Fire and EMS demands have more impact on our built environment than I see in these comments.
Some of this is direct from land use regulations. Some of this is from political influence of Fire depts.
It's only recently that people are waking up to how the regulatory requirements of staircase design in multi-family buildings for the ostensible purpose of evacuation impact the look and feel of US cities.
Same for street widths. You will rarely find support from fire depts. for compact and connected streets.
AFAIK for US cities, street and intersection size are restricted by the turning circle of American fire trucks, and large cities can't buy European/Asian firetrucks due to buy america
I will always take any opportunity to shit on buy america and how it hamstrings infrastructure projects for the sake of running a jobs program for flyover towns
Some of this is direct from land use regulations. Some of this is from political influence of Fire depts.
It's only recently that people are waking up to how the regulatory requirements of staircase design in multi-family buildings for the ostensible purpose of evacuation impact the look and feel of US cities.
Same for street widths. You will rarely find support from fire depts. for compact and connected streets.