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

nationalgeographic.com

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

#211

Post by Mister_Snuggles »

hycaria wrote: post #175
Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What about moving ?

Moving requires a significant amount of effort, time, and money. It's not something I would do lightly.

Once the new LRT line is up and running I'll adapt to the differences. Yes, it will be worse than what's currently here, but adapting to it won't present nearly the same hardship that moving would.

It's the unknown time between the bus routes changing and the LRT line opening that I'm most concerned about. If this is just a three-month gap, I can deal with driving for that period. If, like other LRT projects, this three-month gap turns into a year and a half then I'll have to think about other options.

Hopefully the city will do a phased implementation where they implement the new bus routes but keep the express routes that are being replaced by the LRT until the LRT is ready. This seems like the obvious solution, but for some reason the city is keeping quiet on what they're doing for that interim period.

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

#212

Post by Tharkun »

philwelch wrote: post #160
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…

It’s not entirely clear that racial animus was the primary motivating factor. Once civil rights legislation was passed to stop housing discrimination, for instance, there was also black flight, when middle-class black families also moved to the suburbs. It’s also not clear how one is supposed to reverse the effects of white flight; when middle-class whites move into a majority-nonwhite urban area, this is usually con…

I thought the race to suburbia was a deliberate attempt to spread out the population in case of Soviet nukes?

Though I guess there is likely more than one cause.

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

#213

Post by Gravityloss »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #168
ak217 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or live in an area (design and build areas) with good childcare options within walking distance. (Where "walking distance" is up to a mile away, not what Americans have gotten used to.) Modern car seats and LATCH anchors actually make it fairly easy to bring a child car seat with you. I agree with you though, all this stuff is bulky and adds up to a lot of baggage. It makes sense to have a car for your child. But tho…

For nearly essential services (like child care, groceries, etc.) having a population that must go to one or a few particular establishment(s) out of geographical necessity is a recipe for rent seeking and other bad behavior. See also: food deserts

I'm not sure, are you saying that cars promote diversity and prevent food deserts?

I find the opposite to be true. If there are lots of people walking, there will be lots of walkable services and businesses, so you tend to have a lot of choice.

Ownership of houses is usually diverse in dense walkable cities so it's really easy to just rent space at the ground floor to start a business. If you don't like it, move across the street.

Compare this to car cities. People drive their cars to malls. Malls are very much rent seeking. I've heard that they constantly increase rents of the shops so there would be churn - new shops to "keep it interesting" for the visitors.

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

#214

Post by bryanlarsen »

ambicapter wrote: post #203
bryanlarsen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deck is stacked, though. CUV's are considered trucks for the purposes of CAFE regulation. If they were considered the cars that they really are, they would be more fuel efficient, more expensive and manufacturers would be pushing small cars a lot harder to bring those averages down.

Serious question, are you saying trucks have more lenient CAFE regulations than cars?

Yes, "passenger cars" and "light trucks" are different categories in the regulations, and have different formulas for their target fuel economy.

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

#215

Post by AnthonyMouse »

throwawaymsft wrote: post #207
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I've never really understood this explanation of suburbanization. Suppose you're a bunch of racist white folk wanting not to live near black folk. How do suburbs get you that any better than cities? What can you do to keep a black person from moving to your neighborhood in the suburbs tha…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_segregation_in_the_U...

That describes the process by which black people were excluded from a neighborhood, not the process by which the neighborhoods were chosen to be in the suburbs rather than the cities.

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

#216

Post by JDiculous »

rhacker wrote: post #209
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…

Also I'll tell you why sprawl exists: Sound. Whether that is a car driving by or a neighbor having a party. Some people just don't want to hear shit from you, ever. It is easier to justify making work far away from home at the expense of our kid's future air quality when in one case you hear chirping birds all day, in another you hear BUMP BUMP BUMP every 2 minutes. Sound is the number one cause of stress and people…

Subways are underground

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

#217

Post by Xylakant »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #168
ak217 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or live in an area (design and build areas) with good childcare options within walking distance. (Where "walking distance" is up to a mile away, not what Americans have gotten used to.) Modern car seats and LATCH anchors actually make it fairly easy to bring a child car seat with you. I agree with you though, all this stuff is bulky and adds up to a lot of baggage. It makes sense to have a car for your child. But tho…

For nearly essential services (like child care, groceries, etc.) having a population that must go to one or a few particular establishment(s) out of geographical necessity is a recipe for rent seeking and other bad behavior. See also: food deserts

I have 5 large child care facilities in walking distance (< 15 minutes), countless smaller ones, 4 supermarket chains within 10 minutes plus all the smaller stores and I don't even live in a particular dense area of Berlin. The denser the city gets, the more options can be made available within a certain distance.

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

#218

Post by Amygaz »

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…

I was once told by someone close to me that “Caring for the environment is nice and all, but we’re not going to stop living for it”. So I am not surprised by how people are acting right now.

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

#219

Post by himlion »

hnal943 wrote: post #154
usaar333 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the difficulty lie? I lived in SF fine with a toddler, taking public transit to local places.

1 kid who does not have his own schedule is relatively easy to manage. 5 kids who need to be in different places is more difficult.

That's not typical though, nobody is saying that specific family can go without a car.

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

#220

Post by ck425 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #164
ck425 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm loudly anti-car and I live in Scotland. Honestly, when it comes to weather most people are pathetic. A bit of cold/rain won't kill you, just need gloves and a light waterproof later. I walked or cycled miles to school my whole life in one of the wettest areas of Europe. Parents need to toughen up, wrap their kids up, refuse to give them lifts and kick them out the door.

10 miles? Uphill both ways? Admittedly it can be good for a child to be self-sufficient and do their own planning.

I did 2.5 miles each way, mixture of up and downhill for school. As a late teen I cycled 10-15 miles each way up a massive hill, 2/3 times a week for amateur theatre rehearsals, on top of the walk to school/work. It was great for me. Despite eating rubbish I was in fantastic shape.
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