One Thousand Villages

@wirehead-wannabe I recall you talking about wanting a college-campus-like environment with activities and whatnot as a living area, but outside of a college campus.

@mailadreapta I recall you talking about the difficulty of getting people to go for medium-density housing.

And I guess @bambamramfan I think I’ve mentioned a similar idea already.  (Though it was a low-trust mechanism, I’m of the opinion that high trust is an equilibrium state which can be achieved through various mechanisms.)

There is an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while, which is to borrow an idea from computer science for resolving the challenges of urban areas by recursively reducing the size of problems until they can be adequately resolved.  Thus, the city is reduced to a bunch of villages/towns.

The above render is for a rough sketch design that spans one kilometer and houses a population of around 5,000 or more, assuming an apartment is about 100 sqm (based on the size of an average apartment in the US).  After reviewing it, I can’t help but think it should perhaps be about ¼ the size, but ah well.  Grey is civic buildings, light green is residential, light blue is commercial, and light brown is footpaths.

• Mixed use development has a lot of advantages, including reductions in commuting, but for various reasons people don’t like it.
  
• People seem to find themselves feeling less connected to, and less trusting of, others.
• Crime continues to be a problem for many cities.
• Childhood obesity is on the increase, and children most likely need to get outside more.
• Police violence is a problem in many cities.
• Greenery is important for human psychological health.
• High levels of traffic congestion.

My proposal, then, is to create a smaller community within the city with several key elements:

• Semi-permeable membrane - Outer wall reduces noise.  Security and level of surveillance can be adjusted according to local crime levels.  As crime rises, all visitors can be tracked, or access can even be limited.
• Quick access to public transportation (orange areas) - the average human walks at 5kph, and is therefore never more than about 700m and ~10 minutes from a public transport stop.
• Quick access to local shops - reduce unnecessary transport usage and make goods available easily to the locals, also it’s directly next to the transit stop.
• Community Center - Common facilities for exercise, social clubs, social events, and so on are near the center.  All residents own a share of the Community Development Board (or something) which hires personnel to clean up the neighborhood, maintain the facilities, and puts on community social events on the regular.  This is very local, direct political involvement with a high share of control per person.  
• Community Support Officers (CSOs) - (I only recently discovered UK has something with the same name.)  Trained not only in police work, but also emergency medical care, fire suppression, and social work.  Part of the idea here is that CSOs will engage almost entirely in foot patrols when not doing other support work.  They will know who is an actual threat, vs who is mentally ill, possibly be able to deflect bad paths before they become permanent, and pick up on crimes using high-context detective work.  The people of the block will be real people to them and they will see their consequences as they happen.
• Low-velocity roads - Borrowed from Barcelona, encourages and enhances walking, discourages car use, but still lets cargo move in and out.  Safer for children.  
• Ample foot/bicycle paths, ample green space for exercise, sports, and letting children outside to play.

Probably this needs to be revised a lot more, starting with a reduction to 500m.

I think something like this might have the potential to lower crime and police violence, while reducing the opposition to medium-density living and increasing psychological and physical health.  

But you know, I’m not an expert.  There’s probably something terribly wrong with this.