Forest Lake is a 500 acre new development in St Louis, USA, accompanied by a slick voice over the marketing clip does it job:
The interesting thing about the movie is the price - family homes come in at $200,000 or £100,000. In the suburbs of London, where are currently writing this, Studio Flats - thats one room - are on the market for around £250,000 or $500,000.
Where do we sign up?
Well i have to say that this project is a "masterpiece" of Unsustainable development. The quantities of water and maintenance for the exterior spaces must be tremendous, the only way to live there would be with a car for everyone... the worst the american sprawl has to offer! And the oversized houses don't help. This is a very good example to show architectural/urban design students what to avoid doing! Just my two cents...
ReplyDeleteThis development is not in a major city downtown/urban area. This is an suburban area where everyone has to own a car, and commute, and would like to have a yard and the fence and the dog and the 2.5 children.
ReplyDeleteI think it looks like a great place to live.
It's not what I personally would choose, but had I children, a dog, and a decent job in the St. Louis area, I'd go for it. No need to get in a car to drive to a forest or park when you can walk/bicycle to one nearby. No noise pollution (buses, trains, sirens), minimal air pollution.
ReplyDeleteI live in Tokyo. To experience anything like this video depicts (ponds, streams, homes with land large enough to set on picnic table on, tennis courts, forests, rec center), without hordes of other people, requires that one travel at least 45 minutes one-way (surely by train) from the metro area proper, probably spending ¥1,000 per person round trip (costly to take the family who will be in sour mood anyway thanks to the long train ride).
I'm in the Tokyo suburbs. A modern condominium of 100sq.m. starts about $400,000 in my complex. Parking for one car adds $200 or $300 a month. It's not in the league as a London studio flat, but were I living in central Tokyo, I hate to think what it would cost.
Unfortunately, as of June, 2011, this development has never come into fruition. Millions of dollars were spent on roads and utilities just before the housing market crashed. The only structures built were the sales office [closed], one commercial building that currently has one tenant (a pediatrician), and a partially-completed, and now vandalized, display home. Access to the property has been blocked off past the sales office. It's sad, really...viewing this video and seeing what might-have-been had the housing market remained stable.
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