Great observations! I’ve been referring to this as a “fine-grained urban fabric,” but novelty is a much more succinct term. Good point on architecture—Tokyo has some of the best and most fine-grained urbanism, yet all their buildings look like they’re covered in bathroom tiles. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy Parisian suburbs over Haussmanian Paris as well (Vincennes, Puteaux, Colombes, and Nogent-sur-Marne being some great ones). Ultimately, I think a lot of it boils down to whether development retains small-lots with diverse development/ownership. We used to develop/plat like this from day one, why not do it again?
Love the novelty framework. I think of this as "number of nodes on a graph I can traverse in a given amount of walking time". Your porosity metric is a way to drive this number up by connecting more nodes.
Narrow frontage reduces edge length on the graph, which also drives up the number.
Great observations! I’ve been referring to this as a “fine-grained urban fabric,” but novelty is a much more succinct term. Good point on architecture—Tokyo has some of the best and most fine-grained urbanism, yet all their buildings look like they’re covered in bathroom tiles. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy Parisian suburbs over Haussmanian Paris as well (Vincennes, Puteaux, Colombes, and Nogent-sur-Marne being some great ones). Ultimately, I think a lot of it boils down to whether development retains small-lots with diverse development/ownership. We used to develop/plat like this from day one, why not do it again?
This is brilliant, thanks for writing it! Very much looking forward to the next installment.
Love the novelty framework. I think of this as "number of nodes on a graph I can traverse in a given amount of walking time". Your porosity metric is a way to drive this number up by connecting more nodes.
Narrow frontage reduces edge length on the graph, which also drives up the number.
I have a porosity matrix I’m working on to help develop zoning tiers…more to come.