[HN Gopher] A Dutch city testing the future of urban life ___________________________________________________________________ A Dutch city testing the future of urban life Author : lelf Score : 123 points Date : 2022-05-09 14:43 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com) | theYipster wrote: | Ah, Almere... The Irvine, CA of The Netherlands! :) | | (NB: I have a good friend in Almere and I live in Irvine.) | sandworm101 wrote: | >> Around 60% of Oosterwold is set aside to support "urban | agriculture", cutting the climate-change impact of food miles | | I don't see how this helps. An urban farm is not nearly as | efficient as a true industrial farm. They don't have the | economies of scale. They are limited as to chemical use (both | pesticides and fertilizer) and have to deal with noise | complaints. Urban farms are also, nearly universally, fed by | potable water sources which can never scale to appreciable food | production (acre-feet rather than liters). If we actually want to | produce food near consumers, urban farms are not the way. It only | works using enclosed buildings, ugly industrial greenhouses, not | pretty little fields between condos. | kkfx wrote: | I'm curious about your measuring/reasoning: so far the _most | efficient_ cultivation I know is the classic elderly vegetable | garden. It can produce FAR more than large mono-cultures fields | per hectare with far less resources. | | For farming, surely we need space, poultry and rabbits are the | least needing animals but still demand space to produce their | own food, however again there is NOTHING more efficient than a | classic country home with some animals around: it do not need | third party fertilizers, the balance between animals manure and | cultivated ground means manure suffice, the resulting pollution | is very low, water usage sparse enough to be a non-issue in | most cases. Surely it can nourish a limited number of humans | PER FARM, but it's absolutely sustainable and effective. | | Urbs are not, we never ever have a sustainable city, we have | just some needs who justify them. But the rest you mention is | needed only for mass distribution, not for nourishing humans | but for nourishing business, in money, not in food, and we have | enough proof that that's totally unsustainable. Surely we are | too much for such classic approach, but we can handle that with | a SLOW de-growth pushing toward de-urbanization as much as we | can leaving just enough for certain kind of manufacturing and | other specific needs. | | The sparse small-scale industry is actually ECONOMICALLY | inefficient but far more sustainable, self-sufficient on scale, | at the human size. It's like a small countryside restaurant, | it's economically far less efficient than a modern fast food, | but suffice for their owner and satisfy their customers, only | managers and the companies behind them are unhappy. | sandworm101 wrote: | Space-efficient, energy-efficient, and labor-efficient are | three different things. A tiny "elderly" farm might create | lots of food per square-foot, but only through increased | labor. Too much labor and the farm simply cannot produce | enough to feed the workers working it. | eherot wrote: | Additionally, if this urban farm plot exists to the | exclusion of several stories of apartments, and those | apartments must instead be located further away from where | people want to be, the net carbon emissions (not to mention | the effect on housing prices) are definitely higher than | that of a regular rural industrial farm. | bryans wrote: | The USDA has a very different definition for "urban | agriculture" than your claim of simply "fields between condos." | | "Urban agriculture includes the cultivation, processing and | distribution of agricultural products in urban and suburban | areas. Community gardens, rooftop farms, hydroponic, aeroponic, | and aquaponic facilities, and vertical production are all | examples of urban agriculture." | | https://www.usda.gov/topics/urban | uoaei wrote: | Where has processing and transportation been included in your | informal analysis? You seem to be quite confident but have not | addressed these factors. | akamaka wrote: | Maybe urban agriculture doesn't work in theory, but in practice | the Netherlands already has many regions where productive farms | mingle with urban areas. For an example, have a look at a | satellite view of the Westland region, directly southwest of | The Hague. | Swizec wrote: | Where I'm from (Slovenia) it's a 20min walk from downtown of | the capital city to farms with cows. | | The trick is to not have suburbia. Go straight from urban to | rural. | mrsuprawsm wrote: | I'd add to your comment by emphasising that Westland is a | super intensive agricultural area with tons of dense | greenhouses, trying to eke out as much production out of a | small area as possible (and doing pretty well at it). | martincmartin wrote: | It's not cutting the climate-change impact of food. It's | cutting the climate-change impact of food miles. As you say, | overall it's making things worse, e.g. increasing the climate- | change impact of every other delivery but food. | nostrebored wrote: | But this is fundamentally flaws analysis. Lack of economies | of scale mean you have to analyze the production of food | bottoms-up. What's the cost of getting the resources needed | to each of these individual farms and to support the life of | people there? | | The thing people don't realize is that industrial farming is | actually extremely carbon-emission efficient. Even your food | coming from a container ship from halfway around the world, | transported via freight, and driven last mile in a semi is | less carbon intensive than getting a delivery from a local | (XX miles away) farm. | | This seems to be trivially true as well for an entire city of | inefficient farms with any expectation of modern amenities. | eecc wrote: | Uh, what? Please substantiate, I don't buy such statements | at face value | beembeem wrote: | Composting and rain water harvesting give you much of what | you need. Not much is needed from far away. | beebeepka wrote: | Guy is shillings for mono cultures in an article about | urban farming. Makes me think what their motives are. | sandworm101 wrote: | Food-miles sound good, but the reality of modern shipping is | that it takes far less energy to move food than grow it. The | carbon/energy cost of bringing a plant product from a hot | country to a cold country is far less than the energy needed | to grow that product in a cold country. That's why nobody | grows bananas in new york. We could, but the cost/energy to | do so is hugely more than the energy to ship bananas from | place where they grow easily. | | If we want to address global climate change, then we need to | look into minimizing total energy put into things like food. | Often that will mean growing things where they can grow most | easily, with the least amount of energy. A banana brought | thousands of miles by very efficient