Seems like a good path forward would be to have a civilized and cultured planning board approving new development that is both humane and beautiful (as opposed to soulless corporate schlock). It can be done -- Amsterdam- or Greenwich Village style townhouses offer incredible density in a humane form, and developments like Poundbury show that new can be good.
Unfortunately, most architects and developers (except, in New York, RAMSA) are schooled in the Corbusian model of psychotic totalitarianism, so the general public naturally associates "new" with "inhuman." Less than ideal situation.
"I’ve watched multiple New York neighborhoods go through the same cycle, starting out grim, then becoming edgy, then exciting and hip, then burgeoning into self-parody, and finally being crushed by monied mediocrity. That’s just the circle of urban life, and the desire to prevent it and enforce stasis is, deep down, a kind of refusal to accept that life *is* change, a fear and loathing of the future we are building that can only actually be answered by building a better one and not by fetishizing the past."
I don't know--maybe I'm too much of a Jane Jacobin at heart--but I want to believe that there are ways to accept the dynamism endemic to urban life without admitting that districts are doomed to be crushed by monied mediocrity. If there aren't ways for us to allow our districts to grow and change while herding them away from this doom, I'm not sure what the point of YIMBYism is.
Seems like a good path forward would be to have a civilized and cultured planning board approving new development that is both humane and beautiful (as opposed to soulless corporate schlock). It can be done -- Amsterdam- or Greenwich Village style townhouses offer incredible density in a humane form, and developments like Poundbury show that new can be good.
Unfortunately, most architects and developers (except, in New York, RAMSA) are schooled in the Corbusian model of psychotic totalitarianism, so the general public naturally associates "new" with "inhuman." Less than ideal situation.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1032084996230545408.html
https://www.traditionalbuilding.com/features/luxury-apartment-living-in-nyc
https://www.dorset.live/news/dorset-news/poundbury-where-king-charles-times-8282870
https://www.architecturaluprising.com/
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-architect-as-totalitarian
"I’ve watched multiple New York neighborhoods go through the same cycle, starting out grim, then becoming edgy, then exciting and hip, then burgeoning into self-parody, and finally being crushed by monied mediocrity. That’s just the circle of urban life, and the desire to prevent it and enforce stasis is, deep down, a kind of refusal to accept that life *is* change, a fear and loathing of the future we are building that can only actually be answered by building a better one and not by fetishizing the past."
I don't know--maybe I'm too much of a Jane Jacobin at heart--but I want to believe that there are ways to accept the dynamism endemic to urban life without admitting that districts are doomed to be crushed by monied mediocrity. If there aren't ways for us to allow our districts to grow and change while herding them away from this doom, I'm not sure what the point of YIMBYism is.