The neighborhood should be called "Johnson's Crossing" as the area is made famous from a pioneer who traversed across the area on the way to the upper Midwest in the early 19th Century, whose name was "Johnson" - which the city of Johnson's Creek is also named after, as it is the location where he crossed the river and as he passed through.
@@casmatori Because Phil talks about the history of Johnson Aggregates in the episode he first built the mining operation. Unless I'm remembering wrong Johnson is still alive.
I disagree and i am an American, we have caused too much sprawl, traffic congestion and expensive infrastructure that ends up bancrupting cities. Stroads and island strip malls with concrete parking lot jungles, hostile wide streets to pedestrians with few side walks is a day of life. Old American neighborhoods were designed much better, not just for cars.
I've liked living in suburban neighborhoods most of my life. Its nice not needing to worry too much about your kids playing outside by themselves. Some cities do it better than others. The last place I lived had easy access to collector roads with 30 mph speed limits and enough shoulder for easy biking. The city did a good job at building trails and making it easy to access shopping and parks, with limited time spent on fast/busy roads. The city I live in now didn't force connections to be made, so there are many areas that are segmented from each other, forcing people to use very busy/fast roads to get from one area to another. They have not been nearly as proactive at building trails, instead focusing a lot of money towards polishing their main parks and trails, but little towards expanding park and trail access. The neighborhood is still nice, but leaving it for anything is definitely not the best.
@@Electrodexify I agree with you here. I've recently moved to a more congested neighborhood that prioritizes space for trails and parks. I thought I was going to hate not having the space and privacy we're accustomed to with our huge lots and segregated properties but I was very wrong. Safety, sense of community, and respect for the surroundings are much more prominent aspects in my new neighborhood.
@@jaredwilliams8621 You have only lived in a suburb all. your life and you have convinced yourself that the suburb way is the best. Most suburbanites believe what the big auto ads decades campaign tells them about how dangerous living in a walkable neighborhood are, where people actually walk and interact with each other. They actually believe that the sheltered isolated life with few if any gathering places is the best way to raise children, it is no wonder why young people these days are mostly on their phones and hardly socialize with one another because the suburban life promotes laziness and inaction; as well as the creation of hermits, since those poorly laid out suburbs which are bordered by giant streets with traffic congestion, discourages exploration. I have lived in both suburbs and now live in a walkable neighborhood in the inner city, where I can walk at 3am peacefully throughout the city and not having to worry about any crime. I avoid going to the suburburbs because the traffic congestion and giant multi-lane streets with long bars of traffic lights, ugly parking lots, vanilla strip malls, is very stressful. Also, I wouldn't want to live in the suburbs, which are subsidized by the government and are a ponzy scheme that ends up bankrupting the whole city in the long term.
@@ThePlosz Suburbanites wonder why there is little sence of familial and community connections these days but they don't even realize how suburbs are meant to isolate everyone and cause community detachment. They brag about their few trails that are broken up by giant streets where stressful drivers are racing the traffic light because the streets are made extra wide, while being congested because the car is the only way to get around and everything is far. This extra speed makes being a pedestrian stressful from all the tire noise. Their trails are fixed and sparse, since most suburbs surrounded by giant roads don't build sidewalks. Where as here in the inner city, streets are built properly in a grid pattern that evenly distribute cars and trails are everywhere. My city like other cities are realizing, have gone into a beautification of pedestrian friendly trails parks. Since most of the land has been wasted by suburbs, my city is returning back to the way our city was built prior to 1960s
Hi Phil! Those extra nodes are coming from the fact that the create connection mode uses two curves to connect the points. If there’s only one curve, you should use the create curve tool (the arch looking one)
I think I got hooked on this in a way that isn't good. I either need to be more node-aware and this isn't a good use of them. I'll use the curved road tool more.... and explain why I'm doing it vs this tool!
@@CityPlannerPlays The curve tool in NMT is just like the curve road drawing tool in the vanilla game. It will draw whatever curve it wants and won't follow a pre-determined radius. The Loop mode will draw a straight sections and a single curve
@@williamhuang8309 the curve tool draws a single smooth curve between two points. The loop is looking for a directional change greater than 180 degrees and isn’t the right tool for anything less
I think a pedestrian bridge between Johnson Creek and the new town would be nice Also the directionality at the start of the collecter is off Great video!
@@cherriberri8373 As always, Phil is trying to be true to the way things are actually built in the US...which are frequently terrible. I agree that a pedestrian bridge on the other end of Johnson's Creek would be a great idea, needs some more... C O N N E C T I V I T Y.
@@CityPlannerPlays Additionally you don't have to select "disable zoning" every time (most useful when you're initially building several roadways that you don't want zoned at all). Instead you can simply right-click the segment while the zoning tool is open to disable zoning on both sides altogether
24:45 I made a bunch of roads with the fairly new road builder mod. My main focus was protected bike lines that are separated with trees from the roads. This way you can also add on street parking that is safe for cyclists. I think they would be perfect for the aterial.
@@cherriberri8373 Sure but if you build new cyclist infrastructure, might as well do it properly, right ;) Looks better, too, in my opinion and addresses the parking.
if bikes can't ride next to cars on the ROAD then maybe bikes don't belong on the road.this is why no one listens to these people in the US. you give them an inch & they aren't happy and want a mile. its not good enough that we lose a ton of road space, sidewalk space, and land for the 5 people in the town that actually ride a bike & can't just take a car because they are too pretentious but now we have to add extra costs & complexity to provide a divider & trees for the bike line. most roads in America don't even have separation for sidewalks
I like "Clear Lake" for the new development. That little glacial deposit is really the selling point of the community, more so than the creek or the hill. I'd imagine in the summer you'd see lots of boats, beaches, canoes, fishing, etc as the community congregates there, and that's how you'd draw people from the urban areas to the suburban and increase the salability. And, in the winter I'm sure you'd see ice fishing, snowmobiles, and maybe even ice skating on the little lake, all of which are easier to do on the small lake rather than Superior. I would also suggest using the grid aligned with the lake for some local commercial uses- things like a restaurant, bar/pub, maybe a small hotel, coffee shops, ice cream stores, etc. To really solidify the lake as a sort of community center. On a weekend, kids are on the beach, dad's fishing with a beer from the pub, mom's going to get ice cream and snacks from the restaurant.
The collector couplet that intersects the highway should have both one ways connect at the same node, then use node controller to spread the two, so that it all functions as one cohesive intersection
Love the planning in this episode. I'd love to see the 'city center' of that new area be right off of the main arterial, maybe with some commercial uses fronting the lake, like cafes or more leisure-type uses. Then, you could set the roads through the area as very low speed-limit, almost like a pedestrian district, which would dissuade traffic passing through even more. Lots of local areas by me are set up similarly. The area originally marked as 'city center' seems to be more on the fringes, where you'd be likely to see more auto-oriented uses and/or big box stores.
@@cherriberri8373 But wasn't that kind of the point? This type of suburban development happens all the time, and this one looks a ton like stuff I see all around me. From the developers standpoint, I don't think it was that awful, though I would expect the lots to be much more densely packed to maximize value. We'll see if that happens as future development occurs. The one bit that did seem out of place was the bridge and city center, as I'd expect that to come much later in the development process.