transport is more | sustainable than grown in an ill-suited climate through the | application of energy-expensive heat/light etc. Distance is | not everything. | uoaei wrote: | In-built into this comment is the implicit entitlement of | the globalist consumer: that we should have access to | anything we want at any time of year. But that doesn't | really need to be the case. Reducing food-miles by feeding | people locally-first would drop food-miles drastically, | possibly more than other proposals thus far. | | Minimizing total energy is indeed the name of the game. To | do that, we have to recognize that we may have over- | extended a little bit as a civilization, and to pull back | on some of the more hubristic enterprises like bananas in | Maine or avocados in Sweden during winter in the Northern | hemisphere. We can still have those things, but at a | minimum the costs for the consumer should reflect the costs | of transportation, including costs normally externalized | (excluded) from supply chain analyses. | belligeront wrote: | It's people that have the highest impact milage. We can pack | food tightly into a truck and they don't mind waiting when | the packing takes some time. | | We can't easily pack humans more densely into trucks, so | reducing their miles traveled has a much bigger effect (and | if the distances are shorter they can also walk/bike/bus | instead of single occupancy vehicle). | stouset wrote: | Regardless, the relative price of food is usually a | reasonable proxy for the amount of energy that went into | its production. If the food from the urban farm is more | expensive than equivalent food from an industrial farm, it | probably took more energy to produce (and consequently | probably released more greenhouse gases during its | production). | beaconstudios wrote: | > We can't easily pack humans more densely into trucks | | We basically can, with decent urban transit and rail | services. | patall wrote: | I do not think anybody is thinking of corn fields here. But | replacing spruce, plaintaint and ornamental chestnut with | cherry trees, walnuts and edible chestnut. Instead of having | fireball, rhododendron or snowball hedges planting black | berries, currants and maybe elderberries. And finally giving | families a small allotment garden where they can grow some | vegetable. Besides that, it's easily possible (as in: I have | done that) to harvest enough chili & pepper from June to | December to supply one person via one 1m wide office window. | Cities will never be food independent but can definitely reduce | their food import by 15-20 % | FooBarWidget wrote: | Unfortunately it is now uncertain whether any of this matters 100 | years from now. It is expected that sea levels will rise by more | than 2 meters, and that dykes will no longer work beyond an extra | 2 meter extension, not because they can't be extended but because | Dutch soil is too soft and seawater will just go under the dyke. | Almere will probably be amongst the first to go. It seems nobody | has proposed a solution, but in the mean time life goes on as if | it won't happen. You don't see this being factored into plans or | housing prices. | throwaway6734 wrote: | The US has somewhat similar problem: flood insurance is heavily | subsidized by the federal government so the market doesn't | remotely factor in future flooding risks into housing prices. | | There have recently been plans to raise prices but since | Florida is such an important state to Federal elections there's | a massive political hurdle | MomoXenosaga wrote: | Imagine every American east coast city flooding at the same | time. That's what would happen in the Netherlands if the | levies break. | | At least Florida can be abandoned in a worst case scenario | and the US would continue to function. | mellavora wrote: | Florida doesn't really have many evacuation routes. In a | worst case scenario it isn't just the land which gets | abandoned. | jacquesm wrote: | No, that's not what would happen. There are a great many | secondary and tertiary systems in place, a breach in one | place would not automatically flood the whole country, | though of course if you lived in the area just behind the | breach it would be a major problem. NL has lived with water | long enough that the risks are reasonably well understood. | Of course nature can still surprise you, the intensity | increase of especially rain has caused some pretty serious | problems in recent memory. | | But even though we occasionally have a dike that fails | something at the level of 1953 isn't going to happen 'just | like that', though you can never entirely rule out the | possibility. | | Much more money has gone into water management since then, | it is our 'Los Alamos', special water management taxes have | been used for massive investments into infrastructure | including pumps, dikes, flood barriers and all kinds of | less visible work. It isn't perfect, but it is really quite | good and I would much rather live here than a few hundred | kilometers upstream during a heavy rain season. At least we | are no longer in denial that water management is something | that you postpone until after the flood. | throwaway6734 wrote: | Does the Netherlands export their knowledge of handling | below sea level engineering? With coasts around the world | more prone to flooding it seems like it could be a | lucrative industry | vladms wrote: | They definitely export their knowledge of working with | sand and water: | https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/11/18/dutch-firm- | agrees-... | | And same company has other similar/related projects like: | https://www.vanoord.com/en/updates/van-oord-awarded-land- | rec... | jacquesm wrote: | Yes, absolutely. Kansai airport and the recovery of New | Orleans were to some extent (from an engineering point of | view) a Dutch effort. | | For instance: | | https://nltimes.nl/2017/08/30/new-orleans-turns- | netherlands-... | | One interesting bit about the Kansai Airport work was | that the Dutch advised the Japanese to leave the | reclaimed land untouched for a while (20 years or so) so | it could settle, the Japanese ignored the advice because | they had run the numbers and realized dealing with the | damage from the settling was more profitable. | | We're cheap, it's a local joke that copper wire was | invented by two Dutch traders fighting over a single | coin, I think the idea of wasting good materials on | unstable ground just didn't sit right with the Dutch | engineers but the Japanese had no problem with it at all. | I wonder how the Japanese look at this today from a | financial perspective. | | https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/how-to- | sav... | | Edit: I originally wrote Narita, instead of Kansai. | jacquesm wrote: | This isn't as big a problem as some make it out to be. The | dikes have _always_ been a porous solution, not perfect, | 'kwel' (water that seeps under the dike) has been there as long | as there are dikes. But concentric