DO you believe cities become too big to offer a happy life to its residents?

If so, wich cities do you believe are to big and why?


living in paris suburbs , i found that its getting bigger and bigger, worse and worse, more and more overcrowded.
the traffic is a nightmare, especialy where i live , the A4 paris east is simply blocked when its rush hour.
the housing prices are hell. alot of the people are sad and depressed, and stressed.

for example a lot of people have 3 hours commuting a day, because they find jobs at the other side of the city. I did the 3 hours commute today and its insane :bash: :eek2:

that made me think its too big.

Do you drive to work?

nope i took the train because the car way is literrally blocked.

Is metro Paris growing in population or is the present population just moving farther out from the city?

Cities grow too big in area when...

It takes over an hour to get to from the outer suburbs to downtown, even with light traffic.

Cities grow too big in population when...

Everyone is squeezed together in tall apartment blocks.

Tokyo would be an example of a really huge megalopolis but it's still a nice place to live though it's expensive.

I can imagine though a megalopolis in the Pearl River Delta region with HK, Macau, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Dongguan.

Wanch, do you think Pearl River Delata Megalopolis could overtake Tokyo in terms of urban scale/scope.

Urban Scale/Scope - means the man-made volume of buildings and not the population...

...'cause PRD Megalopolis might have already surpassed Tokyo.

This is, of coarse, assuming Tokyo has 42 million within the urban area as well as the commuting outer prefectures and Hong Kong-Shenzhen-Dongguan-Zhuhai-Macau (Pearl River Delta Megalopolis) has 45 million [so I've heard]. :)

DO you believe cities become too big to offer a happy life to its residents?.

of course, they do. only on the skyscraper board do we worship sheer density and population the way that we do.

the 21st century will experience an enormous growth in both...density and population and both density and population will lose their ability to enchant.

My prediction: the greatest cities by mid-century will be those that have managed to grow responsibly and offer their citizens a quality of life still worth living.

I will also go out on a limb to say that the list of the world's ten largest cities in the year 2050 will not include any of the most powerful cities on the planet.

A well-planned city could be much bigger and denser than any that exist today, and still be liveable. Very liveable even.

They key would be outstanding public transit -- so good that cars could be totally eliminated. Just like Hong Kong is so dense they don't have bikes, at a certain density level there wouldn't be any room for cars.

I did some math once about a city of 100 square miles with 40,000,000 residents -- a density of 400,000/sm. Based on my assumptions, you'd need to make good use of below-grade space for transit and utilities, but otherwise the city would only need to cover half its land with 20-story buildings.

A well-planned city could be much bigger and denser than any that exist today, and still be liveable. Very liveable even.

They key would be outstanding public transit -- so good that cars could be totally eliminated. Just like Hong Kong is so dense they don't have bikes, at a certain density level there wouldn't be any room for cars.

I did some math once about a city of 100 square miles with 40,000,000 residents -- a density of 400,000/sm. Based on my assumptions, you'd need to make good use of below-grade space for transit and utilities, but otherwise the city would only need to cover half its land with 20-story buildings.

there is only so much planning you can do; the human factor on how the city will function in a free flow way is a huge issue.

We don't freeze frame our cities in time....40,000,000 will as surely reach 60,000,000 as a 40,000 sq. ft. McMansion becomes a 60,0000 sq. ft. one.

If we are really living in a wolrd where many 40,000,000 cities life, in light of what we are doing to the enivronment (in the sense of global warming) and how we are rapidly using up resources will make a nightmere for all of us.

If we don't get over the idea that the human race can do whatever it wants to this planet, we're all scewed.