[mattcantstop]

I think Denver (I live here) is an example of our horrible zoning. We have entirely focused our cities (especially Denver and RTD (Regional Transportation District)) around people commuting in for work.

This is one of the main principles of BAD design, where you create an entire area around close to a single use (offices). That creates a very fragile city. This "single use" zoning that the US proliferated makes us really fragile to changes like working from home vs in-office work.

Another point is that cities are rather hostile for families. We create cities so they need to be fled as soon as people have kids. We have streets entirely of concrete and 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. If we want cities to be more resilient we need to rethink them. We need streets that have greenspace as a fundamental part of the infrastructure. We need permeable surfaces.

I went to Park am Gleisdreieck in Berlin and stayed in a multi-family unit right along the park. There were tons of families with kids playing in the park, people riding bikes for transportation along the park bike paths, adults playing ping pong on outdoor tables together. It was wonderful. It made me rethink what a city can look like.

Denver needs to take notes. We don't need a single use city and a light rail system that only goes into that city. We made an incredibly fragile city. We can build better cities.

[jmward01]

Everything is part of an ecosystem, even office buildings. Nature shows us that a healthy ecosystem, one that survives shocks, is a diverse ecosystem. Diverse ecosystems find niches faster and niches grow over time to turn into major driving forces. They absorb shocks as new things enter since not all parts react the same or on the same timeline. Diversity is key to long term health. This is why monopolies are bad, this is why we should be looking for every kind of diversity we can in every problem. I have gotten to the point that when I see large scale problems I start looking for where the diversity is low and that is almost always the issue. Politics bad? Maybe if we had more than two choices things would be better. Housing bad? Maybe if we had more mixed use things would be better. Energy segment issues? Look at how fast the energy segment is improving now that renewables have finally been added to the ecosystem and we have more choices. Etc, etc etc.

[FloorEgg]

I agree with you about ecosystems and many systems for that matter. Diversity in diet leads to diversity in gut microbiome leads to diversity in methods to absorb nutrients leads to longevity and health.

Lots more example I could list.

However I think there are contexts and levels of abstraction where diversity at one level prohibits diversity at another. An example of this would be standards. There is little diversity in shipping container sizes and designs and that standardization enables more shipment of goods.

Standardization in web protocols enables larger diversity in website content.

While I'm not an expert in biology, I'm pretty sure some of our organs have a lot less diversity in cell types than others. E.g. a healthy heart has little cellular diversity compared to a healthy gut.

By standardizing money (limiting diversity in barter) enables a larger economy with greater diversity of products and services.

A highly functional team will all share a core set of values, and if everyone had extremely diverse values the team wouldn't be able to function. For example some businessess thrive on a culture of internal competition, and some thrive on internal cooperation, but mixing these up can create dysfunction. At the same time, some diversity in values leads to better decision making, so again context matters.

So my point is that diversity is a really important property that sometimes needs to be maximized, sometimes needs to be minimized, and sometimes needs to be balanced, in order to achieve the desired outcomes. I also think that in general maximizing global diversity is a good north star value, and I am acknowledging that to achieve it requires minimizing diversity in some narrow contexts.

[bigstrat2003]

I also live in Denver. The biggest problem with downtown isn't zoning (though that may be a part), it's the homeless people. Who's going to want to go hang out on 16th when there's a dude asking you for money on every street corner? I don't know what the solution is, but it seems clear to me that revitalizing downtown starts with removing the "I'm going to have to deal with vagrants" factor.

[mw1]

The only solution is to provide stable long-term housing and social support. Most else has been tried, but it doesn’t seem that you can punish people and make them less poor. Cops continue to sweep through and steal their belongings, but that clearly won’t solve the problem, and hasn’t. You can throw them all in jail, but that’s more expensive than providing non-jailed housing and rehabilitation services. You can forcefully or enticingly move them along with cops or free bus tickets, but that just shifts the problem elsewhere temporarily. As long as we continue to decide to solve this by increasing funds for cops above all other services in a city, this is the result we will get.

[mixmastamyk]

Solution, 1) abundance of cheap housing. 2) effective mental health treatment with mandatory attendance when necessary.

Of course this utopia would attract folks from other areas, so can’t be solved only locally. Needs national support.

[ottah]

Homelessness is a choice that society has made. We have enough excess that we can feed and house these people. People are a lot less scary when they have some measure of security.

[coderc]

When I worked off of 16th street, years ago, many of those homeless people had jobs with the Denver VOICE, selling newspapers. I even bought a few. Are they still around?

[binary132]

Last time I went to Denver I actually got chased.

[mixmastamyk]

Yup. Every time I hear someone complaining online about a lack of parking I think, this person has never been to Europe, or even Washington, DC.

