@@danielstarr8957 beach, forest, hills, small city with only one 2x2 freeway thru town at 32 miles from San José and Silicon Valley ... You have an idea how rent will be ...
@@danielstarr8957 they have no implication of any craftsmanship. which gives the feeling that the people who built it don't care about it. which rubs off (subconciously) on everyone who views it or uses it
A lot of stuff being built now is actually less grey than some of the stuff that was built post war. 50s to 70s buildings which make up a large portion of where I live look so drab especially during the winter time. The whole modern brutalist trend was taken too far.
Pacific Avenue should have been made pedestrian-only back in the 1980s. This says a lot about the car as KING being such a strong drug in our culture. Regarding bringing the middle-class to our downtowns so that they will force better policing, that's a very mixed bag. Do not imagine it to be an automatic outcome just because a two-bedroom condominium starts at $1,000,000. The example used in the video (2:55) is a suburb of Paris which is a very different society with regards to dealing with homelessness and general crime prevention.
You rightly point out that almost every new building is a boring and ugly box. They're like that because it's cheaper to build and nobody at the city pushes back on their design. Even the building you kind of liked is boring when compared to what makes Santa Cruz charming. That building has no charm, no architectural flourishes to delight the eye. It's even worse at street level where every storefront looks the same with the same colors, smoke tinted windows, almost as it part of a mall. I would ask that while the upper floors can be uniform, the street level storefronts should have some individual character such as differentiating architectural elements, color, ornamental elements in line with the look of the street, so that each store looks different. For store owners, the benefit would be that their store has a chance to be easily recognized and remembered instead of as part of a monotonous streetscape. Individual storefronts with their own look is what gave the most engaging parts of Pacific Ave its charm before the earthquake. I would add that the idea that proper police patrolling only occurs when there are wealthy residents, if that is indeed the case, is a failure of community policing and a slap in the face to the other residents that the city should fix.
One thing to note is that much of this construction is large scale, monolithic lot development. While not necessarily a bad thing in its own, it does often lead to architectural conformity. If the lots were to be developed in a more piecemeal style, you'd have a lot more diversity in style, and probably a nicer overall aesthetic. I'm not sure what it is with American planners where they seem to force this monolithic development, but I'd imagine it's simply about the money.
The rules to get approval for a new building are so demanding, and the construction industry is now so heavily reliant on predictable construction methods and materials, that trying to get anything else built is next to impossible or offers a smaller return on investment that banks are unwilling to give a loan out for. The piecemeal style looks charming, but it is so expensive to get built that it will never make enough profit when fulfilling modern building codes. Look up Adam Something's "Why We Don't Build "Beautiful" Buildings Anymore" to under stand the situation more. It's the best explanation of the subject on RU-vid.
@@alexanderrotmensz True. The problem is that these developers are often far more cost sensitive and do everything they can to drive down costs, which is also why you see this architecture everywhere, because it's very scalable. As some have noted, this is probably the best we'll get for the foreseeable future, and we just have to hope that it results in cheaper places to live.
America does seem to have an obsession with large-scale development. It's hard to figure out the root cause. Some of this must be zoning and legal hurdles. It's hard to get the right permits, so only large professional developers are able to build. I also think buying apartments is pretty rare in the USA, so most people are forced to rent from large companies that run big complexes instead of individual landlords. Of course this really hurts renters as your choices are very much limited by whether the building is brand new and/or the rental company feels like maintaining it. In other parts of the world, you don't really have entire city blocks owned by one company so you can find apartments at a variety of price points (even within the same building) based on how it was renovated, maintained, etc. That being said, the video did a good job of highlighting some progress and we can celebrate that.
I personally don’t mind the modernist architecture, even if I prefer Victorian, Spanish revival, and especially art deco architecture. Though I think the moral imperative of building housing to help the homeless comes before the aesthetic preferences. It can be nice to have both (I don’t know how you’d legislate that without stopping development) but to me the people inside are more important than the buildings themselves.