@@cherriberri8373 i think you’re being a little too critical and unrealistic as well. This isn’t set in Europe. This is the rural/semi-rural upper Midwest, and the United States in general; let’s be real now. We all know suburban planning in this country is not great yet what makes Phil great in this particular series is that he builds things true to life…and will even mention when he doesn’t agree with certain common planning practices. You don’t have to like it but no need to comment on everyone’s comments expressing your disgust. Once is enough
Love the idea of the commercial uses at the lake! I think part of the interest in a suburban area is fixing it in the future. I have been building a couple of things in the last little while that I'm looking forward to "retrofitting" into a more urban context down the line. We're starting to see that in some communities and I've have the opportunity to plan for some of those sorts of retrofits... they're going to be really fascinating to see get implemented!
@@CityPlannerPlays TBH, one of the reasons I enjoy watching your series (one of many) is the discovery and explanation of historically accurate planning designs, flaws and all. With your professional background, creativity, story-telling, and genuine radio-charisma, our edutainment exponentially increases the more episodes we watch.
Hey Phil, great build! A couple small comments: first, you mentioned the need to create parking around the little downtown area but then didn't actual implement any. Second, in Find It if you go into your extra filters panel, there's actually an option to sort directly by the District Styles you've created so you don't actually need to do the extra work of building out a whole tag.
Upgrading the last bits of the collector cuplet towards the highway to be tree lined would make a lot of sense. In the Netherlands we add trees as a visual 'narrowing' for drivers tricking them into slowing down compared to the highway speed they just came off of. This will then lead to safer bike paths on the following roads into town. Plus the bikelanes will not add anything to the community as the connectivity stops at the highway anyway!
Man. I'm struggeling with my health right now a little but you're videos are just so soothing. they are ASMR for my soul. you have no idea how much all of these mean to me! keep it up man, honestly thank you for all you're work!
For me, that area used to be a giant hunting grounds for the residents of Johnson's Creek, they would cross the river and just spend the day and sometimes even make a camp on the hill, waiting for their prey, which was mainly Deer. So the hill could be called Deer Mountain (I know its not a mountain, but the residents call it that way) almost like a word play for Dear Mountain, the heart of the community.
I think a pedestrian bridge on the other end of the old development would work nicely. Maybe its a budget wooden bridge (nature reserve path) rather than an expensive concrete one.
Great video but I couldn't not notice that at the entrance to the neighborhood, you accidentally reversed the couplet, meaning the directionality now is wrong. Also, how about connecting the new development to the capital via train? The tracks on the Johnson Creek side are not far away from the river so it shouldn't be difficult...
Love seeing this county grow! Maybe not for your channel, but would love to hear you talk more about the challenges of homeownership in an era of rising housing values/reduced construction. How can communities maintain housing as populations grow and construction can’t keep up?
You can look it up with the FRED tool at the Federal Reserve, but I was astounded a couple months ago to find there are half the construction starts on privately owned single-family housing units now than there were in 1978. When we had 100MM fewer people.
As an archaeologist, I think it would be cool if you factored in Cultural Resource Management and archaeological surveys when you do big new developments like this one. You never know what areas might have an important archaeological site!
as a suburban resident of Long Island, New York- I got very excited at the thumbnail and start of the video! Love learning about suburbia as a break from the city- so ironic to use 'Cities' Skylines for suburbia. Excited to see how the neigborhood comes together, paused at the 1:30 mark haha. Mr. CPP, I'm Long time watcher- was wondering if you could ever take a look at my hometown of Huntington, NY to be inspired by one of the oldest towns in the country, founded in 1657, and use it as inspiration!
It's absolutely painful to see how realistic this is. I've recently moved to a new area where the roads are laid out this way, and it is quite difficult to get around town if you don't have a car.
I understand the plight of the vehicle-less in real life. Fortunately, in the game this is easily fixed with properly planned pedestrian paths and bike facilities! The very nice thing about developments laid out this way though is that there is almost never any vehicular traffic that doesn't actually belong there! They're not nice places to navigate, but they are very nice places to live
I think the lake should be named “Sitting Bear Lake” mostly because it looks like a sitting bear but also because it could have been the name of a native tribe that used to live in the area.
Wow I love how you play the game. The way you incorporate local lore and real life planning and building strategies is a fascinating insight into how these things get done in real life. The city feels like a real place with real people.
As much as I also hate the lack of light in that neighborhood- as someone who lived in the rural midwest for a couple years, I'd think that even that much street lighting would piss a bunch of people off. I swear the town I lived in had a rule of one street light ever half mile with how dark it was.
When you were speaking of folks liking having no lights in those areas at night, I totally get that. I know in my country, there are areas that turn on lights only when they detect vehicles.
I am a relatively new viewer but you have quickly become my favorite cities skylines player. It’s so relaxing and I love the planning aspect. My cities are chaos lol.
7:16 The create connection mode is mostly appropriate for creating s-bends or complex curves with multiple curve points. If you want a single curve point (e.g. straight road then a nice curve) you should use the Loop mode instead. Despite what the name implies, it's the best tool for making connections with one curve point. 22:48 ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the entrance roads are wrong Also: There is some very low hanging fruit in terms of transit as there is a rail line very close to the neighbourhood. Take advantage of that and you can build a suburban rail operation and it'll become a real town centre.
I scrolled through just to see if anyone noticed the entrance roads being wrong! It was bugging me to no end, having traffic cross over the intersection to a separate one way.
I love that we never know what kind of episode we’re gonna get, you have such a good balance of enjoying/teaching us the game and using your professional knowledge to play. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Since it's on "Johnson's Creek", I'd wager it should be named "Johnstown" if this is a standalone community. But if we're going for names for a much more modern development or neighborhood, based on the creek and central forest, maybe something like "Creekwood Estates", "Creekside Pines", "Creekside Glenn", "Wilderness Estates", something like that.
7:17 , a further suggestion for network multi-tool - if you are creating a connection like that, use the create loop function, then you wont have the tiny segment at the top with the nodes close together..
Loving the development so far! I did have something in mind. What would you think of offering the neighborhood some natural and thought through connectivity between the hill and the lake? This could be a great attraction for tourists and a nice option for locals for some outdoorsy activity. It could be challenging to find the right spot to link a pedestrian path, but with some thinking I'm sure you could figure out a way to make it both interesting looking and functional! I think of renting an Airbnb in one of those houses by the hill. With easy access to the forest, I start my hike in the morning, then stop for a bite on the main street. After that, I make my way towards the lake and start a more relaxed walk around it. I finish up my hike by going to a cafe by the lake, appreciating it one more time, but this time sitting down regaining some energy. Once I'm done drinking my coffee and devoured my croissant sandwich, I get back on foot to go back home. But this time, I plan to detour around the main street and visit the local shops and stores, hoping to find some interesting artisanal works and bring a little souvenir. Just what I saw in my head as you were developing this new lovely neighborhood. ☺
i like organic planning more mainly because it creates really interesting shapes, ofcourse in masterplanning you can hand craft beautifully intricate layouts but i just really like the nature of organic growth.
The area reminds me of Elk Mound, WI. Especially with the prominent hill which is similar to Elk Mound Scenic County Park. I vote for Elk Mound! It's a small sleepier community right off of 94 in NW WI.
