Reply #32: Christopher Alexander also backs the "walkable neighborhood" idea

[Lisa]

Although he supports cities larger than the 200-300 thousand range which a lot of people seem to like, he believes they are a lot more comfortable when composed of districts where people can have most of their needs met within 10 minutes walk, and develop that sense of community.

Good design can put a relatively-high population into a fairly small geographical area -- this helps services like public transit be more efficient, so the extra population density may not be quite as obvious. (A lot of older European cities were designed before most residents had private transportation, even horses ... so they have relatively small and walkable downtowns.)



Some suggestions for city designs:

www.newcolonist.com/crawford.html