Problems with Planners?

[garethace]

Article here:

 

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/apr03/136807.asp

 

Picture here:

 

http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/news/img/apr03/gobig042703.jpg

[Allen Bussell]

An all too familiar response from neighbors. I face this almost constantly working as a planner.

It, at times, is very difficult to get past the mentality that "the neighbor's house needs to be 'better' than mine to protect the investment in my home..."

This type of thinking by neighbors and elected officials many times severely restricts creativity and tie architects hands. Frustrating.

 

Good article. Thanks for the posting.

[garethace]

Interesting hearing the opinion coming from your experience with real world people in real world situations too, thanx. I often feel that cg visualisation has the problem of being a world a slight bit removed from 'the everyday', which official bodies have to deal with constantly. While i can agonise over a reflection, a sky background or a row of realistic looking trees - the official bodies, architects and people live in a real world everyday and face up to real experiences.

 

Something i have noticed is how different countries and different parts of countries, town, rural, suburban... deal with problems differently, face different problems and ultimately arrive and different solutions. This accounts in large measure for the reality you see around you. For instance, on the subject of integrating some higher density development in the midst of low-density situations, so as to provide variety in a neighbourhood, appeal to different markets, and integrate communities more. In California, the insurance of housing decides alot of how development density is set out.

 

I remember reading this somewhere only lately.

 

here is a great quote from a developers' insurance agent:

 

"We would rather insure a nuclear power plant than insure attached housing in California."

 

Out here, attached units mean a $50,000/unit loss ($20,000/unit price reduction+$30,000 per unit extra insurance costs).

 

Hence, no attached housing.

I have noticed how much this situation can change from one part of the country to another. But while everyone knows that sprawl is a problem, is costly to service and creates poor sense of community, sometimes factors beyond our immediate control dictate what in fact happens.

 

Even on the front page of cgarchitect today, i see some very nice renders of good high density housing solutions, but i know myself that in parts of the country, such things may never see past initial planner proposal.

 

[ June 20, 2003, 07:39 AM: Message edited by: garethace ]

[Allen Bussell]

With all of that however, the opportunity to use 3 dimensional renderings to help communicate to those officials and neighbors is, in my opinion, indispensible. I have in several occasions received favorable votes because of the visualization tools used (along with good design).

 

Good design is tough to get approved, financed, built - unless the design can be adequetely communicated. Isn't a wonderful feeling when we can use our artistic abilities to teach - and then see the subject's face as he "gets it"?

[garethace]

I agree, some visualisation in 3DS MAX etc, does make a typical 2-dimensional planning diagram or map look some much more like the real idea you are trying to make somebody else understand. It is a much better way of conveying the information faster and better.

 

I find this approach here interesting: (check out the linked jpegs)

 

http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7412

 

But boy does it look flat and scientifically generated! The jpegs like this one:

 

http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/data/500/1378core4.jpg?3891

 

are very beautifully detailed like an ancient manuscript would be. Great as a record, but you just want to do something more with it, in a modelling program etc. Something like this maybe?

 

[garethace]

A couple of very useful resources here actually:

 

http://www.greenbelt.org

 

if you cares to read a little bit about transit communities, boulevard development, dealing with urban sprawl and so on.

[Allen Bussell]

Thank you for the great links (the image link didn't work though). I'm always interested in learning about planning / architecture - the environments we build to live in.

The sketch was wonderful - where'd you get that?

[garethace]

The broken linked image is also linked on the discussion i linked at cyburbia. Conserving server bandwidth is a priority for cyburbia, and linking their images remotely from another site has been disabled.

 

On the other hand, a web site that operates within a tighter budget, and less corporate sponsorship is probably a more independent voice too. I used to browse alot of hardware websites for computer components, but the problem is, so very sucessful ones are indeed just mouth-pieces for big corporate companies nowadays. Containing more and more marketing biased stuff, and less and less objective opinion.

 

So i entirely respect cyburbia for sticking within an $800 per month bill for server bandwidth. This discussion here will explain it better:

 

http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=100021109

 

The old sketch was in this discussion here over at cyburbia:

 

http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6416

 

If you need to learn more about current stuff in planning, you have probably already got sites like:

 

http://dir.yahoo.com/Social_Science/Urban_Studies/Urban_Planning_and_Design/

 

http://www.plannersweb.com/

 

http://www.planum.net/

 

(One of the main European planning web site)