I'm glad to announce that we built the FIRST non-sustainable, car dependent, non scalable, rich only, low density city.... I know it sounds bad, buuuuuuuuut at least we have solar pannels! :)
My hot take prediction : Actual ecofriendly construction is inevitably going to look comparatively boring since a lot of what we think of as 'eco friendly' design is just a futurism aesthetic. Also it's going to have to be tied tightly to low/middle income development in order to shift a meaningful bulk of people over to a new paradigm and drive things like more walkable commercial areas.
One criticism of the university I graduated from was that they tried to "modernize" the decades-old buildings with renovations like glass-walled classrooms. The thing is, we live in a *tropical country,* and those classrooms would heat up like goddamn greenhouses unless we use air-conditioning, which adds to the electricity consumption and carbon footprint. Our "old, boring" rooms were *already* a fine example of "eco-friendly" engineering; they were designed to be airy and well-ventilated so that the rooms would be naturally cooled.
The low/middle income goal would be difficult to meet since most of these supposedly eco-friendly housing projects and cities are marketed to wealthy foreigners that can reinvest there (also for governments to say they're attracting investment to the city/country)
I mean eco friendly doesn't have to look boring, it just doesn't help that every modern day building design is just a cube or a spike. Hell, a cube doesn't even mean it's boring, so long as the owner actually does something to make it interesting, like plants growing on the walls or murals or sculptures.
And birds go tweet, your point? What else is a middle eastern tyrant gonna do, democratize and give up his oil $? I don't think so... Aka Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game... ;-)
@@stickynorth earth as we know it is doomed, and will remain that way unless the entire culture and mindset of humanity changes. I feel very powerless to stop any of this, and I feel like parks will one day be the only greenery left. /ramble
@spaks "people are happy" how do you know, there's no statistics or something, cause you know no free speech. Really doubt women in Saudi Arabia or slaves are happy.
A similar story is the Forest City is Malaysia. It is built with the idea of a futuristic, green city home to 700.000 people, located on articifal islands...in reality, it's a bunch of luxury apartments only affordable by chinese billionares, car dependency, golf courses, all you can imagine.
compared to this the green island is a decent project... green island has density, and it wouldnt be empty, if malayans not dissallowed foreigners (chinese) to own property. (afaik) but yeah... either they build "sustainable" luxury appartments or "sustainable" luxury low density homes, while the poor half (in europe) has to pay 700€ for a energy efficiency category C or D flat from 1930s (if i get building ground, i can build u a passive standard appartment block which will have all the invests back in 25-30 years when renting same sized flat for 350...) the real reason why everything goes to shithole, is the rich and the share of wealth they take for themselves in everything... capital costs are taking every possibility to redesign society, as every surplus we accumulate is owned by them, and they decide what to do with it. and of course someone who got rich is not ok with beeing rich, he has to be richer, so he invests and expects ROI.
Best part of it is that only 500 people live there currently while the population it can handle is freaking 700000 it's basically a useless mega project that cost 100 billion USD.
@@feisaljauharitufail especially considering that the sea level won't stop rising and all of it will be underwater soon anyway. Same here in Saint Petersburg, they keep reclaiming land from the sea near to the place where I live, and then they build giant dystopian ant hill - like houses there. Like they think the dam is going to protect us from the sea forever? 🤣 Not in the current state of the world!
Also I think an important point: Building new stuff is usually inherently environmentally unfriendly. Stuff should only be built where it's actually needed, not because you can like in Dubai.
Their Is one Question from me for Everyone of You that: Can we Build a planned city with population density of 120 000 people/Sq km and 20 Square Km area? And this city Should have all Things like Residential apartments ,Official Places, Parks, schools, Hospitals, Shopping districts and Some other public places.
@@kaiserwilhelmii1788 With that high of a population density you'd have all humans on earth on ~21.000km². I do not think that this would be a good idea.
most conversations around sustainability are more about greenwashing - companies that try to look trendy, or individuals who like to feel good about themselves without thinking
Adam I really wanna hear how you would realistically redesign an existing city - i think it would be a super interesting video to see you talk aboutt (for hours even) how you would redesign a city like amsterdam, london, new york, moscow or wherever
All of those cities are already pretty sustainable. Especially Amsterdam. The real question would be how to redesign cities with urban sprawl, like Los Angeles
@@Mark-gt5uu uhhh not sure what you’re talking about considering those cities, barring Amsterdam, have huge amounts of noise, air, and ground pollution - they also highlight many of the things Adam mentions disliking - prioritizing cars over pedestrians and née york at least has failing public transportation.
5:04 I'm glad you used Barcelona as an example for this. The Eixample part has always been a wonder of city design and the public transportation inside the city is absolutely great, with always several options to go anywhere (being it Metro, Trains, Bus, Bikes, Taxis) and every option with not so much more than a few minutes of waiting.
Solar panels is the key baby. Just wrap solar panels around coal power plants, shopping malls, mcmansions, oil refineries and they're green and sustainable now. The gullibility of the masses is amazing.
People don't seem to realize that more environment-friendly housing will almost always mean a reduction in living space per capita. There is no way giving everyone a 120 square meter house is sustainable... It's like electric cars. Yes, one electric car is very eco-friendly when charged with solar panels, but manufacturing an electric car for everyone is not sustainable at all.
@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs Sure and then some politician decides to lock you for months in your apartment... Pandemic already had huge impact on housing markets and population of large cities in USA.
@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs Because a single person isn't allowed to have overnight guests or entertain company apparently? And that doesn't even get into the other issues of apartments/condos. I'm sorry, but literally every person I have ever spoken to has some horror story about multi-family living situations and purchased a single family home (or plan to) as soon as they were able.
The fact that they had tons of park space with grass and trees in the middle of their "sustainable" city in the middle of the fucking desert is so silly. You can have parks and plants they just have to be native species used to the climate.
As a person living in Dubai, I’d like to know your take on Deira. Especially since it’s more dense, older and walkable than the middle of desert projects.
@@kody1654 most of Deira's development occurred well into the era of cars in the Gulf region. There's a reason why Deira and Bur Dubai are considered the heart of Dubai, instead of downtown and marina.
I remember a lecture by an architect, who designed eco-friendly single family houses. I was amazed by many of his ideas and I was like: "Can we apply these things to an apartment building like the one I live in?"" He said "If you live in an apartment building of any kind, your flat already at least 500% more eco-friendly and sustainable than the best house I ever designed."
@@yo_tengo_una_boca6764 Nothing extra original. Heat pumps, solar panels, effective thermal design. The point is not that the ideas were bad. It's that building single-family homes is wasteful as is. The greatest power-eater in any home is heating and air conditioning. And you can make The design as effective as you want, but a single-family house is still exposed to the outside from all sides. In an apartment building the flats heat each other in winter and insulate each other from heat in the summer. Not to mention that you need way less space and building materials per unit...
@@Posiman And then there are swedes that build apartment complexes that are energy neutral, get energy from their own trash, the complexes are the tallest buildings using wood as structural elements. Apartment buildings can be even better.
@@NotADuncon "...build apartment complexes that are energy neutral, get energy from their own trash..." You know that means garbage is being burned. That's not carbon neutral or whatever.
Hello! I'm an electrical EIT taking his PE exam next year. I'm interested in building sustainability, and am interested in channels like this, and Strong Towns. I'm trying to learn more about how to cost-effectively repurpose existing infrastructure to undo bad city planning. Possibly to repurpose old factories with working facility panels for new projects. Can you recommend some further reading/viewing I could look at?
As a contractor, building sustainable buildings for the last twenty years, I not only disagree with the comparison being made here. I'm actually fearful that the premise of this video is dangerous to a broad adaptation of a "greener future".
Yes because America and Europe are the the pinnacle of sustainability uae literally is responsible to only 0.3 percent of the world's emissions, look I know your jealous and your life Is miserable but if you lived here you'd be like " best country in the world" but sadly you don't have the funds to do that
@@webguy8497 1: lashing out like that is childish. You are nobody to me and your existence and thoughts are mere dust under my heel. This hints you may live there and are quite wealthy, and I wonder where your higher education is. 2: Indoor ski slopes ? In a desert ? If thats not madness, call me mad.
@@webguy8497 And on top of that France, where I live, is mostly powered by nuclear reactors, considering this world where energy demand constantly increases, nuclear seems like one of the only viable sources of power that can meet the ludicrous demand.
