really excellent and insightful on urban planning, and cities are still making all the same mistakes they were 60 years ago
City planners are trapped in a dogma detached from reality
Damn coming out swinging
Cities are bad because of incompetent planners
Cars are a symptom, not the cause
Planners see density and call it a slum. Even when it's Boston’s North End and has happy people and better health than city average
Most important thing is dense, diverse activities
Planners love order and things that look good, which is not the same as being good
E.g. replacing dense chaotic housing and shops with much worse orderly housing and a park that looks nicer
(getting the impression parks are overrated)
Cities and towns are totally different, don't try to apply lessons from one to the other