@@jonathanstensberg Everywhere they've built cheap housing to help the homeless, the end result is always "projects" of crime ridden boxes where no one, not even homeless people, want to live. There should be no moral imperative to help the homeless because societal mores are not the reason why many people are homeless.
@@jonathanstensberg they're not ugly. the historic brick buildings people love today were "ugly" back then, that's how they got torn down and replaced with trendy modernist architecture. in fact a lot of people today will tell you they don't like brick because it's "dated." a lot of "projects" are made out of brick in traditional styles, too. also, plenty of aesthetic requirements are legislated by cities all over the country, a lot of the ugly aspects yall hate are mandated by those codes!
Love it! Downtown’s prime locations are very underutilized. Things are vacant because the tax on land value is too low (property tax includes a land tax). If the tax on land is higher, landowners wouldn’t so easily afford to hold land vacant. They’d have to actually get tenants (e.g. by lower their asking rent, or by improving the site) or sell the land to someone that will actually use it.
I love Santa Cruz. Used to live in Sunnyvale and most weekends I drove over the mountain to Santa Cruz. I am so happy that they actually doing this. Over the last 10 years, you could see the downtrend of the downtown area. I remember the Starbucks in downtown and as soon as that was gone, you knew it is going downwards. Hope it will be for the better.
Great overview of all the downtown activity. I’m a Santa Cruz County resident and worker and I’m all for it! I hope you make this into a series as there’s a hunger for ongoing, current info on housing. For example, Measure M failed so the door is open for more development south of Laurel. And I believe Cruz Hotel passed out of Santa Cruz Planning Commission so it’s further along than you reported.
Personally i don't think it's ugly but it's true that it doesn't respect the Santa Cruz architectural heritage, espescially for a building directly in it's historical downtown. It might be great for an area in the "midtown" of Santa Cruz, but the historical downtown should have appropiate building styles or at least in the same design DNA.
Having lived in Monterey in 1984, I used to drive up to Santa Cruz a couple times a month to walk around. I grew up in Southern California, and Santa Cruz was more like Southern California where Monterey was more of a Northern California (cold, impersonal) town. Unfortunately Santa Cruz lost many of their historical downtown buildings along Pacific due to the 1989 earthquake. I now live in the city of Ventura which is around 60 miles north of Los Angeles on the coast. Developers are currently building many of these modernist apartment and condominium complex all over town. However, many of them here are even more plain and uglier than the ones proposed for Santa Cruz. It is good developers are building more mid-rise mixed use projects in our areas. I wouldn’t say the modernist housing blocks are ugly, it’s just that they are all basically the same and look boring. The problem is that the rent in these newer apartment buildings is extremely high for what you get.
Thank you for sharing your story! And yes learning about the extent of the damage of the 1989 earthquake was really quite shocking. Growing up in LA I only ever heard about Northridge and Loma Prieta should be talked about more often
im someone whos loved the so called 'modern' architecture style since i was a kid but even i agree when thats all you build, its boring! especially when theyre just blocks of grey, black and white. they need to use more color and texture! also with all this development i hope theyre planning for installing more native trees and plants. it makes a huge difference when living in the city
I'm also in a mid-sized coastal Californian area, and I really wish we built more mission style architecture like a few of the project here. It seems pretty simple that we would build that around here but we still build ugly concrete boxes, which just fuels nimbyism as no one wants to live near that, hence the cycle
I’ve been in Santa Cruz almost 10 years. And often it’s shocking to me how expensive it is to live here versus how dumpy it can be. You’re basically charged a premium for mediocrity at best. People here loved to complain, but never actually take action to change anything. The road washed out on our street over two years ago! And the city still hasn’t fixed it. And our taxes? And cost of living is outrageous. I had jury duty last week and I’m down at the courthouse looking around at overgrown weeds, and the general run down nature of, the courthouse and its surrounding area I thought to myself. What is this? Why is this place such a mess? I’ve never lived anywhere that had such a high concentration of money and was so expensive and yet looked so poor. So I hope this actually happens.you always have a huge population of either the old hippie culture or students that are allowed to vote on our local matters. Even though they’re only gonna be here a couple years. They tend to always screw things up for the sake of hyper liberal nonsense.