@Jack Snyder he is saying that single family homes are bad as a concept. ofc the luxury ones might be too much, but everyone cannot be living in apartments either
because we can 🥳🥳 our country is 50 yrs old we can try and try and try as much as we want because we can.. it took the us and europe slaves from africa and a lot of years and they still not even close to sustainable or have a decent infrastructure 😂
To be sustainable we need to use the buildings we already have, building more doesn't help limit the carbon especially since it there wont be as many residents. Also those buildings look like prisons.
As an environmental psychologist I actually disagree with the idea of high density building above all costs. The blocks shouldn't be more than 4 stores high and Barcelona is a great example of how can you efficiently have a city like that. Commie blocks are more than often alienating and disconnecting their owners from the city around them. They were a great temporary solution but it shouldn't be an example of what we want in our cities. They are huge, hideous and lack identity even more than those ridiculous solar panel villas in the desert.
I agree. Here in germany, everything past 5 floors is associated with lower-class. In areas with shrinking polulation, many blocks have been shrunk to 3-4 floors instead of razing them. Others have been removed and replaced with large areas of single family houses. Imho, the former version looks nicer for a city district and is a friendlier place to be in. 4 seems to be the magic number, because that's what most humans can easily walk up without needing a shower immediately after :)
@@andreewert6576 It's also related to our line of sight and evolutionary fitness - anything taller than that is more anxiety inducing than landscapes of lower buildings. Both for residents and the passerby.
@@alexlubinski7795 i'd even bet shadows play a huge part in it. Build too high and the sun never hits the ground between two buildings or the windows on the bottom half. Depressing AF.
I think we may be skipping a few steps in the hierarchy of needs. Social and Aesthetic aspects should be addressed after the fact. The problem would be the lack of follow through, or plans from which to follow through. Build the thing, now ignore the thing, do not innovate on the thing. Do not maintain the thing.
@@MrDevonZaehler I think this is the case for most of Eastern Europe. Commie blocks are still in use well past their "expiration date" and not properly maintained apart from the front facade makeovers.
I would love a video about the best cities, on ubran planning, eco friendly etc. I think we all know that rich cities like dubai are built for image and nothing more. I wanna know which countries and cities do the best job.
Watch Not Just Bikes. His contempt for car-centric cities anywhere is hilarious and he praises Amsterdam and other cities in the Netherlands constantly.
as a Hungarian, I cannot express how much I appreciate your content. I would appreciate it anyway, but with regular Hungarian examples, it just feels like an extra treat everytime you post.
I live in Dubai. There are many challenges that we face when it comes to residential area design. The on foot / no car thing doesn't work here at all because its a desert and its very hot most of the year, and even if u add shade, the wind will cook you alive. The roads are a problem in UAE, and public transport routes are really unacceptable in some cases.
I was under the impression this was an experiment in regards to grey and black water management. It uses a re-envisaged, ancient passive technology. It purposes grey water via cooling domes (aka; Yakhchāl ), to cool the housing. Highly ingenious tech! Also, I believe they needed the housing ,for sale, to be villa's, in order to help finance the prototype project I'm not saying you aren't right, but, I think it needs a little more in depth discussion before condemning so strongly.
That sounds interesting but that bit about reimagining also sounds like a red flag that it’s a con. When Centuries-old technology is good …just use it. Like concrete. Simple. So, what’s this “re-imagining”? I’m cynical enough to guess that it’s no different than the solar panels which is just window dressing, as we Americans say.
@@JoeOvercoat re-envisaging, not reimagining. They have taken the ancient Afghan Yakhchāl. which uses convection to make ice in an arid environment. Then using modern techniques, repurposed it as a central PASIVE, low energy, AC plant... I haven't seen this used like this anywhere else and I think that's pretty developmental and very ingenious. Also, what's wrong with solar panels??
@@rw9207 they aren't very good, hopefully in the future they can be better, but they are expensive, last for only 20 years and don't produce a great amount of energy
"Somehow, my idea of sustainability isn't a luxurious, energy-efficient gated community built in a petro-monarchy. I'm weird like that" - Thanks for that laugh-out-loud moment!
@@hoedenbesteller No but it's enjoyable to us Hungarians. People love to complain about everything around here, but there's plenty about Hungary that just works and makes life livable here. And because most English-speaking folks seem to know next to nothing about Hungary, when Adam talks about it, chances are y'all will learn something new - about Hungary, but also about some solutions to some of the world's problems.
Tell me something good about Hungary, Romania or Bulgaria during the last 30 years? Adam chose the examples because he is familiar with the situation there. Not because we he wants to please the ego of some ultranationalist form Hungary. Moreover, the examples he gives are found all over the eastern block, built by the communist regime.
@@hoedenbesteller Well, not a magic solution to World's problems by any means; but it does show what a horrifying dystopia contemporary profit-motivated capitalist urban planning (with apartments sold at a premium, and dressed up for marketing's sake with petroleum polymer paneling that only entraps moisture and fuels funeral pyres - things that naked concrete doesn't do. Let's not even talk about the postmodern greeblies plastered over all the uninspiring do-it-the-cheapest-make-it-look-novel-and-artsy one-over-fives) is when affordable brutalist housing from places like Budapest or Belgrade looks straight utopian in comparison. These countries built all of that on the rubble of WWII, meanwhile the US with its unimaginable profit during WWII and prosperity afterwards opted for suburbanite hell that costs more to maintain than metropolitan areas and yet is entirely barren of amenities and culture.
I think that reading is more common that people appreciate, Spec Ops was just the first to make it obvious. I'm diving back into C&C Generals and it has a lot of the edgy cringy Call of Duty glorification trappings but it's cartoony, tongue in cheek, jumping the shark constantly! The freaking training mission ends with "Blow up the bio chemical weapons plant!!" and then all your soldiers who just did that turn into writhing blue gummi men as toxins spill out into an instant superfund site... All while orchestral victory music plays!!! Good god almighty.
I will never understand why spec ops is so famous for going "what if war was bad actually?" years after games like Metal Gear were making the same point in way less trite, obvious fashions. is it because the cod crowd won't play anything besides FPSes? is that why it blows their mind so much
The main question is: Who is the UAE government building all of these for? I mean Dubai is a tourist destination, but I don’t think your average Joe wants to go live in an overpriced city.
There is no real buyer, or they are bought by real-estate speculants. The island projects (the palm tree island and world islands) failed to sell, and even when somebody bought them never really lived there. UAE has so much excess money they can fund anything they want. Real return is very rarely a priority.
@@Debilinside You really have no clue what you're talking about. These projects are geared at residents who aim to live here for a long time, and although they'll never get citizen status, owning a property and having a job would allow them to stay here indefinitely. The world islands were a failure, but the Palm Jumeirah was an incredible success. Tons of people live there now, with property values going up. These projects might not have seemed like much when they were made, but Dubai doesn't just throw it's money to watch it burn. Some bad investments were made, but overall, it's currently reaping the rewards for the past 20 years of expansion, and trust me when I say the rewards are good. They're making a return on investment in just about every way.
Dubai is generally not over-priced. You get a lot more value for your buck in dubai then in europe, for example. Sure there are hotelrooms with gold toilets for 100k/night. But generally speaking, for 100 euro a night you can live in a beautiful hotel. Food in normal supermarkets is very cheap, transportation is very cheap ect. Buying homes is generally cheap. Im not saying these things ara "good" or sustainable, just pointing out its not an expensive city for the average person.
I’m pretty sure Dubai has a large population of European and American immigrants. In fact, I was born in Dubai while my parents were working there. I’d imagine it’s aimed at them
How about the fact that it is build in the middle of the desert. They are already draining the aquifers quickly there. Not attracting to many people to areas with low carrying capacity in the first place should be something to think of as well. Besides the aquifers they can only provide water through desalination plants which need a lot of energy to operate. Now guess how that energy is produced....
Adam, since you are all for high-density, how about the Cyberpunk 2077 megablocks? Outside of the extreme systemic poverty they appear to be surprisingly liveable in many ways. They shut out car traffic, offer shops and markets close by, are fully walkable and have public transit going directly into the block.
4:48 A pleasant surprise to see Ziegelhausen in this video, I used to live very close to it and spent loads of time there. Given its size I really wasn't expecting it in a video like this.
