Posts by Tim Croft
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Hard News: Christchurch: Is "quite good"…, in reply to Ed Muzik,
Which is fine ... I agree with you, but long term?
I like Seattle's approach to this issue. They built the space knowing long term they would grow and need rail and subway lines so set aside the space but didn't initially build the lines or have the trains.
And that's what I'd like here: a long term acknowledgement that this is something that Christchurch may need to do. Riccarton Road is choking as is Blenheim Road at times. It may be tolerable now, but in the future rail as a necessity may be needed.
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I reject the idea that light rail is a bad idea. Or at least a long term provision for it.
$400 million: where does this number come from (yes, I'm aware it's been thrown around) but a rail connection from the airport, through to UC, then to Riccarton, past the hospital (and perhaps the cricket ground), new metro sports hub, then into the bus exchange (one block from the stadium) seems like a good idea. I might be naive but with park and ride (including biking) it could connect the university with the CBD and promote more people living in the CBD, especially if the government / city council promoted more mixed use building in this area and even worked with the university to achieve this.
I think actually one of the big problems here is a grand design rather than zoning. If the government / city council addressed some zoning issues (of things they would like in certain areas) rather than came out with grand projects this might have allayed some concerns.
But there's a bit too much of Peter the Great in this for my liking.
One of my main concerns with these grand ideas is there aren't any people living in this plan.
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And it seems a lot of property owners and developers who already had plans of their own have been blindsided by this much larger plan and, quite rightly, feel annoyed their views haven't been taken into account.
Not to go on (because I actually feel somewhat optimistic with some of it) but this is perhaps one of the biggest problems with planning: can you plan a city and expect it to function a certain way or do cities grow up organically (within the rules and regulations of zoning) and function the way people who live in them choose to have them function? I think the latter.
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Also, is it true, no light rail?
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I wonder what Jane Jacobs, whose excellent though somewhat dated book The Death and Life of Great American Cities might say about this plan?
There's a lot of only one primary use in each "hub" and this might create or renew some of the problems central Christchurch used to have, namely that it was empty at night. If there isn't a secondary use then each hub will become a dead zone when not being used for its primary function.
There's some mention, but not a lot, of mixed residential use and while the new green space around the city looks nice in the daytime I wonder what kind of space it will be at night if higher density residential buildings don't spring up around it.
And, finally, as Kristina Ford reiterates throughout her book The Trouble with City Planning: What New Orleans Can Teach Us residents actually need to know this is more than just another 100 day plan. Planning fatigue hasn't helped New Orleans.
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Which Jon Stewart has, of course, made fun of.
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There's also this, um, bizarre conspiracy theory about the logo.
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The January 6 episode of This American Life, "Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory," (#454) is well worth listening to as a compliment to the NY Times article(s).
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I moved from New Zealand to the U.S. for graduate school in August 2001 and have been here almost 10 years, so this brings an odd feeling of closure. I remember waltzing onto planes, security free, back then. Since then I've repeatedly been taken out of line and searched when boarding a plane when carrying a NZ passport. I doubt things will change. But the U.S. is in a unique position to move on.
It seems the White House is thinking of releasing the photos of his dead body, but can someone explain how on earth this will give further closure? Surely it will martyr his image.
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The Crusaders' jersey? Seriously? A sword on the front?