Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
Actually these would on the one hand (superinsulation) slightly favour smaller houses with a lower perimeter to volume ratio (contrary to the ?space-to-live? argument) ie. small, fat houses on cold climates but on the other hand (passive solar gain) favour a higher perimeter to volume ratio as well as single orientation ie., long skinny houses in hot climates. The ?third hand? (airtightness) is particularly appropriate to extremes of cold climate and produces poor quality air environments unless counter-productive and recycled and hence re-conditioned air is used at the expense of increasing carbon footprint.
In the UK climate superinsulation and air-tightness are the prime points. Passive solar assists quite well. See, The Whole House Book at The Centre of Alternative Technology. Also read the link in post 204 re: heatingless house. Also, it keeps families out of fuel poverty. It also improves health

In short, you can?t throw all the ?positives? in the pot and expect a beneficial result and you can?t use the same systems, anywhere and at anytime.
Uh?

Other significant drivers of carbon footprint are extremes of climate and ?degree of development? ie the hot and cold and highly developed countries produce really high amounts of carbon.
Reducing the carbon footprint simply mean a reduction in fossil fuel use - which does not mean high density cities. Air conditioning and excessive car use causes high carbon from cities in hot and cold climates. Well built homes to the point I outlined will reduce the fossil fuel use. In a UK climate it will use very little at all.

This ridiculous Merseytram idea, was designed with outdated radial lines from the city centre. A meshed network is the way to go so people can move easily from suburb to suburb instead of having to move into the centre and back out again on another line.

Look at Milton Keynes, the city planning idea was by an American named Webber. He was far sighted. The city was built on a high speed grid road system with cars moving at 60-70mph, in which the roads formed the boundaries of suburbs, not running through the suburbs. At each point of the grid there was a roundabout to improve traffic flow. Each suburb was a village in its own right with a pub, shops schools, etc. The thinking was when car was thought to be the predominate mode of transport. This can be applied to a metro system, instead of roads.

About the concept of Milton Keynes:



They set in place the characteristic grid roads that run between districts and the intensive planting, lakes and parkland that are so evident today. Central Milton Keynes was not intended to be a traditional town centre but a business and shopping district that supplemented the Local Centres in most of the Grid Squares.

This non-hierarchical devolved city plan was a departure from the English New Towns tradition and envisaged a wide range of industry and diversity of housing styles and tenures across the city. The largest and almost the last of the British New Towns, Milton Keynes has stood the test of time far better than most, and has proved flexible and adaptable.

The radical grid plan was inspired by the work of Californian urban theorist Melvin M. Webber (1921-2006), described by the founding architect of Milton Keynes, Derek Walker, as the "father of the city". Webber thought that telecommunications meant that the old idea of a city as a concentric cluster was out of date and that cities which enabled people to travel around them readily would be the thing of the future achieving "community without propinquity" for residents. With both car ownership and ever more emphasis on e-commerce, his ideas, launched in the 1960s, have proved far-sighted.

Webber's ideal works. If the grid was a metro rail grid running to the centre of each "village/suburb" and the roads narrowed and set to 30mph to discourage car ownership, then this model would work very well indeed. The city has adapted to cater for single people by building high rises in the centre, near the bars and theatres, etc. This highly successful urban model can be adapted and retro-fitted to existing cities.

The model works exceptionally well with Milton Keynes now with over a population of 200,000 is set to overtake Nottingham within 10-15 years.

Liverpool has a Merseyrail metro system with radial lines running outwards in the old hat commuter rail fashion. To make it work it needs a meshed metro network. Liverpool has redundant cross city loop lines, the Outer Loop, Canada Dock Branch line, North Mersey Line, two long tunnels, etc which cut through outer suburbs and radial lines - perfect. This makes it easy to move across the city, not just in and out, a great advantage.

This is the way Liverpool should be thinking. Use the Merseyrail metro as way of getting around the city not a means of getting people to the centre to work.

The metro and the disused lines can make a wonderful hybrid city of:
  • High density city centre, including the waterfront docks.
  • a series of "villages" with large detached, eco, low density homes in the outer suburbs.


All interlinked with a "meshed" metro network - and trams if need be in places where the metro cannot get to. And no large roads to discourage car usage and force people onto the metro.

Liverpool has it all waiting to be used.. The last thing the city needs is radial lines with trams on them.