Its easy to be critical of something like this, when you don't realise what type of city Dubai is. It is mainly inhabited by foreigners (thus the building types that they would want). It is also a tourist destination hotspot, so ofcourse you have golf courses and ski fields and giant malls for the public. Its like talking about Vegas being environmentally friendly. Also desert temps of upwards of 45 degrees, celcius in the summer you cant just walk or bike to your local public transport
Adam, there was an interesting article on Telex yesterday, about why the continental train network is just a clusterfuck. I'd like to hear your take on it. It would make a good video or even a video series.
I feel sick when I think about the lost opportunity that has been squandered by Dubai. Could have been the mecca of modern advanced technopolis. But no, they wanted big American car cities *smh
It's possible that if the planners of Dubai were designing this for their own citizens, they might have considered high-density apartment buildings. But as Adam pointed out, this was designed for American [the word that Adam hates] who would be horrified either walking to or taking public transit from an apartment building to the Trump International Golf Club. About the word that Adam hates----he makes a very good point that taking away snobbery, "immigrant" is a better word than "expatriate", but ultimately immigrants and their children become part of their new country's population, and Dubai doesn't want that. As soon as the low-wage workers' contract expires, Dubai plans to kick them out and replace them with a new set of disposable workers. As for the other people with money buying all these houses? Dubai doesn't want them to "integrate" or become a part of their country. They expect the foreigners to eventually leave, and until they eventually do, Dubai makes it clear that they will never be considered "their citizens" even in the extremely unlikely scenario that the foreigners learn Arabic instead of English. So in this case, I think "expatriate" is altogether appropriate.
And what's the issue with having cars? They're amazing, they give you lots of freedom and they're fun to drive. The only people who hate cars are hippies and idiots.
your example at 4:25 seemed like a no-brainer, and in the US we could have done something like that with our shopping malls instead of tearing them down. Ring them with high density housing and add in healthcare and educational facilities to the existing structures and you've got a miniature, full featured city in itself.
In Tampa Florida, there is a stuggling mall called *University Mall* that tore down the original location of it's disused Sears store, and *turned the property and parking lots around it into an apartment complex.*
I don't know anyone who would want to live next to a mall, but conditions like these would make it far preferable to the housing situation for most of north america. Plus, it could bring back mall culture. Maybe I'm too young, but there's a sort of magic in the concept of communal consumerism all within one superstructure that just electrifies me. Wasn't the mall originally designed as a communal living space for workers? It would be delightful to see that concept revisited.
@@zuresei sounds lovely to me. It doesn't need to be consumerist, it could be a reworking of "Main Street" promenade hangout space with whatever you like in the storefronts. There could be a library instead of a department store, etc. Replace stores with community resources in a mall space and you have a mini village.
Seeing the superblocks from the air. Seeing the roads that once cut through them. It looks like someone has taken a knife to the city and left it permanently battle scarred. That's what roads do.
Seems like the "activities" would be more convenient if they were in the middle instead of on one edge. A community vehicle share program on the edges would be far better if they going to keep cars around to cut parking spots down. Plus better public transit would help to get rid of most spots that could in turn be more green space.
I agree with you. However, it would be better to have mixed developments, such as the first floor having stores/restaurants/cafes, and from the second floor and up, it could be apartments. So, you would end up with a place that's easily walkeable, which would have many people walking out on the street throughout most of the day. Also having trams and a subway are also good, along with buses. Usually, only the poor workers take the buses in Gulf countries - so having just buses is not a good idea in the Gulf.
There is an extra challenge with walkability in Dubai because of the high temperatures. A pedestrian street can become hot like a furnace if it's designed the wrong way, and then nobody would use it. The easy solution is the one they've gone for - that everyone stays inside their own climate-controlled car as much as possible when navigating the city. However, it's not a very sustainable approach, so they have to come back to walkability somehow - but the climate means they can't just copy whatever works in, say, Barcelona or Copenhagen. They'd have to basically reinvent pedestrian streets, which would probably involve putting up some sort of roof over them. That leads to all sorts of funny challenges of ownership and responsibility for maintaining these roofs, so it would be a social dimension to the experiment and not just engineering. However, I think Dubai has the money to run quite a few pilot projects and determine what works best. It only needs to give up the idea of the car, which is difficult.
"such as the first floor having stores/restaurants/cafes, and from the second floor and up, it could be apartments. " You mean like practically every apartment block in Dubai - they pretty much all have a shop, cafe, laundry & pharmacy on the ground floor. Buses also run every 10-15 mins. To encourage people onto buses, the stops are sometimes A/C.
@@zionismisterrorism8716 depends what you mean by affordable. The answer is yes for most of the office workers, including Asians, etc. Some places are concrete jungles, others do have parks and rest areas.
I've been awake for 48 hours, just about to go to bed, when I see it. The Adam Something video. Must consume Urban Planning Daddy's content. Sleep is for the weak.
Correction: Med density housing, not high density. High density is effectively skyscrapers and med density is typical netherlands housing and the commie blocks mentioned in the video
I'm not a fan of living in dense residential areas. In fact I just sold my apartment to move out of town. However this is just hilarious. This is for the directors and chairmen of Dubai based companies, the top ass kissers of the upper class, who may number in the few hundreds there. I bet it's over 10 million $ for one. You can build passive homes for a fraction of that in more intelligent places.
My brother and I live in a 62 sqm apartment. Apart from some minor gripes (a larger kitchen for two more cupboards and a larger shower cabin since I'm really tall) it's great here. I have no idea why people want to constantly live in a huge house, it's too much space to clean, maintain and regularly use. Our building is a modern commie block, and I have zero gripes. We have a garage but we don't even use it (we use it for storage) since I either walk, rollerblade, or take a bus, and my brother usually uses his escooter.
I want more from you, Adam! This is my first time I have subscribed to someone's channel and I think my first comment also on UA-cam. This should mean something to you :D Please, please do more videos.
HI Adam! Been watching your vids for a long time now and want to ask you a big question... What would your solution for hi-capacity housing look like and what amount of comfort would you allow while being cost effective and catering to your occupants? Arenas and transit are great, but what about convenient laundry services and groceries? Would love to hear your thoughts and see what solutions you have in mind. Cheers mate!
i understand the need for higher density living in theory but if i never have to live in an apartment again itll be too soon, and to say "this is the future!" is damn grim.
Building a city in the desert is ideal environmentally because it does not harm diverse ecosystems like rainforests. It has more plants than it had before and structures creates shade so it's beneficial in some ways. There is plenty of desert so no need for high density housing. Don't be so harsh just because not every place matches your ideal of what the world should look like.
Do people here genuinely like the idea of personally living in a high density apartment building? It's most likely a result of where I live and grew up, but the idea of living in a shoebox sized apartment surrounded by other shoeboxes is more depressing than having to drive to a decent supermarket (which is less then 10 minutes away anyway).
nobody likes shoebox sixed apartments. And most apartments are much bigger than them. The shoebox apartments are a thing in northamerica because of the zoning laws which constrict high density housing to a very small area in the city and force everyone to live in smaller and smaller flats( it is a different story in asia because that is because of poverty and it is either shoebox houses or homelessness). If you go to cities like amsterdam or such, almost all of the city is medium density, and the flats are much bigger and much cheaper. Being stranded in your own home unless you have a car is much more depressing to me at least. Especially when growing up, just being able to walking with your friends to shops to buy snacks, parks and playgrounds to play whenever we wanted instead of waiting for our parents to drop us there is a luxury I took for granted. And since the houses are nearer, more friends live in the vicinity of your house. And I forgot the BIGGEST advantage of high density housing, access to fresh food. We used to buy groceries everyday freshly or when we needed them. Having a supermarket even if it only 10 minutes away means that you don't buy that often and store a lot of food, and as a result, you the supermarkets also don't buy fresh produce because it is going to sit in your fridge for a week anyway and it doesn't make any difference. On the contrast if you have people that buy food everyday, they will only buy the fresh food and most stores source fresh food.
@@ritwikreddy5670 yasss slay it I live in a commie building and have enough room I dont feel dance at all I have everything I need 2 min walking distance mostly the only problem i have is that the people that live in the same building are garbage but thats more the culture of the countries fault
That depends on the design and architecture, if you build it just to c3am people, of course it sucks, but if there is any social idea behind it human living there, commie apartments arent too big but plenty. And not a shoecarton. Really fine livable. Comfy. And there are parks isually .
