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Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
141–150 of 576 posts
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#142I'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…
One of the hardest parts about buying a home, apart from all the stuff that isnt fun about buying a home, is finding somewhere that is walkable to... anything. I've rented my whole life and spent my entire adult life in cities. The idea of having to get in the car to get milk or something from the corner store, or have to drive to ANY restaurant, or not have some type of walking/running path within a few blocks of my…
Any success filtering for walkability in the US when buying a home? As far as I can tell, "walkability" scores are borderline useless -- the small town I currently live in has extremely low "walkability," despite being able to walk or bike to everything I need, whereas the large city I just left has extremely high "walkability" -- despite the fact that walking around town was not pleasant due to high volumes of car traffic. Manually checking or restricting the search is not really a scalable option.
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Easy, supply and demand. Before cars, dense housing was the norm, but cars popularized spreading everything out as much as possible so you have room for wide roads and lots of parking. Less density -> less housing overall -> decreased supply -> increased prices
Less density doesn't imply less housing, especially when empty land is cheap, as it typically is in the USA. You just use more space. I hate cars, and I hate how expensive housing is, but as far as I can tell, housing is even more expensive in places (in the USA anyway) where cars are less necessary.
This is mostly due to supply and demand. Disregarding market forces, low density housing is some of the most expensive out there. This is due to higher per-unit construction, utility, transportation, and infrastructure costs.
Unfortunately, low density construction is the default in the USA. High density housing gets bogged down in reviews and permitting, and medium density housing is effectively illegal in most cities in the country.
If we had actually been building medium and high density housing over the past century, the housing problems we're experiencing today wouldn't be nearly as bad. But that housing is sadly rare, and we now have to play catch-up.
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#144I'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…
Me too. Either my city calms traffic, or we're moving to a walkable city in Europe. Having young children makes the decision feel more urgent.
Yeah kids getting mowed down left and right in my city this summer. City has announced only more lanes and faster traffic. Grim shit.
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#145I'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…
I’m having a hard time imagining traveling into a area where car-jacking is a credible threat - and yet feeling safe on public transit.
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#146I'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 work from home. I'd still rather drive most of the time than rely on transit and live anywhere more dense. E-biking is nice and I do it for exercise often, but I wouldn't want to do it in the snow or rain, even with perfect separate bike lanes, no matter how much Netherlanders insist it's no big deal. My car has a comfortable seat, good sound system, a lot of my stuff in it, climate control, and no drug addicts acc…
Is your city really that bad that you are afraid of a bus because it might have a drug addict on it?
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#147I love the car and car culture. I've road tripped across the U.S. and live in an RV. I will never go back to living in an apartment. There's no human connection there. I spent years living in apartments and maybe met one or two people, with no meaningful connections ever developed. Cars are great for road tripping, and America is highly optimized for it. You can, with the same vehicle, without unpacking once, travel from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ocean in a matter of days. You can visit the mountains, beaches, camp in hundreds of national and state parks (for cheap or free).
In Florida, some of my fondest memories was jumping into two cars with my teenage friends and riding out the one hour drive to Daytona, where we'd drive our car literally on the beach and then plop down right next to it, sneaking sips of Natural Light that we illegally smuggled there between sessions of football and boogey boarding. Then we'd get back in the car and be back before curfew.
All of our vacations were to the Smokey Mountains, a mere 9 hour drive from central Florida. Dad would drive overnight in our minivan while us kids slept in the back seats. We'd pull up to a cabin first thing in the morning and excitedly rush to our claim our beds for the few days we'd be staying there. Despite sleeping a little rough in the car, we were more than energized by the newness of the locale and the existence of elevation we were quite unfamiliar with back home on the relatively flat peninsula, and we'd proceed to hike the woods around the cabin to survey the land.
Plenty of human and natural connection is to be had with your own vehicle in America. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#148The car has done so much damage to our world and most people are completely blind to it. Obesity, climate change, isolation/loneliness, excess deaths/injuries from collisions, out of control housing costs, can all be tied back in a major way to car centric society. And yet people will defend their car and the "convenience" of it like their life depends on it, and force it down the throats of everyone around them. Bog…
How would you tie housing costs to cars?
Housing density becomes a problem above a certain level if everyone expects to use a car. Parking and traffic become annoying if not crippling, so communities widely support and enact bans on denser residential development.
Restricting supply like this can be fine if demand doesn't grow, but it can be a huge problem for housing affordability if your local economy is booming.
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#149I'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…
Keep in mind that the US is only about 10% smaller than all of Europe combined. While I would love more walking/biking friendly cities, what about all the rural areas? It would take millions and millions of buses or train connections to get to all the places I drive and would still be more of a hassle than just driving there myself plus I couldn't pick the scenic routes. People in major cities have different needs th…
This is a false dichotomy. You can have single family homes with walkable shops/schools.
I visited Nashville recently. Developers can pay a small fee to not put in sidewalks. Kids, adults and pets walk on the road in million dollar home neighborhoods. People don’t even have the option to walk because of ingrained car culture.
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
They would be if there wasn't so much money to be made in Manhattan. The price of Manhattan apartments has almost nothing to do with how desirable it is - other than the fact that desirability is largely a function of the financial opportunities there. Park City, Utah is expensive and nothing like Manhattan - so is Malibu and Ketchum, Idaho. San Jose is a large city and much more expensive than NYC (in terms of house…
Manhattan does not sit atop some massive pile of natural resources. Opportunity is great there exactly because there are so many people. Network effects are large. By the way, I do not think New York is expensive because it is desirable. It is expensive because it is desirable, there aren't enough places to live, and they aren't building more because of regulations. But it would not be expensive if no one wanted to l…
Everything you said is true about Chicago - and yet Chicago has median home prices.
Why is NYC so much more expensive?
Because people can make more money to spend on more housing in NYC...