circles of staged dikes are | one way in which you could deal with this. It will require | massive geo engineering but nothing on a scale that the Dutch | have not done before. | | There are some voices that NL will have to abandon terrain, I | think we'll see the exact opposite: more terrain will be | created with the express goal of being used as basins for | increased control over water. The important bit when you | construct dikes is the delta between the water table on one | side of the dike and on the other and we already have areas | where there are three such dikes in a row to be able to deal | with fairly extreme differences in water levels. | | If you drive or cycle in the North of the country every now and | then you'll find yourself crossing through a dike with a | concrete lintel built into the dike body, this is where in the | case of high water the dike can very rapidly be closed again | and turned into a functioning part of the water defenses. | | Those dikes are called 'sleeping' dikes they are still there | and ready to be activated but normally they are transparent to | traffic. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeper_dike | | https://www.climatechangepost.com/netherlands/coastal-floods... | | Other evidence that this can be done is that there are some | massive artificial lakes constructed all over the world with | dams that have a 'head' that is much higher than anything that | NL will ever have to deal with. | | A bigger problem than keeping the sea out will be to deal with | the rain water coming into the Netherlands by way of the very | large rivers. These carry massive flow (from a total area much, | much larger than that of the country itself) during some times | of the year and to accommodate that flow and ensure that the | land behind the river dikes doesn't flood is - in my opinion - | a much bigger problem when the sea level rises. During some | storms you see a reversal in the flow of the rivers in the | delta. Several interesting constructs are located near | Rotterdam and Zeeland, transparent to shipping but it can be | closed quickly if such reverse flow threatens the land: | | https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/water/waterbeheer/bescherming... | | (Dutch) | | Those 'pie slices' are as large as the Eiffel tower but mobile, | and are some of the most impressive engineering works that I've | seen in my life. | whazor wrote: | Countries with mountains are much more vulnerable against | climate change and the extreme weather. Last extreme rain | took away, via the rivers, many houses in Germany. Whereas | The Netherlands is relatively safe as we are more downstream | and also more prepared against river floods. | jacquesm wrote: | To some extent. There are some relatively narrow passages | that have to carry extreme amounts of water, mostly in the | south of the country where the river banks are steep. As | soon as the river breaks out of that limited area it will | flood the surrounding countryside which isn't all that well | prepared. | | You could see this during the flooding that destroyed those | houses in Germany, it didn't go much better in NL, but | fortunately on a smaller scale. | | https://www.youtube.com/embed/96IGKw2NKQY?feature=oembed | | Still, you are right that 'upstream' this problem can get | much worse due to terrain geometry and lack of preparation, | as well as building into areas that really belong to the | river. | FooBarWidget wrote: | Not sure what the downvotes are for. I live here and I worry | about what happens if I buy a new house (which is ridiculously | expensive nowadays -- like 3x-4x more expensive than just 5 | years ago) -- will I be able to sell it in 30 years when people | start worrying about 30% of the country flooding in another 30 | years? It's not some nutjob idea that only I have, the | newspapers have written about how the market currently | completely ignores the issue: | https://www.trouw.nl/duurzaamheid-natuur/wanneer-zullen-klim... | In my pension plans I already planned for the worse by assuming | that my house will be devalued by 50% rather than having risen | in value. | | jacquesm seems to believe that we have a solution. That's not | the sentiment being brought forward by the newspapers. Even | reputable newspapers are like " _this_ time we 're really | screwed, we can't win this one". I'm not a water management | expert so I don't know any better than what I hear, but I've | yet to hear from someone authoritative that it's going to be | okay -- the authorities just seem to be quiet on this issue. | That really doesn't help me with my long-term plans. | jacquesm wrote: | To give a Dutch perspective: Lots of Dutch people would not be | found dead in Almere (founded in '76), for a long time it was | basically a satellite city of Amsterdam where people went to | sleep. Then in the mid 90's it started to change: companies | realized that the daily traffic jam to Amsterdam in the morning | and to Almere in the evening was a major obstacle, so why not | relocate the company to Almere? And this caused the first wave of | businesses to settle there in what was for the time ridiculously | cheap real estate. This then led to some commuting the other way | because some of the employees lived in Amsterdam and then ended | up working in Almere. But that has always been a small fraction | of the traffic in the other direction. Even today Almere houses | and commercial space are a very small fraction of what those go | for just the other side of the bridges of A27 and A6, which is | prime real estate (Laren, Blaricum, Hilversum, Amsterdam and some | cheaper areas as well but not much cheaper). | | Almere obviously doesn't have a whole lot of history compared to | other Dutch towns, it is quite literally built on 'new land', | areas that were turned from water into land in living memory | (1950's and 1960's). Almere 'haven' is the oldest part, | subsequently Almere has grown in jumps to become the fastest | growing and now the 7th largest municipality of the Netherlands. | | So this why Almere is _the_ place in NL where there is room for | such experimentation. In other Dutch cities it is usually super | crowded already and the only places where you can still expand is | at the edges, and municipalities tend to be very conservative to | help the new areas blend in with the older ones. | | I have some family living in Almere, they work on the other side | of the bridge so over the years (they have lived there now for 35 | years) that took up a lot of commute time, but where they live is | child friendly and it is a much nicer house than they would have | ever had anywhere else in NL on a much larger lot. But there | isn't - even today - a whole lot of life in Almere compared to | other Dutch cities and likely this will remain until it is so old | that it no longer stands out as the 'newest city'. Second | generation citizens of Almere already are much more at home there | than those that moved out from Amsterdam (and