I keep seeing photos of urban renovation in countries other than my own and marveling at the fact that even the "before" photo looks better than most streets in my city.
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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Over 20 years ago I moved from my native Portugal to The Netherlands.
Then over time I've moved backwards in this - in the sense of moving to countries with progressivelly worse urban planning and increasing pro-vehicle mindsets - first to Britain, then back to Portugal.
It's pretty infuriating when you actually know first hand how it feels to live in a place that doesn't put cars uber alles and are now living in one where its painfully obvious in everything from urban planning to how drivers tend to break mostly the rules that are there to protect pedestrians, that you're in a society which at least in this has a mindset from 40 years ago.
You don't even need to go live somewhere else; just visit.
I'm from Canada and went back to visit Germany and Belgium a few months ago. I already went to Germany and the Netherlands a few years ago and just used the trains. I had no fixed itinerary and was deciding where to go a day in advance before buying a train ticket to go there. It was obviously fine (most of the time) but because of how trains "work" here, I was anxious about buying tickets a day in advance, thinking it was "last minute".
Then while I was in Belgium I had to plan a train ride in Canada a week later, and there was no affordable tickets left. I was sitting in Liège, and just bought a train ticket to Bruxelles that was departing in the next hour... while trying to book a train a week in advance in Canada, and failing to do so.
Every time I have to use a train in Canada, or just any kind or intercity service, even a coach, I'm painfully reminded of how bad it is here.
This is Haussmannien architecture, it looks pretty and unfiform because the prefect of Napoleon III in the 19th century got the permission to destroy most of the shitty medieval districts with poor people inside and build good looking housing with modern accomodations for rich people instead. That's largely why Paris is pretty today.
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Letting cars into cities was a mistake from the beginning. Cars should be required to park on parking lots or garages at the edge of the city. The only large motorized vehicles allowed within cities should be trains, buses driven by professional drivers, and delivery vehicles limited by governors to the speed of a bicycle. The only forms of motorized personal transit allowed should be e-bikes and scooters that can travel no faster than a human-powered bicycle is capable of traveling. Cars should be used only for getting between towns and cities, not for traveling within them.
While this is nice, I do not really see any places where one can now cross the street?
Some cut-outs for pedestrians would probably be helpful for people who need to access a building on the other side.
Rue du Dr Paquelin was pedestrianized so crosswalks aren't really needed.
I don't mean crosswalks, I mean places where people can cut through the greenery to get to the "road".
As it stands now I don't see a way for people to actually get to the other side of the street.
Maybe they exist, but I don't see them in the picture..
Oh, I see what you mean. You're right, if there's a path through the bushes it's not obvious.
I think you see the start of a path halfway down the road on both sides
Maybe they should have just treed the middle of the road and left the outside free for movement?
You mean like access front doors of buildings? It looks like they block everything.
I think the old sidewalks are still there on the other side of the bushes. There is certainly space for them.
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Yeah. I'd do more little islands instead, which would also give space for other stuff, like benches or other seating areas, bike racks, etc.
Move the road over to one side, and give double space for greenery on the other side.
Then you can add benches, playgrounds, etc.
Still.. As it currently stands it is an improvement over what came before
Definitely agreed. Strictly better than cars, but there has to be something we're missing here, else this is a huuuge pain in the ass for literally no reason.
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I wanna punch the voice that says "but won't the homeless sleep in the bushes?"
This looks great, but I feel like the trees might become a problem to the adjacent buildings when they mature, unless they’re the type of trees that only grow tall and skinny?
I have similar trees in front of my apartment building and I love them, they make me feel like I'm living in a tree house in the summer.
Not every tree essence grows as much as oak. I know some linden trees, older than I am, that were pruned properly one or twice a year and have kept a manageable size. I think hackberry tree don't get much thick with time and there essences of tree that are chosen to be put in the street because they don't grow that much in European climate.
Street trees are trimmed regularly in France when it's needed. People enjoy to see the green and the added privacy when it reaches their windows.
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It took two years to do the transformation. Do you think it'll be difficult to do another transformation when the time comes?
Nobody wants to cut down trees once they've grown.
Dude, there are whole industries based on cutting down trees once they have grown.
What are you smoking? ... can I have some?
Cities don't want to pay for that. No one is backing logging equipment down a Paris side street.
But yeah, it's not an issue. I'm sure people planted trees knowing they get bigger. Lemmings just like to point to obvious issues as if no one thought about them.
They are. All cities contract arborists on a regular basis. You don't need massive machinery, just a person with ropes and a chainsaw, some ground crew and smallish truck and maybe a chipper to remove the wood.
(Source: have worked as ground crew before.)
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Were I live there is a tendency to put trees in holes (about 1m wide) on the road side of the sidewalk - which puts them at least 1m away from the houses, generally more - and unless they get really tall (20m + tall) their roots are only really a problem for the sidewalk itself (which gets raised and bumpy) and even in this it depends on the kind of tree (so, for example, pine or oak are a problem but not orange trees).
I don't remember even seeing even the kind of brick wall that might surround a property cracked due to such nearby trees, much less actual buildings. Mind you, buildings over here are made of brick and concrete and have actual foundations.
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This genuinely made my day
If you've ever read Mistborn one of my fav things in that book is that all trees have to be fruiting trees in cities, so that cities naturally produce food in case needed. I always liked that idea.
In the bottom photo I kept scanning for Will Smith and his german shepherd
He couldn’t be in the photo because he was too busy taking his underaged son to P Diddy’s sex parties.
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