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Comment by lou1306 | Hacker News Reader

Since nobody has cited it yet, see Christopher's Alexander "A city is not a tree" [0] for an architect's take on "natural" vs. plannes cities.

[0]: http://worrydream.com/refs/Alexander%20-%20A%20City%20Is%20N...

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See also "Seeing Like a State" [0] by James Scott, which discusses a number of efforts to apply conveniences for the state upon populations, including cities in which to live, with varying degrees of success.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State

See also, also, this interesting but sometimes long-winded essay / review / examination of Seeing Like a State, and similar literature[0]. It's part of a series that goes through subjects like rationalism, narcissism, and tribal knowledge. Fair warning, it's almost the length of a novel!

https://samzdat.com/2017/05/22/man-as-a-rationalist-animal/

See also, also, also, Scott Alexander's take on "Seeing Like a State". Like always, both funny and insightful.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/16/book-review-seeing-like...

Wow I enjoyed this essay. I'm enthusiastic about graphs, and have spent a few dinners with my girlfriend imagining designing our perfect city. I didn't expect to run into a well-written article at the intersection of those topics.

For anyone interested, the ethos of our dream city is walkability. High density, mixed use buildings. The main "streets" are walking and biking only, with limited roads for service vehicles. Public parking and transit at the city edges allow people to leave their car behind when visiting.

Your city sounds very unfriendly to people with disabilities, that are out of shape, or temporarily disabled that does not allow them to bike or walk (think having surgery on your leg, undergoing chemo, etc). I would at least have a tram, trolly or cable car, some type of green transportation that can get you from A to B quickly.

Perhaps there could be a subway system (complete with elevators) under, at least, the inner portion of OP's imaginary city?

It's a pretend city, but I hope it would be much better for people with disabilities. Mixed use means short trips. Actual decent public transit on the service roads for longer distance.

Vauban in Germany is somewhat like this, with the addition of trams.

I guess there would be no winters in this city.

NYC has winters, and I never even thought of driving in Manhattan.

There are many ways to make a city walkable in winters, but for the most part, density suffices: the city acts as a shield and a heater.

As for having public transport at the edges of the city only - not a problem if that boundary is never too far.

For some part, Moscow has embraced this idea, with the so-called transportation "rings" (highways and subway) encircling the city - but they do branch inwards.

My dream city is one where the building layouts are not densely placed, where easements are quite large to accomodate both wider roads and greater parking area, where everyone drives a motor vehicle, where every 'intersection' is an over/under like freeways are so there are no intersection signals and flow is nearly always constant. A city where pedestrians have no easy access to putting foot on roadway, and where bikes are not allowed on roads for being an impediment to motorists. Also this city would have 24-hour public transport.

I thought I was going to hate this essay but it was wonderful.

He discusses the graph structure of a city: it should be a semi-lattice and not a tree, and there we agree entirely.

But a city should be a tree in the sense that it's an organic structure that iteratively improves in response to local knowledge, rather than a centrally planned crystal that assumes perfect foreknowledge of needs.

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