I live in a 62 square meter apartment with my brother. Our two bedrooms are large enough for two people to share them comfortably. The living room is also our dining room and is dominated with three couches, a TV, coffee table and our gaming systems. The whole apartment is very nice to live in, basically the perfect size. A kitchen that's a bit bigger would be nice, but this is just fine. Apartments of this size imho are basically what should be the predominant type we use. Out building is just a modern commie block, so it's still new and very nice to live in. We even have a giant window in the living room that gives a great view and lets in lots of natural light. The shoebox apartments you mentioned aren't the apartments from commie blocks. As someone else mentioned they are a whole other thing.
I live on 30m^2 in a high-density apartment building and like living there. My dream home would be a somewhat larger flat in a high-density apartment building in a better-designed part of town (I have to walk pretty far to the shops).
@@CZpersi I live in Dubai there’s metro and also a tram. by the way Dubai not that big to use trains for transportation.There’s many alternatives as taxis,buses most ppl use personal cars. Although for walking area around the city I don’t think if it’s a good idea due to the extremely hot weather cars will be better option.Or any air-condition transportation
I really wish I could go to places and copy and paste the idea of my local area as within walking distance of my house I have a supermarket (Asda) some newsagents a small shop(Tesco express), a shopping centre with resterants, both primary schools secondary schools and 2 colleges play parks and normal parks, a dying high street some takeaway plases. blocks of flats, single-family homes that are older than most residents. pub and grill, pubs a few places of worship, GP in a community centre. some public transport links
i remember seeing an ad for this place in school (i used to live in dubai). i can’t remember if it was when some person came and talked abt this place or if it was a presentation by someone in my class.
This is a country causing the largest man-made famine in Yemen. I do not know how people still deny this shit. Some people even have the gull to say Palestine and others like Lebanon and Syria all three of those countries past and present being destabilized by Western intervention/ funding of fascists (like America funding falange who were openly fascist and FSA in Syria). Hell, those countries are in worse positions because of these assholes in the Gulf. Almost every SWANA person not from the gulf (especially Palestinians, Iranians, Yemenis, and Syrians) hate the gulf. It is insane bc if Iran was doing any of the shit Dubai, Qatar, the apartheid state of Bahrain, etc. were doing they would be dead (if the sanctions are not already killing them).
Hey @Adam Something, I really like your content, it's great stuff. I wanted to know if you had any book recommendations for where I could learn more about urban planning and public transportation. Thanks 😊
i wonder what the air conditioning power draw for apartment buildings is in dubai? a lot of apartment buildings in hot countries are mass heatstroke death events waiting to happen if their cooling loses power
![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ORzNZUeUHAM/mqdefault.jpg)
![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](/img/tr.png)
I'm glad to announce that we built the FIRST non-sustainable, car dependent, non scalable, rich only, low density city.... I know it sounds bad, buuuuuuuuut at least we have solar pannels! :)
At least they tried. E for effort, F on everything else.
And trees!
To be fair the “city” itself is sustainable. But everything outside of it kind of isn’t
And we've named it, the Bay Area
And the food? Water? Actual nice nenvironment, plants?!
Dubai is the epitome of the saying "Money can't buy taste"
Nah mate, that's trump
@@pashadia That would be true if trump had any money lol. Anyway trumps taste is nowhere near as bad as Dubai’s leader.
Oh.. You obviously haven't been to the Philippines..👌😂😂😂😂😂
@@pashadia To be fair he's got a golf course that features in this very video.
IT CAN -= just ask Donald Trump.
My hot take prediction : Actual ecofriendly construction is inevitably going to look comparatively boring since a lot of what we think of as 'eco friendly' design is just a futurism aesthetic. Also it's going to have to be tied tightly to low/middle income development in order to shift a meaningful bulk of people over to a new paradigm and drive things like more walkable commercial areas.
One criticism of the university I graduated from was that they tried to "modernize" the decades-old buildings with renovations like glass-walled classrooms. The thing is, we live in a *tropical country,* and those classrooms would heat up like goddamn greenhouses unless we use air-conditioning, which adds to the electricity consumption and carbon footprint. Our "old, boring" rooms were *already* a fine example of "eco-friendly" engineering; they were designed to be airy and well-ventilated so that the rooms would be naturally cooled.
The low/middle income goal would be difficult to meet since most of these supposedly eco-friendly housing projects and cities are marketed to wealthy foreigners that can reinvest there (also for governments to say they're attracting investment to the city/country)
I mean eco friendly doesn't have to look boring, it just doesn't help that every modern day building design is just a cube or a spike. Hell, a cube doesn't even mean it's boring, so long as the owner actually does something to make it interesting, like plants growing on the walls or murals or sculptures.
@@abloodcorpse3318 you need to chop some trees for those sculptures or mix cement
This is so down to earth it's hardly a hot take at all
It's a damn reasonable point.
"Dubai is a tasteless parody of everything wrong with modern humanity" - Adam Something
And birds go tweet, your point? What else is a middle eastern tyrant gonna do, democratize and give up his oil $? I don't think so... Aka Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game... ;-)
@@stickynorth earth as we know it is doomed, and will remain that way unless the entire culture and mindset of humanity changes. I feel very powerless to stop any of this, and I feel like parks will one day be the only greenery left. /ramble
@@stickynorth democracy lol
@@sloth1277 earth? Earth is fine, humans are doomed
@spaks "people are happy" how do you know, there's no statistics or something, cause you know no free speech. Really doubt women in Saudi Arabia or slaves are happy.
A similar story is the Forest City is Malaysia. It is built with the idea of a futuristic, green city home to 700.000 people, located on articifal islands...in reality, it's a bunch of luxury apartments only affordable by chinese billionares, car dependency, golf courses, all you can imagine.
For my country is reclamation project in Jakarta. They don't have any reasonable argument why we need to build artificial island.
@@feisaljauharitufail oh that's only half the story
compared to this the green island is a decent project... green island has density, and it wouldnt be empty, if malayans not dissallowed foreigners (chinese) to own property. (afaik)
but yeah... either they build "sustainable" luxury appartments or "sustainable" luxury low density homes, while the poor half (in europe) has to pay 700€ for a energy efficiency category C or D flat from 1930s (if i get building ground, i can build u a passive standard appartment block which will have all the invests back in 25-30 years when renting same sized flat for 350...)
the real reason why everything goes to shithole, is the rich and the share of wealth they take for themselves in everything... capital costs are taking every possibility to redesign society, as every surplus we accumulate is owned by them, and they decide what to do with it. and of course someone who got rich is not ok with beeing rich, he has to be richer, so he invests and expects ROI.
Best part of it is that only 500 people live there currently while the population it can handle is freaking 700000 it's basically a useless mega project that cost 100 billion USD.
@@feisaljauharitufail especially considering that the sea level won't stop rising and all of it will be underwater soon anyway. Same here in Saint Petersburg, they keep reclaiming land from the sea near to the place where I live, and then they build giant dystopian ant hill - like houses there. Like they think the dam is going to protect us from the sea forever? 🤣 Not in the current state of the world!
Also I think an important point: Building new stuff is usually inherently environmentally unfriendly. Stuff should only be built where it's actually needed, not because you can like in Dubai.
Their Is one Question from me for Everyone of You that: Can we Build a planned city with population density of
120 000 people/Sq km and 20 Square Km area? And this city Should have all Things like Residential apartments ,Official Places, Parks, schools, Hospitals, Shopping districts and Some other public places.
@@kaiserwilhelmii1788 With that high of a population density you'd have all humans on earth on ~21.000km². I do not think that this would be a good idea.
@@kaiserwilhelmii1788 2,4 million people in a 5*4km area? I don't want to imagine it, it may be possible with skyscrapers but certainly not desirable.
@@BombaJead paris seems to do it just fine
@@oussama9183
That's 120,000/km^2, compared to Paris's 21,000/km^2. Even Manila, the most densely populated city in the world, only has 46,178/km^2.
most conversations around sustainability are more about greenwashing - companies that try to look trendy, or individuals who like to feel good about themselves without thinking
Same with Coca-Cola and 'healthwashing'
When the green energy is sus 😳
sus city
Putting a couple solar panels on a golf course and calling it a day
Can u no
post new clips man cmon
they even have a giant vent tower
Adam I really wanna hear how you would realistically redesign an existing city - i think it would be a super interesting video to see you talk aboutt (for hours even) how you would redesign a city like amsterdam, london, new york, moscow or wherever
isn't that basically his superblock video?
