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

nationalgeographic.com

291–300 of 344 posts

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

#291
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't sell small trucks in the US because of the Chicken Tax: https://fee.org/articles/chicken-tax-makes-trucks-expensive-...

Don't pretty much all overseas car companies build vehicles for the North American market in North America these days? That would make the tariff point moot. My "Japanese" mid-sized truck that's bigger than I really need it to be was built in Mississippi.

Actually, lots of cars are made in foreign countries, namely Mexico and Canada, but automakers like Ford and GM.

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

#292

I'd hate walking everywhere, having to get tiny amounts of groceries every day instead of stocking up every 2 weeks, etc. Walking/standing all day at conventions feels like death and a half a mile trip to the fast food places around here turns from 2 minutes to 10 minutes if I walk, which I tried when someone from Europe said that's walking distance. Walking such distances just makes me constantly wish I was driving…

Let me guess, you can't possibly be in shape !

Not really, but I do try to use the gym at work sometimes since something is probably better than nothing. I made notable gains in cardio endurance that way.

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

#293
post #55

My City is double decking highways all the while building zero new rail and or bike lanes. They are doubling down on stupid.

They are doubling down on what a lot of their population wants. A lot of what gets left out of the discussion of cities in the US is that tons of people have no interest in public transportation due to bad experiences or preconceived notions. People need examples of good public transportation in the US beyond NYC or Chicago because those cities come with a lot of other baggage (high taxes, high rent, high CoL in gene…

AOC is mobbed like a celeb when in public and has received death threats online, yet you fault her for no longer taking the subway?

Regarding realistic trade-offs: I live in Seattle in a 1200 sq ft townhome. I commute 20-25 mins on public transit (where I read or otherwise zone out). For what I pay in rent, I could move to the suburbs and get a 2000 sq ft house. But that comes with a stressful 60 min commute in traffic and $15 a day for parking.

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

#294
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 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…

That was already happening. It was called red lining, and it meant as a bank you'd only approve loans for black families if they lived within the red line drawn by the bank on the map denoting the designated black neighborhood. Banks would also do something called blockbusting. They'd send panicked pamphlets to white people in urban neighborhoods, alerting them of black people moving into their neighborhoods and the damage that this could cause on their home value (the only asset many people had at this time).

Now suburbs were being built because in 1946, suddenly there were millions of young men with a huge government subsidy to buy a house. Banks would not approve mortgages for black people in these areas, so they became predominantly white. And as a white person you are happy to be in the suburbs where you are free of all the perceived fears from decades of racially charged propaganda, and surrounded by people who also have a white boy and a white girl, a new ford, a dog and a cat, and who go to the same protestant church. It was sold as a utopia, and in the case of Detroit, white people bought that narrative so hard the city lost 1.5m from its tax base and collapsed in fewer decades than it took to grow as a metropolis in the first place. To date, Detroit has lost over 60% of is population from its all time high in 1950.

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

#295
post #254
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue is the article doesn't once mention this as factor at all . I also object that one needs racial animus to have racist policies. "I've got no animus towards blacks, I just don't want to share large chunks of civic life with them" is racist. Blacks wanted to move to the suburbs due to lack of city & civic infrastructure in black neighborhoods - as the whites fled; so did polling stations, hospitals, banks, sto…

Why would not wanting to share your life with them be racist? Racism is the belief in the superiority of one race over another. It has nothing to do with who you want and don't want to have in your neighborhood. And people should be allowed to choose whom to associate with.

Banks would send black children to the homes of white people with pamphlets saying things like "you know who is moving in," warning about an imminent decline in property values due to black people moving in. Banks would come in after the pamphlets with agents who would low ball these white-owned houses, then flip them for profit by charging black people huge prices for the very same homes. It was entirely rooted in racism, no way about it.

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

#296
post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not one with two car seats.

So why not buy the car seats then rent an uber XL?

Then you have to lug the car seats round with you wherever you are.

Say I want to go to London for a weekend. It's a bit too far for the kids to walk to the local station (especially if it's raining), so we drive to the mainline station, leave the car, and the car seats, in the carpark.

With a taxi I'd have to 1) Hope the seats fit in the taxi 2) Take them on the train (store them where?) 3) lug them on the tube (including a change at Green Park or Bank or somewhere) 4) Go straight to the hotel and check in

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

#297
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…

Sprawl exists because its cheaper to build 100 houses on 20 acres of empty land than it is to build a 100 unit apartment in an urban environment. The only sound the developer cares about is the sound of trees being cleared for more land and the sound of someones check clearing for a new build.

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

#298
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't pretty much all overseas car companies build vehicles for the North American market in North America these days? That would make the tariff point moot. My "Japanese" mid-sized truck that's bigger than I really need it to be was built in Mississippi.

Actually, lots of cars are made in foreign countries, namely Mexico and Canada, but automakers like Ford and GM.

Notice how I said "North America", not "The United States"? Thanks to NAFTA, you distinction is largely irrelevant in terms of tariffs.

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

#299
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe there is a nefarious scheme in play. People who live in cities don't need cars. People who live outside cities still need cars. The manufacturers try to fill that need. The manufacturers, sellers, etc. make the economy go 'round. It will all change if/when economic forces bring it about. Directly forcing it through politics probably isn't the right approach.

>People who live outside cities still need cars. The manufacturers try to fill that need. The manufacturers, sellers, etc. make the economy go 'round. Sometimes I wonder if it has to be that way- how much more does a light rail or bus line cost than a highway does to connect smaller towns?

"Smaller towns" are one thing, but there are a lot of people who live outside any city limits. You're not going to link up every rural farmhouse with busses and light rail.

Even those who do live in town are likely to have friends and relatives who don't, and they're unlikely to want to rent a vehicle every time they leave town to visit them.

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

#300
post #114

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...

"Much more strongly" is an overstatement, and this thesis doesn't take into account the multiplicative (not linear) effects of discrimination - in all its institutional and informal forms - and poverty. Crime in Japan tracks more closely with Buraku heritage than with income, and they are genetically indistinguishable from the rest of the population. This is a social problem with a social solution, that racist mid-ce…

So would you be willing to live in neighborhoods with a higher average crime rate, to combat "institutional racism?" Would you put your money and family where your mouth is?
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