# Negative Effects of Urban Planning



## Erthel (Apr 23, 2012)

http://www.newgeography.com/content/005077-planning-has-become-externality-new-zealand-deputy-prime-minister



> "Another indicator relates to Auckland's former Metropolitan Urban Limit, now called the Rural-Urban Boundary.
> 
> A study found that the value of land just inside the urban boundary was ten times higher than the value of land just outside it.
> 
> ...


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## alexandru.mircea (May 18, 2011)

TBH I don't see anything wrong in the idea of the sepparation between urban (or better said, intra-muros) and non-urban space. If building is free for all without restriction, you get much worse effects than what you get from limiting where you can built.


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## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

Newgeography is a sprawl advocate. Here's they're advocating sprawl...surprise!


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## ssiguy2 (Feb 19, 2005)

Yes it is pro-sprawl but that doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong. 

High density cities are uniformly more expensive than sprawling ones. Just look at the US.........the sprawling cities are vastly cheaper than your higher density cities of NY/LA/SF/Sea. Sprawling cities may be rather dull, unattractive, and not self sustaining but they are also much much cheaper. The quality of urban life is almost always higher in more densely populated centres but the standard of living is almost always higher in the sprawling centers.


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## alexandru.mircea (May 18, 2011)

I don't think price is inherent to density levels. Where I come from the urban fabric is quite different to that of other places and the best and most sought after urban neighbourhoods are low density villa neighbourhoods, while the denser ones consist of commieblocks and they are not very reputable. Given that the country doesn't have an ancient urban tradition like, say, Western European countries, the chic villa neighbourhoods are more central and the most dense areas are more peripheral.


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## Yuri S Andrade (Sep 29, 2008)

ssiguy2 said:


> Yes it is pro-sprawl but that doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong.
> 
> High density cities are uniformly more expensive than sprawling ones. Just look at the US.........the sprawling cities are vastly cheaper than your higher density cities of NY/LA/SF/Sea. Sprawling cities may be rather dull, unattractive, and not self sustaining but they are also much much cheaper. The quality of urban life is almost always higher in more densely populated centres but the standard of living is almost always higher in the sprawling centers.


It's nice to see a balanced post on this density vs sprawl discussion. It's quite annoying how people get so passionated about it.

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In Brazil, we have an interesting phenomena: upper middle class people are being attracted to gated communities on the fringes of urban areas, and due inflated prices their are denser than their old neighbourhoods, despite all the land available in this country. I don't see the point of it.

Example from *Londrina*, very common elsewhere, specially in São Paulo state middle-size cities. 

Older middle-class districts, closer to Downtown:

https://www.google.com.br/maps/@-23.3143574,-51.1761105,984m/data=!3m1!1e3

https://www.google.com.br/maps/@-23.3321011,-51.1629784,984m/data=!3m1!1e3

https://www.google.com.br/maps/@-23.3174495,-51.1860936,984m/data=!3m1!1e3

And the new gated communities, where the big houses are almost built on top of each other:

https://www.google.com.br/maps/@-23.3488281,-51.1882316,984m/data=!3m1!1e3

https://www.google.com.br/maps/@-23.3494782,-51.2032519,984m/data=!3m1!1e3

https://www.google.com.br/maps/@-23.3498722,-51.213337,984m/data=!3m1!1e3

Basically, the worst type of sprawl, creating several empty space between them and the main urban cluster, meanwhile, quite dense.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

ssiguy2 said:


> High density cities are uniformly more expensive than sprawling ones. Just look at the US.........the sprawling cities are vastly cheaper than your higher density cities of NY/LA/SF/Sea.


I would say they are dense because they are more expensive, as in people can't afford large homes, even if they want one. I'm more pro sprawl ish.


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## binhai (Dec 22, 2006)

Yuri S Andrade said:


> It's nice to see a balanced post on this density vs sprawl discussion. It's quite annoying how people get so passionated about it.
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> ...


That's pretty common in Florida. Also in other parts of the South and California. There's very few gated communities in the Northeast though.


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## Yuri S Andrade (Sep 29, 2008)

I was not talking about the gated communities per se, but the fact of them being denser than the old nighbourhoods people are leaving.


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## ChinaBRICS (Jul 10, 2015)

Yuri S Andrade said:


> In Brazil, we have an interesting phenomena: upper middle class people are being attracted to gated communities on the fringes of urban areas, and due inflated prices their are denser than their old neighbourhoods, despite all the land available in this country. I don't see the point of it.


100% is cause of insecurity.


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## binhai (Dec 22, 2006)

Yuri S Andrade said:


> I was not talking about the gated communities per se, but the fact of them being denser than the old nighbourhoods people are leaving.


Well the Florida gated communities tend to be pretty dense too. The same factors are at play: developer wants to sell as many plots as possible. Most gated communities in Florida are really packed with little wasted space.


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## Yuri S Andrade (Sep 29, 2008)

ChinaBRICS said:


> 100% is cause of insecurity.


Perception of security and the way constructors market their gated communities, as a safe, upmarket environment.

In fact, tradicional Brazilian middle class neighbourhoods are quite safe.