especially from | Bijlmermeer), and with every passing generation that will | improve. | | But it will be a long time before people will go to Almere to see | the city center. | | What would _really_ help Almere is a second bridge into Amsterdam | but there are many reasons why that likely will not happen in the | next 20 years or so. (see: | https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJmeerverbinding (Dutch)). | Scarblac wrote: | For what it looked like when the first people arrived in 1976: | https://youtu.be/8U0PJ4Ib378 | | From that to a few hundred thousand inhabitants is quite | unusual here. | DonHopkins wrote: | I found an area of Almere that has a cluster of really weird | unique architecture from around 1987 along De Realiteit: | | Google Street View: | | https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3921571,5.2180409,3a,90y,176... | | (look up and down De Realiteit to see many freaky houses) | | Polderblik: | | http://polderblik.nl/ | | Campus (1987) -- Vertical Red Shipping Containers: | | https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/campus | | Cargo (1987) -- Yellow Porta Potties: | | https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/cargo | | De Naam van het Huis (1987) -- Half House with Watchtower: | | https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/de-naam-van-het... | | Circle (1987) -- Circular Hobbit House: | | https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/cirkel | | Many other weird ones: | | https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/meerzicht | | https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/macabine | | You can see them all and more on the map of this Almere | Architecture Guide: | | https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/ | | And there's another road called Aresstraat that contains rows | of totally unique houses, reportedly so up-and-coming | architects can try out their weird ideas. Here's a funky | looking tilted level "House in House" designed by Marc Koehler | in 2011, which was just up for sale for around 700,000 EUR. | | https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aresstraat+21,+1363+VJ+Alm... | | (Look up and down Aresstraat at all the different architectural | styles! Down the street a bit it flashes back in time to street | views from 2009, before most of the neighborhood was even | built, showing the wide open sand peppered by a few houses and | construction sites.) | | https://www.architectuurgidsalmere.nl/almere/house-house?fbc... | | >PROJECT ARCHITECT(S): Marc Koehler; CLIENT: Privately; | BUILDER: Ubink and Co BV; REALIZATION: 2011 | | >According to the architect, "House in house" is based on a | reinterpretation of a traditional Dutch canal house with an | attic. An arrangement of three 'boxes', which accommodate the | necessary functions of sleeping, office and entrance, | structures the interior space. | | >The slanted attic window ensures a striking presence of the | house in the streetscape. Here is the sleeping area with | skylights to see stars and moon. The floor is placed | horizontally, which is visible from the outside. The office is | retracted on the first floor, with its own entrance via a | spiral staircase. Living takes place in the residual space | between the boxes. That space is a route with stairs that | spiral upwards. What are usually the landings is here | transformed into a series of spacious places, for hobbies, | music, watching TV or eating. This design keeps living flexible | and dynamic. The house is also equipped for new interpretations | that people want to give to the concept of living. | | Tour: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WujRwW4_eMw | yvoschaap wrote: | Arestreet in streetview 2009 https://www.google.com/maps/plac | e/Aresstraat+21,+1363+VJ+Alm... walk one step forward, and | you time machine into 2021! | | I think the architecture has more to do that every individual | plot allowed owners their own design & development. | jacquesm wrote: | Very neat, thank you for posting that. | | Almere still does quite a bit of that, for instance, it was | the first municipality where they allowed 'tiny houses', | though, truth be told what they are selling those for you | might as well buy a normal house. | | https://www.funda.nl/koop/almere/huis-88999896-alseidenstra | a... | DonHopkins wrote: | Are those the lofty peaks of Mt Almere in the background? | Or just a huge pile of cow shit? | jacquesm wrote: | Definitely mount Almere. | | The whole thing looks like a render to me on that | picture. | lbriner wrote: | I think it looks really nice but alluded to in the article is the | spectre of people who thought they were doing something equally | innovative in the 1950s and we now have large brutalist city | centres that are much lamented. | | There are plenty of buildings that look amazing when they are | first built (or even worse when they are simply drawn) but give | it 5 years, some water staining, a few unruly residents etc.... | | I don't want to be negative because I often wonder about much | better living environments/thinking but I think that the social | side of things is often overlooked (at least in the UK) so that | affordable housing in my friends new estate meant drug dealers | and large white vans parked up and down her small road next to | her nice house. You don't want to be a snob but when you work | hard to afford a nice place to live, you also don't want to be | imposed upon by those who aren't so bothered about their | community. | outside1234 wrote: | In particular, the floating houses they show. Not sure how that | scales (or if we want it to scale) and for sure that is going | to be an expensive maintenance option. | jeffbee wrote: | What are some examples of these regretted 1950s brutalist city | centers? | lordnacho wrote: | Birmingham comes to mind. Lots of concrete, big ring roads | cutting through everything. | | It's unfortunate because there's still a few historic | buildings from before that era suggesting what might have | been. | jeffbee wrote: | No love for the roads, but many of those brutalist | buildings in Birmingham are considered masterpieces of | architecture. That's why they are listed. And I can't think | of one from before 1960, either. | bombcar wrote: | Some would say they had to be listed to be prevented from | being torn down. | lmm wrote: | Neighbouring Coventry is a more complete example, being | smaller. | | Croydon also has a similar reputation. | eecc wrote: | Well, Bijlmer itself has become a mess at some point | [deleted] | jacquesm wrote: | > Well, Bijlmer itself was a mess... | | Still is, but massively improved compared to the 80's. | mpol wrote: | Not 1950s, but 1970s; Lelystad. They did not mention this at | all in the article, which is quite a miss. Lelystad was the | earlier experiment, a bit more up north in Flevoland. It is | not growing anymore because some parts have failed and not | many people move there anymore. Housing is still quite cheap, | even