He can try with asian cities that are still in developing countries.
@@Fingrek Maybe tailored to a specific city and it's unique problems...
All of those cities are already pretty sustainable. Especially Amsterdam.
The real question would be how to redesign cities with urban sprawl, like Los Angeles
@@Mark-gt5uu uhhh not sure what you’re talking about considering those cities, barring Amsterdam, have huge amounts of noise, air, and ground pollution - they also highlight many of the things Adam mentions disliking - prioritizing cars over pedestrians and née york at least has failing public transportation.
"Dubai" and Adam ? Oh boy, here we go again
Nice profile pic
@@cool_bug_facts ah, hit em with the ol great replacement logic
I clicked so fast
Golf states Arc
Can't wait for the response videos to this one
5:04 I'm glad you used Barcelona as an example for this. The Eixample part has always been a wonder of city design and the public transportation inside the city is absolutely great, with always several options to go anywhere (being it Metro, Trains, Bus, Bikes, Taxis) and every option with not so much more than a few minutes of waiting.
Solar panels is the key baby. Just wrap solar panels around coal power plants, shopping malls, mcmansions, oil refineries and they're green and sustainable now. The gullibility of the masses is amazing.
People don't seem to realize that more environment-friendly housing will almost always mean a reduction in living space per capita. There is no way giving everyone a 120 square meter house is sustainable...
It's like electric cars. Yes, one electric car is very eco-friendly when charged with solar panels, but manufacturing an electric car for everyone is not sustainable at all.
Plus the manufacturing of solar panels also has a very heavy environmental impact.
The problem is not with the size of the house, but with transportation from and to the said house.
@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs communal kitchens are a nightmare tho.
@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs Sure and then some politician decides to lock you for months in your apartment... Pandemic already had huge impact on housing markets and population of large cities in USA.
@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs Because a single person isn't allowed to have overnight guests or entertain company apparently?
And that doesn't even get into the other issues of apartments/condos. I'm sorry, but literally every person I have ever spoken to has some horror story about multi-family living situations and purchased a single family home (or plan to) as soon as they were able.
the fact that i laughed at "suss city" really makes me question my life choices
sus continent
Same
When the city is sus
ඞ
The fact that they had tons of park space with grass and trees in the middle of their "sustainable" city in the middle of the fucking desert is so silly. You can have parks and plants they just have to be native species used to the climate.
As a person living in Dubai, I’d like to know your take on Deira. Especially since it’s more dense, older and walkable than the middle of desert projects.
Most cities built before the car are almost always more sustainable.
@@kody1654 most of Deira's development occurred well into the era of cars in the Gulf region. There's a reason why Deira and Bur Dubai are considered the heart of Dubai, instead of downtown and marina.
@@kody1654 Some of those cities were leveled in order to make room for cars, a prime example is 95% of cities in the USA
@@ThunderTheBlackShadowKitty Why? It's way better to live there than in your city.
I remember a lecture by an architect, who designed eco-friendly single family houses. I was amazed by many of his ideas and I was like:
"Can we apply these things to an apartment building like the one I live in?""
He said "If you live in an apartment building of any kind, your flat already at least 500% more eco-friendly and sustainable than the best house I ever designed."
yo do you remember his ideas? if so can you tell us lol
@@yo_tengo_una_boca6764 Nothing extra original. Heat pumps, solar panels, effective thermal design. The point is not that the ideas were bad. It's that building single-family homes is wasteful as is.
The greatest power-eater in any home is heating and air conditioning. And you can make The design as effective as you want, but a single-family house is still exposed to the outside from all sides. In an apartment building the flats heat each other in winter and insulate each other from heat in the summer. Not to mention that you need way less space and building materials per unit...
@@Posiman ly
@@Posiman And then there are swedes that build apartment complexes that are energy neutral, get energy from their own trash, the complexes are the tallest buildings using wood as structural elements. Apartment buildings can be even better.
@@NotADuncon "...build apartment complexes that are energy neutral, get energy from their own trash..."
You know that means garbage is being burned. That's not carbon neutral or whatever.
As a professor teaching about sustainable buildings, I cannot agree more.
Hello! I'm an electrical EIT taking his PE exam next year. I'm interested in building sustainability, and am interested in channels like this, and Strong Towns. I'm trying to learn more about how to cost-effectively repurpose existing infrastructure to undo bad city planning. Possibly to repurpose old factories with working facility panels for new projects.
Can you recommend some further reading/viewing I could look at?
I expect that you will be showing your students many of Adam's videos then, right Professor? ;)
As a contractor, building sustainable buildings for the last twenty years, I not only disagree with the comparison being made here.
I'm actually fearful that the premise of this video is dangerous to a broad adaptation of a "greener future".
@@sigi9669 I'd have to agree
Let me guess, you know nothing about the sustainable city, you’ve never been there and you get your info from clickbait videos.
Hearing Dubai and sustainable in the same sentence is enough to make me laugh.
Yes because America and Europe are the the pinnacle of sustainability uae literally is responsible to only 0.3 percent of the world's emissions, look I know your jealous and your life Is miserable but if you lived here you'd be like " best country in the world" but sadly you don't have the funds to do that
@@webguy8497 1: lashing out like that is childish. You are nobody to me and your existence and thoughts are mere dust under my heel. This hints you may live there and are quite wealthy, and I wonder where your higher education is.
2: Indoor ski slopes ? In a desert ? If thats not madness, call me mad.
@@webguy8497 And on top of that France, where I live, is mostly powered by nuclear reactors, considering this world where energy demand constantly increases, nuclear seems like one of the only viable sources of power that can meet the ludicrous demand.
raising a family in an apartment is a nightmare though
@Jack Snyder he is saying that single family homes are bad as a concept. ofc the luxury ones might be too much, but everyone cannot be living in apartments either
Conclusion of this video: Suss City is Pretty Sus
Amongus
AMOGUS 🤯🤯🤯🤬🤬😈😈💩💀👽💖❤🚨🚨🚨
you're not funny
@@popeclementxi7303 that's the point.
@@popeclementxi7303 Sussy as hell
Dubai and Abu Dhabi are basically playing Cities Skylines under unlimited budget
Under Ponzi scheme*
Me: *sweat*
Wdym?
It really isn’t
because we can 🥳🥳 our country is 50 yrs old we can try and try and try as much as we want because we can.. it took the us and europe slaves from africa and a lot of years and they still not even close to sustainable or have a decent infrastructure 😂
To be sustainable we need to use the buildings we already have, building more doesn't help limit the carbon especially since it there wont be as many residents. Also those buildings look like prisons.
As an environmental psychologist I actually disagree with the idea of high density building above all costs. The blocks shouldn't be more than 4 stores high and Barcelona is a great example of how can you efficiently have a city like that. Commie blocks are more than often alienating and disconnecting their owners from the city around them. They were a great temporary solution but it shouldn't be an example of what we want in our cities. They are huge, hideous and lack identity even more than those ridiculous solar panel villas in the desert.
I agree. Here in germany, everything past 5 floors is associated with lower-class. In areas with shrinking polulation, many blocks have been shrunk to 3-4 floors instead of razing them. Others have been removed and replaced with large areas of single family houses. Imho, the former version looks nicer for a city district and is a friendlier place to be in.
4 seems to be the magic number, because that's what most humans can easily walk up without needing a shower immediately after :)
@@andreewert6576 It's also related to our line of sight and evolutionary fitness - anything taller than that is more anxiety inducing than landscapes of lower buildings. Both for residents and the passerby.
@@alexlubinski7795 i'd even bet shadows play a huge part in it. Build too high and the sun never hits the ground between two buildings or the windows on the bottom half. Depressing AF.
I think we may be skipping a few steps in the hierarchy of needs. Social and Aesthetic aspects should be addressed after the fact. The problem would be the lack of follow through, or plans from which to follow through. Build the thing, now ignore the thing, do not innovate on the thing. Do not maintain the thing.
@@MrDevonZaehler I think this is the case for most of Eastern Europe. Commie blocks are still in use well past their "expiration date" and not properly maintained apart from the front facade makeovers.
I would love a video about the best cities, on ubran planning, eco friendly etc. I think we all know that rich cities like dubai are built for image and nothing more. I wanna know which countries and cities do the best job.