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## Yuri S Andrade (Sep 29, 2008)

BarbaricManchurian said:


> Well the Florida gated communities tend to be pretty dense too. The same factors are at play: developer wants to sell as many plots as possible. Most gated communities in Florida are really packed with little wasted space.


And people still buy them, paying much more than in a regular neighbourhood. If you go living far away in the outskirsts, you should at least demand lots of space.


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## zaphod (Dec 8, 2005)

Yes absolutely, even if I also favor planning in general.

In some places, planning regulations are so strict is difficult for the supply of new houses to meet demand and you get excessively high rents and home prices. When this happens in places like London, where there is also a high concentration of wealth that wants to flow into real estate, those high prices become astronomical.

Also a desire to force all new growth into former brownfields is wishful thinking. In reality these sites tend to be highly constrained by local NIMBYism. Too often the outcome is not a new sparkling urban center, but a couple hundred townhomes and an unattractive block of condos with vacant ground floor retail. And yet served by hundreds of millions of dollars worth of added mass transit infrastructure, that the few hundred residents won't even use. Looking at this even more cynically, by constraining development sites and giving away building rights to large developers, urban politicians are making themselves patricians who can give away lucrative business deals to those who support them.

Rent control and affordable unit requirements are a band-aid that make the problem mildly worse by disincentivizing new building. Rent control means a landlord wont break even and wont invest in a property, and affordable unit requirements make every other unit more expensive.

However I can understand the mindset of anti-gentrification activists. When a big project goes up in a traditional neighborhood, it creates induced demand because it raises the amenity level and reputation of its surroundings. When defenders of these developments claim it is important that supply be added to maintain affordability, they are essentially asking a group of people to accept a huge loss to their community in exchange for a very miniscule gain for the greater good that a small dent in the regional housing deficit represents.

Personally the kind of urban planning I favor is form-based codes, large scale infrastructure planning of the kind that proscribes connective street networks, coordinated provision of public services and facilities such as schools and parks and emergency services and bus routes, etc. But then leave the specifics of constructing things to private developers who are more responsive to market demands.

Obviously we need rules about nuisances, incompatible uses, light and air, noxious emissions, etc. Those things have been present in urban governance since the ancient cities of Mesopotamia. Seriously, look it up. But it should be limited to practical things. Micromanaged planning should focus on the interface of buildings to the community and not so much the use I think so long as that use isn't dirty or heavy industry or draws massive crowds or traffic.

As for the big question as to whether or not I support "sprawl", well I am not against cities growing outwards. It is an absolute necessity if they are growing quickly. 

"Sprawl" is a pejorative term to describe badly planned, chaotic, destructive, and inefficient outward growth. So, in that case I am against "sprawl" very much so. I am from near Houston and I have always disliked that city because it is a mean place, and not in a good way. A hot mess of insular upper class subdivisions next to concentrated apartment ghettos all tied up by traffic choked highways. Hate it.

However, some cities really desperately need to carefully plan new outward extensions. If that means sacrificing some natural areas or farmland so be it. The west coast cities of the US absolutely must do this if the want to retain their middle classes. 

I believe that new suburban areas need to have the "bones" planned out, and the private sector can fill in the meat. When you plan the bones you create equitable access to public services and it means that communities who have been displaced from expensive cities are not being negatively impacted by moving., 

Some cities do this better than others. In the US there's a big contrast between Seattle and Portland. In Seattle outside the overpriced city is a messy exurban sprawl where you find apartment complexes along narrow rural roads with no sidewalks.

In Portland of course despite the urban growth boundary, which is adjusted to meet demand(in that case I support it) everything is much neater and there is a regional approach to growth.

I believe that greenbelts which protect privately owned human used land like hobby 'farms' are completely illegitimate and a way of protecting luxury lifestyles of the rich who wish to live in the country but close to the city. If those organic local foodie farms were really so valuable to a city's bourgeois appeal then the market value for those properties would trump any future construction on them. 

However I do support greenbelts which protect natural land which can be used for ecological protection, are watersheds for the city's water supply, used for human recreation, or in limited cases are historic or cultural treasures.


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## Yuri S Andrade (Sep 29, 2008)

Posted on Londrina's developments thread:



mcarmo said:


> *Zona Sul, a esquerda edifícios do bairro Terra Bonita a direita edifícios da Thá ao centro Catuaí Shopping e Alphavilles 1 e 2 ao fundo.*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


We can see some upmarket gated communities, and almost no spaces between the houses.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

poshbakerloo said:


> I would say they are dense because they are more expensive, as in people can't afford large homes, even if they want one. I'm more pro sprawl ish.


Of course one can see it both ways but esapecially in the US I think it is fairly clear that most city centres are expensive because they are dense and not the other way round. Why? Because there is a sondierably undersupply for these kind of neighbourhoods on the market. Much more people would like to live in non-sprawl neighbourhoods than there is stuff on offer. 

Of course, living space is more expensive in dense neighbourhoods by design as well. That is because the size of your appartment is not the only quality of an appartment. Its neighbourhoods, the local infrastructure and the ability to get along without a car are all things which are of value as well. And people are prepared to pay for that. Sprawl usually simply does not offer that.


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