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Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

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Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I'm not sure it would work. The population of the US is more than double what it was in 1950. I personally don't want to live in a dense population area - it's overwhelming, panic inducing, yet still somehow lonely. So what would a car-less community I could tolerate look like? Probably a lot like it does right now, just with more commercial entities within a mile or two of my home. It would also be a lot ha…

Making public transit better would also really help. Then you can access those things 10m away in a similar amount of time. For large items you'd use a car or pickup for, businesses would adapt by offering delivery. It's definitely possible, but the infrastructure investment would be gargantuan.

I'd love better public transit. But public transit in rural areas (and there will always be rural areas as long as there are farms and ranches, and communities to support them) is minimal to non-existent.

Use is infrequent, meaning it would either have to be subsidized, which never makes folks in the city happy, or cost an arm and a leg per trip, making it impractical for rural users.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#112

Most Americans want it to be that way, and that’s why it is that way. Zoning laws didn’t push people into a car lifestyle. Americans created those zoning laws because they like the car lifestyle and want to perpetuate it. The same is true for suburban zoning in general. People have not been tricked into this: this is what they want.

Not necessarily. Lots more people would want to live in cities, but it's cities that are keeping people out. You wouldn't want to build a 10 story apartment building out on the edge of town away from transit - but it's patently bizarre that cities like Seattle and San Francisco have single family zoning within walking distance of their downtown core.

Not really. It's just how the cities where built. If not they would be like NYC and the people that live in SF and Seattle don't want that

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#113
post #50

I've seen so much anti-car, pro-walkability, pro-transit, pro-bikeability sentiment online recently. I really hope this is proof of the younger generations -- Millenials, Zoomers, and younger folks even -- waking up to the idea that the USA in particular has become a toxic environment thanks to cars. WFH was a big wakeup call, I think -- once you step away from the commute for a year or two, trying to sit in traffic…

> I'd rather not learn a whole new language and leave my family and friends so far behind You could live in New York, Boston, DC, Chicago, or other dense cities with decent transit options without leaving the US entirely. It is certainly not impossible to live in the US without a car. EDIT: not really sure why this is downvoted. Just taking OP's statement that they would prefer not to uproot their whole life at face…

I have lived in multiple major US cities without a car. In NYC it's feasible, but impossible to visit family or friends who live in car-centric places. In most other cities you feel like a distant second-or-third class citizen. Swimming upstream gets tiring after a while.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#114

I love dense urban areas, but I'm not sure I buy the human connection angle. I've never felt so alone when living in cities. Something about constantly being surrounded by people makes you less likely to want to get to know them. Now that I live a bit more rural, I've found myself much more likely to get to know people. It helps that things aren't always busy or packed, and I can linger a bit more and have more pleas…

My experience has been the same. In urban areas, people seem to me to be less friendly than in suburban areas, maybe out of a sense of maintaining their own space. If you become acquainted with a neighbor who turns out to be annoying or clingy, there's very little refuge.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think that most Americans have not traveled enough to realize there is a better way. Only 30% of Americans even have a passport.

Quoted post unavailable.

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Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#116
For most of human history, we have lived in settlements where we slept a stones toss (not even a throw) from our neighbors, for security and also because traveling a long distance for daily activities took to much physical energy.

This was true whether the settlement was as city, town, or village.

The discovery of petroleum and the invention and popularizing of cars enabled people to build and live an imitation of the aristocratic lifestyle.

Ironically, the aristocrats in their hilltop palaces and castles weren't nearly as isolated since they would always have a cadre of personal attendants to serve them.

Quite reasonably, nobody wants to go back to the poverty and hardships of village and tenement life, of course. But people quite reasonably have identified what was lost in the shift away from that spatial arrangement.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Selfishly, I really want the USA to bring city centers back to livable levels by banning most cars and redesigning them for humans. I bet if this happened you'd be living in a downtown that's physically walkable, but there's no business left to walk to.

This has been tried several times in cities and by and large it seems to be profitable for the businesses.

Source? Just curious

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#118

Most Americans want it to be that way, and that’s why it is that way. Zoning laws didn’t push people into a car lifestyle. Americans created those zoning laws because they like the car lifestyle and want to perpetuate it. The same is true for suburban zoning in general. People have not been tricked into this: this is what they want.