Most cities in western Europe are fine, although you'd have to be careful about some places
Watch Not Just Bikes. His contempt for car-centric cities anywhere is hilarious and he praises Amsterdam and other cities in the Netherlands constantly.
Yeah it's fun the see some good examples or something that gives you hope. Too bad negative videos probably bring in more views..
Does loads of videos comparing the Netherlands to Canada and America
The white ones, duh
as a Hungarian, I cannot express how much I appreciate your content.
I would appreciate it anyway, but with regular Hungarian examples, it just feels like an extra treat everytime you post.
Adam is actually a Hungarian himself, but currently living in Germany.
Gotta give some appreciation to Hungarians for giving us Adam Something
yes I know he is a Hungarian.
We are always told to be proud of our athletes and Nobel prize winners but I stan Adam Something.
🇭🇺!
Maygar strong!!!
@@paulstenberg3915 weren't they Austrian puppets for 1000 years?
I live in Dubai. There are many challenges that we face when it comes to residential area design. The on foot / no car thing doesn't work here at all because its a desert and its very hot most of the year, and even if u add shade, the wind will cook you alive. The roads are a problem in UAE, and public transport routes are really unacceptable in some cases.
I was under the impression this was an experiment in regards to grey and black water management. It uses a re-envisaged, ancient passive technology. It purposes grey water via cooling domes (aka; Yakhchāl ), to cool the housing. Highly ingenious tech!
Also, I believe they needed the housing ,for sale, to be villa's, in order to help finance the prototype project
I'm not saying you aren't right, but, I think it needs a little more in depth discussion before condemning so strongly.
That sounds interesting but that bit about reimagining also sounds like a red flag that it’s a con. When Centuries-old technology is good …just use it. Like concrete. Simple. So, what’s this “re-imagining”? I’m cynical enough to guess that it’s no different than the solar panels which is just window dressing, as we Americans say.
@@JoeOvercoat re-envisaging, not reimagining. They have taken the ancient Afghan Yakhchāl. which uses convection to make ice in an arid environment. Then using modern techniques, repurposed it as a central PASIVE, low energy, AC plant... I haven't seen this used like this anywhere else and I think that's pretty developmental and very ingenious.
Also, what's wrong with solar panels??
@@rw9207 they aren't very good, hopefully in the future they can be better, but they are expensive, last for only 20 years and don't produce a great amount of energy
"Somehow, my idea of sustainability isn't a luxurious, energy-efficient gated community built in a petro-monarchy. I'm weird like that" - Thanks for that laugh-out-loud moment!
I always love when you use Hungarian examples to roast everything else
Yeah like that's the solution to all world problems...
@@hoedenbesteller No but it's enjoyable to us Hungarians. People love to complain about everything around here, but there's plenty about Hungary that just works and makes life livable here. And because most English-speaking folks seem to know next to nothing about Hungary, when Adam talks about it, chances are y'all will learn something new - about Hungary, but also about some solutions to some of the world's problems.
Tell me something good about Hungary, Romania or Bulgaria during the last 30 years?
Adam chose the examples because he is familiar with the situation there. Not because we he wants to please the ego of some ultranationalist form Hungary.
Moreover, the examples he gives are found all over the eastern block, built by the communist regime.
Catalin Soare Yeh you are right, but it is a good example. Hungary won't ever be good unless Victor Fucking Orban goes to hell.
@@hoedenbesteller
Well, not a magic solution to World's problems by any means; but it does show what a horrifying dystopia contemporary profit-motivated capitalist urban planning (with apartments sold at a premium, and dressed up for marketing's sake with petroleum polymer paneling that only entraps moisture and fuels funeral pyres - things that naked concrete doesn't do. Let's not even talk about the postmodern greeblies plastered over all the uninspiring do-it-the-cheapest-make-it-look-novel-and-artsy one-over-fives) is when affordable brutalist housing from places like Budapest or Belgrade looks straight utopian in comparison. These countries built all of that on the rubble of WWII, meanwhile the US with its unimaginable profit during WWII and prosperity afterwards opted for suburbanite hell that costs more to maintain than metropolitan areas and yet is entirely barren of amenities and culture.
Your videos are great for clearing up the inefficiencies in modern city design, especially in america
"Discourage car ownership"
This isn't going to end well.
Just encourage public transportation is ok
Fun fact, Potemkin villages had more purpose and were generally better designed than suss city
Also, the original Potemkin village had basically a low carbon foot print by design, if anything.
You have to review "Spec Ops: The Line", that game perfectly uses the corrupt soulless husk of a city that is Dubai as the setting
Do you feel like a hero yet?
I think that reading is more common that people appreciate, Spec Ops was just the first to make it obvious.
I'm diving back into C&C Generals and it has a lot of the edgy cringy Call of Duty glorification trappings but it's cartoony, tongue in cheek, jumping the shark constantly! The freaking training mission ends with "Blow up the bio chemical weapons plant!!" and then all your soldiers who just did that turn into writhing blue gummi men as toxins spill out into an instant superfund site... All while orchestral victory music plays!!! Good god almighty.
Spec Ops also has a good solution to all of Dubai's problems.
Destroy Dubai.
That sandstorm was a blessing.
I will never understand why spec ops is so famous for going "what if war was bad actually?" years after games like Metal Gear were making the same point in way less trite, obvious fashions. is it because the cod crowd won't play anything besides FPSes? is that why it blows their mind so much
What made you pick Ziegelhausen near Heidelberg in Minute 4:55. My Grandpa used to live there and it was a surprise to see the town in your video.
2:36 dude holy shit imposter city??!! Among us??!!
why dubai is a parody of the 21st century part 2: environmental boogaloo
The main question is: Who is the UAE government building all of these for? I mean Dubai is a tourist destination, but I don’t think your average Joe wants to go live in an overpriced city.
There is no real buyer, or they are bought by real-estate speculants. The island projects (the palm tree island and world islands) failed to sell, and even when somebody bought them never really lived there.
UAE has so much excess money they can fund anything they want. Real return is very rarely a priority.
@@Debilinside You really have no clue what you're talking about. These projects are geared at residents who aim to live here for a long time, and although they'll never get citizen status, owning a property and having a job would allow them to stay here indefinitely. The world islands were a failure, but the Palm Jumeirah was an incredible success. Tons of people live there now, with property values going up. These projects might not have seemed like much when they were made, but Dubai doesn't just throw it's money to watch it burn. Some bad investments were made, but overall, it's currently reaping the rewards for the past 20 years of expansion, and trust me when I say the rewards are good. They're making a return on investment in just about every way.
Dubai is generally not over-priced. You get a lot more value for your buck in dubai then in europe, for example. Sure there are hotelrooms with gold toilets for 100k/night. But generally speaking, for 100 euro a night you can live in a beautiful hotel. Food in normal supermarkets is very cheap, transportation is very cheap ect. Buying homes is generally cheap. Im not saying these things ara "good" or sustainable, just pointing out its not an expensive city for the average person.
I’m pretty sure Dubai has a large population of European and American immigrants. In fact, I was born in Dubai while my parents were working there. I’d imagine it’s aimed at them
Actually they are building to try enticing right Americans and rich Europeans to immigrate there. That is all :)
2:38 suss city. Just suss city
adam something is an absolute legend...you are a breath of fresh air and incredibly well put together video! Honestly deserve millions of subs!
Seeing "Dubai" and "Sustainability" together in the title of an Adam Something video is a sign I'm about to watch something good
Dont forget the taglines: "Elon Musk, Monorails, White Statues, Republicans, and Soviet Block!"
*When the city is sustainable!!!*
upon hearing him refer to it as a "sus city" i started screaming and hyperventilating. i need help
It's called sus city cause it's a imposter pretending to be eco friendly
@@getajobmate1281 the sus amongus
Budapest can be called as Sustainable
@@kaiserwilhelmii1788 Does Budapest have wind turbines, solar panels, and net-zero fossil fuel usage everywhere in 2021?
How about the fact that it is build in the middle of the desert. They are already draining the aquifers quickly there. Not attracting to many people to areas with low carrying capacity in the first place should be something to think of as well. Besides the aquifers they can only provide water through desalination plants which need a lot of energy to operate. Now guess how that energy is produced....
"green" "dream" like from minecraft?
You talk a lot about “commie blocks” I’d like to hear your opinion on Singapore’s public housing estates.
