To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars • Hacker News Board

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#101

Post by isostatic » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

rfrey wrote: post #64

bpyne wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious to see how it plays out with the 20-somethings in the US. They've been brought up on more civic-mindedness and their trend is back to urban areas for living. They'll be a better bellweather.

I’m not sure 20-somethings are more civic minded. They voted in the last election at participation rates consistent with the last 40 years for that age group. Participation rates will probably increase as they age. Unfortunately priorities tend to change as people age too.

And they'll move out of the cities into suburbia in their 30s, as they always do.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47529562

Over the past decade, about 550,000 more Britons left London than moved to it.

This trend is not unique to London; it is seen in many big US cities, including New York, Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles.

... People arrive in their 20s looking for jobs, then retreat in their 30s. Although it seems more likely they they only retreat to "commuter" distance -- in London that's about 40-60 minutes from a main rail terminal, which of course leads to increased pollution.

... The vibrancy and job opportunities offered by our biggest cities appeal to students and young professionals. This shapes these cities in terms of the shops, bars and other facilities they offer.

But among older residents, the desire for things like more space and a less urban environment grows, and many move out.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#102

Post by jfk13 » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

adwww wrote: post #41

bitxbit wrote: post #31

I’d argue that cities will shrink over time. It’s going to become easier for people to live in rural areas. I don’t think there is some magic formula to manage the inevitable congestion (not just traffic). Edit: It’d also be interesting to see the environmental impact of mega cities. And what about cities like Portland where they have put in a lot effort to plan around growth? Is it working?

It's not happening though. My parents live in a beautiful part of the rural UK and have super-fast fibre to the premises internet, next day Amazon prime available, online food shopping from 4 or so supermarkets locally, etc. Basically everything you'd think you'd need to live away from the city, but still the area is depopulating rapidly. Younger people don't want a life of car dependancy and social isolation.

Not a "younger person" here, but I don't want a life of car dependency and social isolation either.

But small town life (ours has pop. around 5000-ish) is pretty good! We have the high street (and a modest-sized supermarket) within 10 minutes walk, a variety of community activities to be involved in, and nature (including protected reserves) pretty much on our doorstep.

And most days, the car doesn't leave the driveway. The area isn't "depopulating rapidly", like many more remote rural areas; the challenge, rather, is to manage growth such that the community is not overwhelmed by it.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#103

Post by ivanbakel » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

SupremeOverlord wrote: post #99

dkural wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is an extreme precisely due to these social and emotional reasons. It's shocking to me how this article fails to mention even once that a lot of post WWII suburbanization was due to white flight. The article states: "Millions of soldiers had come home from World War II to overcrowded, run-down cities; their new families needed a place to live." "Overcrowded, run-down": who all of a sudden "overcrowded" these c…

>white flight People have a right to choose their neighbor(hood)s. Freedom of association ought to imply freedom of disassociation. Stats show neighborhood crime correlates much more strongly with race than with education or income/poverty level. It's telling that diversity has to be enforced by government force...

It tells that in the 1950s, many white Americans were racist.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#104

Post by SupremeOverlord » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

betandr wrote: post #71

We really do have to radically re-think our cities but the biggest issues aren't going to be practical but emotional. In London parents drive their children around in 4x4s, knowing that their vehicle causes the pollution that is affecting their own children's health. I'm not sure how you even start to get around that but to some extent you will never persuade everybody to reduce their damaging behaviour. You need to…

>We really do have to radically re-think our cities

Yes we do, but the solution isn't less lanes, more public transit, and more bike paths. The solution is double to sextuple decker streets with matching parking. The solution is to make cities even more car friendly. Not everybody has the luxury of being physically fit enough to bike, or so time-loose to tolerate the inefficiencies of public transit!

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#105

Post by randomdata » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

dashundchen wrote: post #86

randomdata wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be happening in Canada. The latest official population figures are, unfortunately, from way back in 2016, however at that time the numbers showed that communities with more than 100,000 people were already losing share of population. If we can use home sales data (activity and price) as a proxy for where people are living more recently, there has been a sharp decline in Canada's cities in the last year. A…

I'm curious what statistics you are looking at. I honestly would be shocked if rural regions were growing in Canada, and the stats you were looking at were more a story of urbanization taking over formerly exurban or rural small towns in a metro region. I guess the oil and gas regions might be an exception there. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271208/urbanization-in-c... From my perspective, the Golden Horseshoe…

> I'm curious what statistics you are looking at.

Population data is provided by the Census conducted by Statistics Canada. Housing data is from the Housing Market Stats provided by CREA.

> I honestly would be shocked if rural regions were growing in Canada

For some perspective, Canada defines urban as 1,000 or more population with a population density of 400. Everything else is rural. This may be surprising as many consider a small farming village with 1,000 people to be rural, but officially such a community can be considered urban.

All regions, including large cities and rural areas, are growing in absolute numbers. My above comment was speaking in relative terms, where population centres with more than 100,000 people now represent a smaller portion of the population than in years past.

