Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by azemetre » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:27 PM UTC

sleepdreamy wrote: post #117

ryukafalz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Source? Just curious

Boston has recently closed down major roads for pedestrians to great success. Most businesses ended up selling out entire inventories on those days during the weekend because their walk in traffic literally increased exponentially.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/10/metro/jamaica-plains-...

There's been a growing movement to permanently close down certain roads around Back Bay to encourage this behavior as well because restaurants and local shops love the increase in customers.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/open-newbury-street-returns-aug...

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

#252

Post by mjevans » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

dangus wrote: post #205

umvi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Air pollution: Caused by what? Probably cars. Noise pollution: Caused by what? Probably cars. (Sure, some sirens here and there, but rural and suburban living doesn't make you immune to the sounds of train crossings, highways, jake brakes, motorcycles, etc). Annoying neighbors, smell/hearing through walls: 1. Easily mitigated through smart building design and practices, enforced by building code. 2. You can have comp…

I've seen that stores against the road thing in a Food Truck cooking competition TV show. Did a good job of tricking some contestants for a bit until they realized the scale of the area was still large parking lot sized and the street was just the no consumer doors (or very infrequently used 'side' doors) face of strip malls with parking lots.

Density can't be faked by flipping the lot into the middle of the block. It can be made real at a city level by design and engineered accommodation interfaces. Public owned mega parking venues at the edges that interface between the city core and external regions. A utility layer and isolated areas for vehicles to deliver or traverse the city.

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

#253

Post by dangus » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

woopwoop wrote: post #20

twblalock wrote: post #6

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.

If this were true, I'd think Manhattan apartments would be cheap.

In contrast to Manhattan, Tokyo apartments are cheap, or, at least, their price has remained flat when adjusted for inflation over decades. That's because of government policy that encourages housing supply. Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-housing-crisis-in-japan-ho...

If New York could similarly encourage speedier housing construction and replacement, as well as effectively building a similarly expansive and reliable transit network, they could achieve the exact same results as Tokyo. (Note: Even though Japan has had periods of economic stagnation and low birth rates, Tokyo itself has consistently grown in population with few exceptions as Japan has become more urbanized.)

If the suburbs are so great for housing supply, why do suburban Boston/San Jose/Austin/Denver homes cost so much? Why are Chicago's most prestigious zip codes more affordable than living an hour outside of San Francisco?

The truth is that the places with high housing prices don't have high prices based on whether they're suburban, rural, or urban, they have high prices when demand exceeds supply. It's that simple.

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

#254

Post by falcolas » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

stormbrew wrote: post #193

falcolas wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That's because if you want an individual home, you're giving up the customer density required to make those amenities viable. In a world with the internet, at-home delivery, and yes, cars, it's simply not economically viable to create a grocery store that on…

This just isn't at all true unless you define "house" as exclusively large lot single family homes with big back and front yards. Most dense and walkable places in the world are not full of high rises, they're a mix of high density houses and low to medium density apartments. This mix is really rare in North America, at least and especially north of Mexico, but it does exist.

> a mix of high density houses and low to medium density apartments

Neither of which sounds very nice to me. I don't have a huge yard, but I do have enough yard to raise a few trees and firepit. If I lost that, I might as well be in an apartment.

And that still wouldn't provide enough density to support a variety of restaurants and grocery stores (not to mention things like employment for non-techies).

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

#255

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #59

kiba wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I check, these 'dense' urban area aren't exactly great for anybody but cars.

As a former resident of Manhattan, this is where I'm most resentful about car supremacy. I truly don't care that there exist car-centric suburbs. Anybody who lives there knows exactly what they're signing up for. What's insane to me is that we allow cars to dominate even our most urban spaces. When I would walk to work through Midtown, my senses were practically assaulted by automobiles. Honking, speeding, stereos bl…

[deleted]

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

#256

Post by tmh88j » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

trgn wrote: post #241

tmh88j wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Living abroad has shown me cities, significantly more dense than the US, that are neither noisy or unsafe Just because you can find quiet isolated pockets in any given city doesn't mean the rest of it is like that. All cities are loud and require being very aware of your surroundings, some more than others. I've spent months traveling through many European cities and been victim of crime and saw a lot of crime. As…

I guess we were in different places.

What cities are you referring to? Surely not the larger ones like London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, etc...

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

#257

Post by falcolas » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #227

pkulak wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP said _home_, not single family house.

Not OP, but... Apartments suck, a lot, in the US. * Noise; aren't built to sufficient privacy levels. * Smell; laundry, cooking, or whatever... * not designed to scrub, filter, and direct exhaust. * Patios == smoke or grill; even though those are banned by policy. * Somehow cost more than renting elsewhere * Rent seeking causes negative patterns * Car parking hell As much as the anti-car crowd wants to be anti-car, t…

Well said, and matches my experience nicely.

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

#258

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

ryukafalz wrote: post #152

dionidium wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former resident of Manhattan, this is where I'm most resentful about car supremacy. I truly don't care that there exist car-centric suburbs. Anybody who lives there knows exactly what they're signing up for. What's insane to me is that we allow cars to dominate even our most urban spaces. When I would walk to work through Midtown, my senses were practically assaulted by automobiles. Honking, speeding, stereos bl…

Yup, I relate to this so much as someone currently living in Philly. We have basically the same issue even in Center City. Cities aren’t loud, cars are loud: https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8

[deleted]

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

#259

Post by dont__panic » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #207

dont__panic wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many European cities have walkable downtown streets closed to cars with lots of successful businesses. Burlington, VT. Boulder, CO. Old Town Arvada, CO. All have very successful pedestrian-only streets in the USA with lots of healthy businesses.

Yeah, tourist-centric destinations can do things like this. We do it where I live too, in the summer. Closing down a few streets is a world away from banning cars from downtown. How many people can actually live in an area like that?

I'm confused about your question.

If I can do everything I want in my city -- exercise, drink, eat, buy groceries, meet up with friends, etc. -- without a car, why wouldn't I be able to live there?

I expect in this situation you'd be able to store your car in a secure garage on the edge of town if you want to own one. Or you could take public transit or bike to rent a car on the edge of town. Or you could take a train to wherever you want to go and use another method of transport once you get there.

Is there some kind of deep intrinsic human need to sit in a car within 1000 feet of your home that I'm not understanding?

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

#260

Post by azemetre » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

hardnose wrote: post #247

Steltek wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your positive examples all have one thing in common: they're not happening in cities. Just because a car makes sense in the countryside or beach does not mean it makes sense inside of a city. A problem with our approach to urban planning is that we get large, sterile apartment buildings or detached single family homes but absolutely nothing in between. If that missing middle was allowed by right, you'd find what I en…

>they're not happening in cities. Neither is people willingly moving there. Dense urban living might appeal to young people but once you build a family and priorities change to peace & quiet, safety, good schools, and stable property values, dense urban living loses most of its appeal.

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