321–330 of 576 posts
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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…
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the article calls out how “spontaneous encounters” are limited due to the urban planning and issues with American suburbia. Funny how just this morning, and throughout the return to office campaign , the key benefit for coming back to work has repeatedly been stated as the very same potential for “spontaneous encounters,” but with colleagues.
Friend or neighbor in a car? They get a wave because that's about all you can do because their window is rolled up and they're not going to stop anyway.
Friend or neighbor walking or biking? Pleasant 30 minute conversation about how our summers are going while our kids play together.
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No, I’m not. The stores are economically viable unless you have a car centric culture. Car centric culture makes walkable mid-density neighborhoods unviable.
Cars are no longer the only way to bring in goods from outside walking distance. Online orders can also supplant the need for cars in suburbs, while producing a significantly more options than a mom&pop grocery store. And with Covid restrictions and work-from-home, deliveries and online ordering were cemented as normal behavior.
Uh, somebody has to deliver those orders. And in the US, that's by car (van). You might make single-car households more viable with pervasive online ordering/delivery, but you don't necessarily change the core character of the neighborhood that way.
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Most public transit is subsidized by taxes too.
EDIT: which is to say that cities can exist as the tax-generating powerhouses that they are _because_ they subsidize public transportation. That subsidized city transit is why we can afford to maintain the highway system.
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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.
> I don't know about annoying neighbors and smells. If you live in a lower income area, get used to your condo/townhouse occasionally smelling like marijuana and/or tobacco whenever the neighbors decide to hotbox. Also get used to arguments and loud music late at night on weekends. > That seems to be a design and engineering issue. I'm sure you could build hermetically and acoustically sealed condos that keep out all…
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.
I think most Americans would like to have the conveniences of a walkable area and the space/affordability advantages of a suburb. Some parts of the world accomplish this by building many walkable towns and neighborhoods that people can live in. For some reason in much of the US we give people a binary choice of living in a small number of extremely expensive, dense cities -- or living in sidewalkless suburban strip-m…
I don't know about that. It seems to me that most Americans will sit and wait in their idling car for several minutes so they can get a parking spot that is 100 feet closer to the store's entrance.
I personally park my car immediately when I get in a lot and start walking, which makes it very noticeable how many people would rather hunt for a spot slightly closer. Also, in larger shopping centers my observation is that most people will move their car between each shop to minimize walking.
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I think it's because the young people online are much more drawn to the active, exciting urban lifestyle than the average American. The average American would much rather have the safety, quiet, and just space that comes with suburban living. People want yards to play with their kids, and that sort of spread-out living just necessitates cars. Housing prices aren't high because of cars. Housing prices are high because…
While all that might be true, it is also true that hardly anyone would be willing to cover the true cost of living in rural areas far away from things. In pretty much every country I'm aware of the urban population is strongly subsidising the rural. And that is only covering first order cost (just look at the massive subsidies to get broadband to rural communities), if we would put prizes on second order cost like po…
That's not what the data says, at least in the US. We consistently see a net change of about 2 million people per year moving out of cities and into the surrounding suburbs: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/16/in-2020-few...
And the desire to live in cities is shrinking as well, now at under 20%: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/12/16/america...
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…
First of all, it probably won’t. But more importantly, even if it does, 20% or more of your remaining healthy lifespan will elapse while it’s happening.
Don’t wait. Carpe deambulatio.
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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).
Take my neighborhood (south Reston, VA). The main road is about 2.5 miles long. There is a strip mall at both ends, leaving homes in the midde just outside easy walking distance (from my house, by footpath, it's nearly 2 miles to one end and a bit over 1.25 to the other). There is a major intersection about halfway down that main road. Instead of allowing a small shopping area, it's more houses. Hard to change now, but if it had been zoned mixed-use/light commercial at build time, there could be a coffee shop and small grocer there. And bring between 1/3 and 1/2 of the available customers in the area within walking distance of at least some of their regular errands.
Additional benefit of this would be reducing the size of the malls at each end, mostly by removing parking spaces, freeing that space for townhouse, apartments, or more shops.
Take my office... it's 1.25 miles away, and I walk. But, the complex is all offices. If there were a grocer there or on the way, I could eliminate my 1x weekly carload, instead grabbing things as-needed on my walk home.
Same office. I have coworkers who live closer than me, but refuse to try walking because the sidewalks and street crossings from their direction are less user-friendly. Crossing on/off ramps without signals. Crossing a 4 lane highway with 50mph traffic. Etc. Some simple crosswalk modifications could make the office complex walkable to some of these coworkers. But, traffic planners don't even appear to think of these things when building roads - it's almost 100% car-focused.
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…
Same with health care, there's an excellent public system here which is free (paid by tax) but in the Netherlands you pay a private company a lot and there's penalties if you use it.
If you live in a big city in the Netherlands and don't need to leave it much you'll be ok work public transport but there's a huge housing crisis there too so city apartments come at a huge premium.
FWIW I love not needing a car and I hope I'll never need to own one again or even drive one. I've always found it so stressful.