That guy is an inspiration of a mayor. Basically because of him that Carmel is like it is. No wonder he's been re-elected for almost 30 years. Not sure if it's been mentioned, but another quirk is that Carmel has the most roundabouts in America.
Indianapolis as a whole has improved greatly since the 1980s. Sure the leaving of western electric did downgrade it for a while but since the 2000’s the city has been exploding in economic growth.
I lived in Carmel for 34 years. (Jim Brainard was my neighbor for years) I needed to downsize from my large home and yard. I moved away, but I still miss all there is in Carmel. The schools are the best that can be, safe, always. Jim has made Carmel what it is today. And I miss round-a-bouts!!
That's incredible. That city is one good rail connection from being a solid European city. Amazing work, it pisses me off that we don't have more of this in the US.
Carmel doesn't even have a bus system. Everyone drives. It has a few okay streets in its faux downtown but the rest of it is just regular American sprawl.
@@neil.heffernanI mean it's clear they are deconstructing after decades of car centric design and suburban stratification. It will not be made right over night and this is a wonderful step in the right direction. Let's try to be positive about progress that is visibly being made.
I looked at the city on Google streetview and it literally just looks like a normal American suburb. Not sure what this video is pointing out that makes it the "best designed". This is literally everywhere
@@scenicdepictionsofchicagolife Calling it anywhere close to being "A solid European city" is an extreme exaggeration. This looks absolutely nothing like a town in any European country. This looks like an American suburb where the strip malls are designed a little differently
@@neil.heffernan you are right it's not a European style city. It never will be, it doesn't need to be. Carmel is a toddler of a walkable, bikeable city. It's battling against 70+ years of exclusive car oriented development. Did you miss how the mayor comment on what a struggle it has been to convince developers and bankers to back their ideas? They have achieved an incredible amount in the last 20 years and if you project out similar or faster progress over the next 20 it could really be a stunning place. Yea they need more transit, but building an attractive vibrant place that people want to be is a magnet for creating more transit links. Its a step by step process.
As a resident, Carmel is a very nice place to live- even if it gets colder here vs Texas. Mayor Brainard has done a wonderful job with his extremely forward thinking approach. Mayor Finkham has some very large shoes to fill- let's hope it continues to grow and complete the vision that Mayor Brainard set forward. Excellent video- thanks.
Could you inform me? I'm not sure about the images but I also have the impression that there are apartments above certain businesses. It's very practical to have shops nearby and not have residential areas far from work or where you go shopping.
I truly hope more north american cities/towns can follow suit. Seeing places like this makes me think that there is a slight chance that Canada and the US won't continue to fully suck in the future. Wonderful stuff!
@@lalakersproThey have serious issues that make them inefficient. In just about every metric, it’s better for suburbs to be designed a bit more like cities. Rural areas are really the only places that can get away with things like this. Also, these types of suburbs have far more character than the generic North American ones were stuck with. With so much culture on this continent, our shared spaces should reflect it!
@@Jon_Nadeau_ If you live in a typical North American suburb and like that lifestyle, is there any reason you couldn’t just live in a rural area for mostly the same thing. Suburbs are meant to take some of the benefits from both urban and rural life, but at the moment, they don’t have much of either.
@landrypierce9942 I agree, and suburbs do have the benefits of both rural and urban areas. I like the suburbs the way they are now so there's not much reason to move. Rural areas are nice too but sometimes they don't have many amenities or are too far away from anything. The suburbs are a good balance.
What an awesome vid. Feel this is super applicable to so many cities in the US. This mayor knows wtf he is doing. Hope more leaders think this way. Can see this becoming the future if people commit.
I remember driving through Camel while i was learning to drive. I was overjoyed to see new, large buildings being made that actually looked visually appealing from the outside. It wasn't just the same bland modernist square1 you see everywhere. Some architect had a good time.
I'd say it's certainly ONE OF America's best designed NEW suburbs. I would still contend though that more established suburbs that were built in the late 19th/early 20th century and earlier, such as Evanston, IL or Somerville, MA are the best designed. Not to take anything away from Carmel, because they've done a good job of turning over a new development leaf, but it should be noted that all of the shots in this video were of it's New Urbanist downtown area. Most of Carmel does still look like your typical American sprawl-burb.
God I hate Somerville. Personally I've never though of Somerville or the other inner cities of Boston "suburbs" even though I guess they technically are. I just call them cities. Thank god I live a little further out now.
@@millerd420 Well yeah I'm sure it was established around the same time most other cities in the Midwest were, but most of the development in it is from within the past forty years or so.
Some of Carmel is still like that, yes. But there’s like 3-5 downtown areas in Carmel it’s centered around that are all fairly walkable. Just need to implement the golf carts trails now like the Villages! lol Westfield is already starting to it sounds like.
You are not wrong about the detached single-family neighborhoods! At least they are focusing on the core part of the city first. There may be hope for the sprawling neighborhood areas of Carmel afterall!
I visited Carmel earlier this year for the first time. It has a great downtown. Also thought it was so cool to to find a bar downtown that still allows for smoking inside, it was so backed and very nostalgic!
The main problem with modern planning are the parking and stroads/arterials. Carmel has managed to solve this with better building layout and roundabouts
Now everything is so expensive here ...good luck trying to find a place to live ..there is nothing ..if you didn't buy five years ago everything is in the millions ....even the dumps
Love my city ❤ Best mayor ever! You should see the over 100 roundabouts - the traffic is flowing and a lot less serious traffic accidents. But mainly people are a lot friendlier in a walkable and community designed city.
This is a good example for a much needed shift in urbanization. To understand the city is for people and not for cars is simultaneously solving so many problems
saying this is the best feels like hoboken erasure, but seriously, carmel is super interesting and it's so cool seeing such a well made video about it!
Great story. If this was Ontario, the developers would've appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal to push through strip plazas rather than work with the city on something better. My city Oshawa, Ontario uses a similar program to TIF and has had great successes to grow our downtown and the area around the university.
Here is some feedback for future uploads: Voice too silent, MUSIC TOO LOUD. I had to turn up the volume to like '60' to be able to distinguish words, but then had to lower it to '10' whenever the music came on.
Mayor Jim Brainard seems know exactly what he is doing and has clarity in thoughts. If we as viewers could learn so much in a 18min video from him, there's a lot more cities around the country can. Tax density per acre is the most important metric that 99% of cities in the US ignore.
This video only shows a TINNNNNNNNNY section of Carmel and sprawl definitely exists in Carmel. So don't think the entire city of Carmel looks like this.
Carmel is a great city, ive lived the my whole life. Its amazing to see how much its grown. Also the fact of over 140 roundabouts, you could count the number of stoplights on your hands
Brainard, as locals call him, had a bold vision for what Carmel could/should be. He garnered cash from annexing the outskirts of city limits very early in his tenure (late 90’s). This gave much better civil services to the citizens thru road improvements including divided two lane roads with pretty trees in median, roundabouts at every intersection with “nice” art or landscaping, as well as Carmel PD and Carmel FD (both best in country imo). These services were previously county services and mediocre at best. Also, Carmel has the best snow removal in the state. They get after it! We are more know for our roundabouts. Over 140 and less than 5 intersections in entire city have stop lights. With a city over 100k residents, that’s impressive! Brainard is a HUGE reason you’re seeing roundabouts nationwide. Brainard hosts city planners and mayors from around the world all the time showing what’s possible. Whether it’s Sunday morning or rush hour, to get from one side of town to the other takes almost the exact same time…they’re so efficient. If you could see what a sh!!thole downtown, midtown and city center was before Brainard, you’d be shocked. He’s got a sharp mind and had a great vision. This man knows exactly what taxes each lot is pulling in for the city. And as a resident, our property taxes aren’t flipping the bill for the amazing amenities we have (too many to count). This is done through bringing professional businesses into Carmel and filling the TIF coffers with their tax dollars. To give an idea on taxes, I pay under $4k on $600k home. That’s stupid cheap for what we get!! Now…Brainard wasn’t always transparent with how things were getting done but it’s probably because it’s too complicated to explain in two minutes. However, you could NEVER complain about the results. That’s why he won with no issue every election. In regard to public transit, we’re a suburb. You need a car for your daily life. However, the central hub of our community has great walking accessibility and plenty of free garages. Carmel offers so many free concerts, art fairs, a fun front porch weekend where local musical artist play solo or with their bands on people’s front porches through the downtown area. We have artomobilia which is an amazing weekend car show of exotic cars. My point is, we don’t have everything everyone wants or desires, you’ll need to go to heaven for that. However, through Brainard’s vision, he has created a great sense of community and pride for Carmel through our downtown development. We’re proud of our city. Example, he changed all the WELCOME TO CARMEL signs this summer to SWIMTOWN USA because we had 3 Olympic swimmers from Carmel competing in Paris. For every resident seeing those signs; there’s pride. For every guest entering Carmel; there’s awe and appreciation. As a Carmel grad and Carmel resident, I’m very very proud to call Carmel home. As for the Carmel haters, know this….an overwhelming majority of residents aren’t from here. They came here through work or because our quality of life and affordability (relative to where they came from…California,Chicago,etc). They are predominantly duel income families with a college education. They choose to raise a family here because the schools are amazing, we’re the safest small city in America, and they want the best opportunities for their kids. They are normal people. Do we have our a-holes and Karen’s? You betcha! But your town does too! An overwhelming amount are amazing and very generous people…just like YOUR TOWN! So if you’re a Hoosier and play Carmel in sports, stop chanting “we hate Carmel”. Be a good Hoosier and hate Purdue 😜 And to the lady that called us racist, please come back. I don’t know your experience but I don’t want to believe it. We are actually quite diverse here and interconnect with each other. My direct neighbors are an Indian family, an Asian family, a black family, a white old fart retire couple 😊 and young family with little kids. And we have the best get togethers. …and I’m a middle aged white dude with wife and kids. ……We’re all in this together !!
