Solarpunk Urbanism

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A community to discuss solarpunk and other new and alternative urbanisms that seek to break away from our currently ecologically destructive urbanisms.

Henri Lefebvre, The Right to the City — In brief, the right to the city is the right to the production of a city. The labor of a worker is the source of most of the value of a commodity that is expropriated by the owner. The worker, therefore, has a right to benefit from that value denied to them. In the same way, the urban citizen produces and reproduces the city through their own daily actions. However, the the city is expropriated from the urbanite by the rich and the state. The right to the city is therefore the right to appropriate the city by and for those who make and remake it.

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Why Does This Building by the Subway Need 193 Parking Spots? (Yes, Exactly 193.) | New York and cities across the country reconsider decades-old parking rules. (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In New York and elsewhere, the rules typically take the form of ratios [of parking spaces to retail and housing] that have been copied from one city to another, handed from one generation of engineers to the next without much study or skepticism.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (9 children)

I would love to end parking minimums everywhere. Where I live there are a large number of churches and universities which all have large parking lots. This means these streets need to be taken care of but can't get any city taxes for so the rest of us residents have to pay taxes to maintain them. I have no problems with universities which more than make it up with people and events. Churches are fine but with the parking minimums it means there are massive parking lots that only get close to full a few hours a week. That is the largest waste of them all.

Parking minimums seems like something that people think they need but once removed won't affect day to day.

[–] AA5B -5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (8 children)

Or maybe people need those parking minimums until they have alternatives.

For example, all that church parking. If they didn’t have it, does the congregation have reasonable other ways to get there? Is there sufficient street parking? Is the neighborhood ok with a flood of cars overwhelming the streets every Sunday?

I live in a small city built out a couple decades ago that clearly shows both. There are quite a few churches near the town center without parking. Their congregations are mostly walking distance or can park on the street. We also have more suburban churches with huge parking lots, whose congregations have no option but to drive, there’s no street parking and the neighbors don’t want them flooding the neighborhoods every week.

So the question is how to get those suburban churches to be more like those downtown churches? I don’t think it’s as simple as removing the parking minimums so more buildings can squish into smaller areas. That’s one characteristic of denser areas, but I don’t see how it’s a defining feature

Having some way to get places other than a car, is a more useful feature to focus on

Edit after getting the article to load … in this case the minimum is 1/2 parking spot per unit. That not much. I guess they’re focusing on it being next to a subway so people have transportation options. Maybe it’s just my personal experience, but this is a place where more parking can be good. I used to live in a major city and enjoyed all the benefits of transit and walking: highly recommended! However I was never able to shake the occasional need for a car or even just the anxiety about a car, and eventually moved out to the ‘burbs. If I had a good place to park a car and leave it, I might still be living downtown using transit for almost everything. However partly due to this “all or nothing” approach, I now drive everywhere. How is that a win for anyone? I totally agree with reducing parking minimums for retail or businesses where people have options, but trying to build places to live that don’t provide what people need is counter-productive. Give me a city apartment with a place I can leave my car while I need a car or think I do, and over time if I can get away without a car I’ll carve money by getting rid of it

Edit - fuck. centuries ago. The point was my town was built pre-cars, which is important to this topic.

[–] cmhe 4 points 3 months ago

So the question is how to get those suburban churches to be more like those downtown churches?

Raze the whole suburbia to the ground and rebuild it with proper pedestrian, bike and public transportation, mixed zoning in mind. There is no saving or improving it, it is just too far gone.

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