271–280 of 572 posts
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Lay off the Fox News
Yeah, it's just Fox. Not official crime statistics. Or even Wikipedia: "The American city of Baltimore, Maryland, is notorious for its crime rate, which ranks well above the national average. Violent crime spiked in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray on April 19, 2015, which touched off riots and an increase in murders. The city recorded 348 homicides in 2019, a number second only to the number recorded in 1993 whe…
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> For what it's worth, as the rare suburbanite HNer, I fondly recall my family having the same sort of relationships with neighbors in the late 80's and 90's; unfortunately the same just doesn't seem to happen even in socioeconomically comparable suburbs today. I used to live in a townhome in Kirkland Washington, ~10 minutes from Microsoft's main campus. One year my wife and I made Christmas cookies and went door to…
At the last house we lived in, we were renting. We got a constant stream of real estate agents knocking on our door asking if we’d be willing to let them sell it. So when we got a knock one morning I opened the door and kind of yelled at the person, “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” It was a new neighbor that had moved in a few doors down bringing us a bottle of wine and to let us know they were new to the neighborhood. I apologiz…
Weirdly cynical assumption. Sounds like you alienated your neighbors and then retroactively made them the villains.
I've been wondering how related these feelings of distance and isolation in the middle of society are to how the area is designed. I had always known for a long time the "why" I didn't want to go out on weekends and such, but it wasn't until I watched some of those videos from "Not Just Bikes" that it really, really struck me. I literally dread finding parking more than I enjoy finding friends. And suburban (and fran…
Here’s another thing no one talks about because it’s taboo: drink driving. Right up until the mid 70s, it was completely socially acceptable to drink and drive. Now I agree that it was probably a good thing that’s it’s been banned, but having to pay for and organise transportation to go to whatever event it is you want to go to adds another substantial layer of friction to socialising. Not to mention the fact that th…
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Not just bikes makes it feel like the solution to everything is to be like the Netherlands. In that sense it's a fraud. To some extent yes you should be more like us and offload some of that traffic onto a bike path. To the extent that works and is efficient. But... I have lived here all my life. It is not a solution to anything else. It turns out, bikes do not talk to each other very much either.
I was about to reply something similar. The Netherlands is also experiencing a loneliness epidemic, so just density and bikeability are not sufficient answers. For anyone that's curious about numbers on this, every western country has a long-running social survey that asks how many close friends the respondent has. This data is usually freely available.
I've been wondering how related these feelings of distance and isolation in the middle of society are to how the area is designed. I had always known for a long time the "why" I didn't want to go out on weekends and such, but it wasn't until I watched some of those videos from "Not Just Bikes" that it really, really struck me. I literally dread finding parking more than I enjoy finding friends. And suburban (and fran…
Cars are awful. I was fantasizing about an e-bike after reading a thread on HN, but in Phoenix, I'd die for sure. I do not feel safe around other cars in my car much less a bike. I really wish the US weren't so all in on cars. It's only getting worse with the oversized death-machine trucks saturating the roads. My in-laws are blind as bats and drive something that should require a commercial license.
Try it out.
The best parks you get are Central Park in Manhattan, or Prospect Park in Brooklyn, but they get pretty busy in the summer.. SNL had a pretty on-the-nose skit about it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZhjIyGmrRQ
By contrast, European cities seem to have farms/parks/countryside much more in reach.
Further, in terms of "living near friends", spending almost 2 decades in NYC.. it's no more true than in the suburbs I grew up or the countryside I escape to on weekends. NYC is so sprawling, expensive, and transit so commute-oriented.. that outside a few years in your 20s.. your friends end up 30-90min away in all directions.
My wife's best friend lives in the same borough, and is a 40min drive from us. Worse by train, as we have to go back into Manhattan and transfer trains to get to her.
The closest any of our friends lived was 10 years ago when we were a 20min walk in UWS from my wife's other best friend.
Even for friends we made in the city at say the gym, we'd all live 20 blocks apart. And of course work friends were commuting from all directions within and without the city.
Access to friends is probably the biggest reason I prefer dense urban environments. There’s something magical about being able to step out your door and be within a 10-20 minute walk of close friends or family. It invites casual get togethers like Saturday afternoon coffee or an after work drink. Living an hour or two apart kills these opportunities. I recall walking through Vienna one weeknight evening and being ama…
At least in my country, no one calls ahead before dropping by to meet you in smaller cities. They just show up and hang out. In the big cities, of course, everyone plans ahead. Which is great for productivity but pretty awful for socializing. Urban culture revolves around productivity, while in smaller towns here, everyone seems happy being non-productive if it means keeping their social life.
I consider myself pretty sociable, but holly shit that sounds like a nightmare.
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If anything, you are being too nice to US suburbs: It's perfectly possible to have towns that are much denser than any US suburb. My Spanish home town has about 100K inhabitants: You'd not call that a city anywhere in the US. And yet, It's basically a circle with a one mile radius: Yes, just one mile. In that situation, one can walk everywhere, and public transportation is limited to the elderly, people carrying heav…
100k is certainly a city. That’s quite large - and for many places in the US the local “city” is of that size. People definitely call Ventura, CA “the city” and its 100k.
In the UK “city” status is conferred by being on the government’s list of cities and isn’t automatic based on size or presence of a Cathedral or anything else.
See: Tom Scott on YouTube “the town which forgot to be a city” - https://youtube.com/watch?v=kBaLb1C4WAg
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I'd far rather go for a long drive in a comfortable car with scenic views than go to a bar. My closest (in both meanings of the word) friend is three hours away through a scenic mountain pass and when we go there its for an entire weekend. This gives time to help with things like building a shed or swapping an engine in a car.
Heh. I live in a city and more and more I feel this. The whole idea behind urbanism seems to be - give up the outdoors, give up hobbies that require tools and space. Go to the bar. Or a "makerspace" where you can have controlled use of someone else's tools. Rent this, rent that, take an uber here and there. It's just so commercialised.
- Way more time in and with nature
- New hobbies, lot of space to try things
- Plenty of tools. My 'Makerspace' is what takes up most of my house at this point