now. Some neighbourhoods are quite good neighbourhoods, | some are just awful with many residents living on wellfare, | many people into drugs, etcetera. They didn't plan for mixing | different cultures and classes in society, they planned for | somewhat segregated neighbourhoods, which was a wrong choice. | If there is a city in the Netherlands where you can guess | income and status from the postal code, Lelystad is the | place. | | We still have to see what will happen to Almere, Almere Haven | is just 30 years old. Not all parts there are good :) It is | often 30 or 40 years, that a neighbourhood can go from good | to bad, at least that is usual in the Netherlands. | jacquesm wrote: | Lots of those in former SovBloc countries. | gernb wrote: | I think maybe the most famous is Brasilia | | https://archive.curbed.com/2019/6/7/18657121/brasilia- | brazil... | twelvechairs wrote: | Its not made clear in the article but Almere is exactly one of | these Brutalist cities. Its only since the late 90s or early | 2000s they built the new 'city centre' which is an architects | wonderland to start overcoming its monotony. There's still huge | expanses of fairly simple, cheap, robust and boring 70s | housing. This is close to the train station [0] and a typical | suburban street [1]. Regardless of the buildings the | Netherlands is the world leader in street design which makes | this slightly less bleak than others of a similar era. | | [0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/eKF4jGYzEjSPVb3g7 | | [1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/mFdK333GFYKdQwD97 | fleddr wrote: | Almere is painful. | | The lack of history makes everything so sterile. Everything is | hypermodern, clean and new. You won't have that cute old bar, | infrastructural imperfection, clash of cultures, hybrid of old | and new, it's entirely without soul. | | It feels like a VR game. Maybe I just hate modern architecture. | BlargMcLarg wrote: | Can't invoke history where there is none. Can't create history | when most of the city is running off to other places for those | "rustic, authentic" experiences. Can't build with a bit of | chaos when prices have to be kept low, density high and | requirements must be met which naturally prefers prefabs and | cheap, stale-looking materials. | | The criticisms are valid, but people haven't exactly given | Almere a chance to be anything other than hypermodern, either. | jacquesm wrote: | If they had taken a more organic approach from day #1 I think | that could have been avoided, but then the growth would have | been much slower. It quite literally feels like a city | designed behind a drafting table instead of something that | matured over time. And that's not something that you can buff | out a few decades later. | BlargMcLarg wrote: | Yeah, you see almost the exact same in new streets and new | sections of existing cities. They aren't made with the idea | of being organic or adding a little chaos to simulate it. | They are made with the intent of putting down prefabs in | the cheapest way possible while still hitting requirements | and budgets. | | Every new project around say, Utrecht, has the same | "hypermodern" feel to it. Little contrast, straight lines, | visible patterns, flat and rectangular. They try to add a | little more chaos to it (probably to avoid being compared | to Almere) and some more greenery, but it's a far cry from | the old European city look. | jacquesm wrote: | They even try to imitate that (and fail) for instance, | this area in Beverwijk: | | http://overall-pictures.nl/portfolio-3/straat- | fotografie/bev... | giantg2 wrote: | Ugh, those red buildings. There are wonderfully colored | houses/buildings in many of the picturesque neighborhoods you see | in certain towns. It seems like they tried to do the same with | those. In my opinion, it doesn't work. There's no color | variation, no trim/contrast to make the colors pop and look good. | It just looks like an ugly red building that would hurt my eyes | to see that much red every day (imagine being in the center | building with red on both sides). It would have likely been | better and cheaper to go with a neutral color for the majority of | the structure and used color on various subpieces or trim. | | Even just doing something like the blue floating houses is so | much better. They have variation. I think it probably also works | better due to the smaller size (red sports car vs solid red semi | truck - one can look nice and the other looks obnoxious) | Luc wrote: | If it makes you feel better: the colors in that image are | oversaturated. | giantg2 wrote: | That is a huge difference. Much better that way. | warp wrote: | Oh wow, indeed. In case you want to see them on streetview, | the address is Pastelstraat 1, Almere. Here is a link: | https://goo.gl/maps/mpXgFFd4kGLBinge9 | Beltalowda wrote: | People would probably get in trouble if they painted | buildings in the colour as in the BBC article (people | actually have gotten in problems with the city council, and | at the very least it would be a _Rijdende Rechter_ episode). | Dutch people are allergic to bright colours or something. | [deleted] | kkfx wrote: | Sorry but no. Images shown are not a future of anything, just yet | another erotic dream of some archistar. The future means an age | of cheapness and scarcity, at least in the short term, witch can | only means a Sarajevo-style semi-abandoned cities. An a bit more | far future will be like modern China: poor concentrated in open- | sky prisons named smart-cities, capsule-hotel style, far more | dense that the fictional dutch scenario, and some more wealthy | living in small areas of individual homes, villas-alike. | | Sparse tall buildings and hallway spaces are not likely at all | and have no purpose at all. Floating constructions is a tempted | and failed way, too much humidity, cracks and fissures, problems | of sewage and networks in general (water intakes, TLCs etc) so | again might sound nice on paper but a failure otherwise so very | unlikely as well. | | To architects: when you design something imaging it's usage | BEFORE start drawing. We built for some reasons, beauty is one of | them, but secondary, an added thing to something with more | practical reasons; anything designed first than adapted to some | purpose end up in expensive failures. | | To my fellow Citizens: please when you dream your future dream it | really: where and how do you really want to live? In a | Goshiwong/capsule-hotel room in a dense area with some hallway | and common areas in general to loitering aimlessly, maybe with a | stupid smile drawn on face for the "happy-o-meter" part of the | new social score? Or you dream a low density area where you can | work and live in homes, with a bit of nature ALL AROUND, leaving | tall buildings to specific purposes like hospitals, schools etc? | Perhaps considering that single family homes can evolve, being | recycled and rebuilt perhaps at generational change, while no | tall building