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riiga reviews the urban planning of areas (of your choice)

Started by riiga, January 05, 2010, 03:36:24 PM

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riiga

I think that this section have been dead too long now, and this is my attempt at reviving.

What's with this thread?
I came up with the idea of reviewing the layout and planning of different urban areas. This includes city centers, suburban sprawl and commie block areas. If you want to, you can make a request and I will try to review the area requested. However, there are no guarantees.

How do you review?
To make this a simple as possible without overdoing it, I will grade the area in review on a scale from 1 to 10 in five different categories. These five categories are: Pedestrians, Bikes, Cars, Mass transit and Sustainability (Environment). The maximum score is thus 50.

If you have any suggestions, please comment.


Now to the first review, which happens to be the area where I live. Easy start for me ;D

SimCity-style overview:


SC/Aerial:


Aerial:


Key:
Light green - Low-density residental
Green - Meduim-density residental
Blue - Low-med-density commerical
Orange - Misc buildings
Pink-purple-ish - parking
Yellow - Major road
Light yellow - Road
White - street
Red - pedestrian/bike path


As you can see, this is a typical (Swedish) suburb with mostly low-density development. In the area there are two schools, both primary/elementary schools, and there are five pre-schools/kindergartens as well.

Pedestrians:
Lots of bike/pedestrian path make the score for this area high. You can walk almost to any area you need to reach, and there is a b/p-path connecting with city (5 km/3 miles). Traffic amount is low and there are recreation areas. 7.5/10

Bikes:
Same as for pedestrians, and there are bike stands at the bus stops. 7.5/10

Cars:
This area is not car-friendly, but it is not that bad either. Some streets are a little bit too narrow while others are prefect. On the bright side however are the lots of parkings conveniently placed. And there is a gas station as well. 5/10

Mass transit:
Theres is one bus line with departures every 20 or 30 minutes and the distance to the nearest bus stop never exceeds 600 m/0.3 miles. Two rural lines stop here as well, but just a few times a day. Travel time to the city is about 15-20 minutes. By car it takes 10-15 minutes. A ticket is 15 kr (2 dollars/ 1.5 euro). 6.5/10

Sustainability:
Almost every household have a car, and some have two. Car usage is a little bit too high, but not a direct problem. The air is clean and power is primarily hydropower and waste-to-energy. District heating is common and recycling is very common. The water is from municipal water supplies. 7/10

Final score: 33.5/50


Here is a street view of the area: (take a look around the area  ;))
http://hitta.se/LargeMap.aspx?gatubild&gvX=6478617&gvY=1493329&gvH=73

- riiga

WC_EEND

How large can a requested area be (eg: is a city the size of Gent (around 250000 inhabitants, suburbs included) within the possibilities?) ::)
RIP Adrian (adroman), you were a great friend

My LOT thread                                    

SCAG BAe146/Avro RJ Project

MandelSoft

I would like to request a review of the city center of Den Haag (the Hauge).
Lurk mode: ACTIVE

riiga

Quote from: WC_EEND on January 06, 2010, 04:46:05 AM
How large can a requested area be (eg: is a city the size of Gent (around 250000 inhabitants, suburbs included) within the possibilities?) ::)
I think that's a little to big. I would say a city district or parts of a city is okay. On the other hand, smaller cities with a population smaller than ~10 000 might work as a whole.

Quote from: mrtnrln on January 06, 2010, 04:55:56 AM
I would like to request a review of the city center of Den Haag (the Hauge).
I'll try the best I can, but I would be more than happy if you could link to some pictures or similar to help. Otherwise I'll search myself and use Wikipedia, Google Maps and so on.

- riiga

MandelSoft

Here's the location of the area in Google Maps I'd like to be reviewed (everything inside those yellow marked roads + the Central Station). A large part of this area has Street View. The area contains a few Gouvernment buildings and is mainly a shopping area.
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