Every week we read more than we can write about on the blog. To avoid letting good commentary and research fall by the wayside, we’re going to publish weekly excerpts from what we’ve been reading.
Jennifer Kent, “Higher-density living can make us healthier, but not on its own“, The Conversation:
There are potential health benefits associated with higher-density living, but these benefits depend on several other variables. A review commissioned by the Heart Foundation identified three key factors.
First is the quality of infrastructure in the surrounding neighbourhood and region. Higher-density housing needs to be situated among public transport networks, jobs, schools, shops, services, open space and active transport infrastructure.
Second is the quality of construction and management of the homes themselves. It has been far too easy in Australia to provide higher-density housing that is poorly sited, badly built, and ineptly managed. It is also far too easy to forget that density means diversity – it includes detached and semi-detached housing, townhouses, low- and mid-rise apartment buildings, as well as high-rise.
Third is the social and cultural make-up of the community that is living in higher-density places. We mentioned that healthy built environments need people to make them work, and people are sometimes frustratingly brilliant in their diversity. Indeed, success depends on the capacity of new and existing communities to adapt to different ways of living, working, travelling and socialising. This makes it difficult to make realistic generalisations about the impact of density on human health.
Barnaby Bennett, James Dann, Emma Johnson, and Ryan Reynolds, Once in a lifetime: unofficial versions, Public Address. This is an excerpt from a recent book on the Canterbury earthquakes and slow rebuild:
It began with a sharp jolt at 4:37 a.m. on 4 September 2010. Radio New Zealand shifted to their emergency broadcast (which unfortunately was the Beach Boys’ song Good Vibrations) and a collective thought emerged from New Zealanders that would be repeated endlessly over the next few years: ‘Christchurch isn’t supposed to have big earthquakes.’
When dawn rose and the dust settled after this first quake in September, it felt like a bullet had been dodged. The damage was significant; buildings were evacuated; there was talk of widespread demolition. Yet somehow, almost magically, no one was killed.
The quake altered the political landscape, and the previously unpopular mayor Bob Parker surged to a second term in the November local body elections. Local MP and Minister Gerry Brownlee was given the new role of Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery (CER), and Parliament passed the first version of the CER legislation to enable a coordinated response to the destruction. Little did these leaders or the people of Christchurch know what was still to come.
Press Association (UK), “More people cycling in London than ever before“, The Guardian:
Record numbers of cyclists are pedalling their way around the capital, according to Transport for London (TfL), which said cycling levels were 10% higher in the three months to December than in the same quarter in 2013, and were the highest since records began in 2000. By the end of 2014/15, TfL forecasts a 12% rise from the previous financial year.
Last year was also a record for the number of hires from London’s cycle hire scheme, with more than 10m journeys made – up 5% on 2012 (the previous highest year) and 25% on 2013.
The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “Last week I announced my final intentions for the new east-west and north-south superhighways. These amazing numbers show how cyclists are becoming ubiquitous in London and prove, if further proof were needed, why we need to crack on with catering for them. Barclays Cycle Hire continues to grow in popularity and there can be no doubt that our trusty bicycles have changed the way people get around our great city.”
Anne Gibson, “Wellington factory set to pump out prefab homes“, NZ Herald:
New Zealand’s first factory turning out finished houses has opened in Wellington, aiming to produce up to 500 places annually.
Sean Murrie, Matrix Homes chief executive and director, said Finance Minister Bill English yesterday opened the 8000sq m Trentham factory in the former General Motors assembly plant.
“People are building components of houses, then assembling them on the site. But the whole thing here is we’re turning fully finished houses with code compliance certificates,” Murrie said. […]
Module costs
• $89,000: 51sq m, one bedroom.
• $99,000: 70sq m, two bedrooms.
• $195,000: 140sq m, 4 bedroom, 2 bathrooms.
• Transport costs: $10,000 in Wellington, $20,000 in Auckland.
• Piles are included in Wellington transport costs but not in Auckland. Pile costs for Auckland are an extra $3000.
Worldbuilding Stack Exchange, “Why would people in 500+ years be using waterways for transport?” Some top answers:
Today we ship by water. 500 years ago we shipped by water. 500 years before that we shipped by water. 500 years before that we shipped by water. Its a good bet 500 years from now we still will. – GrandmasterB answered Feb 2 at 21:03
We’d send things by ship for the same reason we do today. It’s cheap. It’s not likely that individuals, corporations, or governments of the future would not be motivated by the cost savings associated with transport by ship.
Unless there is some magical energy source in the future that makes energy free, or nearly free, in terms of monetary and environmental costs we will likely always use waterways where possible.
Without this energy source, it may be that, after peak oil, fuel will be so expensive that transporting cargo by aircraft will be prohibitively expensive. So people of the future will look at photos of cargo planes and think that we are the crazy ones. – Samuel answered Feb 2 at 21:01
Bob Dey, “UP8: Crucial question: Who will control land release?“, Bob Dey Property Report:
The key question about how greenfields land will be rezoned under Auckland’s unitary plan is: Who controls it, council or developers?
The second question is how infrastructure for rezoned land can be put in place before or as it’s needed, not after.
And the third is: How will it be funded?
The first of those questions is one for the independent panel hearing submissions on the unitary plan. The second has been mentioned by council people from time to time, but without a proposition being brought forward. And the third, on funding, has to be considered if the order of infrastructure provision, or the supplier, changes.
Urban Kchoze, “Highways and boulevards: A capacity-cost analysis“:
Cyclists and pedestrians are outright banned from highways, even if they did want to travel there (and they wouldn’t). Highways create a big wasteland around them to achieve object clearance zones (or recovery zones), and their high speed favors distant, sprawled out developments that means that even if you decide to build footpaths or bike paths alongside them, no one would use them.
As to transit, though buses can certainly travel on highways, they cannot SERVE them. Vehicles are not supposed to stop on highways unless they have a malfunction. And even if they could, highways are off-limits to pedestrians. AND even if they weren’t, highways rarely have walkable developments at interchanges, so the use of such buses would be limited, if not completely inexistent. So only express buses traveling long distances can really use highways.
Still, you can use highways for express buses, shouldn’t that count? Well, no. Because you can do the same with boulevards too.
So what does this mean? This means that the capacity of highways for transit is 0, for bikes is 0, for walking is 0. But boulevard, as they are space efficient and closer to developments, can easily support all these modes of travel.
So in the end, a proper comparison leads to this graph, comparing a 4-lane boulevard with a standard high-frequency bus line and bike path, a 4-lane boulevard with a high-frequency articulated bus line and bike path, a 4-lane boulevard with a tram using 2 of these lanes (thrown in just for fun) and a 4-lane highway:
Comparison of capacity between different boulevards and an highway