Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 619 posts

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#511

Post by kspacewalk2 »

hylaride wrote: post #500
camillomiller wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have kids, especially more than one, a no-car city center is a nightmare. Even in Europe.

That very much depends on the city. I had no problem getting around Paris/Amsterdam/London/Rome when I was traveling with my friend's family (3 kids). A car would have been a bigger nightmare with traffic and parking and we weren't even staying in the central areas. But it also depends on how and where you live and work specifically. If I lived in a many of the areas outside of the Périphérique in Paris, not owning a…

Rome should not be on that list IMO. Its public transport is terrible, at least in the centre. Still preferable to having to drive there though, that's for sure. I'm sure it's not true of every part of the city, but I was unpleasantly surprised by inadequate rush hour bus service. Haven't seen buses that packed since my childhood in 1990s Ukraine.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#512

Post by dasloop »

bluGill wrote: post #503
JDiculous wrote: post #123

Spent the last 6 months in Seoul and the surrounding cities in Korea. Never needed a car. You can literally do everything without a car, everything is a short walk. I truly believe it makes a huge positive impact on happiness when you can just walk anywhere instead of having to drive. Also you'll notice that in Korea/Japan there are way more small businesses and things to do (eg. karaoke, cafes, etc) because people o…

People stay home in the US because they have a house with plenty of things to do at home. Why go to a karaoke bar when you have a piano in your house? Why go to a cafe when you have a nice kitchen to cook your own meal? Why do A when you have B? The large houses people have in the US enables and enforces a lifestyle very different from what you get in other cities. This is just a fact - you are allowed to hate it or…

Probably cultural. I have, as many spaniards, many things to do at home but I prefer public spaces (restaurants, bars, museums, concerts...).

As Mazoni says in one of his songs:

"Quan sortim a la nit no entrem mai en un local amb poca gent i no ho entenc perquè després només parlem entre nosaltres"

What translates to something like:

"When we go out at night we never enter a place with few people And I do not understand it because after all we talk only among us"

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#513

Post by rmah »

noobermin wrote: post #352
oefrha wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As have been pointed out by multiple people, kids are perfectly capable of taking public transit themselves. Kids under ten might need to be accompanied by a guardian, but there are usually two parents in a household, and some grandparents will help, too. Caretakers can be hired in certain cases. Some family “pool” their kids together too, not unlike in the U.S. where parents would take turns to drive neighbors’ kids…

> As have been pointed out by multiple people, kids are perfectly capable of taking public transit themselves. This is another difference that intersects with other issues in America. In a car, your child is under your control . Moreover, adding to your following point of a child under ten being unaccompanied in public, no American parent would dream of letting their children go out alone and recently, this includes…

As kasey_junk implied, this sort of over-protectiveness is not universal in the USA. For example, NYC provides all students that live further than 1/2 mile from their school with a discounted public transit card (soon to be free). While very young kids are rare, tween and teen students can often be seen unaccompanied on mass transit. And even more often walking alone or in groups without parents. No one bats an eye except possibly to complain a bit about the groups of boisterous kids blocking the sidewalk :-)

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#514

Post by closeparen »

fnord123 wrote: post #261
closeparen wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the environment and the people. I'd often take the long way through campus: pleasant architecture and landscaping, light filtered through tall buildings and trees, chance encounters with classmates and professors, lots of porous buildings with stuff going on. The walking parts of my Bay Area transit commute, on the other hand, were urine vapor mingled with pot smoke, harsh direct sunlight bouncing off conc…

>dozens of homeless people in varying levels of distress The homelessness problems in the US vs EU is a whole other topic.

No, it isn’t. The homelessness issues in cities drive the popularity of suburbia, suburban style planning, avoidance of walking/transit, and the need for cars/parking downtown (since few want their kids to grow up where they work, especially outside top 10 cities). Car dependence is far and away the most effective “solution” to visible homelessness, and that’s part of why people are so attached to it.

Urban planning and public transportation also feed back into homelessness by prohibiting cheap housing types (like SROs) and making it nearly impossible to hold a job without owning a car in good repair (bus delays and cancellations will get you fired).

