NY exhibit imagines utopian, green cities in 2030

Associated Press ^ | 6/24/2010 | KAREN MATTHEWS

[domeika]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Imagine no cars - or fewer, anyway.

In New York, a two-mile stretch of the FDR Drive parkway is torn down to open lower Manhattan for parks and plazas, and bicyclists are given their own lane on the Brooklyn Bridge.

An elevated highway in Guangzhou, China, is transformed into a pedestrian promenade, and rooftops are linked by raised walkways and bikeways.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, traditional bike taxis called becaks are re-engineered to be lighter and easier to steer. --snip--

[domeika]

In New York, a two-mile stretch of the FDR Drive parkway is torn down to open lower Manhattan for parks and plazas, and bicyclists are given their own lane on the Brooklyn Bridge

The FDR parkway has a speed limit of what? 40 mph? Why not go down to zero then. I mean it's not like it's tough to get around NY right? And to give a lane on a busy bridge to bicycles? That makes sense right? I wonder if people not being to get from A to B, or goods and services not being able to get from A to B figures into their delusional uptopia?

An elevated highway in Guangzhou, China, is transformed into a pedestrian promenade, and rooftops are linked by raised walkways and bikeways.

Build an elevated highway, then turn it into a walking path. Now that makes fiscal sense. Once again, the whole concept of commerce and what it requires to operate, like moving stuff from A to B eludes these whackos. And rooftop walkways? In China? They had better be made of rubber to withstand the many earthquakes they experience there.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, traditional bike taxis called becaks are re-engineered to be lighter and easier to steer.

First off, what this person is saying is that someone (but not them) will have to re-engineer those little becaks to be easy to use so that the Indonesians don't get all uppity and start driving cars. Funny that the same people that, on one hand, demand an end to world poverty (on someone else's dime of course), and then use the other hand to try and smack down any kind of progress that might actually end said poverty.

"We hired 10 architects from cities all over the world to help us imagine what their cities might look like in 2030 if we made the cities more human scale, more environmentally sustainable," said Walter Hook, the executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, which organized the exhibit with funding from the San Francisco-based ClimateWorks Foundation.

Curious how they cite what positions he (Walter Hook) holds but fail to report that he is nothing but an artist from Montana with no sense of business acumen or even slight grasp of reality.

"We're essentially trying to send the message that if cities don't move in this direction we're going to be faced with cataclysmic climate change, because in the developing world the use of private automobiles is escalating at double-digit rates," Hook said.

So....people in the developing world should be deprived of transportation because in this inept fool's opinion his ideas and ideals and those of his delusional ilk should trump progress and the needs and want of millions because they know better right? I guess he didn't get the memo that "climate change" pseudo-science was exposed for the fraud that it is.

In the township of Soweto, in Johannesburg, current photos show low-rise housing and not much else. But the Soweto of 2030 is bustling with markets and public spaces.
"You weren't allowed to open shops, traditionally, under apartheid," Hook said. "So what we've done is we've sort of reimagined it as a kind of new town ... where people could actually work and shop in downtown Soweto."

Hold on there chief. Didn't aparteid end years ago? If people were going to work and shop there, they'd already be doing it by now.

The Utopian vision of lower Manhattan shows pedestrians, bicycles and very few cars. Architect Michael Sorkin, who designed the New York piece of the exhibit, said he thinks it's "completely feasible."
"The streets were laid out by the Dutch in a fundamentally medieval pattern," he said. "They're not made for cars."

Go right ahead. Of course the menu's in those trendy restaurants might get awful short due to the fact that food can't be delivered. But hey, look at all the money you'll save by not being able to buy expensive clothes and such when you favorite boutiques are empty as well.

In conclusion:
I have an idea....why don't the liberals just focus on Detroit since they f*cked that up beyond repair years ago with their vision. There aren't many cars there now because of it, and all the demolition they would need to do for their current flavor of utopian vision is already well underway.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Big beehives full of complacent drones! Hell, big cities don't work very well as it is, what will they have to put in the water to keep the inmates from eating each other?