Historic Guanajuato, Mexico is extremely walkable/hikable. The cars go thru tunnels and over bridges and park mostly out of the way of the pedestrians. Loads of narrow alleys and stairs throughout the town. Fountains and benches and public art everywhere. Kids playing in the cobblestone streets. Marketeers in the parks. Festivals and flowers and folk musicians. And something called a Funicular that goes up to a very special monument, commemorating the start of the Mexican Revolution, in which the silver miners were freed from bondage and the Spaniards trounced. It also celebrates the life and arts of Cervantes as being basically its patron saint. His theater is there, as well as the historic university, and the usual abundance of ancient cathedrals and missions.
I agree with the basic funding concept the Mayor references. They are ahead of the game in this matter. Most cities just want the impact fees and increased taxes. I am so tired of 5/1 podium buildings, It does not matter what city you are in, especially if it's a TOD project. They all look the same. A mash up of materials that just looks odd and contrived. Too many remind me of Power Centers from 20 years ago. We just need more tools in the toolbox. SFH under 1,000 sq ft, doubles, four plex bldgs, ADU and buildings over 5 stories. Give me retail on the ground floor. No parking minimums. It does not matter if you are in SLC, RVA, Portland or Columbus....it looks all the same. Zoning and Universal building codes are very limiting.
Northside native here. What's really unfortunate is that there's a saying said a lot around the area. "Nobody in Indiana likes Carmel except those who live in Carmel." The idea of sprawl is so integrated in the culture here so Carmel kind of makes a lot of people upset. They have an affluent community, a fantastic public school system, and a lovely city. People like to hate on success, especially when they are not a part of it. Personally, I do not and have never lived in Carmel, but the short drive to Carmel is always worth it for me. I love that city and the walkability is fantastic. As an enjoyer of the arts, it's a wonderful reason to be there as well. I was fortunate enough to go to sound tests when the Palladium was being built and have been there multiple times since. The art around the city is amazing and you can often find performances throughout. They have invested in their city and it is paying off in huge dividends, and on top of that, they use that to continue investing in their city. Carmel's design has been so successful that nearby cities such as Noblesville, Westfield, and Fishers have all started adopting parts of what they do into their cities raising the quality of the cities around.It is certainly unlike any other part of Indiana I have been to, let alone the rest of the country.
Salem, MA i would consider a better suburb. Like many of the inner 95 ring cities/towns outside Boston, many have organic planning, mixed zoning allowing multi business and residential developments, areas with high density and areas of single families. The whole area including Salem ofc predates post-war urbanism but still is victim to strodes, and culdesacs. Salem has a commuter rail station and micro transit options getting around easy but is still outside Boston enough to be considered its own city-suburb similar to Carmel
I recently got a chance to travel to carmel when I went to indianapolis, it is very beautiful, though you dont see too many people on the streets in some areas. Even with that it is a beautiful area and I enjoyed the visit!
I looked up Carmel on Google Maps, which also shows the city limits. 95% of the whole area is urban sprawl that doesn't look any different than elsewhere in the US. The city center is an exception but from the statements and visuals in the video I would have expected more than "here we have a few blocks that defy the rule". Sure, most of the city was likely erected before the decision to convert the city center and the options to do more would have been better on a clean slate. Still, I doubt that a tiny European style island in a US style sea of single-family detached homes, stroads and parking lots can serve as a model because here it evidently doesn't preseve space or limit the sprawl. Ultimately only scarcity of space will lead to a real paradigm shift, which is when like a 100km radius around a city like Indianapolis is completely built up.
You have to start somewhere. If little enclaves prove to be popular and successful, then their influence will spread. We're in the early stages of this change with the housing crisis pushing faster solutions to the problems caused by car centric living. Hopefully examples like down town Carmel will show towns that it's both profitable for the town and residents to have these places, then they stop becoming enclaves and become the norm.
I live and work in Carmel. I fully agree. Its an extremely small potion of the city. Only the City Center has had this kind of activity done. Just sprawl everywhere else. Ill give them credit for starting,a nd thats making nearby Fishers do the same, but it isnt going to change much.
What you don’t realize is that Carmel is actually spread out and the city gets credit for its amenities and quality of life. Midtown, The Art district, The Monon trail is all one area Then you have West Clay and all these areas are walkable. Plus you have to remember that the place is no longer a town but a city of 100k All those people gotta live somewhere
I think you're missing the point. The goal here isn't too get rid of all the sprawl in a suburb since many people living living in those areas. After all people move to the suburbs for a reason. The point is to improve the suburbs by building a small walkable and economic engine downtown that the residents can drive/walk too. We don't want to get rid of the suburban sprawl completely because then it's not even really a suburb anymore you might as well just call it a urban city.
as Timothy says, this is a start. You can't change 75 years of car oriented development all at once. The core downtown has proven to be attractive, successful, and desirable. The mayor talked of new projects on the horizon. The video showed a dozen building under construction. These are the first steps only. A long way to go, but a start.
Not sure I agree. Sure the mixed use developments are great and there is good road design, but how are you the best designed suburb without a bus service? You can’t even take transit to Indianapolis if you wanted to.
You missed the entire point of the video. The city has a population of 100k. Over 80% of the population has a degree and the medium income is 100k plus Most of all the amenities are walkable so a bus isn’t needed
You can take transit even if you have a degree and make a lot of money. Nor do you need a certain number of people to have transit. And didn't they talk about how they buried all the parking (couldn't hear too clearly due to music) - they wouldn't need so much parking if they had more transit. Another commenter said that this is just the downtown area, they still have regular suburbs like any other place - there could be transit to take people from their single family houses into this downtown area.
Everyone has cars here, so funding public transportation from the single family home areas is very unlikely. Even if there were a bus system, we are all so busy that waiting on scheduled transportation would be too time consuming. Very few people would use it outside of weekends and holiday break times. Most people rarely travel to downtown Indy.
It’s the best because all other US suburbs that were designed recently are just very incredibly bad. The good suburbs are usually built before WW2, zoning, and car centric policies. It’s like being the champion of US Major League Soccer. Best of a mediocre league.
Looks great and this guy obviously cares about his town but isn't this the state that banned light rail. I didn't hear any mention of public transit in this piece.
This is incredibly impressive. Huge kudo's to the mayor, he is aptly 🧠named! I would think that underground parking would be the way to go. Yes, maybe expensive on the front end, but it hides cars from sight, it puts people where they want to be: in the shopping center. You don't have to heat/cool the place because it's below ground (same temp year round), AND you can even charge both residents and shoppers to use the parking garage. Put auto-scan parking tags on cars, like tolltags, that can be 'refilled' automatically when the parking funds get low. Charge residents $50-$60/month for parking as part of their rent, and shoppers, maybe a scalable price: $10, $20, $30, with funds taken out as they're used. Turn off the parking charge for special events like at Christmas. And if folks move out of the area, they can get any monies left on their 'tolltag' refunded to them. BTW, does the mayor 'school' other mayors in other cities on how to do things right like Carmel has done???
I hope more places adopt this mentality. It’s so depressing seeing Florida just endlessly sprawl further and further away from any city center with the same poorly built homes anchored by the same generic box stores.
