Jun. 20, 2008 at 2:20pm

Urban Design & Cruise Ships

Why Tacoma should look to cruise ships when evaluating design priorities.

Discussing urban design and cruise ships in the same post could be an indication that I have lost one too many marbles. I hope this is not the case, because I think I may be on to something here! I'll let you decide for yourself . . .

After running across this post over at Gizmodo, a thought entered my head: Are cruise ships real-life examples of what a model mixed-use community should look like? The more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense. Cruise ships are basically self-contained communities that involve no cars, must accomodate thousands of residents, and must offer all (if not more) of the modern ammenities we have grown accustomed to.

Certainly it is not precisely the same, as it does not require a self-supporting economy, nor does it require available employment for all the residents. The short-term timeline also means the whole system does not have to be sustainable as it only has to last as long as the cruise.

Even with these caveats, I think we can see in cruise ships an example of what kind of infrastructure we can create under certain circumstances. It is essentially a design that allows residents a place to live while making shopping, entertainment, etc. as accessible as possible without the need to get in a car and drive around for half the day.

I'm not saying we should build cities to look like cruise ships, but I am saying that they provide an illustration of what we are capable of building when the situation necessitates it.

My real intent for writing this was to spark a discussion - what do you think about this parallel? What other similarities can you se? As Tacoma continues to grow, are there designs/organizational cues that we could tanslate into an on-land context?