I've been just listening to these episodes while I go so sleep because they're one of the few thing that give me a sense of safety more importantly, peace . Thank yoy Phil ❤
Man even in CWC my dream-home would be on top of that hill. Perfect for privacy, rainwater collection, drainage, and even personally owned heavy equipment.
Very small suggestion, but it might be a fun project, you could put a drainage ditch in-between the cul-de-sacs in the more grided lakeside area leading into the lake. Might show why they made those roads cul-de-sacs, but kept the rest grided
Name idea for the hill park: since it's the only elevation around and is by itself, it should be called Lonely Mountain/Hill Park as reference to The Hobbit
A lot of people are commenting about the directionality of the couplets going into the highway, but one thing you might want to consider is removing the bike lanes from the first segment, from the highway to the first junction, as bikers can't really bike on the highways. I'd also love to see the bike lanes extend through the commercial areas by the highway.
Not sure if anyone anyone's commented before, but you can use the "Shift" field in the actual Node controller table to have a little more control over how you want to shift nodes over to line up edges. It gives you better control instead of using the Shift key + click method.
45:13 - (going far right to left) split collector roads coming from artery are on opposing sides when compared to the split roads after residential turn. Causing traffic to cross at intersection. Can see example at 45:31
This was very interesting, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of this area fills out! You might want to look at using TMPE to restrict trucks from coming through the older neighborhood in Johnson Creek. It looks like a lot of them are using the arterial as a cut-through to the highway. Also, did you mean to have the direction of the one-way roads at the entry be mismatched with the arterial roads? It seems like it'd make for some chaotic traffic.
For couplets, instead of creating a road connection between both (2 intersections) you should use the power of node controller to make one single intersection with all 5 roads into a single junction and move each road into the proper placement adjusting spacing and angles. That way you will have better ai-traffic for game mechanics and also prevent some weird u-turns and parked cars you usually get in the small stub used to connect both sides of the couplet together.
Naming suggestions: 😁 Vang Lake - Mr. Vang came to Clearwater County for more opportunities. He was able to work hard, use some family loans to buy this entire plot of land not only for the investment but the legacy. He wants to keep the naming rights for the lake. He works with Johnson Creek & Clearwater County to preserve the lake as a nature recreation area with nature reserve elements, water recreation parks and Green low density commercial. (Map orientation at 21:10) A small group of environmentally conscious, wealthy homeowners get together and propose a small green residential neighborhood at the NW shore of the lake with the exclusive rights to the shore at their home, they will cover half the costs for the upkeep of the park!
the masterplanning and road network layout are great. excellent use of Node Controller for the eyebrows and cul-de-sacs and excellent use of IMT for the trees - it's not just for intersections anymore!
Love it! Of course it's a very... American way of planning a region and not necessarily the most walkable or aesthetic, but it doesn't need to be. In terms of a name, I think Vang would want something that includes his surname, idk if the council or city would approve but something like Vangton would work. I do have one other comment: i noticed that one of the parks you placed on the hillside, specifically one you were near after the city tour adjusting the lights, is very steep, and maybe not very usable or accessible.
I believe your one ways are backwards at the entrance to the highway. One way in is on the left, and vice versa. Just the first block before the houses begin.
Amazing episode! Definitely love the theme of the build, and the different phases of getting it built. This left me with anticipation for the next episode of CWC. More than usual that is.
2 things i have. 1: A pet peeve of mine is when you put trees on the side of the road with the line tool, then copy-paste. You end end up with "double ups" at the start-stop of each copied section. Just being ocd lol. 2: There's opportunity to put a cycke/pedestrian brudge across the river to connect the new development with johnson creek at the end of the cul-de-sac on johnson creek side. Liking this new development lay out
i really like the couplet in this area. its almost identical to a really old town next to me. From the waterfront park up about 8 blocks is a couplet collector with SFH, and when they merge together into a 4 lane street it becomes a commercial town center. I would say it is a pretty nice place to own a home. The median breaks down the fact that its a collector and makes it feel very open and pleasent. There are also some memorials and a town sign that really add to that median appearance as well. its a great spot for decoration.
My standard suburb development order of operations: -Measure roads, draw according to land -rename roads -draw parks (I tend to have linear parks between culs-de-sac and the crescents) -plop houses on a single road -rename houses to address (ex: '1 Washington Drive') -detail front and back yards of houses -repeat last three steps until roads are filled Its tedious but when I click on a cim anywhere on the map, I can see exactly where they're going and coming from without having to check. 2nd street? Oh that's downtown. Washington drive? Suburbs. Etc.
I think that sometimes the best thing about an area's name isn't that it always has some elaborate history around it. Sometimes, it's straight up a name that reflects the geographic features around the area or the like. Think of the River Avon in the UK (where the word Avon just means river in celtic languages). I think a really nice name for the area would be Hilltop, because it is simple and reflects just a simple acknowledgement of a local feature, and it rolls of the tongue easy. "Where do you live?" "Oh, I live in Hilltop on Johnson Ave" Instant recognition and a good sense of community identity
7:00 Well at least he listened to half the advice! 😅 He's still using the S-connector in places where only the U-connector is needed, like right here for example. Since you can't make the radii infinitely big, you'll always have a _slight_ kink in your road at the section where you want it to just be straight (ie, the 2˚ radius @ 7:20). This breaks the grid and also risks making overlapping nodes.
hopefully this one posts as the last two got eaten! Enjoying the series and loving your explanation of the process even if you don't agree with that type of development. I have two points 1 - the hill needs to be named and be made into a national park with paths for hill walks up to the top and around the base as well. Also on the top of the hill I would expect to see a Cell Tower Mast, as its such a prominent hill in a flat area that would be a usual feature and it would also provide good network coverage for the residents so would be a selling feature for the developers to have 2 - I understand why the wall to wall was on the straight road but i think your missing a trick by not having it on the couple road, and then running a pedestrian/bike path through the gap in the middle with some trees, planter, bins and benches to make it walkable and give a nice small town feel to it and extending the cycling network further into the development
Pro tip-- you don't always have to disable zoning to get it to stop breaking things. If you "prioritize new roads" and update the segment you want zoning on it will override the zoning on the other segment... usually. On your cul-de-sacs that would let you keep the zoning on the other side of the through street while still preventing houses from spawning on the through street. Another thought, regarding the grid section you had to build. When I find myself wanting to maximize usage of a space while avoiding a grid I lay out 10x20 blocks in a herringbone pattern. It flows surprisingly well, looks great, and still makes use of as much zoning as possible. Great video. Added it to my C:S playlist for future reference. Seeing the thought process behind the layout was immensely helpful.
As a mom of 2 kids who lives in a looped 2 street neighborhood I absolutely get the desire for the neighborhoods like that. I desire that play space for my kids and the people that live in my area all have kids we all drive slow. If you don’t live there you don’t come down the streets.
For the park because it was on a hill it started making me think of places like wheeling park in the upper panhandle of West Virgin and I think you could do something like that with a road going up to it and then a playground, a plaza and maybe something like a golf course or a tennis courts and possibly you can incorporate a little hiking trail into to keep a balance of nature and urban space were people can go to have fun and do normal park based activities and also bring some nature lovers and more nature based activities to the park. (Also) the creek really reminds me of that West Virginain aesthetic as they have this everywhere.