Couldn't help but notice all the people consistently walking in the 2-way bike paths instead of the pedestrian paths or sidewalks provided. Seems like people want even larger spaces to walk side by side with several people and the bike paths are wider than the pedestrian paths for some reason.
The Monon Trail is literally designed with walking, biking, and rollerblading in mind. There are signs setting yield rules when people using different modes of transport meet.
This looks so much like Paris. Average height apartment/condo flats or even multilevel units all densely placed together and all the broad greenway/narrow car lane/wide sidewalks line with trees. I believe I see them placing mass transit in the future with the wide brick laid vehicle path in the middle of a few of those open travel ways. A trolley system just off to a side paralleling the main plaza or development zones and servicing say "twin" development strips or nodes would be an awesome reality. Overall, BRAVO! Carmel. You can call what you're doing suburban planning (to keep your desired demographic happy), but I'd call it smart URBAN planning.
Many folks I know who lived in Carmel moved out to get out of the high taxes and crowding. But they are moving outward from the Indy metro into more fast growing suburbs. Indy is spreading like weeds.
I only spent three years in Indiana; for law school at IU in the late 1990s. After graduation I considered staying in Indiana and Carmel was one town I considered (along with Fort Wayne). I was told by the locals to leave the State to build a career and raise a family because Indiana was hopelessly racist against Black people; I remember they mentioned Carmel by name as a particular town to avoid. I went to Plano, TX instead....two kids in college, last just turned 14, Plano has been dam good to me. Hopefully Carmel has evolved in the past 25 years...
As someone who lives in this area, you have to recognize that a lot of what Carmel and other suburbs in Hamilton County have is WEALTH that makes a lot of this stuff possible.
I grew up in a suburb where you could park your car at hime and walk everywhere you needed to go. I could walk to the grocery store, pizza place, library, pool, all the parks, school within 15- 20 mins. I loved growing up there and i miss it sometimes. Where I live now is rural. There are no sidewalks you have to drive really far to get groceries or do anything. The kids here drive far to go to school. It's terrible. The parks don't get invested in and our stores are all vacant and falling apart. Since I've lived here multiple buildings or houses have burned down. Yet they take our tax money and how they use it no one knows.
Has anyone made a "US Cities Like Carmel, IN" Video? We need more management like this, absolutely wonderful. Though I wonder if this city had a normal city amount of money to start with or if they got some sort of handout to jumpstart these projects. Unspoken extra cash laying around that most cities don't even have the chance to obtain.
The hardest part for most cities is convincing people that these types of places do work, and work even better than car centricity. We can let Carmel be an example of how mixed use genuinely works. More often than not, people making planning decisions aren't urban planners. It is usually well intentioned public clerks who don't know anything about urban planning.
Great interview; I'm glad to see there's at least one US suburb that serves as a model. BTW, it's not "impacts", but _effects._ Also, the idiom is "raises the question", not "begs the question" (which is a logical fallacy). And it's _the US's_ best suburb, not "America's".
What would you call citizens of the United States of America? United States of Americans? United Statians? No... We just call them Americans. You can call the United States of America simply, "America". You just can't call the United States "*The* Americas". You can use "begs the question" or "raises the question". Aristotle named the fallacy that but it doesn't mean you can't use the phrase to mean other things. "Begs" has taken on new meaning after him and works in this context to mean "raises". Also, the phrase itself isn't a logical fallacy but rather the translation of the Aristotelian phrase rendered as "beg the question" but meaning "assume the conclusion." You probably already knew this but then you should've specified "which is the name of a logical fallacy" instead of "which is a logical fallacy" :P But at least you haven't committed a fallacy fallacy. Although you are being pedantic.
@@derp3044 I'm always curious why every time I bring this up, people mistakenly bring up demonyms. I wasn't talking about what the people are called, but what the country is called, and it's called the United States of America (in full) or the United States (in short). "America" refers to the entire landmass (which was a continent for everyone until the 1950s, after which point it got split into 2 continents in some cultures), which is what the name "United States of America" is referring to (as in, not "of Africa", "of Asia", etc.). Reducing "United States of America" to "America" would be like reducing "San Francisco of California" to "California"; it's a semantic error. It might seem like country names can be derived from demonyms and vice-versa, but they actually have a tenuous relationship at best. In the same way that one cannot say "do you call the people Dutch people or Netherlandic people? Therefore, the name of the country is Dutchia", the logic doesn't work for the US because it doesn't have a unique name for the country. So the demonym came to be one of last resort, where the residents of every other country in America came to have unique names of their own, so the label "American" came to be used to refer to the people from the US (though it still refers to everyone from America). However, United Statians, Usonians, or US-Americans are all valid demonyms that people can use. United States of Americans is grammatically incorrect because of the semantic error (see above). As for the idiom, no, "begs the question" is incorrect when it isn't referring to the name of the logical fallacy. It's just a common misconception that people think "sounds right", just like how they mix up "revolves around" and "centred on". And of course the phrase itself isn't a logical fallacy. But your point there, while somewhat valid in that there's a bit of ambiguity in how I phrased it, is silly because it would be like saying "it's incorrect to say 'I'm John' when what you mean is 'My name is John'." The former can refer to the name as well, which is the sense that I was using it in.
@@tstcikhthys it seems to be in how the Western Hemisphere is taught differently perhaps. In the US and Canada we are just taught you may call the US "America", and that the landmass containing both North America and South America are "The Americas", not "America", which seems to be reserved for USA. I beg to defer 😋 colloquially, it is acceptable. Again, languages are living and constantly changing, even changing based on errors sometimes. I think the ambiguity argument still stands, as it's not a commonly known that "begs the question" is the name of a logical fallacy, and one could confuse your statement with the statement itself being a fallacy. "I'm John" vs "My name is John" won't ever be confused.
The kind of mixed-use development described here is good for some people, not everyone. It's good for a group that skews younger and single, and whose interests primarily focus on eating out, drinking, and entertainment. In other words, the meme: "Just consume product, then get excited for next product." If your interests are more like tending a large garden, growing roses, training your dog for agility courses, restoring a classic car, woodworking, or trying to build a business in your own home that requires more than just a home computer, you're going to want the typical suburban home with a garage, basement, and backyard.
Exactly my thoughts too. Traditional suburbs are inherently more "green" with pride in lawns/plantings/flowers - less asphalt and hard surfaces. Traditional burbs also promote pride in home ownership "plots" of land; less of the community/common grounds. Retirees moving into "new" university campus based settings aren't working as well as planned; noise, congestion and lack of peace and quiet being issues. Carmel hit a niche but can't replace many burb advantages for many who still desire their own, proud yards.
Well suburbs should be more green, but I’m shocked at the number of young families who move into suburbs these days and simply cut everything down, leaving nothing but some plastic looking grass tended by a lawn maintenance company. Why are they even in the suburbs? The infuriating thing is that they’ve cut down trees that took 50 years to grow, leaving their whole street hotter and more barren. As the homes continue to turn over, lush neighborhoods are becoming increasingly denuded.
@@aliannarodriguez1581 Can it be as simple as we've raised a generation of young adults who spent their entire youth years indoors behind electronic screens?? Seeing it my own family, unfortunately. Without the exposure and experiences of being outside in nature, the grey hard surfaces get selected. Growing up before 1980s REQUIRED the kids to be more outside, doing wage earning jobs as part of the family structure. It might be just this simple of a cause-effect?!? How many kids today spend 8 hrs outside riding their bikes (WITHOUT a battery drive)? It was the norm 50 yrs ago when suburbs were being grown
Good documentary, but if you don’t mention that hamilton county is the richest county in the state and one of the richest in the country ignores a big part of why they can do this. Hamilton county has also been one of the fastest growing counties for DECADES. I live one town over and it’s very similar
I have friends and family all over the state so I really don't want the type of urban expansion that many viewers of these types of videos want that typically makes it harder to just get in the car and drive somewhere. As it stands though driving through Carmel is very pleasant. I've only ever experienced bad traffic here once when the interstate was closed, rerouting everyone through Carmel, and even then it wasn't too bad. Additionally I've only ever had trouble finding downtown parking once. So two negative experiences with driving in my three years here isn't so bad and it can be pretty fun to walk around downtown during the nice parts of the year. My only complaint right now is that property taxes seem pretty high compared to surrounding suburbs.
