Another wasteful aspect of CCs, largely as a result of never-ending “road improvement schemes” is the proliferation of ugly paved-over spaces and all-but-useless “green spaces”.
UNDER-UTILISED PARKS AND SCRAPPY “RESERVES”
These are created as a “green facility” for suburbanites but usually lack the beauty and facilities of good city-centre parks – eg, no boating lake, no café, no statues and fountains, no exotic trees, no well-tended flower beds, etc. In fact, due to high labour costs, most are kept as simple as possible consisting of little more than an expanse of grass with a few bushes and spindly trees, and maybe a childrens playground. Flower beds less often because in many places the flowers tend to get stolen. A low population density means that tax-funded public facilities have to be spread more thinly, thus sprawl inevitably means a dilution of resources, with the inner-city getting the lions share and the suburb the crumbs.
LEFTOVERS FROM ROAD RE-ALIGNMENTS, etc.
You may not have thought much about it, but you are sure to have noticed that the latest “road-improvement” scheme in your neighbourhood has left behind some “orphans” in the form of oddly-shaped scraps of unusable and unsaleable land. Sometimes they are paved or concreted over or planted with grass, a spindly sapling which falls victim to vandalism, and maybe a concrete bench, presumably so that some sad person can sit and watch traffic roaring past. More often than not these “orphans” become unofficial refuse dumping locations and the seat is soon either broken or becomes a vagrant meeting place. And yet, given the absurdly high value of city-centre land, If all these little scraps could somehow be consolidated into one usable expanse of land, it would be worth many millions. Seems a waste, doesn’t it….?
FLYOVERS, land beneath or within its noise shadow
HUGE ROUNDABOUTS
WIDE MEDIAN STRIPS
“OFF-LIMITS” LAND AROUND SCHOOLS, HOSTITALS, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, etc.
CC’s have vast areas of “public” land which are wasted or unnecessarily duplicated – for example, the huge sports-fields and recreation areas surrounding many schools, and yet which are “off-limits” to the general public who pays for them. It would make better economic sense for schools to share general public sporting facilities, which in some cases they do these days, but this also means time and energy wasted fraternising with the old enemy of distance and inconvenience.
By contrast, PC’s will not waste a square centimetre of land, and there will be a clearly defined border between “city and country”. And, just as an island stops at its shore-line, there can be creeping encroachment of the city upon the country. Every PC edifice will have a deep encircling reservation designated as “The Sanctuary” – a single unified nature and recreational zone which will be public land for all citizens at all times.
A single edifice will not stand alone in magnificent isolation, but will form part of an eventual cluster – sprawl IC-style one could say – but it will be planned sprawl and the visual effect will be stunningly awesome. The cluster, rather than the individual edifice will be the true Island City.
PARKS, GARDENS, DOMAINS
NY has Central Park – but it is only “central” for Manhattanites, it is notoriously dangerous at night and not even safe by day.
Central London – or rather its exclusive West End – is rightly famous for its extensive expanses of parks, especially the “Royal Parks” of Hyde, St James, Green, and Regents Park – but these are only convenient for tourists and the wealthy residents of those areas. But even for the lucky few (100,000 or so) who live within reasonable walking distance (say 10-15 minutes) they are not that convenient as many busy roads have to be crossed. For everyone else, the other 99%, they are exotic icons only occasionally visited if even then. Of course London has many suburban parks, former “village commons” and other open spaces but, with a few notable exceptions these are much smaller or they are not of the same quality as the central parks.
SmartCities –
All public open spaces, and the financial and human resources needed to create and maintain them, can be concentrated in one contiguous zone rather than having to be diffused and spread around.
50% of City area is landscaped parkland, gardens
5-10 minutes walk
All resources can be concentrated
Maintained by a small permanent team assisted by RCS (Required Community Service)