[ingliz]

I am the Party.

Misty:

Departmental Budget:

Office of the Prime Minister + Foreign Affairs $1.5 billion
Treasury $1.5 billion
Attorney General $4 billion
Defence $23 billion
Education $31 billion
Culture $1.5 billion
Industry $6.5 billion + Pensions and Social Security $40 billion
Environment $11 billion
Trade $2 billion
Home Affairs $6 billion
Health $37 billion
Science $5 billion
Infrastructure $32 billion
Other Spending $7 billion

[Kon]

As long as we have estab;ished libertarian socialists like misty tiger in the party how can we go wrong

[ingliz]

If 240,000 determined revolutionists could rule a Soviet Russia, 12 of us can rule PoFo.

Zyx:

Urban village plan



Cluster housing:



3 storey terraced apartments around a 'green' square:



•A recognizable centre for the town/city/community, such as a green square or distinctive intersection, in which the transit stop is also situated.
•Buildings in the neighborhood centre placed close to the street, to form a well-defined space.
•A walk of not much more than 5 minutes from any home to the community centre, or approximately 2,000 feet.
•Mixed housing types, including apartments, rowhouses and detached homes, to provide a suitable dwelling for people of all ages and all economic means.
•An auxiliary building for workspace or a garage apartment is allowed in the backyard of each home.
•Parking lots or garages in the back of homes and businesses, rather than fronting the streets.
•Shops and offices to sufficiently serve the weekly needs of residents on the edge of the community.
•An elementary school close enough for most children to walk from home.
•Small parks or playgrounds near every home, not more than a tenth of a mile away.
•Streets that create a linked network to disperse traffic.
•Relatively narrow streets, suitable for pedestrians and bicycles, preferably lined with trees.
•Some major spots in the neighborhood centre reserved for buildings to facilitate community meetings and activities, or for religious, cultural, or educational purposes.
•A self-governing community, guided by a council that makes decisions on maintenance and change.

My villages will fit together like a jigsaw and share some amenities. The more organic villages would surround the more formal "green square" terraced apartments.

And my villages would be a mix of rented social housing and owner occupied residences.

There will be design guidelines but a mix of architects and styles.

The individual residents, even council tenants, will work with the architects in "community workshops" to design their own houses, their own communities. This will give a sense of ownership and place that is so often missing from large social housing projects. They might not win an award, as most non architects prefer a traditional style of house, but they will have one great asset, it will be what the people living in them want.

[Vladimir]

This is not suitable for towns of over 50000 residents. I think the best compromise would be to use your plans on towns of below 50 thousand and microdistrics for those above

[Vladimir]

No penalties for using weapons in a crime

This is a separate issue of criminal law though.

No limits on the cache of explosives you can keep in your garden shed

No limits on the classes of explosive

I asked for suggestions on this
(explosive force limit/mass limit???)

No registration of anti tank missiles

No licensing of heavy machine guns

No licensing at all for anything and we have a low grade insurgency funded by the US bubbling away.

Every weapon would be registered and we would know the owners' ID; what else is needed?

[ingliz]

This is not suitable for towns of over 50000 residents.

Why not? look at Paris, and the "green square" fits very well into the centre of London

Every weapon would be registered and we would know the owners' ID; what else is needed?

Security arrangements, regulations on how they will be stored or will you leave an armed RPG propped up in the kiddies nursery.

Police rights of search, permits to carry or will you allow people to drive "technicals" to work a recoilless rifle bolted to the flat bed and a 50 calibre machine gun mounted on the cab......

[Vladimir]

Because such structure simply won't provide urban space integration, rapid and universal transit and proximities, as well as adequate venue access in a large modern town/city. You will end up with an inefficient labyrinth that maroons people and cost them a fortune in transit to anywhere.
Also, large towns tend to have interpersonal communities not local ones, and your model caters only for local ones in small towns.
London is a terrible city. Haven't been to Paris.

[ingliz]

Bullcrap

[Vladimir]

I don't know why you are refusing a good compromise that will allow you to use your plan for a large chunk of the population

Anyway I think we should return to the arms act

[ingliz]

Moscow is a shit hole, my son lives there

I am not refusing to compromise but many of the spaces in an inner city are small and will not take your micro districts. I thought I was infilling small brownfield city sites as well as medium sized town projects. But if you want to leave derelict factories derelict, old gas works rotting.....

[Vladimir]

Moscow is a shit hole, my son lives there

How so ?

I am not refusing to compromise but many of the sites in an inner city are small and will not take your micro districts

The inner city isn't usually residential and the parts that are are not for microdistricts, I agree; they are not for your villages either. They have unique structures and unless we demolish and re-plan them, we can only guide by local conditions rathern than a plan

I thought I was infilling brownfield city sites as well as medium sized town projects. But if you want to leave derelict factories derelict, old gas works rotting.....

We can't really mix much of the two plans in one city. It's up to Zyx and you in the end, but if you want maximum efficiency it's best to designate according to population size

[ingliz]

I thought that was what we were doing regenerating the inner cities?

My design philosophy is small and many perfectly good working class residential areas are blighted by decaying disused small industrial sites which should be knocked down and redeveloped. You are the one who said space was at a premium and now you are wasting it. My cluster housing is self contained and though they are one of the building blocks of my urban village there is no reason they cannot be used on their own to infill.

[Vladimir]

What we do with old industrial sites depends on their size though. What sort of areas are you thinking of?

[ingliz]

I can go down to 1 acre if needs be, I could go smaller but you would lose the open feel of the plan

Moscow

[Vladimir]

That's fine although in larger towns you could make them fit in better if you go slightly higher and make whole units, for example 2-5 floors:

Moscow

what about Moscow ?

[ingliz]

If this high rise is so good why are the Moscow planners knocking them down?

My son has just been moved while they demolish his old block for redevelopment, I don't think it was more than 40 years old.

[Vladimir]

Not sure what you're talking about, newer and taller ones are being built all the time

[ingliz]

Why are we building high rise blocks which only have a life of 40 years?

[Vladimir]

It depends on the materials used. Brick-cladded buildings of up to 15 floors have spans of up to 100 years. With appropriate materials the life span of taller buildings doesn't differ from lower ones. However with the modern rate of capital flow, we can't expect a stationary urban environment to last for longer than a couple of decades in any location...
The life time of russian high-rises built in the 60's is up to 150 years
http://rus.postimees.ee/110808/dopolnit ... 7466_1.php

This reminds me, before we proceed Zyx has to legislate building standards. I propose we just adopt Eurocodes

[ingliz]

"If you build above 11 or 12 storeys, building costs go very high. At 35 storeys or more they are around £4,000 per square metre, against £1,500 for mid-rise."

£1000 per square metre to 3 storeys.

Why are we building higher than 12 storeys?

However with the modern rate of capital flow, we can't expect a stationary urban environment to last for longer than a couple of decades in any location...

No, that is ridiculous, The government will design its housing to last. I am not spending billions to put up temporary structures, we will get this right the first time round.