There a better and worse examples of every architectural style, and “modern architecture” is an umbrella that covers multiple distinct styles. However, yes, every study of the issue shows that the majority of people tend to prefer the older architectural styles.
Although I prefer traditional architecture, I really don't think anyone should be enforcing aesthetic guidelines on new developments. Just upzone the whole place, liberalize building codes such as stair requirements, and allow an urban fabric to develop naturally. Other than that, the city should be rebuilding roads to be more pedestrian-friendly, improving transit, and making the river and waterfront beautiful focal points. The demand is there, in a couple decades you could have a world-class city with a million people and great proximity to nature and good weather.
I think a larger issue with new developments in terms of architecture is less so style and more so scale. Take most japanese streets for example, almost all were built after world war 2 yet and could be classified as modern in style yet people still find them immensely charming largely because of things like human sized elements and small lot sizes. I think that new dense development in the US tends to lack charm not nessecarily because its in a contemporary style (although cheaply built modern buildings tend to look worse) but because in order to make a profit developers have to build entire blocks into monolithic apartment buildings rather than old patterns of development where people could build their own storefronts on small lots.
These modernist type buildings are still an upgrade compared to most post war architecture. Where I live we're getting a lot of new buildings but to me it's so much better than the gray looking drab apartments and plazas that we've had for so long.
Oh yeah and I think you missed one major point about why the architecture is what it is downtown. They lost a lot of their beautiful historical buildings during the Loma Prieta earthquake.
i like specific types of modernist architecture but the generic stuff that goes up everywhere is what's really ugly. things that are simplified to crazy levels and that have intricate sets of blocks i find interesting and a few of them would make a city unique (too may would turn it into a sea of meaningless cubes). also colors. modern buildings lack lots of color, they're black gray white and occasionally blue. i wanna see the balcony extrusions green or red or hell even pink, it adds variety. in all seriousness 1,000 units in such a tiny space is amazing
What are they doing with all those tax dollars? They *can* build apartments that look nice. I think there have to be laws passed to make developers plan buildings that fit in with the older buildings. Some places have recognized the value of the older buildings that aren't too far gone to save too.
The modernist buildings could be fixed with different paint color that blends better with the historic aesthetic. Otherwise, the benefits to them being built outweigh their artistic flaws
Buildings tend to look like that because onerous design requirements result in a cookie cutter design that's been found to most easily pass the requirements. I don't know that cause applies specifically to Santa Cruz but it's the reason generally why you see those. It would be good to advocate for a more hands off design approval process if you want to see more diversity in building style. However I side with the person in that screenshot, what matters is the unit count and reducing cars and parking. Getting the important stuff right will create a good, walkable urban environment that everyone can enjoy and I just don't see the building design mattering that much.
Great video, your take on modernist buildings is spot on. I just recently watched a video on Poundbury, UK. Of course that has the influence of King Charles leaning into its development as a modern, but timelessly designed community.
Totally agree. I grew up on the Monterey Peninsula and have lived all over Santa Cruz County and UCSC since before the 1989 earthquake. Except for the Logos building, I most appreciated the earliest new buildings constructed after the quake, especially where they were able to save the stately facades and made a point to incorporate homage of the previous building pre-quake. Unfortunately, the City has lost its architectural soul. Some of the new downtown housing buildings indeed resemble local structures, only taller, but the bungalows and apartment buildings of Seacliff are 9 miles east and far from worthy of imitation. Instead, the aesthetic requirements should hearken to the beauty of the old Cooper House, the facade across the street that stood alone without a building for two years, the quirky neo-mission and unique take on Bay Area late Victorian styles-even if only for the two or three lower storeys. The restored Del Mar theater is awesome, and worthy inspiration. I still love Santa Cruz, and were it not for the insidious traffic between Aptos and downtown, would hang out there regularly; and I hope to eventually move there and not bother owning a car. Santa Cruz's unique flavor will blossom with increased housing in the downtown area. I hope Seabright also enjoys some more renaissance and maintains its beachtown style, even while rising a couple or three floors higher. Take advantage of offsets/setbacks for building-private miniparks and some gardens the tenants can adopt. That, too, would be so very Santa Cruzy.