can evolve so even if it's well designed now will | be a disaster in 40+ years and no one know what to do then? | imilk wrote: | It's interesting - but it's hard for me to see this being the | future of urban life when most of the city looks entirely | suburban (not very walkable), separated from the main commercial | area without bars/restaurants/shops in their own sub- | neighborhoods. | | I would expect a key part of future urban life would include one | of the most important parts of current urban life; walkability | and a harmonious melding of commercial, residential, and public | spaces. | mpol wrote: | Almere is very walkable, just a bit boring. Cycling is okay | too, although it needs a bit of work I think. In regards to | cycling, it is not that popular in Almere. | | Not sure why, it could be that rudimentary, half of the people | is upper middle class that is doing everything by car, the | other half was born in another country and could more easily | find a house in Almere compared to Amsterdam but they don't | share the cycling culture much. | | Edit: And every neighbourhood has supermarkets and small | fastfood and bar locations. It is not that different from other | dutch cities. | imilk wrote: | Sure, but it falls a bit short to be in the vision of "future | of urban life". There are a sprinkling of commercial | businesses in the gray areas of the map outside the city | center. But not nearly enough to be considered urban by any | means. And most of the areas where people live seem quite far | away to be considered "walkable" from the commercial | district. | | I'm sure it's a nice place to live, but this is not the | future of urban life. | | https://imgur.com/a/xgbRE15 | | (I put a 1km marker on the map for reference) | Mo3 wrote: | I lived there for a year. | | I think you forget that everyone owns a bicycle, everyone rides | their bicycle everywhere, and almost every single street has a | separated bicycle lane. There are more bicycle lanes than in | any other country on earth (22,000 miles in a country _ten | times smaller than California_ ) [1], there's even bicycle | highways and intersections. | | Public transport is exceptionally good as well. Everything is | highly walkable and accessible, everything you want to do is | doable and everywhere you want to go is reachable. You should | check it out sometime, these pictures don't really show it. | | (jacquesm in this thread is spot on too though. There's not | that much life going on in Almere itself.) | | [1] | https://www.opencyclemap.org/?zoom=7&lat=51.48412&lon=8.0871... | imilk wrote: | I've never been there and was just making a quick assessment | by Google Maps. It is nice that you can bike anywhere, but | I'm mostly seeing residential neighborhoods (~10 blocks wide | of identical row homes) pretty spaced out around a town | center without amenities in their area. | | So in terms of meeting someone for a coffee/meal/beer/event | it looks like you'll have to hop on a bicycle unless you want | to go on a 20-30 minute walk past monotonous homes. Which is | not that different than suburbs anywhere else. | prmoustache wrote: | I work for a company who's headquarters are there. It has | great infras (railway, bicycle lanes), everything is modern | but...it is pretty boring, lacking character. | | You can't create and buy a thousand years of history. | Mo3 wrote: | Of course there's going to be some level of separation | between residential areas and other areas - but contrary | to, for example the US, where you have to walk for miles or | put your life in danger bicycling between a suburb and the | city center - the distances are quite negligible and the | space in between is friendly towards anything that is not a | car. | | Public transport intervals are measured in minutes, and | unlike in the US, it not only connects the suburbs to the | city center, but the suburbs to other suburbs as well. | | Really, everything you want to do is doable and everywhere | you want to go is reachable. I miss it. | | Regarding coffee/meal/beer, there's little shops or cafes | or restaurants mixed into the residential areas as well. | | This video details the fantastic engineering very well: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP-G-inkkDg | | This is specifically about differences between US and | Europe but also a great watch: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K8KEoZwMRY | imilk wrote: | I guess so but I'm seeing 1-2 restaurants/bars in sub- | neighborhoods that are about 1.5km wide. | | I'm not saying the city is bad by any means, I'm just | saying that it falls very short in what I would hope to | be the "future of urban life". Maybe the future of | smaller towns or exurbs. But there seems to be a lack of | necessary dynamic spaces that change in character | throughout the day as people flow in and out that you | look for in great urban areas. | Mo3 wrote: | I mean, it is an experiment. Nothing more, nothing less. | I'm sorry the BBC is dependent on clickbait titles, but | Almere is really nothing too special as I have also | mentioned in my original post referring to another users | great post here. Some of these concepts have been in | place in other cities around the Netherlands for a while, | and (imo) work better there. | | There is not much life going on in Almere, which might | explain the lack of density of restaurants or whatever | you see. | | It's really just that Almere is artificial land reclaimed | from the sea, so they have quite a lot of space there to | experiment with their weird metal houses and green roofs. | Almere is a little less dense than other cities nearby. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | Yes, in the USA people choose between living in a city or | suburb. If you pick suburb you need to use a car all the | time or be on one of the few major rail lines. People are | just bringing up how this design seem to capture some of | the worst parts of suburb living while managing to doge | the benefits of city living. | calt wrote: | > you'll have to hop on a bicycle | | But that's exactly what you're missing. Hopping on a Dutch | bicycle in a dutch city is like walking, but better. No | helmet required. No hassle of dealing with cars trying to | kill you. No pain from hunched over road bike posture. Just | unlock your bike and go. | imilk wrote: | Walking in a urban area well designed for it also | requires no helmet, no hassle of dealing with cars trying | to kill you, and no pain from hunched over road bike | posture. You also can stop and chat or pop into | businesses easier and don't have to park or lock up your | bike anywhere. | | I love biking, but it's a bit shortsighted to think that | bicycling in urban areas can replicate the same benefits | of a city that is well designed for walking. | mrsuprawsm wrote: | >I love biking, but it's a bit shortsighted to think that | bicycling in urban areas can replicate the same benefits | of a city that is well designed for walking. | | That's exactly