Most people who are pushing for this type of urban design are also pushing for public transit via trains or whatnot so you can just catch a train and land within 5-10 minutes walking distance of whatever destination It's possible, it has been done in other countries
@@Zeroneii3 Yes, but most of us in the suburbs don't want trains in our cities and prefer driving. In order to maintain a transit system, you need to dramatically increase population density to justify it and most of us don't want that. We would have to completely change how suburbs are built by removing parking lots, clumping residential and businesses together, etc. That pretty much defeats the purpose of moving out to a suburb. Most of us moved to the suburb so we can drive, have low density, less people around, etc. When it comes to those "other countries", most of those "other countries" did it by force though. That doesn't necessarily mean the people like it.
@@Zeroneii3 Maybe it's difficult for some people to comprehend but not everyone prefers public transit. Maybe, just maybe there's a bunch of us who actually prefer driving.
Carmel is also one of the most expensive places to live in the entire state of Indiana, so if you’re thinking about moving there, you better make lots of money. Also there’s only round-a-bouts, almost no traffic lights.
Love this and good job to the mayor. Only thing that's weird to me is the pretend eastern European designs and the facades of separate buildings in some areas. Gives the same "fake" feeling as Vegas or Universal Studios, but I'd definitely choose it 1000x over what exists in most American cities I suppose.
The scale, at least downtown, is a lot more like a European city. Being a retrofit to an existing suburb, that’s a rather good start to re develop it. Now they need to keep up the densification of the area and not further sprawl.
Kudos to the former mayor of Carmel, but you might have mentioned that Carmel is one of the wealthiest cities in Indiana (along with next door Fishers). When you have a uniformly upper middle class suburb, you have the resources for gimmicks like the roundabouts and the faux-French provincial 5-story mixed use developments. The wealthy people fleeing Indianapolis can afford to pay extra to live in an apartment or condo with underground parking. But what’s the solution in the 95% of Indiana suburbs that don’t have the resources of Carmel? For all your talk of walkability in Carmel, I doubt much walking is going on, apart from recreational walking or dog walks. Carmel has 100,000 people in 50 square miles-2,000 people per square mile. This is hardly high density, so most people are going to use their cars to do almost all their errands, even if their arterials have round abouts instead of traffic signals. And no mention of public transit. Even Indianapolis, which has almost 1,000,000 people, has no rail transit, so it’s not surprising that one of its most exclusive suburbs doesn’t either. Carmel is as auto centric as any other Indiana suburb, which makes sense since it’s located right on the Indianapolis beltway and is bisected by 2 north-south freeways. Carmel is like many other upper middle class suburbs that are desirable enough to attract developers who will spend a little more to add an aesthetic veneer to otherwise run of the mill mixed use projects. It reminds me of Reston, Virginia outside Washington, DC, except Reston now has a stop on the DC Metro. I don’t see how Carmel is much of a template for the transition to a more urbane, less auto-centric suburbia.
Rad! I can understand that investing tons of money into public transportation is controversial for economic conservatives , but better communities like this should not be. #stopdestroyingfarmsandnature #stopsprawl I actually just got back from a trip to Washington Grove Maryland, which is a very walkable and partially pedestrianized township near Washington DC. Even though it isn’t walkable to too many things like food or places of work, everything is saved by the fact there are two frequent buses running 7 days a week that get you to a walkable Main Street, a dead mall being rebuilt as a new town center, a grocery store, and the Shady Grove metro station. Making my own video ont hat actually. Put Washington Hrove and Carmel together and you’re getti close to an A+ plus community.
I’m glad I watch these with an open mind as I heard new info from the interview than I’ve heard about Carmel in other videos (mostly traffic circles & some recreational paths). While it’s nice to hear some talk about making a few districts less suburban & more people-oriented, I hope they’re not limiting their urbanism to just these areas, & are looking for ways to bring these opportunities to the existing car-oriented suburban subdivisions so a walk or bike ride isn’t just recreational, but can actually be useful with destinations. I don’t know where the redevelopment site you profiled is, so may it’s doing something I’m suggesting(?). It seems like they’re working on bringing more knowledge-based employment to town, but if they don’t live in the area, they’re still contributing to the traffic, congestion & parking problems people flee to the sing family suburbs for. I don’t know what they’re transit is like, so that might be a blind spot (?).
The only transit option is the IndyGo Bus, but it's pretty slow, so people avoid it. Indy, however has set plans into expanding the red line into Westfield or Carmel, which could be beneficial. Right now, only about 2% of us in Carmel walk or take public transit. Additionally, only 2% of carmel residents walk or take public transit, 72% of Carmel residents drive alone to work, 5% carpool, and 21% get to work from home.
@@aimxdy8680There is a demand based bus service that does serve Carmel called Hamilton County Express. I honestly am starting to dislike the demand based bus service. Tried it once, they said my trip request was denied, yet they sent a bus over to the place I wanted to be picked up, and yet they blame me for it. Such ridiculous management.
It’s awesome to see progress like this especially in the suburbs but a lot of Carmel is still average suburbia and far away from the central part that’s being redeveloped. It’s not even close to being the best designed suburb.
This is the most expensive place to live in Indiana. And before you say it’s still Indiana prices, remember if you live in Indiana you’re making Indiana wages
I live in broad Ripple and have visited Carmel many times. While the new city development is impressive. The housing stock is blah. It's mostly 50s ranches and no or few examples of bungalows that are all over Broad Ripple.
It seems like the rest of Indiana doesn’t like Carmel for some reason. Might just be the long history of their football program crushing dreams 😢 I grew up in Indiana, we just have lighthearted rivalry and they are at the top for sure
That guy is an inspiration of a mayor. Basically because of him that Carmel is like it is. No wonder he's been re-elected for almost 30 years.
Not sure if it's been mentioned, but another quirk is that Carmel has the most roundabouts in America.
And the world
Agree.
As a person that travels through it that isn’t surprising at all
he’s an ass hole shoes been in office way to long
Wow. I never would have guessed that a suburb of Indianapolis would look this great. Kudos to the mayor of Carmel. Hope more suburbs do this.
Indianapolis as a whole has improved greatly since the 1980s. Sure the leaving of western electric did downgrade it for a while but since the 2000’s the city has been exploding in economic growth.
Indy has a few really nice suburbs that are regularly seen on best places to live in the US. The north side in particular is very nice.
Indiana is really nice and has some very beautiful/nice towns and cities. Many have been mentioned on the best places to live on Forbes.
It is not Indianapolis. Carmel is in Hamilton County.
@@TacoTuesday4 (not to mention the constant bank robberies in Lawrence)
I lived in Carmel for 34 years. (Jim Brainard was my neighbor for years) I needed to downsize from my large home and yard. I moved away, but I still miss all there is in Carmel. The schools are the best that can be, safe, always. Jim has made Carmel what it is today. And I miss round-a-bouts!!
The mayor is an absolute badass. Wish he was in charge of some sort of federal program to made to sure this was implemented across the country
He was also responsible for turning most intersections into traffic circles. It has spread to neighboring suburbs and I really like the setup.
That's incredible. That city is one good rail connection from being a solid European city. Amazing work, it pisses me off that we don't have more of this in the US.
Carmel doesn't even have a bus system. Everyone drives. It has a few okay streets in its faux downtown but the rest of it is just regular American sprawl.
@@neil.heffernanI mean it's clear they are deconstructing after decades of car centric design and suburban stratification. It will not be made right over night and this is a wonderful step in the right direction.
Let's try to be positive about progress that is visibly being made.
I looked at the city on Google streetview and it literally just looks like a normal American suburb. Not sure what this video is pointing out that makes it the "best designed". This is literally everywhere
@@scenicdepictionsofchicagolife Calling it anywhere close to being "A solid European city" is an extreme exaggeration. This looks absolutely nothing like a town in any European country. This looks like an American suburb where the strip malls are designed a little differently
@@neil.heffernan you are right it's not a European style city. It never will be, it doesn't need to be. Carmel is a toddler of a walkable, bikeable city. It's battling against 70+ years of exclusive car oriented development. Did you miss how the mayor comment on what a struggle it has been to convince developers and bankers to back their ideas? They have achieved an incredible amount in the last 20 years and if you project out similar or faster progress over the next 20 it could really be a stunning place. Yea they need more transit, but building an attractive vibrant place that people want to be is a magnet for creating more transit links. Its a step by step process.
As a resident, Carmel is a very nice place to live- even if it gets colder here vs Texas. Mayor Brainard has done a wonderful job with his extremely forward thinking approach. Mayor Finkham has some very large shoes to fill- let's hope it continues to grow and complete the vision that Mayor Brainard set forward. Excellent video- thanks.
seems like Mayor Brainard needs to go visit as many other mayors as possible in the US and teach them some helpful ideas!
