Community Garden and Rent Control Apartment Sim

[Beathan]

Our discussion of sim acquisition has focussed on theme and aesthetic concerns. This makes good sense -- as these have been and are our great strengths due to the inspiring talent of our builders. However, I think we should have a parallel or intertwined discussion focussing on utility and sim function.

One common gripe about the CDS is that it is sparsely populated. As a result, there is minimal traffic. This results in an often lamented lack of vibrancy in our commercial spaces.

Perhaps we have priced ourselves out of a significant market -- excluding large numbers of players who would be interested and active in our governmental experiment, but who lack the means or desire to own large tract homes.

We can solve this by applying concepts from urban planning -- developing our new sims on a zoning model. We can then identify the uses that are lacking in our community (high density residential is obvious; so is industrial (in the form of a sandbox or prim park)). We can then focus our expansion efforts on filling the voids in our land use.

Historically, when there was only 1 sim, there was a concern that having large numbers of cheap lots imbalance the politics of the sim by allowing manipulation of elections through bussing. This is a problem in RL as well. If you have one-person; one vote, without a requirement that the voter prove their commitment to the community by (for instance) owning significant property -- then elections can be upset by temporary immigration for election purposes. On the other hand, imposing a land or other qualification requirement seems archaic and undemocratic.

I see this as analogous to the argument in the US Constitutional convention concerning the fear of small states that they would be overwhelmed by the power of large states. This resulted in the US Senate model in which each state, regardless of size, had co-equal representation. We can use this model.

I have previously proposed, and I again proposed, that we change the way we elect RA members so that some members (say 3) are "at-large" positions -- and that each sim thereafter get its own representative, elected in a sim-0nly election. This will preserve the useful odd number of RA members, will increase sim representation (which should benefit the CDS by increasing the idiosyncracy and uniqueness of each sim), and will allow us to allow for an influx of new citizens with less stake in the CDS than the old-timers without sacrificing the position of those old-timers.

Beathan

[Claude Desmoulins]

Two things:

Neufreistadt was designed as a fairly dense sim. I haven't broken out how many citizens have land in , though it would be an interesting analysis.

Another option would be to go bicameral, though I know this is too "American" for some people's taste and would require a growth of the government.

[Beathan]

Claude --

Interesting. I would have classified NF as "medium density" -- mostly being smaller lot private houses.

As for bicameralism -- I think that it is largely an accident of the British experience that was copied, out of familiarity rather than for good reasons, by the American founders. I don't see much benefit in it. The debate between houses is rarely as interesting or as useful as the debate within a house -- and the possibility for gaming the bicameral system causes concerns. Also, I think that bicameralism would increase, rather than avoid, the possibility of having "second-class legislators" -- rather than having rough equality among RA members.

Beathan

[Nikki]

It seems to me like a good idea to establish areas within the CDS where landowners would be citizens of that area. For example, “Neufreistadt” could become “Neufreistaat.”
(For those who do not understand German, this change would be from “New Free City” to “New Free State”).

However, I believe these areas should be defined by cultural differences rather than by sim. For example, in relation to this question in another thread...

Is there anything that requires a sim to have a single theme? Could say half of it be german and the other half be roman?

A boundary between these two cultural areas could be drawn within a single such sim.

Once these cultural areas were defined there could be local governments for them, and they could also send local representatives to the CDS government.

☼

The possibility of having some larger buildings for apartments is something I also have been thinking about. If you are interested in my ideas for these kind of buildings, here are a few RL examples I found that I would like to see for the Neufreistadt area:

[Brian Livingston]

It's interesting, because I've had a couple ideas pass through my head for sim plans based off of classic planning models, such as Howard's [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_cit ... t:ym7290c4]Garden City[/url:ym7290c4], Le Corbusier's [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Cont ... e:ym7290c4]Ville Contemporaine[/url:ym7290c4], Plotlands ala [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Ward:ym7290c4]C. Ward[/url:ym7290c4] and so on. Nothing to propose as they wouldn't work with any of our current or future proposed themes, but some part of me would love to see someone develop a series of sims based off of these models.

--BL

[Beathan]

Brian --

Excellent idea. SL seems like a good forum to test those concepts to see if they actually work. Traffic works differently here -- but otherwise it is a great forum to test such urban organization patterns.