It seems a bit of a stretch to suggest that the public at large "wanted" to adjust zoning laws to end up with a car-centric environment. Automakers created the concept of jaywalking [1]. Judges defended the rights of the public to enjoy the streets without cars [2]. Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, GM, and Mack Trucks were convicted of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and rela…

The law against jaywalking is an excellent law. Look at some of those colorized YouTube videos of cities in the early 1900s, like this one: https://youtu.be/1Ok_lwYyHWo

It’s insanity. People dodging cars, cars dodging people and each other. At modern road speeds that would result in mass death.

Besides all that, yes of course we live in a manufactured environment. All environments are manufactured to some degree. And of course car companies lobby for things. But lobbying is not guaranteed to win. People strongly resist things they don’t like. You know what else GM was doing at the time? Selling lots and lots of cars to people who wanted to buy them.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#119

I've seen so much anti-car, pro-walkability, pro-transit, pro-bikeability sentiment online recently. I really hope this is proof of the younger generations -- Millenials, Zoomers, and younger folks even -- waking up to the idea that the USA in particular has become a toxic environment thanks to cars. WFH was a big wakeup call, I think -- once you step away from the commute for a year or two, trying to sit in traffic…

So as a two car millennial American family that makes regular trips into our city center, we never use our cars going into the city. It's just stressful, streets are narrow, parking's expensive and car-jacking and vandalism are more likely. Just makes more sense to take the bus, cheaper too when you count the cost of parking. I also like having places to walk to from my house. That said, I like having my own house wi…

Most who discuss better urban planning and focusing on less car-only design wouldn't consider having a SFH with land (now this depends) an issue even in a city or neighborhood adjacent to a city. A quarter acre of grass? Probably not except at great cost. A deep lot with a garage? Yea that's pretty practical. Ideally you'd have a mix of SFH, condos, apartments for rent, granny flats, and other housing options so you can accommodate people in different stages of their lives and at different price points.

Then of course as most would live in this mode, those who want large lots or lots of land would move further away.

> It's also carrying capacity, instead of making multiple inefficient trips to a local market multiple times a week I can get all my family's groceries in one trip once a week. Ditto for outdoor supplies, small furniture, Christmas Trees, etc

Is it really inefficient if it's a 10 minute walk away, or on your way home from your job? I think you'd really have to sit down on that and look at the whole context.

For oddball trips like a Christmas tree you have options including delivery, but what most people would suggest is that sure you still have a car for those trips (maybe one per family instead of two) but for most activities you don't have to drive. We get stuck on edge case scenarios so much that we over-optimize for them. It's like EVs. Many are like "but what if I go on a road trip", well how often do you go on a road trip? Once/year? Weekly? If it's once/year, well, figure it out.

-edit-

For example, most I'd argue are envisioning something more akin to German Village in Columbus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Village

Here you can see cars of course, but you can also see that many homes do in fact have deep lots which can be customized with grass, pavers, whatever you'd like. Of course not all homes have those (depends on socioeconomic capabilities) but you are also 5 minutes from a gigantic park with lots of green space.

In German Village you have cars, many homes have off-street parking, lots of pedestrian traffic, lots of bike traffic, tons of locally owned businesses and restaurants, and community events. I think people want more of this and wonder why we can't build like this anymore. Personally I think it's because developers, the government, and automakers are all heavily incentivized against it (not necessarily out of malice). Unsurprisingly, locations that are walkable like this have the highest property values despite often having crappy schools. If they had really good k-12 schools the property values would be immense.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#120
post #96

I've seen so much anti-car, pro-walkability, pro-transit, pro-bikeability sentiment online recently. I really hope this is proof of the younger generations -- Millenials, Zoomers, and younger folks even -- waking up to the idea that the USA in particular has become a toxic environment thanks to cars. WFH was a big wakeup call, I think -- once you step away from the commute for a year or two, trying to sit in traffic…

I've lived in highly walkable, pro-transit areas. It does have benefits, don't get me wrong. The flip side of the coin is that those areas usually have high population density. That comes with a lot of its own cons - noise pollution, air pollution, annoying neighbors you can hear and smell through your walls, etc. To avoid these cons, a lot of Americans want their own house on their own property and doing that means…

Noise and air pollution are in part caused by cars. Meanwhile in the suburb, you have lawn mowers and leaf blowers, which I absolutely hate with a passion.

I don't know about annoying neighbors and smells. That seems to be a design and engineering issue.

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