Could you inform me? I'm not sure about the images but I also have the impression that there are apartments above certain businesses. It's very practical to have shops nearby and not have residential areas far from work or where you go shopping.
@@trorisk Yes, there are a ton of apartments in downtown Carmel, with more being built all the time.
@@swtexan6502
It is very good. I think that an urban planning problem in the USA is zoning.
How do you like those HIGH property taxes in Texas compared to Indiana?
I truly hope more north american cities/towns can follow suit. Seeing places like this makes me think that there is a slight chance that Canada and the US won't continue to fully suck in the future. Wonderful stuff!
Just because you dont like suburbs doesnt mean they suck. Some people prefer to live away from the city in their own home, nothing wrong with that
@@lalakersproThey have serious issues that make them inefficient. In just about every metric, it’s better for suburbs to be designed a bit more like cities. Rural areas are really the only places that can get away with things like this. Also, these types of suburbs have far more character than the generic North American ones were stuck with. With so much culture on this continent, our shared spaces should reflect it!
@@landrypierce9942 Yeah no thanks. lol
@@Jon_Nadeau_ If you live in a typical North American suburb and like that lifestyle, is there any reason you couldn’t just live in a rural area for mostly the same thing. Suburbs are meant to take some of the benefits from both urban and rural life, but at the moment, they don’t have much of either.
@landrypierce9942 I agree, and suburbs do have the benefits of both rural and urban areas. I like the suburbs the way they are now so there's not much reason to move. Rural areas are nice too but sometimes they don't have many amenities or are too far away from anything. The suburbs are a good balance.
What an awesome vid. Feel this is super applicable to so many cities in the US. This mayor knows wtf he is doing. Hope more leaders think this way. Can see this becoming the future if people commit.
Thank you! I hope more cities can implement this!
I am from Indianapolis, and Carmel really is a lovely suburb. Super clean, safe, and has everything you can possibly need. Super expensive though lol
desirability will do that to prices lol
Not really expensive, the houses are just big. You can find decent 2 bed apartments in Carmel for under 1000-1100 a month..
@@WisdomRangerNot really desirability, it’s because houses in Carmel are huge. The average home in carmel is like 3500 sq ft lmao.
You get what you pay for. Wanna live in a good area? Pay up
There are a couple of suburbs near Carmel that are also nice and cheaper.
I remember driving through Camel while i was learning to drive. I was overjoyed to see new, large buildings being made that actually looked visually appealing from the outside. It wasn't just the same bland modernist square1 you see everywhere. Some architect had a good time.
YES! Beautiful buildings make life So much better.
I'd say it's certainly ONE OF America's best designed NEW suburbs. I would still contend though that more established suburbs that were built in the late 19th/early 20th century and earlier, such as Evanston, IL or Somerville, MA are the best designed. Not to take anything away from Carmel, because they've done a good job of turning over a new development leaf, but it should be noted that all of the shots in this video were of it's New Urbanist downtown area. Most of Carmel does still look like your typical American sprawl-burb.
God I hate Somerville. Personally I've never though of Somerville or the other inner cities of Boston "suburbs" even though I guess they technically are. I just call them cities. Thank god I live a little further out now.
Carmel has been around since the 1800s
@@millerd420 Well yeah I'm sure it was established around the same time most other cities in the Midwest were, but most of the development in it is from within the past forty years or so.
Some of Carmel is still like that, yes. But there’s like 3-5 downtown areas in Carmel it’s centered around that are all fairly walkable. Just need to implement the golf carts trails now like the Villages! lol Westfield is already starting to it sounds like.
You are not wrong about the detached single-family neighborhoods! At least they are focusing on the core part of the city first. There may be hope for the sprawling neighborhood areas of Carmel afterall!
Wow. Didn't know a town like this existed in America. Very nice!
This should be the standard for American cities. Too bad it's still an exception. Keep up the good work, Carmel!
Found Carmel by accident passing through and stopping for lunch. What a great city and nice place to live.
I visited Carmel earlier this year for the first time. It has a great downtown. Also thought it was so cool to to find a bar downtown that still allows for smoking inside, it was so backed and very nostalgic!
The main problem with modern planning are the parking and stroads/arterials.
Carmel has managed to solve this with better building layout and roundabouts
what a fantastic advertisement for this city. definitely on my radar now!
Now everything is so expensive here ...good luck trying to find a place to live ..there is nothing ..if you didn't buy five years ago everything is in the millions ....even the dumps
@@kandiceblu1that’s a lot of places these days
I grew up here and it was completely different just 20 years ago. It is everchanging and honestly the safest, most beautiful suburb in the U.S.
Very interesting video. It would be much better if there wasn't the background music throughout. I had a very hard time understanding him.
Love my city ❤ Best mayor ever! You should see the over 100 roundabouts - the traffic is flowing and a lot less serious traffic accidents. But mainly people are a lot friendlier in a walkable and community designed city.
This is a good example for a much needed shift in urbanization.
To understand the city is for people and not for cars is simultaneously solving so many problems
saying this is the best feels like hoboken erasure, but seriously, carmel is super interesting and it's so cool seeing such a well made video about it!
Hoboken is leagues better than here
Great story. If this was Ontario, the developers would've appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal to push through strip plazas rather than work with the city on something better. My city Oshawa, Ontario uses a similar program to TIF and has had great successes to grow our downtown and the area around the university.
I live here. I can confirm. It’s pretty great :)
This would never have gotten does w/o this Mayor. He had a vision & he got it done.
Here is some feedback for future uploads: Voice too silent, MUSIC TOO LOUD.
I had to turn up the volume to like '60' to be able to distinguish words, but then had to lower it to '10' whenever the music came on.
As a lifelong resident of northern Indianapolis, I approve this documentary.
Great video! Very uplifting to see a practical roadmap that other cities can copy.
Looks amazing!! I wanna see these kinds of content
I am very impressed with Carmel well done 👍
You make some pretty good videos. This channel will be huge in no time
Thanks!
Mayor Jim Brainard seems know exactly what he is doing and has clarity in thoughts. If we as viewers could learn so much in a 18min video from him, there's a lot more cities around the country can. Tax density per acre is the most important metric that 99% of cities in the US ignore.
This video only shows a TINNNNNNNNNY section of Carmel and sprawl definitely exists in Carmel. So don't think the entire city of Carmel looks like this.
The guy above me is right.
At least it’s doing something in some of its area few other places are
Let assume that whole city looks like this beautiful 😢.
It does not, it’s only the center of it. I lived there until March 2023 and then moved to buy a house
It doesn't. Most is the urban sprawl
I wish all cities could be designed like beautiful Carmel, Indiana, especially having all the roundabouts!
We need more cool walkable towns around the US
More of this, please!
Its amazing how European the new buildings all look. This makes me wanna visit!
It's my favorite small city in America. I hope many suburbs in America would follow up their successful example.
Carmel is a great city, ive lived the my whole life. Its amazing to see how much its grown. Also the fact of over 140 roundabouts, you could count the number of stoplights on your hands
Brainard, as locals call him, had a bold vision for what Carmel could/should be. He garnered cash from annexing the outskirts of city limits very early in his tenure (late 90’s). This gave much better civil services to the citizens thru road improvements including divided two lane roads with pretty trees in median, roundabouts at every intersection with “nice” art or landscaping, as well as Carmel PD and Carmel FD (both best in country imo). These services were previously county services and mediocre at best. Also, Carmel has the best snow removal in the state. They get after it!
We are more know for our roundabouts. Over 140 and less than 5 intersections in entire city have stop lights. With a city over 100k residents, that’s impressive! Brainard is a HUGE reason you’re seeing roundabouts nationwide. Brainard hosts city planners and mayors from around the world all the time showing what’s possible. Whether it’s Sunday morning or rush hour, to get from one side of town to the other takes almost the exact same time…they’re so efficient.
If you could see what a sh!!thole downtown, midtown and city center was before Brainard, you’d be shocked. He’s got a sharp mind and had a great vision. This man knows exactly what taxes each lot is pulling in for the city. And as a resident, our property taxes aren’t flipping the bill for the amazing amenities we have (too many to count). This is done through bringing professional businesses into Carmel and filling the TIF coffers with their tax dollars. To give an idea on taxes, I pay under $4k on $600k home. That’s stupid cheap for what we get!!
Now…Brainard wasn’t always transparent with how things were getting done but it’s probably because it’s too complicated to explain in two minutes. However, you could NEVER complain about the results. That’s why he won with no issue every election.
