161–170 of 345 posts
My biggest point on car free cities is that it is supported fervently by the people who would gain massive amounts of power over others if nobody had a car. If you're dependent on public transport, it can be taken away from you as leverage.
Just like any other good. The best you can do is vote for those who give, and not vote for those who take it away.
Not even sure how you'd start off hating the idea. Less noise, less pollution, shorter commute, cheaper infrastructure, more green, more walking, improved health...I mean...just off the top of my head I'm thinking of tons of advantages. I can't think of a single disadvantage. The only reason I need a car is because the city / neighbourhood is configured around the expectation that everyone has a car.
One disadvantage is that many people do travel outside the city to go to an office in the suburbs, to visit friends, and to do weekend activities. I think everyone I know in Boston/Cambridge (which has relatively decent--really!--public transit) who isn't a very recent college grad owns a car.
I wouldn't not want to have access to a car, but if car/truck rental wasn't such a mess, I would be happier without one. (When I bought this place I cut back the 4+ car driveway to two cars and reclaimed a bunch of yard, and it was great. I wish it could've been more!)
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It's a lot of work and money to convert a NA city to a car free one. It's probably impossible TBH. My city has the best public transit system in NA but still I can't imagine it be car free. It's going to literally kill people.
I don't know where this sentiment comes from, you think NA cities didn't exist before the Ford Model-T? Many of these cities existed and worked even without everyone having a private horse/carriage they just had trolleys.
They existed but they were incredibly shitty, literally.
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Just for contrast. I'm living a car free life in my mid-late 20s at the moment in Denmark, and I rarely ever order delivery. Supermarkets are close enough (I actually live above one, but were that not there, there are still three others within a five minute walk), that I rarely do a "weekly" shop and just buy my groceries when needed, most of which are of decent to high quality. It's not really much of an inconvenien…
Oh I think one big factor is it was a 1 mile walk in 32C degrees and swampy high humidity. It wasn’t a couple of bags, it was a cart of about 4 bags at least, including a gallon of milk, often including bags of flour, eggs, etc. https://www.amazon.com/LS-Folding-Shopping-Basket-Capacity/d...
If I need a car for some unusual errand, which is rare like once a year, I use an app to cheaply rent a car of the needed size for a few hours.
Recently had to go to the US for a short trip and I had to rent a car. It felt insane how much time I had to spend in my car just to visit people who all live in the same metro area, due to all the sprawl.
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Just for contrast. I'm living a car free life in my mid-late 20s at the moment in Denmark, and I rarely ever order delivery. Supermarkets are close enough (I actually live above one, but were that not there, there are still three others within a five minute walk), that I rarely do a "weekly" shop and just buy my groceries when needed, most of which are of decent to high quality. It's not really much of an inconvenien…
How many children do you have?
I was back in Taiwan last year after an extended absence. It's pretty amazing how easy it is to get around with a combination of the mass rapid transit (MRT) system and high speed rail (HSR). When I was last there, you still needed to take a bus or taxi from TPE to the city center. Now right from TPE airport, you can be in either Taipei city center in 30 minutes (MRT) or on the other end of the island in short order…
Do you have any children? I can't imagine car free city is good when you have two or more young children. For one, groceries are a problem as you likely need to stock more food to cook. Sure you can go to the store every other day but that takes a lot of time and is more expensive. Plus you are on a lot tighter schedule. Most people with kids race home to pick up children and don't want to stop by the store and schle…
I'd quibble with the title. Based on my experience in London, most middle-class/white collar workers love car-free living. Most blue-collar workers don't like it. They continue not liking it once it becomes reality. (Although maybe they realize that it's not as bad as they feared). I think this is basically another example of political polarization, combined with employment patterns. White collar workers broadly spea…
I don't think most advocates for reduction in car dependency in urban environments think that trades people shouldn't have vehicles to carry tools and materials around in.
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This is true, but that model of suburban development still tends to push necessities out of walking or even biking distance. I visited my folks in the Des Moines suburbs while they were out there and it was an hour's walk to almost anything bigger than a corner store. Of which I found, I think, one that was closer than that.
If we go by your parent's photos, my main beef with these neighborhoods is there's no commercial development. There should be (light) commercial development. I am a big fan of the Asian shophouse. You can open a restaurant or a convenience store or a small clinic or whatever class of local service business isn't going to be too disruptive on the bottom floor of your residential property. You need to own and operate i…
My parents (who are themselves not really the sort of folks you'd expect in an urban core, ha) didn't last in Iowa very long. They moved back to New England and while they live on like three acres now, they're friendly with all their neighbors in a way even I'm not in my relatively approachable community.
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It sounds like you're saying it works for tourists. How would I get a massive CostCo shop home in Taipei (or similar large amount of shopping)?
you must also ask the question why you want to make a huge shopping trip. If you lived in a world where accessing the shop was easy and convenient, and they stocked everything you need, and you didn't have oodles of storage at home to store it all: why would you even make such a huge shopping trip?
The culture and organization of the city means that 1) most folks have relatively small kitchens and small refrigerators, 2) actually, most dwellings are quite small in the first place so there isn't so much space to store large stockpiles of goods, 3) markets are abundant and easy to access, 4) the cost of eating out is so low that many folks do not have a habit of cooking at home and often just eat out.