The images in the article can be divided in two groups:<p>* ideas from new urbanism to greenify the urban core with its dense streets, to make them a nicer place, which is a good idea.
* the old modernist ideas of detached houses, now in "ecological" form, which is a total utopia, exactly as it was stated in the Athens Charter.<p>They also seem to look like Frank Lloyd-Wright's words that "sometime people will live in an entirely rural landscape with houses 100 meters apart from each other and greenery and trees between them" (he hated cities quite a lot) (here's one of his houses, sometimes posted with a motivator text below: <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=frank+lloyd+wright+waterfall+house&t=ffab&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images" rel="nofollow">https://duckduckgo.com/?q=frank+lloyd+wright+waterfall+house...</a>)<p>The first part of these, is generally a good thing, but has to be done moderately. I see some images have curves and round forms, which is not a necessity, but rather an attempt to make a nicely looking bird view, which causes various inconveniences -- like park paths that are never walked by, or cut corners.<p>Curved grass strips are especially a problem: if people walk over them, they have to be protected by fences, or by elevating them -- in this case it 1) will require artificial watering, 2) will produce side pockets, unusable for walking (but hopefully used for benches).<p>Andres Duany said a lot about this in his lectures, and I can only sum it up as greenery in the city is needed, but has to be done cautiously and reassessed critically.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO3CaJtSfjg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO3CaJtSfjg</a><p>The other half of the images are mostly reshaped detached houses or modernist apartment blocks. Same Duany criticizes the detached house concept a lot -- it costs much, it makes people have tons of stuff, drive cars, live in isolated way, unlike the urban dwellers (I followed these ideas when buying apartment, and never regret -- I felt a lot better near a small city center, than before that living on the fringe.)<p>The modernist concept of apartment blocks and large green spaces between them appeared as an answer to extremely dense cities of 19th century, which were hardly livable without our modern tech (tap water, sewer, central heating, electric light and active ventilation). The most promiment responses were Garden City Movement (basically, make towns not more than 60K ppl, put them at some distance with forests and fields between, and connect with railways), and Athens Charter (build cities of large apartment blocks standing apart from each other, no closed perimeter like in traditional cities, have greenery betwee, and make city blocks large to let cars go without intersections).<p>The latter was widely implemented in the Socialist block from East Germany to Vladivostok, and failed in many ways.<p>Jan Gehl saw this development in socio-democratic Denmark and criticized for 1) places devoid of any street retail and other local business, because streets are too wide, which made people commute or drive a car to city center to get services, and 2) de-socialization. In a large apartment block it's hard to meet and get along with neighbors for many purely physical and psychological reasons.<p>The Human Scale documentary sums up Gehl's points: <a href="https://vimeo.com/458139267" rel="nofollow">https://vimeo.com/458139267</a><p>------<p>I read their manifesto that appeared earlier, and that's fine.<p>The problem is with these pictures: to me they seem simply a fashionable landscape design with lots of trees, or detached houses with strange shapes. The former is just arts, and I don't see it reflecting any new thinking. The latter is new attempt at century-old failed ideas.<p>What would I offer instead? High-speed commute rail in Germany, Netherlands and maybe Scandinavia, made Garden City ideas actually happen. You can work in a large city, but live an a town in 30 km (20 mi), commute in 40 minutes, but near your home you have both, all the great things of a city (cafes, services, meeting friends in the main street) and of countryside (10 minutes to the city edge and hike or bike). Or you can have a business that is entirely in a small town but has easy access to large markets in big cities -- just 1 hour in train.