You are right - many of those models would fit with any number of theme ideas. We should try it.

Beathan

[Arria Perreault]

[quote="Beathan":2bhjt3uj]I have previously proposed, and I again proposed, that we change the way we elect RA members so that some members (say 3) are "at-large" positions -- and that each sim thereafter get its own representative, elected in a sim-0nly election. [/quote:2bhjt3uj]
I totally agree elections at sim's level.

[Nikki]

After thinking about it more I agree it could be good for each sim to have its own representative. That would allow for local representation everywhere in the CDS.

- ∂ -

If we wanted to work with urban planning models like Brian brought up, we could maybe have the new planned normal sim between NFS and CN be reserved for that. In RL it often happens in Europe that such modern housing areas are built outside of old historic cities, so the new styles of architecture do not conflict with the older ones.

One thought I have about this idea is there are many large, modern apartment buildings in SL that are empty. For me it would be important that these new buildings be attractive enough that people would actually want to have them be their virtual home.

[Beathan]

Nikki --

I agree that we need to make the living spaces in the CDS attractive so that people will actually want to living in them. The builders have an excellent history in this. I also agree that there are too many empty and ugly apartment buildings in SL -- buildings that look like they were modeled on ugly RL buildings. Many people come to SL so that they can escape from living in apartments like that -- I don't see them renting them in SL.

Rather than apartments, I was thinking more of economical condos. These could be built as small houses with no setbacks along some common area -- a garden or somesuch. Thinking of this image, I now realize what Claude was saying. There would be little difference between this density and that in NF city.

Still, the idea is to increase the total density in the sim -- rather than have dense pockets in a sim that tries to support all desired uses. I think we should start designing with sim specificity as a goal.

Beathan

[Claude Desmoulins]

Also when I described NFS as dense, it was in comparison to what I see as SL rather than RL norms. High density land in SL is much rarer than in meatspace, so NFS, while not the densest build in SL, is further along the continuum (especially when you consider inside the walls vs. the whole sim) in SL than it would be IRL.

[Brian Livingston]

[quote="Beathan":60pnmn81]
Rather than apartments, I was thinking more of economical condos. These could be built as small houses with no setbacks along some common area -- a garden or somesuch. Thinking of this image, I now realize what Claude was saying. There would be little difference between this density and that in NF city.[/quote:60pnmn81]

That sounds similar to a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism:60pnmn81]New Urbanist[/url:60pnmn81] planned community, such as Seaside in Florida.

The key details of a New Urbanist neighborhood, from wikipedia, although this sounds similar to points from the CNU:

1. The neighborhood has a discernible center. This is often a square or a green and sometimes a busy or memorable street corner. A transit stop would be located at this center.
2. Most of the dwellings are within a five-minute walk of the center, an average of roughly 2,000 feet.
3. There are a variety of dwelling types—usually houses, rowhouses, and apartments—so that younger and older people, singles, and families, the poor, and the wealthy may find places to live.
4. At the edge of the neighborhood, there are shops and offices of sufficiently varied types to supply the weekly needs of a household.
5. A small ancillary building or garage apartment is permitted within the backyard of each house. It may be used as a rental unit or place to work (for example, an office or craft workshop).
6. An elementary school is close enough so that most children can walk from their home.
7. There are small playgrounds accessible to every dwelling—not more than a tenth of a mile away.
8. Streets within the neighborhood form a connected network, which disperses traffic by providing a variety of pedestrian and vehicular routes to any destination.
9. The streets are relatively narrow and shaded by rows of trees. This slows traffic, creating an environment suitable for pedestrians and bicycles.
10. Buildings in the neighborhood center are placed close to the street, creating a well-defined outdoor room.
11. Parking lots and garage doors rarely front the street. Parking is relegated to the rear of buildings, usually accessed by alleys.
12. Certain prominent sites at the termination of street vistas or in the neighborhood center are reserved for civic buildings. These provide sites for community meetings, education, and religious or cultural activities.
13. The neighborhood is organized to be self-governing. A formal association debates and decides matters of maintenance, security, and physical change. Taxation is the responsibility of the larger community.

--BL