I’m watching the city council working session today and there’s a presentation that moves us forward to 2036 and the city is hosting Milken to look at 2 new projects that the city is undertaking:
Greenville Festival (stylized after SXSW but focused on sustainability): personally, I think that this is stupid name since it’s going to confuse people with the city of Greenville, but who am I to say?
Foothill Estates (a car-less, hyper dense community built along the BRT route and exemplifying the 15 minute city.
What say everyone else? I am not thrilled by these big ideas. I think that we need to think bigger and be more innovative, and I think that we need to be more focused on our downtown, not just a stop on the BRT. I’d personally love to see a carless community emerge within or immediately adjacent to downtown proper….maybe something that bridges downtown to Dix Park?
I’m currently watching this video on delay, so there may be more to it than these first two ideas. I’ll loop back with more thoughts if warranted.
What are your thoughts?
Edit: Now the presenter is listing 3 more big ideas: Sponge Cities, Connected Transit, and Housing. Of the 3, the one that seems interesting to me is Sponge Cities, but it’s not a new concept. It’s about managing water and green infrastructure that works with water rather than resisting it. You’d think that this would be a bigger issues for coastal cities where sea level rise is an urgent issue.
Now the presentation is over, and frankly, I did not leave impressed. Very little to nothing was said about developing more densely as an idea by itself, and housing issues discussed were more about affordable housing and funding than they were about enabling/leveraging density as a big idea itself.
The presentation includes a segment about autonomous vehicles and benchmarking both Arlington, TX and Jacksonville, FL. Seriously? They are benchmarking two sprawl capitals for Raleigh? That seems like a miss to me.
I haven’t had a chance to watch yet, but my first thought is that the idea of a festival focused on sustainability is kind of cool, but I 100% agree they need to come up with another name. People will absolutely be confused by that name.
I think the Foothills Estate community idea is a good one, but agree that overall these big ideas seem a bit underwhelming. Even if they were implemented, I’m not sure those are going to have a significant impact on that many citizens. Seems like at least one idea should be a real game changer…
After watching it, I felt like the entire presentation was weak.
Our friend, Jonathan Melton, questioned why the transit solution was essentially just autonomous cars instead of something with capacity. I messaged Jonathan and thanked him for that comment.
I might go back and watch the entire presentation again now that I’ve been through it once already, but my initial thought aligns with yours that it all felt underwhelming to me.
It’s already confusing with 2 Greenvilles and a Greensboro. Just call it Redville and have it be either communist theme or Red Forman themed. Either one is a winner.
The fact that the team came up with that name tells me that they know nothing about North Carolina. And the fact that nobody questioned/prevented that name from being used is just baffling to me.
Not sure how much this consultant was paid, but the city should demand a discount for that nonsense. I was thinking “which Greenville, North or South Carolina?” Worst name ever for festival in Raleigh.
Really fond of the Culdesac guys, would be awesome for the region if they opened up shop here. They’ve had success in Tempe with the light rail line adjacent to the site, so I feel like it would be big for our BRT if they came in and situated a development such that it would be the primary means of transportation to downtown.