In regard to public transit, we’re a suburb. You need a car for your daily life. However, the central hub of our community has great walking accessibility and plenty of free garages. Carmel offers so many free concerts, art fairs, a fun front porch weekend where local musical artist play solo or with their bands on people’s front porches through the downtown area. We have artomobilia which is an amazing weekend car show of exotic cars. My point is, we don’t have everything everyone wants or desires, you’ll need to go to heaven for that. However, through Brainard’s vision, he has created a great sense of community and pride for Carmel through our downtown development. We’re proud of our city. Example, he changed all the WELCOME TO CARMEL signs this summer to SWIMTOWN USA because we had 3 Olympic swimmers from Carmel competing in Paris. For every resident seeing those signs; there’s pride. For every guest entering Carmel; there’s awe and appreciation. As a Carmel grad and Carmel resident, I’m very very proud to call Carmel home. As for the Carmel haters, know this….an overwhelming majority of residents aren’t from here. They came here through work or because our quality of life and affordability (relative to where they came from…California,Chicago,etc). They are predominantly duel income families with a college education. They choose to raise a family here because the schools are amazing, we’re the safest small city in America, and they want the best opportunities for their kids. They are normal people. Do we have our a-holes and Karen’s? You betcha! But your town does too! An overwhelming amount are amazing and very generous people…just like YOUR TOWN! So if you’re a Hoosier and play Carmel in sports, stop chanting “we hate Carmel”. Be a good Hoosier and hate Purdue 😜
And to the lady that called us racist, please come back. I don’t know your experience but I don’t want to believe it. We are actually quite diverse here and interconnect with each other. My direct neighbors are an Indian family, an Asian family, a black family, a white old fart retire couple 😊 and young family with little kids. And we have the best get togethers. …and I’m a middle aged white dude with wife and kids. ……We’re all in this together !!
Historic Guanajuato, Mexico is extremely walkable/hikable. The cars go thru tunnels and over bridges and park mostly out of the way of the pedestrians. Loads of narrow alleys and stairs throughout the town. Fountains and benches and public art everywhere. Kids playing in the cobblestone streets. Marketeers in the parks. Festivals and flowers and folk musicians. And something called a Funicular that goes up to a very special monument, commemorating the start of the Mexican Revolution, in which the silver miners were freed from bondage and the Spaniards trounced. It also celebrates the life and arts of Cervantes as being basically its patron saint. His theater is there, as well as the historic university, and the usual abundance of ancient cathedrals and missions.
Well this isn’t about Mexico.
Are the cartels active in that region?
This interview was a good get!
I agree with the basic funding concept the Mayor references.
They are ahead of the game in this matter. Most cities just want the impact fees and increased taxes. I am so tired of 5/1 podium buildings, It does not matter what city you are in, especially if it's a TOD project. They all look the same. A mash up of materials that just looks odd and contrived. Too many remind me of Power Centers from 20 years ago.
We just need more tools in the toolbox. SFH under 1,000 sq ft, doubles, four plex bldgs, ADU and buildings over 5 stories.
Give me retail on the ground floor. No parking minimums.
It does not matter if you are in SLC, RVA, Portland or Columbus....it looks all the same.
Zoning and Universal building codes are very limiting.
Great to see this place finally getting some attention
So beautiful! Great mayor you got Carmel!
This reminds me of the small Dutch town I used to live. This is noce
super nice video dude. please just fix the audio next time, the audio is quite low and the music is loud.
Good video, missed opportunity to talk about the successful roundabout experiment though.
Northside native here. What's really unfortunate is that there's a saying said a lot around the area. "Nobody in Indiana likes Carmel except those who live in Carmel." The idea of sprawl is so integrated in the culture here so Carmel kind of makes a lot of people upset. They have an affluent community, a fantastic public school system, and a lovely city. People like to hate on success, especially when they are not a part of it. Personally, I do not and have never lived in Carmel, but the short drive to Carmel is always worth it for me. I love that city and the walkability is fantastic. As an enjoyer of the arts, it's a wonderful reason to be there as well. I was fortunate enough to go to sound tests when the Palladium was being built and have been there multiple times since. The art around the city is amazing and you can often find performances throughout. They have invested in their city and it is paying off in huge dividends, and on top of that, they use that to continue investing in their city. Carmel's design has been so successful that nearby cities such as Noblesville, Westfield, and Fishers have all started adopting parts of what they do into their cities raising the quality of the cities around.It is certainly unlike any other part of Indiana I have been to, let alone the rest of the country.
its so beautiful,
Beautiful mini city
I'm driving with a friend to Michigan and I told him to stop in Carmel since it's on the way
Salem, MA i would consider a better suburb. Like many of the inner 95 ring cities/towns outside Boston, many have organic planning, mixed zoning allowing multi business and residential developments, areas with high density and areas of single families. The whole area including Salem ofc predates post-war urbanism but still is victim to strodes, and culdesacs. Salem has a commuter rail station and micro transit options getting around easy but is still outside Boston enough to be considered its own city-suburb similar to Carmel
I recently got a chance to travel to carmel when I went to indianapolis, it is very beautiful, though you dont see too many people on the streets in some areas. Even with that it is a beautiful area and I enjoyed the visit!
I looked up Carmel on Google Maps, which also shows the city limits. 95% of the whole area is urban sprawl that doesn't look any different than elsewhere in the US. The city center is an exception but from the statements and visuals in the video I would have expected more than "here we have a few blocks that defy the rule". Sure, most of the city was likely erected before the decision to convert the city center and the options to do more would have been better on a clean slate. Still, I doubt that a tiny European style island in a US style sea of single-family detached homes, stroads and parking lots can serve as a model because here it evidently doesn't preseve space or limit the sprawl. Ultimately only scarcity of space will lead to a real paradigm shift, which is when like a 100km radius around a city like Indianapolis is completely built up.
You have to start somewhere. If little enclaves prove to be popular and successful, then their influence will spread. We're in the early stages of this change with the housing crisis pushing faster solutions to the problems caused by car centric living. Hopefully examples like down town Carmel will show towns that it's both profitable for the town and residents to have these places, then they stop becoming enclaves and become the norm.
I live and work in Carmel. I fully agree. Its an extremely small potion of the city. Only the City Center has had this kind of activity done. Just sprawl everywhere else. Ill give them credit for starting,a nd thats making nearby Fishers do the same, but it isnt going to change much.
What you don’t realize is that Carmel is actually spread out and the city gets credit for its amenities and quality of life. Midtown, The Art district, The Monon trail is all one area
Then you have West Clay and all these areas are walkable. Plus you have to remember that the place is no longer a town but a city of 100k
All those people gotta live somewhere
I think you're missing the point. The goal here isn't too get rid of all the sprawl in a suburb since many people living living in those areas. After all people move to the suburbs for a reason. The point is to improve the suburbs by building a small walkable and economic engine downtown that the residents can drive/walk too. We don't want to get rid of the suburban sprawl completely because then it's not even really a suburb anymore you might as well just call it a urban city.
as Timothy says, this is a start. You can't change 75 years of car oriented development all at once. The core downtown has proven to be attractive, successful, and desirable. The mayor talked of new projects on the horizon. The video showed a dozen building under construction. These are the first steps only. A long way to go, but a start.
big metropolitan cities can also be made like this suburb
I work in Carmel but can’t afford to live there. I have traveled to more than 20 states and have never come across such a city.
Not sure I agree. Sure the mixed use developments are great and there is good road design, but how are you the best designed suburb without a bus service? You can’t even take transit to Indianapolis if you wanted to.
They don’t want black people or “the poors” coming to their city. Carmel is very elitist and classist.
You missed the entire point of the video. The city has a population of 100k. Over 80% of the population has a degree and the medium income is 100k plus
Most of all the amenities are walkable so a bus isn’t needed
You can take transit even if you have a degree and make a lot of money. Nor do you need a certain number of people to have transit. And didn't they talk about how they buried all the parking (couldn't hear too clearly due to music) - they wouldn't need so much parking if they had more transit. Another commenter said that this is just the downtown area, they still have regular suburbs like any other place - there could be transit to take people from their single family houses into this downtown area.
Everyone has cars here, so funding public transportation from the single family home areas is very unlikely. Even if there were a bus system, we are all so busy that waiting on scheduled transportation would be too time consuming. Very few people would use it outside of weekends and holiday break times. Most people rarely travel to downtown Indy.
It’s the best because all other US suburbs that were designed recently are just very incredibly bad. The good suburbs are usually built before WW2, zoning, and car centric policies.
It’s like being the champion of US Major League Soccer. Best of a mediocre league.