I just wanted to say that I really appreciate and enjoy your videos! I'm studying to get my certification in project management and started getting back into CS as a way to get my brain to think about the different concepts/processes/etc. Since I've started this, I've found your videos to be really helpful because you're constantly using a lot of the same ideas that I'm working to better understand (Your use of SWOT immediately comes to mind). I also really like the role playing aspect as well; I feel like it gives great real-world flavor that's immersive (and tangible/relevant in my case).
Watching the "drive through" towards the end of this video and seeing the lack of Light polution reminds me of being in the Muskego area near Milwaukee as a kid visiting my cousins. It was always really dark except for the lights on the individual properties. There's spots in New Berlin as well like this even today. It was a nice change of pace from the Bay View/Town of Lake neighborhoods I grew up in Milwaukee. An excellent video, once again! 👍
Fun fact: in the Node Controller settings, you can set it so that the "stretch" function is always visible when opening NC. When you add a lot of bulbs to the ends of your dead-ends like you do (I do too!) this saves you a couple of clicks!
That commercial district style really did look great - nice way of managing controlling the buildings one has without plop-spamming the same buildings.
I could definitely see a tram-train going down that main street. I don't know if you have those in the US, but they are getting rather popular in Europe. It basically functions as a tram in one city, as a train in the countryside/rural areas, and then as a tram again in the destination city. In this case, it could go down the main street you just built, then maybe stop in the old Johnson's Creek, and then speed to Van Buren. It doesn't have to go to the very centre, but it shouldn't stop at the city border either. And if you develop rural areas between the two, you cound add a few stops easily. It would be a great and fast link between the two communities.
It kind a looks funny how the driveways meet up with the sidewalks instead of crossing the sidewalk and connecting to the roads. I dig the development though. It's a nice addition to the build and tons of interesting insights into the planning process.
This reminds me of a small town about forty minutes away from me called Midway, UT. There’s a solitary and notable hill there called Memorial Hill (they put a war memorial on the top of the hill) that has a road that wraps around it similarly to in this suburb. It’s a really great short hike; the trail spirals around the hill a few times and there’s a fantastic view over the whole valley once you get to the top. I can see something similar being a popular local point of interest in the new development. It would be a cheap way to appease groups in the community who want parks nearby while also staying within budget.
It has taken me six months to get up to the current episode. This channel has been so delightfully bingeable and I'm very sad that I can't sit down and watch two or three episodes at a time. But I'm happy to be caught up so that I can participate in the comment sections.
I would guess the hill/park would be a place to preserve nature, but I think a really good idea for it is to have a pool on top of it! some of my family live in Corvallis, Oregon. And nearby there is a small community pool connected to a country club. While I think a Country Club could be a bit much, and either way is probably too big, I think a pool is a geat idea! Maybe a Country Club would be cool, as I honestly see this area as a place for retired elderlies.
the new development on the other side of the river next to jonhsons creek is a jackpot to those people who bought those workingclass houses cheaply years ago.
As someone who went to school in Duluth, I'd like to suggest a name for a lake: Bean Lake. A popular hike for locals was the Bean and Bear Lake Trail, located about an hour outside Duluth. Although it wasn't a maintained trail, the mud, and hills kept amateurs away. However, once you made it to the top and the end of the trail, you'd see probably one of the most beautiful views - two lakes back to back with the forest as far as the eye could see! Since there's a hill overlooking the lake, it would be a perfect fit. I suggest naming the lake Bean Lake.
As someone who lives at the "top"/end of a cul-de-sac, I really appreciate having sidewalks all the way around. It just feels less like you're wandering onto people's property or out into the road when you take a walk, y'know? Although part of it may be that we live near Seattle and so pretty much never shovel snow; either it melts in a few days or the entire city's shut down because no one is ever prepared for it despite this happening every other year.
My name suggestion for the new development is “Johnson Park”. The etymology behind this name is that the community, which was annexed into Johnson’s Creek, is designed with great recreational amenities and well-preserved natural features in mind. Being planned as “a model planned community like no other”, Vang and the developers he is working with see a great idea to further capitalize on the prime location and amenities. According to them, having the word “park” in the name reflects not only the great parks in the community and the overall vibe of the community which they aim to achieve- they also see the word “park” as being able to make the planned community an even more attractive place to buy in! Also, that main, 4-lane road in the community could be named “Park Avenue” (it is the main road, after all - and it passes the large park, has trees, and bike lanes). Heck, the community can even decide to pass a resolution to adopt the Complete Streets Initiative - and as the road would likely be eligible for federal aid (given its higher functional classification), by the municipal council adopting such a resolution, the community could have an easier time securing federal aid for road projects (and perhaps Transit Alternative Program (TAP) grants, too)!! LOVE these planned community builds!!
The neighborhood should be called "Johnson's Crossing" as the area is made famous from a pioneer who traversed across the area on the way to the upper Midwest in the early 19th Century, whose name was "Johnson" - which the city of Johnson's Creek is also named after, as it is the location where he crossed the river and as he passed through.
Johnson's Creek is named after Johnson Aggregates down the road, it's like worker housing for the complex
@@biznichin13 How do you know Johnson Aggregates isn't named after Johnson, the pioneer?
@@casmatori Because Phil talks about the history of Johnson Aggregates in the episode he first built the mining operation. Unless I'm remembering wrong Johnson is still alive.
I vote this! Just maybe alter the story a tad so it fits along the line of where the Johnson name lives in the CWC lore
@@biznichin13
As a European, I think this American-style suburban areas are so fascinating. Keep up with the great work, Phil!🏡
I disagree and i am an American, we have caused too much sprawl, traffic congestion and expensive infrastructure that ends up bancrupting cities. Stroads and island strip malls with concrete parking lot jungles, hostile wide streets to pedestrians with few side walks is a day of life.
Old American neighborhoods were designed much better, not just for cars.
I've liked living in suburban neighborhoods most of my life. Its nice not needing to worry too much about your kids playing outside by themselves.
Some cities do it better than others. The last place I lived had easy access to collector roads with 30 mph speed limits and enough shoulder for easy biking. The city did a good job at building trails and making it easy to access shopping and parks, with limited time spent on fast/busy roads.
The city I live in now didn't force connections to be made, so there are many areas that are segmented from each other, forcing people to use very busy/fast roads to get from one area to another. They have not been nearly as proactive at building trails, instead focusing a lot of money towards polishing their main parks and trails, but little towards expanding park and trail access. The neighborhood is still nice, but leaving it for anything is definitely not the best.
@@Electrodexify I agree with you here. I've recently moved to a more congested neighborhood that prioritizes space for trails and parks. I thought I was going to hate not having the space and privacy we're accustomed to with our huge lots and segregated properties but I was very wrong. Safety, sense of community, and respect for the surroundings are much more prominent aspects in my new neighborhood.
@@jaredwilliams8621 You have only lived in a suburb all. your life and you have convinced yourself that the suburb way is the best. Most suburbanites believe what the big auto ads decades campaign tells them about how dangerous living in a walkable neighborhood are, where people actually walk and interact with each other. They actually believe that the sheltered isolated life with few if any gathering places is the best way to raise children, it is no wonder why young people these days are mostly on their phones and hardly socialize with one another because the suburban life promotes laziness and inaction; as well as the creation of hermits, since those poorly laid out suburbs which are bordered by giant streets with traffic congestion, discourages exploration.
I have lived in both suburbs and now live in a walkable neighborhood in the inner city, where I can walk at 3am peacefully throughout the city and not having to worry about any crime. I avoid going to the suburburbs because the traffic congestion and giant multi-lane streets with long bars of traffic lights, ugly parking lots, vanilla strip malls, is very stressful.
Also, I wouldn't want to live in the suburbs, which are subsidized by the government and are a ponzy scheme that ends up bankrupting the whole city in the long term.
@@ThePlosz Suburbanites wonder why there is little sence of familial and community connections these days but they don't even realize how suburbs are meant to isolate everyone and cause community detachment. They brag about their few trails that are broken up by giant streets where stressful drivers are racing the traffic light because the streets are made extra wide, while being congested because the car is the only way to get around and everything is far. This extra speed makes being a pedestrian stressful from all the tire noise. Their trails are fixed and sparse, since most suburbs surrounded by giant roads don't build sidewalks.
Where as here in the inner city, streets are built properly in a grid pattern that evenly distribute cars and trails are everywhere. My city like other cities are realizing, have gone into a beautification of pedestrian friendly trails parks.
Since most of the land has been wasted by suburbs, my city is returning back to the way our city was built prior to 1960s
Hi Phil! Those extra nodes are coming from the fact that the create connection mode uses two curves to connect the points. If there’s only one curve, you should use the create curve tool (the arch looking one)
I feel like he used to use that quite a bit, and stopped once he found this other tool!
I think I got hooked on this in a way that isn't good. I either need to be more node-aware and this isn't a good use of them. I'll use the curved road tool more.... and explain why I'm doing it vs this tool!
@@CityPlannerPlays The curve tool in NMT is just like the curve road drawing tool in the vanilla game. It will draw whatever curve it wants and won't follow a pre-determined radius. The Loop mode will draw a straight sections and a single curve
@@williamhuang8309 the curve tool draws a single smooth curve between two points. The loop is looking for a directional change greater than 180 degrees and isn’t the right tool for anything less
That's not true. I use it all the time for angles less than 180 degrees.
The icon is misleading IMO
I love seeing the notification pop up saying you’ve uploaded CWC it honestly makes me 10x happier
Agreed
Always the best start to a day!
I think a pedestrian bridge between Johnson Creek and the new town would be nice
Also the directionality at the start of the collecter is off
Great video!
Agreed, I would place it to the cul de sac in Johnson Creek.
@@cherriberri8373 As always, Phil is trying to be true to the way things are actually built in the US...which are frequently terrible. I agree that a pedestrian bridge on the other end of Johnson's Creek would be a great idea, needs some more...
C O N N E C T I V I T Y.
Do you think new neighborhoods would still be named that with the resemblance to Jonestown?
YES! Coming in the next one!
@@CityPlannerPlays Will a Port be coming to Clear Water County?
29:46 If you ALT-click, you can toggle one-sided zoning (left-side only/right-side only/both sides zoning).
WHOA! Awesome tip! Thank you!!
@@CityPlannerPlays Additionally you don't have to select "disable zoning" every time (most useful when you're initially building several roadways that you don't want zoned at all). Instead you can simply right-click the segment while the zoning tool is open to disable zoning on both sides altogether
@@leftcoastfunk yep, I’ve done that before
24:45 I made a bunch of roads with the fairly new road builder mod. My main focus was protected bike lines that are separated with trees from the roads. This way you can also add on street parking that is safe for cyclists. I think they would be perfect for the aterial.
@@cherriberri8373 Sure but if you build new cyclist infrastructure, might as well do it properly, right ;) Looks better, too, in my opinion and addresses the parking.
Are those roads on the steam workshop? I'd love to use those in my build!
@@canadiangeese4221 Not yet. Might be a few days until I have access to my computer again but then I'll make sure to upload them with screenshots :)
@@wieneckem awesome!
if bikes can't ride next to cars on the ROAD then maybe bikes don't belong on the road.this is why no one listens to these people in the US. you give them an inch & they aren't happy and want a mile.
its not good enough that we lose a ton of road space, sidewalk space, and land for the 5 people in the town that actually ride a bike & can't just take a car because they are too pretentious but now we have to add extra costs & complexity to provide a divider & trees for the bike line.
most roads in America don't even have separation for sidewalks
I like "Clear Lake" for the new development. That little glacial deposit is really the selling point of the community, more so than the creek or the hill. I'd imagine in the summer you'd see lots of boats, beaches, canoes, fishing, etc as the community congregates there, and that's how you'd draw people from the urban areas to the suburban and increase the salability. And, in the winter I'm sure you'd see ice fishing, snowmobiles, and maybe even ice skating on the little lake, all of which are easier to do on the small lake rather than Superior. I would also suggest using the grid aligned with the lake for some local commercial uses- things like a restaurant, bar/pub, maybe a small hotel, coffee shops, ice cream stores, etc. To really solidify the lake as a sort of community center. On a weekend, kids are on the beach, dad's fishing with a beer from the pub, mom's going to get ice cream and snacks from the restaurant.
The collector couplet that intersects the highway should have both one ways connect at the same node, then use node controller to spread the two, so that it all functions as one cohesive intersection
I was thinking the same thing! ✌️
This is one of your comfiest builds yet, utilizing the hill was a great idea, there can never be too many trees
Could definitely use more roundabouts.
Love the planning in this episode. I'd love to see the 'city center' of that new area be right off of the main arterial, maybe with some commercial uses fronting the lake, like cafes or more leisure-type uses. Then, you could set the roads through the area as very low speed-limit, almost like a pedestrian district, which would dissuade traffic passing through even more. Lots of local areas by me are set up similarly. The area originally marked as 'city center' seems to be more on the fringes, where you'd be likely to see more auto-oriented uses and/or big box stores.
@@cherriberri8373 But wasn't that kind of the point? This type of suburban development happens all the time, and this one looks a ton like stuff I see all around me. From the developers standpoint, I don't think it was that awful, though I would expect the lots to be much more densely packed to maximize value. We'll see if that happens as future development occurs. The one bit that did seem out of place was the bridge and city center, as I'd expect that to come much later in the development process.
@@cherriberri8373 i think you’re being a little too critical and unrealistic as well. This isn’t set in Europe. This is the rural/semi-rural upper Midwest, and the United States in general; let’s be real now. We all know suburban planning in this country is not great yet what makes Phil great in this particular series is that he builds things true to life…and will even mention when he doesn’t agree with certain common planning practices. You don’t have to like it but no need to comment on everyone’s comments expressing your disgust. Once is enough
Love the idea of the commercial uses at the lake! I think part of the interest in a suburban area is fixing it in the future. I have been building a couple of things in the last little while that I'm looking forward to "retrofitting" into a more urban context down the line. We're starting to see that in some communities and I've have the opportunity to plan for some of those sorts of retrofits... they're going to be really fascinating to see get implemented!
@@CityPlannerPlays TBH, one of the reasons I enjoy watching your series (one of many) is the discovery and explanation of historically accurate planning designs, flaws and all. With your professional background, creativity, story-telling, and genuine radio-charisma, our edutainment exponentially increases the more episodes we watch.
Hey Phil, great build! A couple small comments: first, you mentioned the need to create parking around the little downtown area but then didn't actual implement any. Second, in Find It if you go into your extra filters panel, there's actually an option to sort directly by the District Styles you've created so you don't actually need to do the extra work of building out a whole tag.
Will get that in the next one!
Upgrading the last bits of the collector cuplet towards the highway to be tree lined would make a lot of sense. In the Netherlands we add trees as a visual 'narrowing' for drivers tricking them into slowing down compared to the highway speed they just came off of. This will then lead to safer bike paths on the following roads into town. Plus the bikelanes will not add anything to the community as the connectivity stops at the highway anyway!
Man. I'm struggeling with my health right now a little but you're videos are just so soothing. they are ASMR for my soul. you have no idea how much all of these mean to me! keep it up man, honestly thank you for all you're work!
For me, that area used to be a giant hunting grounds for the residents of Johnson's Creek, they would cross the river and just spend the day and sometimes even make a camp on the hill, waiting for their prey, which was mainly Deer. So the hill could be called Deer Mountain (I know its not a mountain, but the residents call it that way) almost like a word play for Dear Mountain, the heart of the community.
I think a pedestrian bridge on the other end of the old development would work nicely.
Maybe its a budget wooden bridge (nature reserve path) rather than an expensive concrete one.
Great video but I couldn't not notice that at the entrance to the neighborhood, you accidentally reversed the couplet, meaning the directionality now is wrong.
Also, how about connecting the new development to the capital via train? The tracks on the Johnson Creek side are not far away from the river so it shouldn't be difficult...
I noticed this too haha
I'm so glad your posting more frequently now! Really love your content especially the clear water series!
Feeling better and with the new editor, I'm hoping to be able to add a stream in, too!
Love seeing this county grow! Maybe not for your channel, but would love to hear you talk more about the challenges of homeownership in an era of rising housing values/reduced construction. How can communities maintain housing as populations grow and construction can’t keep up?
I love this topic! Lots of reasons for it, too. Let me think of how to do this, but that is a conversation I'd like to have!
You can look it up with the FRED tool at the Federal Reserve, but I was astounded a couple months ago to find there are half the construction starts on privately owned single-family housing units now than there were in 1978. When we had 100MM fewer people.
As an archaeologist, I think it would be cool if you factored in Cultural Resource Management and archaeological surveys when you do big new developments like this one. You never know what areas might have an important archaeological site!
as a suburban resident of Long Island, New York- I got very excited at the thumbnail and start of the video! Love learning about suburbia as a break from the city- so ironic to use 'Cities' Skylines for suburbia. Excited to see how the neigborhood comes together, paused at the 1:30 mark haha.
Mr. CPP, I'm Long time watcher- was wondering if you could ever take a look at my hometown of Huntington, NY to be inspired by one of the oldest towns in the country, founded in 1657, and use it as inspiration!
It's absolutely painful to see how realistic this is. I've recently moved to a new area where the roads are laid out this way, and it is quite difficult to get around town if you don't have a car.
It can be fixed and I can't wait to show how!
I understand the plight of the vehicle-less in real life. Fortunately, in the game this is easily fixed with properly planned pedestrian paths and bike facilities! The very nice thing about developments laid out this way though is that there is almost never any vehicular traffic that doesn't actually belong there! They're not nice places to navigate, but they are very nice places to live
And that is why it so paramount to do planning that takes walkability into consideration. A lot of the urban planning this days are so car centric.
I think the lake should be named “Sitting Bear Lake” mostly because it looks like a sitting bear but also because it could have been the name of a native tribe that used to live in the area.
Wow I love how you play the game. The way you incorporate local lore and real life planning and building strategies is a fascinating insight into how these things get done in real life. The city feels like a real place with real people.
As much as I also hate the lack of light in that neighborhood- as someone who lived in the rural midwest for a couple years, I'd think that even that much street lighting would piss a bunch of people off. I swear the town I lived in had a rule of one street light ever half mile with how dark it was.
When you were speaking of folks liking having no lights in those areas at night, I totally get that. I know in my country, there are areas that turn on lights only when they detect vehicles.
I am a relatively new viewer but you have quickly become my favorite cities skylines player. It’s so relaxing and I love the planning aspect. My cities are chaos lol.
Glad you found Phil! Watch his back catalog at some point, he's been fun from day one.
My favorite planner back at it again❤
7:16 The create connection mode is mostly appropriate for creating s-bends or complex curves with multiple curve points. If you want a single curve point (e.g. straight road then a nice curve) you should use the Loop mode instead. Despite what the name implies, it's the best tool for making connections with one curve point.
22:48 ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the entrance roads are wrong
Also: There is some very low hanging fruit in terms of transit as there is a rail line very close to the neighbourhood. Take advantage of that and you can build a suburban rail operation and it'll become a real town centre.
I scrolled through just to see if anyone noticed the entrance roads being wrong! It was bugging me to no end, having traffic cross over the intersection to a separate one way.
I love that we never know what kind of episode we’re gonna get, you have such a good balance of enjoying/teaching us the game and using your professional knowledge to play. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Since it's on "Johnson's Creek", I'd wager it should be named "Johnstown" if this is a standalone community. But if we're going for names for a much more modern development or neighborhood, based on the creek and central forest, maybe something like "Creekwood Estates", "Creekside Pines", "Creekside Glenn", "Wilderness Estates", something like that.
I love Creekside pines! The commercial area the obviously would be the Two Pines Mall ;)
7:17 , a further suggestion for network multi-tool - if you are creating a connection like that, use the create loop function, then you wont have the tiny segment at the top with the nodes close together..
Loving the development so far! I did have something in mind.
What would you think of offering the neighborhood some natural and thought through connectivity between the hill and the lake? This could be a great attraction for tourists and a nice option for locals for some outdoorsy activity. It could be challenging to find the right spot to link a pedestrian path, but with some thinking I'm sure you could figure out a way to make it both interesting looking and functional!
I think of renting an Airbnb in one of those houses by the hill. With easy access to the forest, I start my hike in the morning, then stop for a bite on the main street. After that, I make my way towards the lake and start a more relaxed walk around it. I finish up my hike by going to a cafe by the lake, appreciating it one more time, but this time sitting down regaining some energy.
Once I'm done drinking my coffee and devoured my croissant sandwich, I get back on foot to go back home. But this time, I plan to detour around the main street and visit the local shops and stores, hoping to find some interesting artisanal works and bring a little souvenir.
Just what I saw in my head as you were developing this new lovely neighborhood. ☺
I love this build, I was on about a two hiatus from CS1 when I stumbled on this build, now I can’t stop watching and playing❤
Just a thought: it might look more realistic if the driveways connected to the road through the sidewalks / easements.
Love the series Phil!
i like organic planning more mainly because it creates really interesting shapes, ofcourse in masterplanning you can hand craft beautifully intricate layouts but i just really like the nature of organic growth.