Oh, and why does the new library have to look like Dominican Hospital, which is ugly? It was an amazing opportunity to add to the Victorian neighborhood atmosphere, appearing to be a row of 4 story houses and the actual housing looking like an old coast resort hotel circa 1900, which was a genuine thing in the area. But eyesores are cheap and Santa Cruz beats out even San Francisco at unnecessary argumentativeness over every possible project, which is why we still grew 25% more in population since the quake yet have no new infrastructure to support it-or for the population before 1989, frankly, when one of my UCSC classmates rented a large walk-in closet for a room-not even joking, it was a walk-in closet.
Too bad your thoughtful comments also include architectural snobbery. If you believe in housing affordability, it cannot be achieved with cute historic-looking buildings. And btw, the Victorians thought those cute houses you love looked like boring modernist boxes too.
It’s just like walkable neighborhoods… comes down to supply and demand. If the market participants demand more beautiful looking buildings, then hopefully we can open more brick factories and lumber yards, etc. to make it possible to mass produce classical looking buildings more cheaply. I truly believe once we on shore more American manufacturing we can start building aesthetically pleasing building again for the same (or closer to) the price of 5over-1’s.
Yeah, it’s the presumption that old = good and “modernism” = bad. By this logic no new architectural styles can ever be build. Sure, Modernist residential buildings of the 60s and 70s got a lot wrong, but the type of buildings being built in DT Santa Cruz are not Modernist. From the pictures shown in the video, they have pedestrian scaled and oriented ground floors, articulated massing to breakup the scale of the building, and look like they provide high quality residential units. Sure, material quality of building facade and craftsmanship of how it is applied does help the aesthetics of the building, but this is significantly better than stuff built within the last 50 years. I’d check out the new Mission Rock development in SF just south of the Giants stadium for an example of contemporary architecture where the quality of materials is high and the pedestrian experience is great.
Agreed. It is unfortunate that it is cheaper to build these common looking buildings but what is more unfortunate is the fact that most landlords in Santa Cruz are not managed by a realty company and are instead owned by people who can and will vote on NIMBY policies to extract more money from students because of the severe lack of housing at UCSC they voted for.
The 'ugly modernist' new buildings in the downtown core are typical of infill projects you'd see in most older US lower-scale urban cores. Their boxy generic look is probably partly due to cost. Could such builders design a neo-Mediterranean building that channels California's classic and beloved neo-Mediterranean buildings? Maybe, but the old designers and builders were masters of their tradition. You can't exactly mandate the old values, but it seems Santa Cruz government could do a somewhat better job at managing the city's heritage without killing development. Irony: if the city had a winning formula to lure many more residents to downtown then somebody would start complaining about congestion and gentrification. Can't win in prickly California...
Complaining about building aesthetics is counterproductive when there’s a housing crisis going on. I’ll take practically first then worry about how they make you feel on a rainy day later.
Now is all the hate for big dumb boxes really necessary? I like this counter argument: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NwaVDQa4-ck.htmlsi=swfpOa-Q0T6QToI5
How can you be backing the idea of actively bringing in middle and high income residents while at the same time claiming the city needs to solve issues of homelessness and affordability? This obviously only worsens these issues. “These people will demand safer and cleaner streets,” okay sure, to the detriment of current residents and lower income people.