Were we have seen the most growth is in communities with 1,000 to 29,999 people. Technically urban, but probably rural from the perspective of the comments above. Such communities are certainly not what most would call cities.

> From my perspective, the Golden Horseshoe from Toronto to the Niagara region has been intensifying non-stop for decades and is unrecognizable from 30 years ago.

I see the same thing, but I would argue that the "Rural Renaissance", as CBC put it in a recent article about this shift, is relatively recent. The early signs were only starting to become visible in 2016 data, and I would suggest that only in the last year or so that the housing data has flipped. Much of that build-out you speak of happened over the last 30 years when cities were growing by leaps and bounds.

I will reiterate that all communities types are gaining population in absolute numbers as Canada's population grows. What has changed is people are more likely to take an interest in communities that are not large cities, which is a change in behaviour to previous decades.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#106

Post by Mister_Snuggles » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #24

Improving life in cities is a matter of fixing existing problems, like poor public transport and pollution from combustion engines and heating. Building a "feel good" fantasy around the hatred of cars isn't going to improve anything, it'll just replace the current best choice for individual transport with something inferior, as well as destroy the economy (which depends on roads for logistics and public services).

I wish my city was capable of fixing problems, instead they have a knack for making things worse.

Right now I take a bus to a transit centre, then another bus to work. This works well for me.

There is a new LRT (Light Rail Transit) line under construction with a station in walking distance from my house. The LRT line will go to downtown, but not to my work. So I will take a train downtown, then a bus or another train to work.

This all sounds good, except for three problems:

1. Based on information from the City, the train will actually be slower than the express buses that it is replacing. It also doesn't go to the same places which means that some trips that can be done by one bus will require transfers. I expect that with the slower train and worse transfers, it will take about 15 minutes longer to get to work.

2. The city is revamping all the bus routes to fit in with the new train line. Unfortunately the revamp is scheduled to go in "mid-2020" whereas the train is scheduled to start operating in "December 2020". Everything they've shown about the new bus schedule shows no routes from my transit centre to downtown and they haven't said that they will keep the current routes until the train is operating.

3. The city has a very poor track record when it comes to LRT projects. The last line they built was supposed to open in spring 2014, but didn't open until September 2015 and even then was operating in a degraded capacity. Problems with the signalling system are so bad that the city is STILL trying to get it working today. The latest news out of the new LRT project is that they are delayed - nobody is saying by how long but one city Councillor is estimating that they are at least a year behind.

If the new bus routes go in and they don't maintain service between my area and downtown, it's quite likely that I will need to start driving again. I don't want to do this, but I'm not going to spend two hours for a trip that was previously 45 minutes either.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#107

Post by SupremeOverlord » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

ivanbakel wrote: post #103

SupremeOverlord wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>white flight People have a right to choose their neighbor(hood)s. Freedom of association ought to imply freedom of disassociation. Stats show neighborhood crime correlates much more strongly with race than with education or income/poverty level. It's telling that diversity has to be enforced by government force...

It tells that in the 1950s, many white Americans were racist.

Many, including myself, still are. We like to be around our own and no amount of school-age propaganda and government force will change that!

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#108

Post by AlwaysRock » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

Eventually, cars will become a shared resource right? If cars can drive on their own then you could rent your car out while you're at work to lyft or uber. Eventually wouldn't most people do this? Eventually, wouldn't there be a multitude of cars roaming the city? Why would you need to own one?

I live in a fairly walkable city but it still seems odd to me that people hold such a personal connection to their cars.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#109

Post by nraynaud » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #80

older wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to OECD, the Copenhagen Metropolitan Region had close to 2.4 million inhabitants in 2005: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_metropolitan_area

jesus are we really comparing this https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Francisco+Bay+Area,+CA... and this https://www.google.com/maps/place/Copenhagen,+Denmark/@55.67... (should open at the same scale) as if they were comparable sprawl?

Wait the sprawl is caused by the car, not the other way around. People always increase their drive time, if you give them better roads they just sprawl more.

Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars

#110

Post by gerbilly » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

SupremeOverlord wrote: post #99

dkural wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is an extreme precisely due to these social and emotional reasons. It's shocking to me how this article fails to mention even once that a lot of post WWII suburbanization was due to white flight. The article states: "Millions of soldiers had come home from World War II to overcrowded, run-down cities; their new families needed a place to live." "Overcrowded, run-down": who all of a sudden "overcrowded" these c…

>white flight People have a right to choose their neighbor(hood)s. Freedom of association ought to imply freedom of disassociation. Stats show neighborhood crime correlates much more strongly with race than with education or income/poverty level. It's telling that diversity has to be enforced by government force...

Dude, I had a friend who constantly harangued me[1] to look into such claims over a period of six months.

He also made the same claims that you do above (and more!) and stupid as I was, I attempted to substantiate them.

This puts me in the unusual position of being extremely liberal, but also very familiar with the lines of 'evidence' that people use for these types of claims, and many more conspiracy theories.

I wasn't able to find support for any of it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning