In the aftermath of the flood, I was searching for and reading information online.

I learned that the river Túria was itself rerouted by the government after a great flood in 1957. The original river was converted into massive green space. It appears that this rerouting protected the Valencia city proper in 2024, but large and densely populated urban areas to the south was inundated.

I discovered a document named "València 2030 Urban Strategy - Local Action Plan" link to page link to PDF

This Urban Strategy document mentions a Line of Action 17.2 about storm tanks. With hundreds of actions described in the document, all of which dependent on funding, it does not seem like there is any indication of the need to prioritize.

I don't see any mention of deepening the river Túria. I don't know whether it could have helped - if the river bed was already close to the sea level, a storm surge could cause seawater to rush into the river, aggravating the flood damage.

How does Urbanism deal with great unknown risks such as floods that cause hundreds of deaths? How does Urbanism address the competing needs of a city's population? How would the public and the decision makers "earn" the wisdom needed to allocate its resources?

This feels like a repeat of a post just a week ago, but several orders of magnitudes bigger. If nothing short of a massive evacuation ahead of time could save lives, how should Urbanism respond to this conclusion?

Has anyone read Frankenstein Urbanism by Federico Cugurullo? If so, what did you think? Also, what are some examples of "Frankenstein urbanism" that you've encountered?

I have seen news during the pandemic of business and individuals paying for the parking meter and using that space for seating, which naturally created a road diet on those places. I'm wondering if there are any other ways to do it or are the paid parking meters really the only way?

In regard to condo complexes since that is how we can have homeownership in denser areas. I’ve had nothing but horrible experiences with hoas and unfortunately it has led me to never want to go into a condo again. The building is pretty much falling apart and the hoa refuses to fix anything properly, mold termites water damage leaks in the roof etc. We see what happens in Florida with the lack of maintenance causing a condo building to collapse and no places that neglected repairs for years are hitting condo owners with insane hoa assessments. Many people feel this way and there’s plenty of horror stories. I understand the same applies in single family neighborhoods where hoas make absolutely no sense whatsoever, but how do we allow for autonomy in property ownership to not have to rely on others to repair your home and allow for density. Genuinely curious to see how this is handled.

[for context, I am an american living in the denver area] Hello, I have a question regarding city living for people with, well to put it frankly, a lot of sh*t. Lol. The body of this post originally appeared as a comment I made on a CityNerd video, but he didn't respond, so I'll ask it here:

"Hey CN, great video as usual. Do you have any videos or have you thought about making a video on how city living/car free living can work for outdoor enthusiasts? I ski, climb, and mountain bike pretty frequently in my free time. I would like to live car-free/car-light, but there are two main problems for that here: 1. lack of car-free access to the mountains and 2. lack of storage space for all the gear that comes with living in an apartment in a city. I have two mountain bikes, 3 pairs of skis, and a bunch of other assorted camping/hiking/etc gear. I have no idea how I would handle all that stuff if I didn't have a garage and a shed. For that reason, I find it hard to persuade myself to move out of the suburbs. Do you have any thoughts on that? Am I trying to have my cake and eat it too? Thanks in advance."

I understand that I sound like the typical Colora-Bro here, but I am genuinely curious as to how people who want to live in places with good urbanism balance that with access to the outdoors and space for all their stuff. In an ideal world, I would be able to live in a rowhouse/townhouse with a garage on the first floor with room for one small car and my outdoor gear, and still have access to good transit and walkable amenities.

My current understanding is that this combination of density, amenities, walkability, transit, and outdoor access, combined with ability to still use a car occasionally if need be, exists almost nowhere in the US. So I guess I am wondering where that exists outside the US, if anywhere at all? Can this model of development be sustainable? If I am being unrealistic, please let me know so I can temper my expectations. Thank you all in advance

(I’m assuming that you have total control over zoning laws and everything related to urban/transit planning, incl. money- but through a capitalist approach)

Whenever I learn more about urban planning and urbanism, I think about states like West Virginia, who seemingly have little room to expand because of the terrain and lack of economic drive now that coal mining is phasing out exponentially. I think it could be good to be urbanize the cities to increase economic efficiency, but because there’s not a lot of industry in WV, I feel like it would be hard to drive businesses to start/relocate in the area. So, in a sort-of perfect world, what would you do to make West Virginia more urban?