"I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get plied upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe."

"I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice."

Thomas Jefferson

[VRW Conspirator]

I want to sing.

[dangus]

>> I want to sing. <<

We’ll have none of that!

[prisoner6]

But...will there be Cash Cab?

prisoner6

[homegroan]

my nephew: “how do they gets the food and milk and medicines? they comes in the big loud truck auntie, don’t they?”

MY NEPHEW...6 years old!!

[jimt]

Your commentary on this utopian scheme is spot on.

[EQAndyBuzz]

“I have an idea....why don’t the liberals just focus on Detroit since they f*cked that up beyond repair years ago with their vision. There aren’t many cars there now because of it, and all the demolition they would need to do for their current flavor of utopian vision is already well underway.”

But think of how nice the parks will be. Midnight basketball with nice eco-friendly lighting and recycled sportcourts. And the jobs it will create! Police departments will hire more cops for the third shift.

[MeSpikeLibs]

Because I would really want to ride my bike to work in January. These people need to get off of the drugs.

[MeSpikeLibs]

Because I would really want to ride my bike to work in January. These people need to get off of the drugs.

[EQAndyBuzz]

Utopian Paradise in 2030? Self serve eco-friendly Soylent Green vending machines.

And the irony of it all is the death chambers will show footage of what the country looked like in 2010 before everything went to h&ll in a handbasket.

[The Great RJ]

Do these predictions show the masses shivering or sweltering in their darkened homes waiting for their daily ration of electricity, the fetid smells emanating from thousands of eco-friendly composting toilets or the power elites still living in their mansions and being chauffeured in limos?

[domeika]

Big beehives full of complacent drones! Hell, big cities don't work very well as it is, what will they have to put in the water to keep the inmates from eating each other?

What liberals fundamentally lack is an understanding of why cities exist at all, and it's not because people just woke up one day and said "Gee. I want to be part of a big social experiment so I think I'll move to where other people want to be part of a big social experiment."

Sharp as marbles, keeness of bowling balls, useful as boxes of rocks, call it what you will, but liberals really are pretty stupid no matter how highly they may think of themselves or each other. The extremely easy to understand fact that somehow eludes them is that it's all about business. A compnay is started, maybe by one individual. It grows, and maybe that individual hires someone. That someone earns a wage, then that someone buys a house, a car, a whatever. Then, since they, and maybe others are buying said stuff, business grows in other sectors. It's all intertwined, and it's all about business. It grows and grows and over time...tada....a city.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

There have always been those who don’t want to live in a box among boxes however. Someone has to keep the concept of freedom alive.

[gigster]

My Utopia contains no Leftists.

[DustyMoment]

Imagine no cars - or fewer, anyway. In New York, a two-mile stretch of the FDR Drive parkway is torn down to open lower Manhattan for parks and plazas, and bicyclists are given their own lane on the Brooklyn Bridge. An elevated highway in Guangzhou, China, is transformed into a pedestrian promenade, and rooftops are linked by raised walkways and bikeways. In Jakarta, Indonesia, traditional bike taxis called becaks are re-engineered to be lighter and easier to steer.

Woohoo, living in the 10th Century!!! Can't wait for the environazis to discover how much they are going to HATE their own "utopian" dream!!

IDIOTS!!!

[bill1952]

It would be much easier to tear the entire fetid cesspool down and replace it with a very nice eco-friendly field of some good low carbon emitting foliage, like clover.

They could call it Cloverfield instead of Detroit.

[ilovesarah2012]

I’m not a big Jefferson fan, but he sure knew what he was talking about here.

[Oratam]

A huge “die-off” in the human population is obviously part of their plan. I suspect the magic number is 1.5 billion. That’s a global population of 1.5 billion so about 5 billion of us have to go.

[Lockbar]

"Because I would really want to ride my bike to work in January."

Awwww, come on. Don't you think it will be nice for the whole family to bike ride over to Grandmothers house on Christmas day? Of course, Christmas will be illegal by then.