Thread by @Noahpinion

In this post, I try to explain what's so appealing about the famous Imperial Boy "solarpunk" picture. It's not sci-fi, it's just good urban design.

And I offer some thoughts on how to leverage art and design to make urban density more popular.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/drawing-pict…

With shout-outs to the great @HawthorneCDOLA and the great @alfred_twu.

Here are some real-life places that remind me of certain elements of Imperial Boy's drawing.

In contrast, the "put a tree on it" style of "solarpunk" usually doesn't quite work out so magically in the real world...

Here's my breakdown of what I personally like about the urban scene depicted in Imperial Boy's drawing.

We can use pictures to show people what the future of dense housing will be like!! See this thread.

I mean...how awesome does this look!

And we can use pictures to show people what neighborhoods with lots of high-density housing might look like, too.

And with a lot of effort, we can even draw pictures of what our cities would look like if they were denser and more transit-friendly!

If we don't draw pictures of what we mean by "density" and "transit", people's fevered imaginations will envision superblock dystopias when we utter those words!

Art and design are the most important tools we have for visualizing the future.

Any YIMBY or urbanist movement needs the power of urbanist art!

(end)

noahpinion.substack.com/p/drawing-pict…