The area reminds me of Elk Mound, WI. Especially with the prominent hill which is similar to Elk Mound Scenic County Park. I vote for Elk Mound! It's a small sleepier community right off of 94 in NW WI.
I've been just listening to these episodes while I go so sleep because they're one of the few thing that give me a sense of safety more importantly, peace . Thank yoy Phil ❤
Great episode! I think the couplet that is connecting the new suburb collector to the highway needs to have its end lanes switched.
Man even in CWC my dream-home would be on top of that hill. Perfect for privacy, rainwater collection, drainage, and even personally owned heavy equipment.
Good to see that Chuckles is diversifying into homebuilding. Guess the development bug bit him after all.
love that you are leaning into your career expertise more than ever! getting alot of people excited about how things in out communities really happen
Very small suggestion, but it might be a fun project, you could put a drainage ditch in-between the cul-de-sacs in the more grided lakeside area leading into the lake. Might show why they made those roads cul-de-sacs, but kept the rest grided
LOVE that idea! I already have the asset in the build, too!!
Well done! Nothing beats an immaculately manicured American suburb. This is a classic master planned community
Name idea for the hill park: since it's the only elevation around and is by itself, it should be called Lonely Mountain/Hill Park as reference to The Hobbit
i appreciate you showing how the mods/ tips & tricks work, this really helped
Haven’t watched yet but I know I will love it! Clearwater county is amazing! Great job with it, it’s my favorite city skylines build.
A lot of people are commenting about the directionality of the couplets going into the highway, but one thing you might want to consider is removing the bike lanes from the first segment, from the highway to the first junction, as bikers can't really bike on the highways. I'd also love to see the bike lanes extend through the commercial areas by the highway.
Small note here! The driveways for the houses should extend past the sidewalk to the street. As it is, people have to drive over the grass. 🚗
i love the mix from dev and organic grow of the city... it makes more real...
Not sure if anyone anyone's commented before, but you can use the "Shift" field in the actual Node controller table to have a little more control over how you want to shift nodes over to line up edges. It gives you better control instead of using the Shift key + click method.
45:13 - (going far right to left) split collector roads coming from artery are on opposing sides when compared to the split roads after residential turn. Causing traffic to cross at intersection. Can see example at 45:31
The one way roads at the exit are switched opposite ways 45:27
I know plopping assets is way more time consuming, but since youre a beauty builder, I think the end result is definitely worth it.
It's a good day when City Planner uploads!
17:52 this is another one of my issues with c:s. Being next to large forests or just open land in general is a big bonus for many people
This was very interesting, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of this area fills out! You might want to look at using TMPE to restrict trucks from coming through the older neighborhood in Johnson Creek. It looks like a lot of them are using the arterial as a cut-through to the highway. Also, did you mean to have the direction of the one-way roads at the entry be mismatched with the arterial roads? It seems like it'd make for some chaotic traffic.
Thx again on educating me on some of the features of node controller and the line tool. Gonna try it out! 😊
For couplets, instead of creating a road connection between both (2 intersections) you should use the power of node controller to make one single intersection with all 5 roads into a single junction and move each road into the proper placement adjusting spacing and angles. That way you will have better ai-traffic for game mechanics and also prevent some weird u-turns and parked cars you usually get in the small stub used to connect both sides of the couplet together.
Naming suggestions: 😁
Vang Lake - Mr. Vang came to Clearwater County for more opportunities. He was able to work hard, use some family loans to buy this entire plot of land not only for the investment but the legacy. He wants to keep the naming rights for the lake. He works with Johnson Creek & Clearwater County to preserve the lake as a nature recreation area with nature reserve elements, water recreation parks and Green low density commercial. (Map orientation at 21:10) A small group of environmentally conscious, wealthy homeowners get together and propose a small green residential neighborhood at the NW shore of the lake with the exclusive rights to the shore at their home, they will cover half the costs for the upkeep of the park!
I love your content! Can you do another mods list video with all of the updated and removed mods, please?
Right after the next DLC release - after things shake out - I plan on doing one!
the masterplanning and road network layout are great. excellent use of Node Controller for the eyebrows and cul-de-sacs and excellent use of IMT for the trees - it's not just for intersections anymore!
Love it! Of course it's a very... American way of planning a region and not necessarily the most walkable or aesthetic, but it doesn't need to be.
In terms of a name, I think Vang would want something that includes his surname, idk if the council or city would approve but something like Vangton would work.
I do have one other comment: i noticed that one of the parks you placed on the hillside, specifically one you were near after the city tour adjusting the lights, is very steep, and maybe not very usable or accessible.
I believe your one ways are backwards at the entrance to the highway. One way in is on the left, and vice versa. Just the first block before the houses begin.
Did anyone else notice the wrong-way one ways at 45:15?
saw them right from the start and kept waiting for them to get fixed
Amazing episode! Definitely love the theme of the build, and the different phases of getting it built. This left me with anticipation for the next episode of CWC. More than usual that is.
call me a contrarian, but I kinda like my single family home...
Thank you good sir! This video is helpful towards an assignment I have this week!
2 things i have.
1: A pet peeve of mine is when you put trees on the side of the road with the line tool, then copy-paste. You end end up with "double ups" at the start-stop of each copied section. Just being ocd lol.
2: There's opportunity to put a cycke/pedestrian brudge across the river to connect the new development with johnson creek at the end of the cul-de-sac on johnson creek side.
Liking this new development lay out
i really like the couplet in this area. its almost identical to a really old town next to me. From the waterfront park up about 8 blocks is a couplet collector with SFH, and when they merge together into a 4 lane street it becomes a commercial town center. I would say it is a pretty nice place to own a home. The median breaks down the fact that its a collector and makes it feel very open and pleasent. There are also some memorials and a town sign that really add to that median appearance as well. its a great spot for decoration.
It's great to see new episode after a long day
My standard suburb development order of operations:
-Measure roads, draw according to land
-rename roads
-draw parks (I tend to have linear parks between culs-de-sac and the crescents)
-plop houses on a single road
-rename houses to address (ex: '1 Washington Drive')
-detail front and back yards of houses
-repeat last three steps until roads are filled
Its tedious but when I click on a cim anywhere on the map, I can see exactly where they're going and coming from without having to check. 2nd street? Oh that's downtown. Washington drive? Suburbs. Etc.
I know what I will be watching tonight. Thank you for keeping us entertained with excellent content.
21:09 I think you can call the lake and the area “Trinity Lake” and call the park “Trinity Park”
I think that sometimes the best thing about an area's name isn't that it always has some elaborate history around it. Sometimes, it's straight up a name that reflects the geographic features around the area or the like. Think of the River Avon in the UK (where the word Avon just means river in celtic languages). I think a really nice name for the area would be Hilltop, because it is simple and reflects just a simple acknowledgement of a local feature, and it rolls of the tongue easy.
"Where do you live?"
"Oh, I live in Hilltop on Johnson Ave"
Instant recognition and a good sense of community identity
7:00 Well at least he listened to half the advice! 😅 He's still using the S-connector in places where only the U-connector is needed, like right here for example. Since you can't make the radii infinitely big, you'll always have a _slight_ kink in your road at the section where you want it to just be straight (ie, the 2˚ radius @ 7:20). This breaks the grid and also risks making overlapping nodes.
when you're trying to build two straight segments of road and a single curve connecting them, it's way easier to use spiral mode in network multitool!
