Professor Angel, could you please explain how could this "Making Room Paradigm" for Cities work in the United States, where the majority of the "buffer zone" around the metropolitan areas is already developed to the extremes (aka. sprawl)? How can a city that has no capacity to expand supply for the decreased densities and increased population growth? I think it's the ongoing debate among the American planners at the moment...
the high housing prices in seul is a bad example as they were caused by regulatory limits on urban densities. i don't really see any valid arguments against the urban congestion paradigm.
That's precisely the point. Seoul implemented a containment policy. However, if the city continues growing (which it did) then densities would continue to grow. Above a certain amount of density, city life becomes unbearable. That;s why Seoul put limits on urban densities. According to Angel, if Seoul hadn't implemented a containment policy then then would have been able to grow out, without density controls and continue to provide affordable housing.
there are examples of high urban densities causing undisirable living conditions - the same goes with low urban density areas. but i haven't seen any data suggesting a binary choice between livability and density. look at manhatten og central hong kong. is life unbearable there? it's simply not true that "above a certain amount of density, city life becomes unbearable" - it's the task of architects and urban planners to solve posible conflicts between density and livability.
Professor Angel, could you please explain how could this "Making Room Paradigm" for Cities work in the United States, where the majority of the "buffer zone" around the metropolitan areas is already developed to the extremes (aka. sprawl)? How can a city that has no capacity to expand supply for the decreased densities and increased population growth? I think it's the ongoing debate among the American planners at the moment...
cities need to grow, specially the Upstate Cities of New York
the high housing prices in seul is a bad example as they were caused by regulatory limits on urban densities. i don't really see any valid arguments against the urban congestion paradigm.
That's precisely the point. Seoul implemented a containment policy. However, if the city continues growing (which it did) then densities would continue to grow. Above a certain amount of density, city life becomes unbearable. That;s why Seoul put limits on urban densities. According to Angel, if Seoul hadn't implemented a containment policy then then would have been able to grow out, without density controls and continue to provide affordable housing.
there are examples of high urban densities causing undisirable living conditions - the same goes with low urban density areas. but i haven't seen any data suggesting a binary choice between livability and density. look at manhatten og central hong kong. is life unbearable there? it's simply not true that "above a certain amount of density, city life becomes unbearable" - it's the task of architects and urban planners to solve posible conflicts between density and livability.