If you’ve never seen anything but stroads and power lines, I guess it makes sense.

[browningstreet]

> I went to Park am Gleisdreieck in Berlin and stayed in a multi-family unit right along the park

That's a favorite running spot of mine when I'm in Berlin. It's also along a great bus line, close to gyms, a technology museum, a bio market, Victoria Park and not far from Tempelhof. But that little park shines on its own. And the cars parked along the road are down a half level so you don't feel surrounded by parked cars.

That's a pet peeve of mine in America, and especially the American west. We put outdoor seating for cafes and restaurants along busy streets or busy parking lots. Which downgrades the outdoor experience and supports the car priority mindset.

[ethbr1]

> And the cars parked along the road are down a half level so you don't feel surrounded by parked cars.

Putting parks half a level above (or below) street level is a surprisingly easy hack for vastly improving the experience. I wish more places did this.

[insane_dreamer]

American cities are built around cars, not people.

[jmye]

> There were tons of families with kids playing in the park, people riding bikes for transportation along the park bike paths, adults playing ping pong on outdoor tables together. It was wonderful. It made me rethink what a city can look like.

Sure sounds like literally every major park in the city.

The rest of your comment certainly describes downtown/RINO, but does not, at all, describe anything even half a mile away from downtown.

I’m slightly confused by your descriptions. I’m more confused by how you think Denver ought to build transit that goes from the suburbs to other suburbs, or if you think we ought to just raze the whole thing? I’m not sure that would get voter support.

[fowkswe]

> We have entirely focused our cities (especially Denver and RTD (Regional Transportation District)) around people commuting in for work.

This isn’t Denver-specific at all. It’s how every US city was built.

For ~100 years we planned cities around one assumption: work happens in a centralized office, five days a week. Transit, zoning, downtown land use, parking, even tax bases were optimized for the daily commute. Downtowns became office monocultures; neighborhoods became places you slept.

Remote work broke that model. The result is cities that are now unfortunately organized around a behavior that no longer dominates daily life - and we’re still trying to operate them as if it does.

[Glyptodon]

Denver does have some neighborhoods that almost are good in some of the respects you mention, or at least I remember some development that seemed similar in the vicinity of the Millennium Bridge - it's just insanely expensive (and I'm remembering pre-pandemic times).

[ottah]

Is it actually badly zoned? There's also a lot of apartment buildings and first floor retail in downtown Denver. I do agree though, it's a concrete jungle, we really need more natural environments to feel human.

[f1shy]

Everything has pros and cons. I lived in both setups, and the mixed residential/commertial/recreational can be very noisy. Also big parks, if not well illuminated, become unsafe for the families around.

[wing-_-nuts]

>mixed residential/commertial/recreational can be very noisy.

I'd rather live in a somewhat 'noisy' vibrant neighborhood where I can walk to shops or restaurants than an absolutely dead residential cul-de-sac where I have to literally drive miles to the nearest amenity. If the noise bothers you at night, get a sound machine or install triple pane windows.

I understand having industrial separate from everything else, but commercial and residential should always be blended IMHO, and SFH zoning should not exist.

I would kill for reformed zoning standards like they have in Japan.

[xnx]

> I think Denver (I live here) is an example of our horrible zoning.

I don't think urban planners will ever admit or apologize for the damage they've done.

[renewiltord]

What size of home would you be willing to raise your children in? The average 3 br is 1000 sq. ft. in Berlin.

US norms are for much larger homes.

[fwip]

I grew up (as the oldest of 5 siblings) in a split-level home about 1200 sqft. It was fine, we just shared bedrooms. Based only on anecdotal evidence, we grew up closer than other families I knew where each kid has their own bed and bathroom.

[estearum]

Square footage matters less than configuration.

[pixelatedindex]

How much space do you really need to raise a child? I’m genuinely curious because Americans act like you need a mansion to raise kids.

A 3 bed with 1K sq ft still gives you like a 10x10 room - more than enough space for a crib and a queen bed. And you have two other bedrooms to spare. As they get older and need space to run around and stuff, there’s no shortage of parks / trails / fields.

[wing-_-nuts]

As someone who lives in a 700 sq ft 1bd apartment, I guess maybe you could pack in another two bedrooms in with 300 more sq ft (my bedroom is ~ 120-130 sqft w ~ 25 sqft of closet space). You wouldn't have a whole lot of elbow room. Still makes more sense than the 2500+ sqft monstrosities we regularly build in the states.

[citrin_ru]

A typical 3 bedroom flat/house in the UK has similar area. IMHO in terms of house sizes the US (with large houses) is an outlier, not Berlin.

[red-iron-pine]

why do I need a big home when the school is 3 blocks away or there is a park across the street? the mall is 10 minutes walking, as is the subway

do fatass americans just need more space to function?