Bangladesh vs Dubai, UAE neighbourhood ua-cam.com/video/_TEaabHHx7Q/v-deo.html you decide
Wait a few years the 50(or 90?) year lease will start expiring
@@jai-kk5uu 99. And its a good move to prevent property hoarding and ensure intergenerational wealth transfer, especially in land-scarce Singapore.
Maybe to much even without talking about the bad aspect of them.
Singapore housing is better than most developed countries as well
Adam, since you are all for high-density, how about the Cyberpunk 2077 megablocks?
Outside of the extreme systemic poverty they appear to be surprisingly liveable in many ways.
They shut out car traffic, offer shops and markets close by, are fully walkable and have public transit going directly into the block.
well even with the extreme poverty, its still more livable than west sydney
@@funnycatgaming8506 oath
@@funnycatgaming8506 fr brah I feel ya
You mean the fictional work of fiction that wasn't thought through because it's a rushed work of fictional fiction?
İts supposed to be poor area but everybody has high tech stuff and body cybernetics.
Thats some cool poverty right there
4:48 A pleasant surprise to see Ziegelhausen in this video, I used to live very close to it and spent loads of time there. Given its size I really wasn't expecting it in a video like this.
Its easy to be critical of something like this, when you don't realise what type of city Dubai is. It is mainly inhabited by foreigners (thus the building types that they would want). It is also a tourist destination hotspot, so ofcourse you have golf courses and ski fields and giant malls for the public. Its like talking about Vegas being environmentally friendly. Also desert temps of upwards of 45 degrees, celcius in the summer you cant just walk or bike to your local public transport
Adam, there was an interesting article on Telex yesterday, about why the continental train network is just a clusterfuck. I'd like to hear your take on it. It would make a good video or even a video series.
I'm aware of that, I've been going through the Investigate Europe reports about it. I definitely plan on covering it.
@@AdamSomething I’ve never seen you replying on someone
I feel sick when I think about the lost opportunity that has been squandered by Dubai. Could have been the mecca of modern advanced technopolis. But no, they wanted big American car cities *smh
Rel
No it couldn't have lol
It's a backwater country that struck it rich with oil
It's possible that if the planners of Dubai were designing this for their own citizens, they might have considered high-density apartment buildings. But as Adam pointed out, this was designed for American [the word that Adam hates] who would be horrified either walking to or taking public transit from an apartment building to the Trump International Golf Club.
About the word that Adam hates----he makes a very good point that taking away snobbery, "immigrant" is a better word than "expatriate", but ultimately immigrants and their children become part of their new country's population, and Dubai doesn't want that. As soon as the low-wage workers' contract expires, Dubai plans to kick them out and replace them with a new set of disposable workers. As for the other people with money buying all these houses? Dubai doesn't want them to "integrate" or become a part of their country. They expect the foreigners to eventually leave, and until they eventually do, Dubai makes it clear that they will never be considered "their citizens" even in the extremely unlikely scenario that the foreigners learn Arabic instead of English. So in this case, I think "expatriate" is altogether appropriate.
Amurrrica, FUCK YEA!!! 🇺🇸😎🇺🇲
And what's the issue with having cars? They're amazing, they give you lots of freedom and they're fun to drive. The only people who hate cars are hippies and idiots.
I just found this account and I can’t stop watching. This is great. Thanks Adam
Your videos on deurbanization helped me out in my german exam. Had to argue for or against it. Thanks man :)
Boys we did it
We have another DUBAI video
Time to eat POPCORN watching this.
Don't forget to thank the petro-monarchy that really made this video possible with their unending funding of faraonic stupidity.
your example at 4:25 seemed like a no-brainer, and in the US we could have done something like that with our shopping malls instead of tearing them down. Ring them with high density housing and add in healthcare and educational facilities to the existing structures and you've got a miniature, full featured city in itself.
In Tampa Florida, there is a stuggling mall called *University Mall* that tore down the original location of it's disused Sears store, and *turned the property and parking lots around it into an apartment complex.*
I don't know anyone who would want to live next to a mall, but conditions like these would make it far preferable to the housing situation for most of north america. Plus, it could bring back mall culture. Maybe I'm too young, but there's a sort of magic in the concept of communal consumerism all within one superstructure that just electrifies me. Wasn't the mall originally designed as a communal living space for workers? It would be delightful to see that concept revisited.
@@zuresei sounds lovely to me. It doesn't need to be consumerist, it could be a reworking of "Main Street" promenade hangout space with whatever you like in the storefronts. There could be a library instead of a department store, etc. Replace stores with community resources in a mall space and you have a mini village.
@@zuresei Well it might not be a mall, maybe they replace it with a transit station or smth? Or a local shopping centre?
You need a brain to understand that.
It would be cool if Adam did a video series on city building or how to solve issues in cities like congestion
It's like their city planners were playing Cities Skylines but hadn't unlocked public transportation and high density housing yet
2:25 sus cities 🙃
Seeing the superblocks from the air. Seeing the roads that once cut through them. It looks like someone has taken a knife to the city and left it permanently battle scarred.
That's what roads do.
Seems like the "activities" would be more convenient if they were in the middle instead of on one edge. A community vehicle share program on the edges would be far better if they going to keep cars around to cut parking spots down. Plus better public transit would help to get rid of most spots that could in turn be more green space.
1:52 how do you know where i live💀
2:45 Sus city? 😳😳
I love your urban planning videos!
The name had "SUS" built into it, whats there not to trust Dubai Developers.
Sustainable city : in the middle of the most unsustainable place on earth "a desert"
I agree with you. However, it would be better to have mixed developments, such as the first floor having stores/restaurants/cafes, and from the second floor and up, it could be apartments. So, you would end up with a place that's easily walkeable, which would have many people walking out on the street throughout most of the day. Also having trams and a subway are also good, along with buses. Usually, only the poor workers take the buses in Gulf countries - so having just buses is not a good idea in the Gulf.
There is an extra challenge with walkability in Dubai because of the high temperatures. A pedestrian street can become hot like a furnace if it's designed the wrong way, and then nobody would use it. The easy solution is the one they've gone for - that everyone stays inside their own climate-controlled car as much as possible when navigating the city. However, it's not a very sustainable approach, so they have to come back to walkability somehow - but the climate means they can't just copy whatever works in, say, Barcelona or Copenhagen. They'd have to basically reinvent pedestrian streets, which would probably involve putting up some sort of roof over them. That leads to all sorts of funny challenges of ownership and responsibility for maintaining these roofs, so it would be a social dimension to the experiment and not just engineering. However, I think Dubai has the money to run quite a few pilot projects and determine what works best. It only needs to give up the idea of the car, which is difficult.
Funny name
"such as the first floor having stores/restaurants/cafes, and from the second floor and up, it could be apartments. "
You mean like practically every apartment block in Dubai - they pretty much all have a shop, cafe, laundry & pharmacy on the ground floor. Buses also run every 10-15 mins. To encourage people onto buses, the stops are sometimes A/C.
@@aowen2471 Is it affordable? Is there plant-life and nature integrated into this as well?
@@zionismisterrorism8716 depends what you mean by affordable. The answer is yes for most of the office workers, including Asians, etc.
Some places are concrete jungles, others do have parks and rest areas.
I've been awake for 48 hours, just about to go to bed, when I see it. The Adam Something video. Must consume Urban Planning Daddy's content. Sleep is for the weak.
Damn right
Damn right
Damn right
Damn right
That’s a bit sad
Correction: Med density housing, not high density. High density is effectively skyscrapers and med density is typical netherlands housing and the commie blocks mentioned in the video
I wonder how many poop truck jokes there will be in this video
This video will be full of so much sh!!t that's *Going to have a 'Movantic Moment'* !
I'm not a fan of living in dense residential areas. In fact I just sold my apartment to move out of town. However this is just hilarious. This is for the directors and chairmen of Dubai based companies, the top ass kissers of the upper class, who may number in the few hundreds there. I bet it's over 10 million $ for one. You can build passive homes for a fraction of that in more intelligent places.
They’re doing the same in Tempe, AZ. It’s a smaller version of this. But at least it’s near the light rail lol.
I swear dubai looks like a city skyline city from someone that is playing for the first time
"SUStainable"
I for one, like to live in a apartment building with a usable area of 64 sqm. It's well isolated and has low gas and electric bills.
