• Ginny [they/she]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    11 hours ago

    Yeah, I swiped it all out on the phone, and I accidentally a few words. Sorry, that’s my bad.

    I think that when we’re talking about housing, it should perhaps be implied that I’m not talking about the cathedral and the other tourist attractions. I’m talking about:

    • High density, mid-rise housing incorporating 5 over 1s (as an aside, that term seems very American to me, but I’m not sure why as it’s a pretty good description of what is meant) providing convenient access to shopping and leisure facilities. Pretty much everything you could conceivably need within a 15 walk.
    • Thoughtful design of roads, with wide thoroughfares with dedicated bus lanes, for moving traffic, and narrower streets, ideally one-way, for access. As few stroads as possible.
    • Cycle lanes everywhere. (Admittedly, Eixample would be better if more cycling lanes were physically separated.
    • Each housing block having enclosed shared spaces where people can build community with their neighbours. (Some may scoff at this, but experience in Britain tends to show that high rises that aren’t luxury developments tend to become shitty places to live, because people don’t get to know their upstairs and downstairs neighbours and as a result a lot more people treat communal areas disrespectfully. That could be a distinctly British problem, I suppose, but I’m not convinced that’s the case.)

    Yeah, a lot of the buildings in Eixample are more ornate than they would be if you were building them in bulk, quickly, and I’d probably throw in more parks, too. But the plan is sound, and very achievable.