Looks great and this guy obviously cares about his town but isn't this the state that banned light rail. I didn't hear any mention of public transit in this piece.
Some suburbs in NJ are good too
I drove through NJ last year and I was shocked. There are some beautiful areas there. Didn't expect that to be honest!
This is incredibly impressive. Huge kudo's to the mayor, he is aptly 🧠named! I would think that underground parking would be the way to go. Yes, maybe expensive on the front end, but it hides cars from sight, it puts people where they want to be: in the shopping center. You don't have to heat/cool the place because it's below ground (same temp year round), AND you can even charge both residents and shoppers to use the parking garage. Put auto-scan parking tags on cars, like tolltags, that can be 'refilled' automatically when the parking funds get low. Charge residents $50-$60/month for parking as part of their rent, and shoppers, maybe a scalable price: $10, $20, $30, with funds taken out as they're used. Turn off the parking charge for special events like at Christmas. And if folks move out of the area, they can get any monies left on their 'tolltag' refunded to them. BTW, does the mayor 'school' other mayors in other cities on how to do things right like Carmel has done???
Bro I live in Indiana and drove through once and I was legit shocked.
After this vid, properties probably rose like 50k in that area. That's how awful the housing market is right now.
zero transit though.....
Car are not as needed there
I hope more places adopt this mentality. It’s so depressing seeing Florida just endlessly sprawl further and further away from any city center with the same poorly built homes anchored by the same generic box stores.
it’s just more profitable to officials who have connections with car companies and gas companies to build cities full of highway
14:36 I see that it’s like that everywhere, pedestrians are just trying so hard to get run over by bikes.
Looks like a cool little town.
It’s got over 100,000 residents so it’s not that little. I’ve lived here for 20 years.
Nice vid! Carmel looks nice. Maybe someone here can tell me how good the public transit is over there.
No public transportation.. never has been... they have like a local Carmel bus ..I think you have to call them to pick you up
woohoo youtube recommend (also music of intro puts me in a bright mood)!
But there’s no transit to downtown Indianapolis
Monon trail, you can bike to downtown or ride a motorized bicycle
I live a few hours away but have never been. Need to check it out
Is this a re-upload?
yeah i was gonna say i swear ive seen this
Yes.
Couldn't help but notice all the people consistently walking in the 2-way bike paths instead of the pedestrian paths or sidewalks provided. Seems like people want even larger spaces to walk side by side with several people and the bike paths are wider than the pedestrian paths for some reason.
The Monon Trail is literally designed with walking, biking, and rollerblading in mind. There are signs setting yield rules when people using different modes of transport meet.
This looks so much like Paris. Average height apartment/condo flats or even multilevel units all densely placed together and all the broad greenway/narrow car lane/wide sidewalks line with trees. I believe I see them placing mass transit in the future with the wide brick laid vehicle path in the middle of a few of those open travel ways. A trolley system just off to a side paralleling the main plaza or development zones and servicing say "twin" development strips or nodes would be an awesome reality. Overall, BRAVO! Carmel. You can call what you're doing suburban planning (to keep your desired demographic happy), but I'd call it smart URBAN planning.
Except Paris has a dense public transportation network...
That looks nothing like Paris. it does however, look like Disney Springs....
Many folks I know who lived in Carmel moved out to get out of the high taxes and crowding. But they are moving outward from the Indy metro into more fast growing suburbs. Indy is spreading like weeds.
I only spent three years in Indiana; for law school at IU in the late 1990s. After graduation I considered staying in Indiana and Carmel was one town I considered (along with Fort Wayne). I was told by the locals to leave the State to build a career and raise a family because Indiana was hopelessly racist against Black people; I remember they mentioned Carmel by name as a particular town to avoid. I went to Plano, TX instead....two kids in college, last just turned 14, Plano has been dam good to me. Hopefully Carmel has evolved in the past 25 years...
Oh shit- I think one of my favorite tea companies is from here
And their high school is amazing
As someone who lives in this area, you have to recognize that a lot of what Carmel and other suburbs in Hamilton County have is WEALTH that makes a lot of this stuff possible.
there are plenty of other wealthy suburbs but majority aren’t built like this
I grew up in a suburb where you could park your car at hime and walk everywhere you needed to go. I could walk to the grocery store, pizza place, library, pool, all the parks, school within 15- 20 mins. I loved growing up there and i miss it sometimes. Where I live now is rural. There are no sidewalks you have to drive really far to get groceries or do anything. The kids here drive far to go to school. It's terrible. The parks don't get invested in and our stores are all vacant and falling apart. Since I've lived here multiple buildings or houses have burned down. Yet they take our tax money and how they use it no one knows.
Has anyone made a "US Cities Like Carmel, IN" Video? We need more management like this, absolutely wonderful. Though I wonder if this city had a normal city amount of money to start with or if they got some sort of handout to jumpstart these projects. Unspoken extra cash laying around that most cities don't even have the chance to obtain.
The hardest part for most cities is convincing people that these types of places do work, and work even better than car centricity. We can let Carmel be an example of how mixed use genuinely works.
More often than not, people making planning decisions aren't urban planners. It is usually well intentioned public clerks who don't know anything about urban planning.
an urbanist mde fan wow ive seen it all
Great interview; I'm glad to see there's at least one US suburb that serves as a model.
BTW, it's not "impacts", but _effects._ Also, the idiom is "raises the question", not "begs the question" (which is a logical fallacy). And it's _the US's_ best suburb, not "America's".
What would you call citizens of the United States of America? United States of Americans? United Statians? No... We just call them Americans. You can call the United States of America simply, "America". You just can't call the United States "*The* Americas".
You can use "begs the question" or "raises the question". Aristotle named the fallacy that but it doesn't mean you can't use the phrase to mean other things. "Begs" has taken on new meaning after him and works in this context to mean "raises".
Also, the phrase itself isn't a logical fallacy but rather the translation of the Aristotelian phrase rendered as "beg the question" but meaning "assume the conclusion." You probably already knew this but then you should've specified "which is the name of a logical fallacy" instead of "which is a logical fallacy" :P
But at least you haven't committed a fallacy fallacy. Although you are being pedantic.
@@derp3044 I'm always curious why every time I bring this up, people mistakenly bring up demonyms. I wasn't talking about what the people are called, but what the country is called, and it's called the United States of America (in full) or the United States (in short). "America" refers to the entire landmass (which was a continent for everyone until the 1950s, after which point it got split into 2 continents in some cultures), which is what the name "United States of America" is referring to (as in, not "of Africa", "of Asia", etc.). Reducing "United States of America" to "America" would be like reducing "San Francisco of California" to "California"; it's a semantic error.
It might seem like country names can be derived from demonyms and vice-versa, but they actually have a tenuous relationship at best. In the same way that one cannot say "do you call the people Dutch people or Netherlandic people? Therefore, the name of the country is Dutchia", the logic doesn't work for the US because it doesn't have a unique name for the country. So the demonym came to be one of last resort, where the residents of every other country in America came to have unique names of their own, so the label "American" came to be used to refer to the people from the US (though it still refers to everyone from America). However, United Statians, Usonians, or US-Americans are all valid demonyms that people can use. United States of Americans is grammatically incorrect because of the semantic error (see above).
As for the idiom, no, "begs the question" is incorrect when it isn't referring to the name of the logical fallacy. It's just a common misconception that people think "sounds right", just like how they mix up "revolves around" and "centred on".
And of course the phrase itself isn't a logical fallacy. But your point there, while somewhat valid in that there's a bit of ambiguity in how I phrased it, is silly because it would be like saying "it's incorrect to say 'I'm John' when what you mean is 'My name is John'." The former can refer to the name as well, which is the sense that I was using it in.
@@tstcikhthys it seems to be in how the Western Hemisphere is taught differently perhaps. In the US and Canada we are just taught you may call the US "America", and that the landmass containing both North America and South America are "The Americas", not "America", which seems to be reserved for USA.
I beg to defer 😋 colloquially, it is acceptable. Again, languages are living and constantly changing, even changing based on errors sometimes.
I think the ambiguity argument still stands, as it's not a commonly known that "begs the question" is the name of a logical fallacy, and one could confuse your statement with the statement itself being a fallacy. "I'm John" vs "My name is John" won't ever be confused.
The use of “mindset” as he did in the video is also barbarous
The kind of mixed-use development described here is good for some people, not everyone. It's good for a group that skews younger and single, and whose interests primarily focus on eating out, drinking, and entertainment. In other words, the meme: "Just consume product, then get excited for next product."