the point, in the Netherlands it can and | does. Sometimes you walk, sometimes you cycle, it just | depends on the context of your specific trip. (Are you | going one place or many? Is the weather a bit cold today? | Will it rain a lot later?). Both options are pretty much | as good as each other. | imilk wrote: | Well my original larger point is that the city we're all | discussing here is not walkable at all. And you can't | make up for that by saying, "Well I know it's a 1.5km | walk through identical rowhomes to the nearest pub, but | the fact that you can bike there instead makes it the | future of urban living." | | Almere looks to be a commuter suburb to Amsterdam, where | no culture, events, or urban life of any significance | takes place. The fact that it is bikable is nice, but | there are plenty of suburbs with well designed bike | infrastructure. And that in no way does bikability | supplant a well design urban area with residential, | commercial, park, & event spaces combined together to | create a dynamic living environment. | mrsuprawsm wrote: | I don't think anyone in this thread (at least anyone with | experience of NL) is really in agreement with the parent | article's point that Almere is particularly good. It's | just an average-ish Dutch city. | | But even average Dutch cities are much more walkable and | bikeable than basically anywhere else. | imilk wrote: | Ok, but I'm talking specifically about Almere. Which | unless I'm massively mistaken, does not look walkable (in | most of the residents being able to rely on walking to | complete most of their daily tasks) at all. | BlargMcLarg wrote: | Bikeable, yes. Walkable.. arguable. If you include public | transport with walkable, sure. I haven't found other | cities to be particularly less "walkable" than Dutch | cities when you take away public transport and bikes. | | It really depends on what one considers "walkable" if | anything. | brailsafe wrote: | As someone who's lived in cities inspired by Garden City, | this looks very British (by their own admission) and | extremely suburban. So I gotta agree with the parent's | observation. The only difference being small streets which | inherently slow traffic, and probably better bike and public | transit infrastructure, but everywhere has good public | transit if it's tiny now. The garden city movement was a | giant compromise between city and rural life, almost by | definition. This is one of the most suburban places I've ever | seen, it just might be marginally more Dutch of one. There's | literally a Dunkin' donuts, Starbucks, and Chanel store all | within what looks like a place you drive or bike to to then | walk around for a bit and leave, which to me is reminiscent | of some places on the outskirts of L.A. | | Seems like it would probably be better to just ride your bike | to Amsterdam if what you want. On the other hand, that's just | my observation. What did you get out of living there? Was it | the quiet, or the parks? Did you meet people easily? | Mo3 wrote: | I was not a particular fan of Almere (please refer to | jacquesm's post on details), however, it being a Dutch | city, various general benefits of Dutch city design and | engineering also apply there - these are what I am really | trying to point at. | | Almere itself is rather boring and devoid of life. It's | simply artificial land reclaimed from the sea with no | history or story to it. | jltsiren wrote: | Urban areas are not just walkable but walk-centric. They are | built under the assumption that most people don't move faster | than 4-5 km/h. Places that want to attract people must be | close to each other in local centers, or people don't go to | them. | | Bicycles are more suburban than urban. Because they allow | people to move flexibly at a relatively high speed, they | encourage suburban structure, where things are spread out | over a larger area. They are functionally similar to cars, | but on a smaller scale. | ethanbond wrote: | Uhh... this seems like an excessively pedantic distinction. | What's the source of truth you're pulling from here? | jltsiren wrote: | People may have different definitions for "urban" and | "suburban". Regardless of the words used, there is a huge | difference between a city designed for walking and a city | designed for people using vehicles (cars, public | transport, bicycles). | stingraycharles wrote: | I would just like to say that "bicycle" is considered | equivalent to "pedestrian" over here in NL, at least in | the context of city planning. This allows for this | additional "reach" of distance for many families without | using a car or bus (which is important for children and | teenagers), and it's a big difference from e.g. the US | way of approaching things. | | It's easy to see why it almost takes a completely | different way of thinking, or "you got to see it for | yourself", before you can fully appreciate the little | advantages it brings. The other way around is also true: | I took me a while to understand the dependence that quite | a few people have upon their car and/or public transport. | Walking 10km is certainly a bit too much to ask, but | common enough a distance to work or school, and very | reasonable for the bicycle. | jltsiren wrote: | I'm originally from Finland. Our urban planning used to | combine pedestrians and bicycles into "light traffic". | That approach became obsolete 10-15 years ago, when it | was widely realized that they are two different modes of | transport that operate at different speeds and scales. | The change has improved the bicycle infrastructure | significantly, as the old approach didn't really see | bicycling as a form of traffic that should be taken | seriously. | vanviegen wrote: | So Manhatten, designed for walking, driving and tubing, | should also be considered suburban? | imilk wrote: | I think you're meandering a bit from the topic. Manhattan | is not similar at all to Almere. Manhattan is filled with | multi-use zoning and multiple modes of transportation | options on every block, while still being highly | walkable. It's also not a great biking city. | | But while people ride bikes in both areas, it's a bit | absurd for the article at hand to call Almere the "future | of urban living". | Mo3 wrote: | You literally just described Dutch city planning minus | the last part. | | Almere is not the future of living. A over-the-top | clickbait title does not negate valid statements either. | calt wrote: | Just move bicycles from being grouped with cars to being | grouped with walking, and you're correct. | | Dutch cities are designed for walking and bicycles. It | helps that the bicycles are also designed for dutch | cities. Upright, comfortable, a bit heavy and slow, and | can be locked up for short times without needing to be | locked to anything. | jltsiren wrote: | You can't design a city for both walking and bicycles. | You can only make compromises between them. The slow | Dutch bicycles are still 2.5x to 3x faster than the | average pedestrian, which