My brother and I live in a 62 sqm apartment. Apart from some minor gripes (a larger kitchen for two more cupboards and a larger shower cabin since I'm really tall) it's great here. I have no idea why people want to constantly live in a huge house, it's too much space to clean, maintain and regularly use.
Our building is a modern commie block, and I have zero gripes. We have a garage but we don't even use it (we use it for storage) since I either walk, rollerblade, or take a bus, and my brother usually uses his escooter.
Good Slave
@@hanz3967 so if you chose not to live in big house you are a slave? Can't see your argument being to valid without a proper explanation
@@gandalfwiz20007 You are so poor that you have to live in a 60 sqm chicken cage without own land
@@hanz3967 how do you know I'm poor? Maybe i also have 150 sqm house?
Always love my weekly 3 minute video by adam something
I want more from you, Adam! This is my first time I have subscribed to someone's channel and I think my first comment also on UA-cam. This should mean something to you :D Please, please do more videos.
0:29 "streets are cooled by wind towers" what? ok I'd never heared of these Persian windcatchers but they sound cool
Adam something : *makes a new video
Dubai: *sweats profusely
*
HI Adam! Been watching your vids for a long time now and want to ask you a big question... What would your solution for hi-capacity housing look like and what amount of comfort would you allow while being cost effective and catering to your occupants? Arenas and transit are great, but what about convenient laundry services and groceries? Would love to hear your thoughts and see what solutions you have in mind.
Cheers mate!
Basically most city in USA
SUS city? 😳 sussy baka amogus
I mean, the name is good
The city is pretty sus
i understand the need for higher density living in theory but if i never have to live in an apartment again itll be too soon, and to say "this is the future!" is damn grim.
Building a city in the desert is ideal environmentally because it does not harm diverse ecosystems like rainforests. It has more plants than it had before and structures creates shade so it's beneficial in some ways.
There is plenty of desert so no need for high density housing. Don't be so harsh just because not every place matches your ideal of what the world should look like.
Sand isn’t very attractive
@@DestroyerX2 It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
@@erikvanvelzen it also gets in your mouth and unsuspectingly eat it (I used to live in dubai but I moved here because of snow)
@@DestroyerX2 Replying to: Sand isn’t very attractive
Response: Antarctica is a desert. If you don't want sand, there's still Antarctica!
@@Anonymous-df8it I guess your right after 1 Google search
Do people here genuinely like the idea of personally living in a high density apartment building? It's most likely a result of where I live and grew up, but the idea of living in a shoebox sized apartment surrounded by other shoeboxes is more depressing than having to drive to a decent supermarket (which is less then 10 minutes away anyway).
nobody likes shoebox sixed apartments. And most apartments are much bigger than them. The shoebox apartments are a thing in northamerica because of the zoning laws which constrict high density housing to a very small area in the city and force everyone to live in smaller and smaller flats( it is a different story in asia because that is because of poverty and it is either shoebox houses or homelessness). If you go to cities like amsterdam or such, almost all of the city is medium density, and the flats are much bigger and much cheaper.
Being stranded in your own home unless you have a car is much more depressing to me at least. Especially when growing up, just being able to walking with your friends to shops to buy snacks, parks and playgrounds to play whenever we wanted instead of waiting for our parents to drop us there is a luxury I took for granted. And since the houses are nearer, more friends live in the vicinity of your house.
And I forgot the BIGGEST advantage of high density housing, access to fresh food. We used to buy groceries everyday freshly or when we needed them. Having a supermarket even if it only 10 minutes away means that you don't buy that often and store a lot of food, and as a result, you the supermarkets also don't buy fresh produce because it is going to sit in your fridge for a week anyway and it doesn't make any difference. On the contrast if you have people that buy food everyday, they will only buy the fresh food and most stores source fresh food.
@@ritwikreddy5670 yasss slay it I live in a commie building and have enough room I dont feel dance at all I have everything I need 2 min walking distance mostly the only problem i have is that the people that live in the same building are garbage but thats more the culture of the countries fault
That depends on the design and architecture, if you build it just to c3am people, of course it sucks, but if there is any social idea behind it human living there, commie apartments arent too big but plenty. And not a shoecarton. Really fine livable. Comfy. And there are parks isually .
I live in a 62 square meter apartment with my brother. Our two bedrooms are large enough for two people to share them comfortably. The living room is also our dining room and is dominated with three couches, a TV, coffee table and our gaming systems. The whole apartment is very nice to live in, basically the perfect size. A kitchen that's a bit bigger would be nice, but this is just fine.
Apartments of this size imho are basically what should be the predominant type we use.
Out building is just a modern commie block, so it's still new and very nice to live in. We even have a giant window in the living room that gives a great view and lets in lots of natural light.
The shoebox apartments you mentioned aren't the apartments from commie blocks. As someone else mentioned they are a whole other thing.
I live on 30m^2 in a high-density apartment building and like living there. My dream home would be a somewhat larger flat in a high-density apartment building in a better-designed part of town (I have to walk pretty far to the shops).
The real problem is there is no trains
Everything is better with trains! But seriously, would it kill them to use some of that oil money to build a tram/light-rail?
@@CZpersi I live in Dubai there’s metro and also a tram.
by the way Dubai not that big to use trains for transportation.There’s many alternatives as taxis,buses most ppl use personal cars.
Although for walking area around the city I don’t think if it’s a good idea due to the extremely hot weather cars will be better option.Or any air-condition transportation
Train network connecting all the 7 emirates is in progress in UAE.
Dubai in its entirety is horribly unsustainable.
It has no public transport except for a single rail.
It doesn't even have a sewer in most areas.
I really wish I could go to places and copy and paste the idea of my local area as within walking distance of my house I have a supermarket (Asda) some newsagents a small shop(Tesco express), a shopping centre with resterants, both primary schools secondary schools and 2 colleges play parks and normal parks, a dying high street some takeaway plases. blocks of flats, single-family homes that are older than most residents. pub and grill, pubs a few places of worship, GP in a community centre. some public transport links
I love the fact that Hungarian cities are mentioned in such popular videos so much. Congrats to your great channel!
He is magyer
@@mikeoxsmal8022 Yea, I know.
@@miklosgula7665 oh I 👀 👀
Had to pause to laugh and comment when I first heard "suss cities." Oh, Adam. You truly are Something.
Surely only a matter of time before Dubai hosts a Winter Olympics
i remember seeing an ad for this place in school (i used to live in dubai). i can’t remember if it was when some person came and talked abt this place or if it was a presentation by someone in my class.
Régen láttam egy ilyen jó minőségű csatornát, ami ilyesmi témákkal folgalkozik. Gratulálok, aszthiszem sikerült csinálnod egy nagyon jót.
Gondolom ismered, de a Not Just Bikes jó még nagyon, néha még ide is szokott kommentelni.
Yeah I love how anytime Dubai does something everyone fawns over it and I'm the asshole for pointing out that it was built on salvery
This is a country causing the largest man-made famine in Yemen. I do not know how people still deny this shit. Some people even have the gull to say Palestine and others like Lebanon and Syria all three of those countries past and present being destabilized by Western intervention/ funding of fascists (like America funding falange who were openly fascist and FSA in Syria). Hell, those countries are in worse positions because of these assholes in the Gulf. Almost every SWANA person not from the gulf (especially Palestinians, Iranians, Yemenis, and Syrians) hate the gulf. It is insane bc if Iran was doing any of the shit Dubai, Qatar, the apartheid state of Bahrain, etc. were doing they would be dead (if the sanctions are not already killing them).
Not much different than rich westerners, usually trust fund babies, that fawn over the ultra luxury middle eastern airlines.
Unlike western world which never colonized and looted the whole world.
@@prathameshpatil6888 So that makes it ok when gulf countries do it?
@@OctopusWilson Of course it doesn't.
Honestly your videos about cities are more informative than BM1 and more digestible
Hey @Adam Something, I really like your content, it's great stuff. I wanted to know if you had any book recommendations for where I could learn more about urban planning and public transportation. Thanks 😊
Literally called Sus City
I'm such a child I laughed at the name "Sus city".
The real question is: does it have plumbing to get rid of waste water?
i wonder what the air conditioning power draw for apartment buildings is in dubai? a lot of apartment buildings in hot countries are mass heatstroke death events waiting to happen if their cooling loses power
"Suss city" AMOGUS.