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SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Friday July 10 2015, @05:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the depends-where-you-want-to-be dept.

Population density, when done right, is a great tool to make people happier, give them more opportunities (social, economic, cultural, etc) and reduce their environmental footprint. A big part of it is that you can reduce the amount of pollution caused by transportation and housing, the two biggest resource sinks, with walkable neighborhoods and mass transit, as well as smaller dwellings (but the city becomes your living room and playground, so the actual "living area" can be much larger than for those living in some exurb in a McMansion...).

Design makes all the difference. Central Park is designed such that tens of thousands of people can be in it at once, but you never see more than a score. Nanjing Road in Shanghai is, however, Blade Runner. Or are there only two kinds, Country Mouse and City Mouse?


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  • (Score: 2) by GoonDu on Friday July 10 2015, @06:30AM

    by GoonDu (2623) on Friday July 10 2015, @06:30AM (#207291)

    Planning is definitely a factor and it also depends on how 'popular' an area. If an area is a space where people gather to fulfill their daily needs (grocery, citizens' obligation, work, transport, etc), then you will have a good utility of space. A park is not exactly a place where people can do their daily stuff but it fulfills a niche (joggers, homeless people, etc). If your planning somehow screws up and the park is the shortest route for many people to take to their nearest commute, you can bet it would be livelier, including some street peddlers as well.

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  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 10 2015, @07:01AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday July 10 2015, @07:01AM (#207313) Homepage

    Large warehouse industrial space must also be accounted for, so that working in the tech industry won't require a commute that defeats the purpose of urban living.

    The elephant in the room is that living spaces are now treated as investments rather than places to live. That means people and the resources they consume are gonna get squeezed more because building a high-rise of condos is way more profitable than building a large warehouse.

    Or does the article assume that in that perfect world there is no manufacturing at all? It's great if they could get it to work, but being the cynical fuck I am it reads like they're giving me a glass of piss and telling me its lemonade.