makes them convenient for | distances most people would not consider walkable. If | most people are comfortable with using bicycles over such | distances, it encourages a more spread out urban | structure. | | People often use bicycles in cities because they are | convenient and as fast as or faster than driving a car or | using public transport. That is the reason why bicycles | should be grouped with other vehicles and not with | walking. | FabHK wrote: | > You can't design a city for both walking and bicycles. | | It seems more appropriate to me to say: You can't | optimise a city for both walking and bicycles. You can | certainly design it for both (and even public transport | and cars), with the necessary trade-offs. | mrsuprawsm wrote: | >You can't design a city for both walking and bicycles. | | Your assertion shows that you have never visited a Dutch | city. | | Most Dutch cities were originally designed for walking | (they are old, at least in the core), then (like most | places) the car took over in the 30s - 70s, but since the | 70s there's been a concerted effort to re-establish | bicycle supremacy, along with strong public transport. | | The outcome is that pretty much everyone (including the | elderly) cycle everywhere because it's most convenient. | And walk around perfectly fine once you've parked your | bike. And if you need to go a bit further afield when | you're done? Jump back on the bike. | | The hybrid of public transport/bike/walking works | incredibly well, everyone co-exists perfectly, without | making any compromises. Obviously, this wouldn't happen | without there having had been a concerted effort to build | good multi-modal infrastructure nationwide for the last | ~50 years, but it really pays off. The urban environment | is really nothing like pretty much anywhere else. | BlargMcLarg wrote: | It'd be more apt to group them on their own if anything, | just as Dutch cities tend to have separate lanes for | cyclists, drivers and pedestrians. At least for The | Netherlands, cyclists often feel like a protected group | both pedestrians and drivers have to pay attention to. | | The latter is more apparent in old roads and areas where | there's no clear distinction between road and sidewalk, | where cars are generally not allowed but bicycles are. | Watching for cyclists feels like playing Frogger at | times. Also cases where cyclists just ignore pedestrians | and expect priority, when it is obvious pedestrians have | priority (zebra crossings, traffic lights). | | The above does illustrate why cities made for walking | alone and cities made for walking _and_ cycling would or | should differ. | todorus wrote: | It is becoming very clear from your comments you have not | seen the thing you're criticizing, bur rather argue from | a paradigm you're familiar with. So I am going to join | the chorus here and advise you to visit a dutch city, so | you can yourself experience that there's more than one | design paradigm that is valid, when it comes to urban | planning. | Mo3 wrote: | You have clearly never been to any Dutch city. Bicycles are | priority #1 even in the most crammed and tight spaces, and | thus the distinction between "urban" and "suburban" becomes | completely mangled. There's simply places with less space | (Amsterdam) and places with a little more space (Almere). | Does that make Almere a suburb? Possibly depending on your | perspective, but there is nil relation to bicycles. | | Now, of course, you could argue that that makes the | Netherlands a relatively suburban place in general - the | fact that it is one of the most densely populated countries | on earth would disagree. | DeusExMachina wrote: | I live in Amsterdam and I think he has a point. Many | major Dutch cities are old, so they don't really work as | a counterexample. Looking at new developments, like | Almere or even the outskirts of Amsterdam, it's clear | that they don't have the same structure. | Mo3 wrote: | Hello fellow Amsterdammer "(^[?]^) | | He was talking about a relationship between bicycles and | urban/suburban areas. He's suggesting that bicycles are a | suburban phenomenon and that urban areas are focused on | walking. | | I don't know about you but that seems untrue to me | jltsiren wrote: | I meant that in the other direction. The speed and | flexibility of personal vehicles encourage suburban | development in the city. Cars created the low-density | suburban sprawl. Bicycles seem to encourage moderate- | density mixed-use areas where the services are spread out | all over the area. | Mo3 wrote: | Pardon me but doesn't that directly negate what you said | here? | | > Places that want to attract people must be close to | each other in local centers, or people don't go to them. | Melkman wrote: | Indeed, Almere is a sleeping city. Many inhabitants moved | from Amsterdam to Almere since gentrification has made | housing in Amsterdam almost unobtainable for people with a | median income. Almere is comfortable enough and you can get | by without a car. But the fun still is in Amsterdam only a | half an hour train ride away. In the US it would be called a | suburb of Amsterdam. | sandworm101 wrote: | But every parking spot in the picture seems to have a car | parked in it. | Mo3 wrote: | Of course there's still cars. They are just not used | exclusively or frequently. If I remember the statistics | correctly, in cities trips are made 30-45% by bicycle, | 25-40% by public transport and the rest is cars. | wila wrote: | and there I was thinking this would be about floriade [0], which | happens to be in Almere as well. | | [0] https://floriade.com/en/ | jacquesm wrote: | It wasn't always so though, there still is the Floriade park | (these days called Amstelpark) next to the RAI: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstelpark | | It's a gorgeous park and one of the lesser trafficked ones in | Amsterdam, well worth a visit. | PortiaBerries wrote: | Some of those buildings remind me of The Objective Room in "That | Hideous Strength." | | "They suggested some kind of pattern. Their peculiar ugliness | consisted in the very fact that they kept on suggesting it and | then frustrating the expectation thus aroused." | dncornholio wrote: | Almere broke my child imagination of what a city was. I was very | young when Almere got build and I was so confused on how people | could build a city in one go. I always thought it would take | hundreds of years to develop a city. I always thought cities were | the product of generations and generations.. and there I was | standing in NL's newest city. | | It's not something worth to visit. It's still too sterile. Nobody | visits Almere for the city. | bombcar wrote: | You weren't wrong as a child - a city has a story and takes | time to grow. Attempting to do it all at once gets a suburb or | hotel at best - or maybe a Disneyland. | jacquesm wrote: | For the longest time it was called the bedroom of Amsterdam. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-09 23:00 UTC)