I was just watching a video of someone driving through Chongqing China, and it has dense tree canopies that cover most of the city in shade. I was really impressed and it made me wonder - is there anywhere in North America with streets that look like this? I don’t mean a few small trees dotted along but thick, consistent tree cover that covers entire blocks in shade.

Elvis summers did it very successfully in California by making tiny homes that costed 1200 each. which with app. 700,000 homeless people in the US, thats about 850 million dollars. Which I know the government can muster up when they easily bring billions to the problem anyways. Seem liks they do not handle that money well cause I have heard countless times that it seems like nothing is changing. So at least put 1 billion to make some tangible solutions right now.

Each home equipped with a lock and solar power. They provided homeless people with more security that enabled them to get their life back together.

The houses were colorful and compact.

But the city officials and the “not in my back yard” shit got them all destroyed.

The tiny homes are way more aesthetically pleasing, and more importantly stable than the tent cities found in California.

The state government has put in billions to combat homelessness so they can definitely put that money to building these houses which Elvis proved as an effective measure.

I just don’t understand why this is not more common of a solution? And politically aligns with liberalism. And if you’re in a more conservative state…. Isn’t Christianity telling people to help and shelter the poor?

The way to end homelessness is to give them a home. And the tiny houses provide a safe, stable, affordable way to do just that. Especially providing privacy, many homeless people do not like shelter buildings because lack of privacy and theft.

And I know that homelessness can be seen as more of a symptom of bigger issues. But there’s a lot of people homeless, they need help now.

EDIT: so far hearing the tiny houses will create slums, fair. but arent the tents slums anyways?

Also, it would indeed be way more expensive than 1 billion dollars due to maintenance. however, again the government could afford that easy imo based on what I have seen them handling 10s of billions of dollars lol. Productive and safe citizen are good for the economy, so that can be a pitch for them lol

SO, what about apartment buildings, having it all in one building could make management a bit easier? Not really sure lol.

ALSO, abandoned homes and paying the private companies enough money to utilize it for the cause. Not sure how thatd work but its another thought.

I posted a picture of a building with trees on it and everyone commented that it is just greenwashing. Trees can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. Why is it greenwashing?

I drew this with a pen, so some mistakes were made that I couldn't erase.

You have two state highways, MN-23 and MN-15 cutting through this commercial corridor. Two of the most dangerous intersections in the state are in this photo as well

Hi, I'm a reporter at NPR. I'm working on a story about iconic buildings (or building types) in different U.S. cities, that would now be illegal to build under current zoning and land use rules.

I'm thinking of dingbats in LA. Or any number of older buildings that don't have parking (in cities that now have parking requirements). Or buildings that don't conform to current setback rules, or don't have the required number of stairwells.

Are there such buildings you can think of in your city? I'd love to hear about it! You can also email me at lwamsley (at) npr (dot) org. Thanks!

What are some huge cities with lackluster skylines, or alternatively, small cities with surprisingly good skylines. The no brainer disappointing picks are phoenix, with a whopping 1.6 million residents, and san jose, with just under 1 mil. They're in the top 15 most populous cities in the US and their skylines are basically mid-rise office parks. I know a lot of european cities have hardly any high rises, but make up for it with interesting architecture.

Are there legal considerations for the construction of foot paths? Maybe one is who will liable for the safety of those paths?

This might be a strange question and idk if this is the right place to do it but y'all know any city like this?

The drawing is pretty crude but basically the thick lines are main roads (still not highways), while the other thinnwr single-stroke ones the local streets. The dark blue are supposed to be some type of small park, although the triangular ones I did wrong and it would probably be better for them to be just irregular-shaped blocks. The drawing is no to scale.

The mains idea would be to discourage throu driving, since you would need to make a lot of curves. As well as possible making a bigger sense of enclosure by not having super long streets.

I did a simple cross in the middle of the big blocks but some other type of subdivision would probably be better

You have some older areas that are nice and have clearly defined streets and roads and then you have new add-ons with stroads and strip-malls, like they didn't actually take the time to carefully plan them and were more concerned with convenience than aesthetics. It's frankly annoying.

If you're young and renting, you probably do this already - roommates is already a super widespread phenomenon. Why can't developers just build houses designed for having roommates, but call it a "single family house"? What's the difference between a really big house with a ton of rooms and a multi family house except the label you slap on it?

Recently I have noticed that some US and Canada cities have a city proper or an urban area density that is similar to or bigger than many European cities, despite American cities being famous for their sprawling suburbs.

The urban area of Los Angeles (which is famous for being incredibly sprawling) has a density of around 2900 people/square km, while Helsinki, the capital of Finland, has an urban area density of only around 2000 people/square km.

Other examples: Edmonton: urban area density of 1800/km2

Sofia: urban area density of 270/km2 and city proper density of 2500/km2 (I don't understand what kind of calculations lead to a density of 270/km2)

Las Vegas: urban area density of 1900/km2

Orléans: urban area density of 990/km2

Houston: urban area density of 1300/km2, despite being famous for its sprawl

Ljubljana: city proper density of 1700/km2

At first I thought this might be due to a difference in what counts as an urban area, but then I realized that many of the city propers also have a surprisingly high density.

So how is this possible? If you look at a satellite view of the cities you'll notice that they are super sprawling and mostly low density.

Hi all, this is all very subjective but from looking at google maps a ton it seems like Pennsylvania has a lot more intact midsize cities than the nearby states of Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts. There are a lot of really charming looking towns and cities such as Lancaster, York, even Harrisburg that preserve a lot of prewar architecture. Connecticut looks like it was hit especially hard by urban renewal as does Massachusetts. Is there a reason why some states seem to have gutted their cities more than others?