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#515

Post by benou »

It is interesting how many comments focus on anecdotal evidence ("it is very hard to live without a car where I live so it can't be done anywhere") or on exceptions ("what if you cannot walk because you're too old?" "what if you need to move your sofa?"...). It is typical for a lot of discussions about cars.

The article is about dense European cities. Not about . Nobody argues you do not need a car in the countryside. In cities in the other hand, cars take a lot of (pricey) space, generate noise and pollution. And when you need one, you can rent one, borrow one or use a taxi/uber/lyft.

And as we are talking about dense cities, the usual argument of "but wait, US is not as dense, we need cars!" is moot. US cities need cars because of being designed for cars. That's it, and that could be changed but that would require massive investments.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#516

Post by thex10 »

briandear wrote: post #357
oefrha wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As have been pointed out by multiple people, kids are perfectly capable of taking public transit themselves. Kids under ten might need to be accompanied by a guardian, but there are usually two parents in a household, and some grandparents will help, too. Caretakers can be hired in certain cases. Some family “pool” their kids together too, not unlike in the U.S. where parents would take turns to drive neighbors’ kids…

So basically we change our quality of life to fit some urban ideal? My kids’ grandparents live in a different state and a different country. A child on the BART train? You have got to be kidding. With the insane people, mentally ill, the thieves and the homeless, I would’t expose my kids to having to deal with that nonsense. Cars are awesome. Being forced to share public transportation with a bunch of weirdos isn’t p…

Ah, but so many families have already changed their quality of life to fit the suburban/car-centric ideal.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#517

Post by dragonwriter »

noobermin wrote: post #352
oefrha wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As have been pointed out by multiple people, kids are perfectly capable of taking public transit themselves. Kids under ten might need to be accompanied by a guardian, but there are usually two parents in a household, and some grandparents will help, too. Caretakers can be hired in certain cases. Some family “pool” their kids together too, not unlike in the U.S. where parents would take turns to drive neighbors’ kids…

> As have been pointed out by multiple people, kids are perfectly capable of taking public transit themselves. This is another difference that intersects with other issues in America. In a car, your child is under your control . Moreover, adding to your following point of a child under ten being unaccompanied in public, no American parent would dream of letting their children go out alone and recently, this includes…

> no American parent would dream of letting their children go out alone and recently, this includes even children in their early teens

This is, AFAICT, mostly a white suburban “middle-class” (mid-high income working class, including proletarian intelligentsia, really) attitude, rather than something that applies to all American parents.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#518

Post by gerwitz »

benou wrote: post #515

It is interesting how many comments focus on anecdotal evidence ("it is very hard to live without a car where I live so it can't be done anywhere") or on exceptions ("what if you cannot walk because you're too old?" "what if you need to move your sofa?"...). It is typical for a lot of discussions about cars. The article is about dense European cities. Not about . Nobody argues you do not need a car in the countryside…

Indeed, I am a bit tired of all the reasons my city (Amsterdam) is unworkable or simply impossible, because it doesn't resemble [Springfield].

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#519

Post by fnord123 »

mymythisisthis wrote: post #480
fnord123 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>dozens of homeless people in varying levels of distress The homelessness problems in the US vs EU is a whole other topic.

Curious, what is your quick take on it. It's partially related to this topic. Many small cities in N.America give homeless people free bus tickets to NYC or California, so they don't have to deal with them. This allows small cities no to worry about public transit, and widens the urban/rural divide.

I'm not an expert but there are large swathes of rough sleepers in SF, SJ, NY, Austin, LA, etc. And even though the % of population in the US who are classified as homeless in the US is less than e.g. UK, there's nothing on that scale of rough sleepers scale in comparable or larger cities like London, Paris (maybe 17de?), etc.

I don't know if the definitions of homelessness plays a part in the different %s but the suffering of homelessness seems higher in the US than EU.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#520

Post by cpuguy83 »

rpedela wrote: post #428
louwrentius wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you are fucked with a huge bill that would cripple your life in a way that you might as well be dead.

The government reimburses hospitals for ER visits if the patient can't pay.

Hospital will gladly send you to collections and fuck your credit, though.
Post reply on HN