If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I have a thing for narrow streets. Which is why when I travel I sometimes (okay, oftentimes) bring a laser distance measuring device with me. I like measuring things so that I have dimensions that I can feed back into our own development projects. But perhaps most importantly, it allows me to appear as nerdy as humanly possible while traveling. Walking around with just a camera in hand isn't enough. You need to try harder than that. And so far the narrowest street that I have come across was in Noto, Sicily at just over 1.3m wide.

If you also like to fawn over narrow European streets, you may enjoy this recent video by City Beautiful. In it, Dave Amos compares European cities, like Rome, to US cities, like Salt Lake City and Philadelphia, and then asks: Can the US build European-style street networks? His immediate answer is, "probably not." And this is something that we have talked about before on the blog. Street networks tend to be really sticky. They're hard to change. However, there is another possible solution: create new smaller mid-block streets. And that's the focus of Dave's video:

But if you think about it, this condition already exists in a number of cities. Here in Toronto, we have somewhere around 300 kilometers of laneways, which tend to range in width from 4 to 6m. These are European-scaled streets and amazingly they're already in place! The only difference is that, today, they mostly serve a back-of-house function. They provide access to garages. However, that is quickly changing with the introduction of laneway suites. And so over a long enough time horizon, our laneways are going to inevitably flip from back-of-house to primarily residential.

Though maybe there's even more we could do with this asset. European cities manage to fit retail, restaurants, patios, and more within 6m. Why not do the same with some of our narrowest streets?

Peter Baugh tweeted this out on Monday. Essentially, he attended a community meeting for a new housing project in his neighborhood. He spoke in favor of the proposed development. And was then accused of being a developer shill. His comments were subsequently no longer allowed at this "public" meeting. I mean, how could anyone possibly be in favor of new urban housing? Surely he must be a developer "plant."

This is wrong, disappointing, and a whole host of other unsightly things. So today I thought I would share a recent City Beautiful video that asks: "Are NIMBYs selfish?" I have shared Dave Amos' videos before. He's an assistant professor of city planning at Cal Poly and a well known YouTuber. And I think this video does a great job explaining some of the tensions and trade-offs at play when it comes to development, particularly infill development.

But as Dave clearly explains in the video, he is not a neutral actor when it comes to this topic. His view is that, yes, NIMBYs are selfish.

Here is a short video by Dave Amos (of the YouTube channel City Beautiful) about the splitting of Berlin into two. What a fascinating urban case study. I just recently discovered his channel, but he seems to cover some interesting topics, all of which are related to cities and city planning. When Dave is not making YouTube videos, he is a professor of city and regional planning at Cal Poly. He also graduated with a Master of Architecture at some point before getting his Ph.D., so presumably he knows a few things about buildings and cities. I guess that also makes him an imposter architect, like me.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I have a thing for narrow streets. Which is why when I travel I sometimes (okay, oftentimes) bring a laser distance measuring device with me. I like measuring things so that I have dimensions that I can feed back into our own development projects. But perhaps most importantly, it allows me to appear as nerdy as humanly possible while traveling. Walking around with just a camera in hand isn't enough. You need to try harder than that. And so far the narrowest street that I have come across was in Noto, Sicily at just over 1.3m wide.

If you also like to fawn over narrow European streets, you may enjoy this recent video by City Beautiful. In it, Dave Amos compares European cities, like Rome, to US cities, like Salt Lake City and Philadelphia, and then asks: Can the US build European-style street networks? His immediate answer is, "probably not." And this is something that we have talked about before on the blog. Street networks tend to be really sticky. They're hard to change. However, there is another possible solution: create new smaller mid-block streets. And that's the focus of Dave's video:

But if you think about it, this condition already exists in a number of cities. Here in Toronto, we have somewhere around 300 kilometers of laneways, which tend to range in width from 4 to 6m. These are European-scaled streets and amazingly they're already in place! The only difference is that, today, they mostly serve a back-of-house function. They provide access to garages. However, that is quickly changing with the introduction of laneway suites. And so over a long enough time horizon, our laneways are going to inevitably flip from back-of-house to primarily residential.

Though maybe there's even more we could do with this asset. European cities manage to fit retail, restaurants, patios, and more within 6m. Why not do the same with some of our narrowest streets?

Peter Baugh tweeted this out on Monday. Essentially, he attended a community meeting for a new housing project in his neighborhood. He spoke in favor of the proposed development. And was then accused of being a developer shill. His comments were subsequently no longer allowed at this "public" meeting. I mean, how could anyone possibly be in favor of new urban housing? Surely he must be a developer "plant."

This is wrong, disappointing, and a whole host of other unsightly things. So today I thought I would share a recent City Beautiful video that asks: "Are NIMBYs selfish?" I have shared Dave Amos' videos before. He's an assistant professor of city planning at Cal Poly and a well known YouTuber. And I think this video does a great job explaining some of the tensions and trade-offs at play when it comes to development, particularly infill development.

But as Dave clearly explains in the video, he is not a neutral actor when it comes to this topic. His view is that, yes, NIMBYs are selfish.

Here is a short video by Dave Amos (of the YouTube channel City Beautiful) about the splitting of Berlin into two. What a fascinating urban case study. I just recently discovered his channel, but he seems to cover some interesting topics, all of which are related to cities and city planning. When Dave is not making YouTube videos, he is a professor of city and regional planning at Cal Poly. He also graduated with a Master of Architecture at some point before getting his Ph.D., so presumably he knows a few things about buildings and cities. I guess that also makes him an imposter architect, like me.