These videos are just to chill to. From the Lo-Fi to the nice gameplay I love your videos. Keep it up :)
hopefully this one posts as the last two got eaten!
Enjoying the series and loving your explanation of the process even if you don't agree with that type of development. I have two points
1 - the hill needs to be named and be made into a national park with paths for hill walks up to the top and around the base as well. Also on the top of the hill I would expect to see a Cell Tower Mast, as its such a prominent hill in a flat area that would be a usual feature and it would also provide good network coverage for the residents so would be a selling feature for the developers to have
2 - I understand why the wall to wall was on the straight road but i think your missing a trick by not having it on the couple road, and then running a pedestrian/bike path through the gap in the middle with some trees, planter, bins and benches to make it walkable and give a nice small town feel to it and extending the cycling network further into the development
Pro tip-- you don't always have to disable zoning to get it to stop breaking things. If you "prioritize new roads" and update the segment you want zoning on it will override the zoning on the other segment... usually. On your cul-de-sacs that would let you keep the zoning on the other side of the through street while still preventing houses from spawning on the through street.
Another thought, regarding the grid section you had to build. When I find myself wanting to maximize usage of a space while avoiding a grid I lay out 10x20 blocks in a herringbone pattern. It flows surprisingly well, looks great, and still makes use of as much zoning as possible.
Great video. Added it to my C:S playlist for future reference. Seeing the thought process behind the layout was immensely helpful.
As a mom of 2 kids who lives in a looped 2 street neighborhood I absolutely get the desire for the neighborhoods like that. I desire that play space for my kids and the people that live in my area all have kids we all drive slow. If you don’t live there you don’t come down the streets.
For the park because it was on a hill it started making me think of places like wheeling park in the upper panhandle of West Virgin and I think you could do something like that with a road going up to it and then a playground, a plaza and maybe something like a golf course or a tennis courts and possibly you can incorporate a little hiking trail into to keep a balance of nature and urban space were people can go to have fun and do normal park based activities and also bring some nature lovers and more nature based activities to the park. (Also) the creek really reminds me of that West Virginain aesthetic as they have this everywhere.
I just wanted to say that I really appreciate and enjoy your videos! I'm studying to get my certification in project management and started getting back into CS as a way to get my brain to think about the different concepts/processes/etc. Since I've started this, I've found your videos to be really helpful because you're constantly using a lot of the same ideas that I'm working to better understand (Your use of SWOT immediately comes to mind). I also really like the role playing aspect as well; I feel like it gives great real-world flavor that's immersive (and tangible/relevant in my case).
Glad to see these videos back ❤
Watching the "drive through" towards the end of this video and seeing the lack of Light polution reminds me of being in the Muskego area near Milwaukee as a kid visiting my cousins. It was always really dark except for the lights on the individual properties. There's spots in New Berlin as well like this even today. It was a nice change of pace from the Bay View/Town of Lake neighborhoods I grew up in Milwaukee.
An excellent video, once again!
👍
Love all the the videos' intros. Phil always have super interesting stuff to share with us! Love from BR
45:14 those one-way roads would make for some interesting car collisions
Master planned communities are so fun! I love Chicago for this reason
Fun fact: in the Node Controller settings, you can set it so that the "stretch" function is always visible when opening NC. When you add a lot of bulbs to the ends of your dead-ends like you do (I do too!) this saves you a couple of clicks!
That commercial district style really did look great - nice way of managing controlling the buildings one has without plop-spamming the same buildings.
I could definitely see a tram-train going down that main street. I don't know if you have those in the US, but they are getting rather popular in Europe. It basically functions as a tram in one city, as a train in the countryside/rural areas, and then as a tram again in the destination city. In this case, it could go down the main street you just built, then maybe stop in the old Johnson's Creek, and then speed to Van Buren. It doesn't have to go to the very centre, but it shouldn't stop at the city border either. And if you develop rural areas between the two, you cound add a few stops easily. It would be a great and fast link between the two communities.
It kind a looks funny how the driveways meet up with the sidewalks instead of crossing the sidewalk and connecting to the roads. I dig the development though. It's a nice addition to the build and tons of interesting insights into the planning process.
This reminds me of a small town about forty minutes away from me called Midway, UT. There’s a solitary and notable hill there called Memorial Hill (they put a war memorial on the top of the hill) that has a road that wraps around it similarly to in this suburb. It’s a really great short hike; the trail spirals around the hill a few times and there’s a fantastic view over the whole valley once you get to the top. I can see something similar being a popular local point of interest in the new development. It would be a cheap way to appease groups in the community who want parks nearby while also staying within budget.
It has taken me six months to get up to the current episode. This channel has been so delightfully bingeable and I'm very sad that I can't sit down and watch two or three episodes at a time. But I'm happy to be caught up so that I can participate in the comment sections.
I would guess the hill/park would be a place to preserve nature, but I think a really good idea for it is to have a pool on top of it! some of my family live in Corvallis, Oregon. And nearby there is a small community pool connected to a country club. While I think a Country Club could be a bit much, and either way is probably too big, I think a pool is a geat idea! Maybe a Country Club would be cool, as I honestly see this area as a place for retired elderlies.
the new development on the other side of the river next to jonhsons creek is a jackpot to those people who bought those workingclass houses cheaply years ago.
As someone who went to school in Duluth, I'd like to suggest a name for a lake: Bean Lake. A popular hike for locals was the Bean and Bear Lake Trail, located about an hour outside Duluth. Although it wasn't a maintained trail, the mud, and hills kept amateurs away. However, once you made it to the top and the end of the trail, you'd see probably one of the most beautiful views - two lakes back to back with the forest as far as the eye could see! Since there's a hill overlooking the lake, it would be a perfect fit. I suggest naming the lake Bean Lake.
As someone who lives at the "top"/end of a cul-de-sac, I really appreciate having sidewalks all the way around. It just feels less like you're wandering onto people's property or out into the road when you take a walk, y'know? Although part of it may be that we live near Seattle and so pretty much never shovel snow; either it melts in a few days or the entire city's shut down because no one is ever prepared for it despite this happening every other year.
I love the low lights! “It’s giving” Tucson.
I’d love to see a Southwestern Pueblo
My name suggestion for the new development is “Johnson Park”. The etymology behind this name is that the community, which was annexed into Johnson’s Creek, is designed with great recreational amenities and well-preserved natural features in mind. Being planned as “a model planned community like no other”, Vang and the developers he is working with see a great idea to further capitalize on the prime location and amenities. According to them, having the word “park” in the name reflects not only the great parks in the community and the overall vibe of the community which they aim to achieve- they also see the word “park” as being able to make the planned community an even more attractive place to buy in!
Also, that main, 4-lane road in the community could be named “Park Avenue” (it is the main road, after all - and it passes the large park, has trees, and bike lanes). Heck, the community can even decide to pass a resolution to adopt the Complete Streets Initiative - and as the road would likely be eligible for federal aid (given its higher functional classification), by the municipal council adopting such a resolution, the community could have an easier time securing federal aid for road projects (and perhaps Transit Alternative Program (TAP) grants, too)!!
LOVE these planned community builds!!