If your interests are more like tending a large garden, growing roses, training your dog for agility courses, restoring a classic car, woodworking, or trying to build a business in your own home that requires more than just a home computer, you're going to want the typical suburban home with a garage, basement, and backyard.
Exactly my thoughts too. Traditional suburbs are inherently more "green" with pride in lawns/plantings/flowers - less asphalt and hard surfaces. Traditional burbs also promote pride in home ownership "plots" of land; less of the community/common grounds. Retirees moving into "new" university campus based settings aren't working as well as planned; noise, congestion and lack of peace and quiet being issues. Carmel hit a niche but can't replace many burb advantages for many who still desire their own, proud yards.
Well suburbs should be more green, but I’m shocked at the number of young families who move into suburbs these days and simply cut everything down, leaving nothing but some plastic looking grass tended by a lawn maintenance company. Why are they even in the suburbs? The infuriating thing is that they’ve cut down trees that took 50 years to grow, leaving their whole street hotter and more barren. As the homes continue to turn over, lush neighborhoods are becoming increasingly denuded.
@@aliannarodriguez1581 Can it be as simple as we've raised a generation of young adults who spent their entire youth years indoors behind electronic screens?? Seeing it my own family, unfortunately. Without the exposure and experiences of being outside in nature, the grey hard surfaces get selected. Growing up before 1980s REQUIRED the kids to be more outside, doing wage earning jobs as part of the family structure. It might be just this simple of a cause-effect?!? How many kids today spend 8 hrs outside riding their bikes (WITHOUT a battery drive)? It was the norm 50 yrs ago when suburbs were being grown
@@bce5849 I don’t doubt that is part of it.
Good documentary, but if you don’t mention that hamilton county is the richest county in the state and one of the richest in the country ignores a big part of why they can do this. Hamilton county has also been one of the fastest growing counties for DECADES. I live one town over and it’s very similar
I have friends and family all over the state so I really don't want the type of urban expansion that many viewers of these types of videos want that typically makes it harder to just get in the car and drive somewhere. As it stands though driving through Carmel is very pleasant. I've only ever experienced bad traffic here once when the interstate was closed, rerouting everyone through Carmel, and even then it wasn't too bad. Additionally I've only ever had trouble finding downtown parking once. So two negative experiences with driving in my three years here isn't so bad and it can be pretty fun to walk around downtown during the nice parts of the year. My only complaint right now is that property taxes seem pretty high compared to surrounding suburbs.
Most people who are pushing for this type of urban design are also pushing for public transit via trains or whatnot so you can just catch a train and land within 5-10 minutes walking distance of whatever destination
It's possible, it has been done in other countries
@@Zeroneii3 Yes, but most of us in the suburbs don't want trains in our cities and prefer driving. In order to maintain a transit system, you need to dramatically increase population density to justify it and most of us don't want that. We would have to completely change how suburbs are built by removing parking lots, clumping residential and businesses together, etc. That pretty much defeats the purpose of moving out to a suburb. Most of us moved to the suburb so we can drive, have low density, less people around, etc.
When it comes to those "other countries", most of those "other countries" did it by force though. That doesn't necessarily mean the people like it.
@@Jon_Nadeau_ People prefer driving because it's the only viable option they have
@@Zeroneii3 Maybe it's difficult for some people to comprehend but not everyone prefers public transit. Maybe, just maybe there's a bunch of us who actually prefer driving.
It’s amazing. Don’t listen to the trolls in the comments. Carmel is great. Walkable, beautiful, etc.
Brilliant. Resembles modern European old German town.
Carmel is also one of the most expensive places to live in the entire state of Indiana, so if you’re thinking about moving there, you better make lots of money.
Also there’s only round-a-bouts, almost no traffic lights.
Round-a-bouts ftw!
Still a work-in-progress, though. Not everywhere in Carmel is walkable, but having SOME places that are is a big deal.
Your music is too loud relative to the rest.
Love this and good job to the mayor. Only thing that's weird to me is the pretend eastern European designs and the facades of separate buildings in some areas. Gives the same "fake" feeling as Vegas or Universal Studios, but I'd definitely choose it 1000x over what exists in most American cities I suppose.
well before the 60s new zoning laws and destruction of cities for cars it was built just like in Europe
@@travis1271 structurally yes, I'm referring to the design and fake facades though.
The scale, at least downtown, is a lot more like a European city. Being a retrofit to an existing suburb, that’s a rather good start to re develop it. Now they need to keep up the densification of the area and not further sprawl.
Kudos to the former mayor of Carmel, but you might have mentioned that Carmel is one of the wealthiest cities in Indiana (along with next door Fishers). When you have a uniformly upper middle class suburb, you have the resources for gimmicks like the roundabouts and the faux-French provincial 5-story mixed use developments. The wealthy people fleeing Indianapolis can afford to pay extra to live in an apartment or condo with underground parking. But what’s the solution in the 95% of Indiana suburbs that don’t have the resources of Carmel?
For all your talk of walkability in Carmel, I doubt much walking is going on, apart from recreational walking or dog walks. Carmel has 100,000 people in 50 square miles-2,000 people per square mile. This is hardly high density, so most people are going to use their cars to do almost all their errands, even if their arterials have round abouts instead of traffic signals.
And no mention of public transit. Even Indianapolis, which has almost 1,000,000 people, has no rail transit, so it’s not surprising that one of its most exclusive suburbs doesn’t either. Carmel is as auto centric as any other Indiana suburb, which makes sense since it’s located right on the Indianapolis beltway and is bisected by 2 north-south freeways.
Carmel is like many other upper middle class suburbs that are desirable enough to attract developers who will spend a little more to add an aesthetic veneer to otherwise run of the mill mixed use projects. It reminds me of Reston, Virginia outside Washington, DC, except Reston now has a stop on the DC Metro. I don’t see how Carmel is much of a template for the transition to a more urbane, less auto-centric suburbia.
Rad! I can understand that investing tons of money into public transportation is controversial for economic conservatives , but better communities like this should not be.
#stopdestroyingfarmsandnature #stopsprawl
I actually just got back from a trip to Washington Grove Maryland, which is a very walkable and partially pedestrianized township near Washington DC. Even though it isn’t walkable to too many things like food or places of work, everything is saved by the fact there are two frequent buses running 7 days a week that get you to a walkable Main Street, a dead mall being rebuilt as a new town center, a grocery store, and the Shady Grove metro station. Making my own video ont hat actually. Put Washington Hrove and Carmel together and you’re getti close to an A+ plus community.
I’m glad I watch these with an open mind as I heard new info from the interview than I’ve heard about Carmel in other videos (mostly traffic circles & some recreational paths).
While it’s nice to hear some talk about making a few districts less suburban & more people-oriented, I hope they’re not limiting their urbanism to just these areas, & are looking for ways to bring these opportunities to the existing car-oriented suburban subdivisions so a walk or bike ride isn’t just recreational, but can actually be useful with destinations. I don’t know where the redevelopment site you profiled is, so may it’s doing something I’m suggesting(?).
It seems like they’re working on bringing more knowledge-based employment to town, but if they don’t live in the area, they’re still contributing to the traffic, congestion & parking problems people flee to the sing family suburbs for. I don’t know what they’re transit is like, so that might be a blind spot (?).
The only transit option is the IndyGo Bus, but it's pretty slow, so people avoid it. Indy, however has set plans into expanding the red line into Westfield or Carmel, which could be beneficial. Right now, only about 2% of us in Carmel walk or take public transit. Additionally, only 2% of carmel residents walk or take public transit, 72% of Carmel residents drive alone to work, 5% carpool, and 21% get to work from home.
@@aimxdy8680There is a demand based bus service that does serve Carmel called Hamilton County Express. I honestly am starting to dislike the demand based bus service. Tried it once, they said my trip request was denied, yet they sent a bus over to the place I wanted to be picked up, and yet they blame me for it. Such ridiculous management.
It’s awesome to see progress like this especially in the suburbs but a lot of Carmel is still average suburbia and far away from the central part that’s being redeveloped. It’s not even close to being the best designed suburb.
This is the most expensive place to live in Indiana. And before you say it’s still Indiana prices, remember if you live in Indiana you’re making Indiana wages
I live in broad Ripple and have visited Carmel many times. While the new city development is impressive. The housing stock is blah. It's mostly 50s ranches and no or few examples of bungalows that are all over Broad Ripple.
It seems like the rest of Indiana doesn’t like Carmel for some reason. Might just be the long history of their football program crushing dreams 😢 I grew up in Indiana, we just have lighthearted rivalry and they are at the top for sure