natural Stone Pavers Front Yard
Design ideas for a small traditional full sun front yard stone landscaping in summer.