# Urban issues and problems that affect your city



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

The intention of this poll is quite simple: check the urban management issues and problems that affect the city you currently live in, in a noticeable way, in your opinion. 

Of course, feel free to discuss them in the posts, explain etc.

I didn't put graffiti there, as it is pretty much an universal pandemic, a worldwide cancer, nor did I put subjective things like "lack of character" or contentious statements like "too many high buildings / too few single houses", which are just different models of organizing a city, but not outright problems.


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

Housing shortage is Stockholms main problem. Construction has a hard time keeping up with demand.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

For Manchester, UK

Its chavs and annoying urban planners that have to experiment with things that were already fine!


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## desertpunk (Oct 12, 2009)

S-P-R-A-W-L.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

I couldn't create a poll, but here are the issues of Tilburg:

- expensive parking/district parking
- lack of urban expressways/freeways to speed up transit. There is no serious congestion, but they could build a North-South elevated expressway to better connect the two part of the cities, plus a spur to the outer Western suburbs.
- dilapidated/abandoned old factories that are neither torn down or put to any use


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

Suburbanist said:


> I couldn't create a poll, but here are the issues of Tilburg:
> 
> - expensive parking/district parking
> - lack of urban expressways/freeways to speed up transit. There is no serious congestion, but they could build a North-South elevated expressway to better connect the two part of the cities, plus a spur to the outer Western suburbs.
> - dilapidated/abandoned old factories that are neither torn down or put to any use


Lack of urban expressways is not a problem, thats something positive. They create more problems than they solve.


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## Nexis (Aug 7, 2007)

Dahlis said:


> Lack of urban expressways is not a problem, thats something positive. They create more problems than they solve.


Indeed , look at the Cross Bronx or I-895....or CT-34 there speeding up transit....


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

Nexis said:


> Indeed , look at the Cross Bronx or I-895....or CT-34 there speeding up transit....


And transit should be on rails not a motorway.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

^^ My city, a medium one (202.000 inhabitants), already has plenty of public transit available. 4 railway stations (the main one has 112 intercity train services + 76 regional trains per weekday), buses around the town connecting with the railway station and 36km of segregated bike paths, including 2 "bike paths expressways". So there is enough transit.

However, for some magical (!!!) reason, people drive a lot and thus need urban expressways to cross the city faster, as many here work in other cities around this part of the country.


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

Motorways encourage people to make stupid desitions about where to live. Its not a good idea to subsidise foolishness.


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## 863552 (Jan 27, 2010)

Sprawl and lagging PT.


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## ThatDarnSacramentan (Oct 26, 2008)

Sprawl, the overwhelming majority of the population living in said sprawl, that overwhelming population going apeshit over anything positive that happens downtown, and the horrible decisions made by the city over the last 60 years coming to a giant head of doing far more damage than they ever did good.


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## Sweet Zombie Jesus (Sep 11, 2008)

Urban motorways chopping up city districts, legacy of 60s/70s housing schemes, huge cleared plots of land bought by developers who subsequently leave them cleared rather than developed, developers paying local gangs to "accidentally" burn down buildings of architectural quality/historical importance when demolition/refurbishment is refused to make way for inferior new builds, nepotism and corruption within city government.

At least that last point should come to an end soon though as the ruling party are due to be slaughtered at the next local government elections.


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## SydneyCity (Nov 14, 2010)

- Mega sprawl
- Public transport services very poor in some areas
- Housing shortages
- Rapid inflation of housing prices
- Cost of living
- Crime in West and South West
- Bogans (********)


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## rynscof (Jun 28, 2011)

i am a newbie and this is my first post.
its nice to read all kinds of urban topics here. can somebody tell me or give me a pdf or ebook link that contains any theory bout urban development?

it would be nice, thanks..


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## city_thing (May 25, 2006)

Sweet Zombie Jesus said:


> Urban motorways chopping up city districts, legacy of 60s/70s housing schemes, huge cleared plots of land bought by developers who subsequently leave them cleared rather than developed, *developers paying local gangs to "accidentally" burn down buildings of architectural quality/historical importance when demolition/refurbishment is refused* to make way for inferior new builds, nepotism and corruption within city government.
> 
> At least that last point should come to an end soon though as the ruling party are due to be slaughtered at the next local government elections.


Wtf! That happens?


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## Norf_London_boi (Nov 5, 2010)

London, IMO:

- Exhorbitant cost of housing
- Relative low-quality of housing stock
- Knife crime
- Creaking ageing infrastructure (sewers, tube lines, roads)
- Chain store and homogenisation of high streets


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## memph (Dec 11, 2010)

city_thing said:


> Wtf! That happens?


There was one case this year in Toronto where many people suspect that is what happened too.

Our main problems:
-Lack of rapid transit in the inner suburbs... imo we need at least 40km of new subways, 50-100km of new light rail and even more BRT, which exists in the outer suburbs but for some reason not in the inner suburbs
-Lack of affordable housing in the inner city, by which I don't mean lower class affordable but middle class affordable too
-No attention to details, we still have ugly utility poles in the heart of downtown as if we're Dawson City, and they built a super expensive sidewalk on our main shopping street but still have ugly street lights that would fit much better on a rural highway
-Poor coordination between the agencies that run the city
-Poor waterfront, although it's improving now
-Increasing poverty in the inner suburbs, especially in the Corbusier style apartment/condo towers
-Zoning doesn't allow for enough mixed use and mixed density communities
-Certain demographic groups are unable to come out of poverty as fast as they used to


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## Sweet Zombie Jesus (Sep 11, 2008)

city_thing said:


> Wtf! That happens?


Well it probably happens more often as an insurance scam, but it has happened as an 'alternative' to refurbishment, or to make land more sellable. Just in February a row of shops was set on fire... and okay it was un-noteworthy architecturally and only a single story high, but the small businesses, many family-owned, were destroyed and their owners not allowed back to get surviving property out due to fire damage. The block was hurredly demolished. The land had been earmarked for high density development. Hmm.

A few more interesting losses... hand picked from an entire thread devoted to such incidents in the Glasgow forum...

Former school:









Former cinema:


















Former church:









^^ they've all been demolished now, I think. (not too certain about the school)


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## earthJoker (Dec 15, 2004)

Zürich:
- Cost of living, mostly dua
- Exorbitant house prices/rents
- Car traffic
- Sprawl


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