191–200 of 352 posts
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They mean something to readers, though, regardless of whether the author is amenable to taking in the information or not. People learn by reading, so we all benefit by giving them correctly written material to learn from.
People should just fucking read the fucking TFA.
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Texas is the America of America.
For me, this will always be Las Vegas. Walking the strip my first time while at a conference was enlightening. Seeing all the American tropes that I'd seen in foreign media within a square kilometer and with my own eyes left me speechless.
It’s a shame this country is so obsessed with cars. There’s so much land yet we devote it to destroying lush ecosystems (that help reduce effects of Mother Nature) and replacing it with massive highway projects that end up costing everyone more in taxes/indefinite maintenance costs. Then the effect is 10X’d when useless suburbs are built. More car dependence. More time spent on roads. Traffic slows to a halt as subur…
I'm not sure what you think the alternative is. The US is huge compared to any similarly developed country. Is the answer huge cities right next to thousands of square miles of untouched nature? That hasn't happened in any society on the planet. It sounds like you just want everyone to live in a city and take public transit everywhere but cities are awful for your mental health[0] and most people in the US do not wan…
If you go to anywhere in Europe you will find plenty of places that prove the opposite.
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I'm not sure what you think the alternative is. The US is huge compared to any similarly developed country. Is the answer huge cities right next to thousands of square miles of untouched nature? That hasn't happened in any society on the planet. It sounds like you just want everyone to live in a city and take public transit everywhere but cities are awful for your mental health[0] and most people in the US do not wan…
The US being huge has no bearing on the requirement that I have to own a car to get to work every day, or to go to the grocery store, or to take kids to school. I live in a more suburban area than I used to and having to pilot a huge deadly vehicle everywhere is vastly more stressful than just walking to handle my groceries. Note that the study you link to there is from 1994 and only controlled for the following crit…
It is usually possible to rent small apartments near work in most metro areas, but instead they prefer 3000sqft places to 600sqft and supermarkets to corner stores.
There is a huge amount that would have to change about the American dream and esthetic desires to enable car free European living.
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The US being huge has no bearing on the requirement that I have to own a car to get to work every day, or to go to the grocery store, or to take kids to school. I live in a more suburban area than I used to and having to pilot a huge deadly vehicle everywhere is vastly more stressful than just walking to handle my groceries. Note that the study you link to there is from 1994 and only controlled for the following crit…
>having to pilot a huge deadly vehicle everywhere is vastly more stressful than just walking to handle my groceries. That's a nice luxury to have. I take it you're fortunate enough to live in a very temperate area with palatable weather year-round, rather than somewhere that gets 110° F in the summer, or ice storms in the winter? Not everyone can afford to live on the beautiful, comfortable, and exorbitantly expensiv…
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The US being huge has no bearing on the requirement that I have to own a car to get to work every day, or to go to the grocery store, or to take kids to school. I live in a more suburban area than I used to and having to pilot a huge deadly vehicle everywhere is vastly more stressful than just walking to handle my groceries. Note that the study you link to there is from 1994 and only controlled for the following crit…
>having to pilot a huge deadly vehicle everywhere is vastly more stressful than just walking to handle my groceries. That's a nice luxury to have. I take it you're fortunate enough to live in a very temperate area with palatable weather year-round, rather than somewhere that gets 110° F in the summer, or ice storms in the winter? Not everyone can afford to live on the beautiful, comfortable, and exorbitantly expensiv…
Okay, we don't get the 110°F in the summer here (only up to the 90's), but we do get the ice storms in the winter.
I still walk to get my groceries if I can, even if it's actively snowing. I just wish they'd plow the sidewalks here, I don't like having to choose between walking in the street or trying to walk on uncompacted snow in my boots while laden with groceries.
"the worst symbol of our car-obsessed culture" Nothing against the article, which covers an interesting topic. But this refrain gets tiresome, the railing against our "car obsession." We have a big-ass country. We like to move about it. Many of us don't want or need to live on top of each other. That is all.
> We have a big-ass country. We like to move about it. Many of us don't want or need to live on top of each other. That is all. Japan is about the size of the entire Eastern Seaboard. Japan has safe, fast, comfortable and competitively-priced high-speed rail through highly mountainous, earthquake-prone terrain. What's the USA's excuse? No one is asking for a 4500 km-long railway from Los Angeles to New York. But a 15…
In fact, the Eastern seaboard is one of the few places in the US where rail travel is a valid option much of the time.
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Houston native here. I still guffaw when I see a massively lifted truck (but with a pristine bed, no scratches - so not even a work truck). Everything's bigger in Texas, including egos.
> Everything's bigger in Texas, including egos. Crucially, Texans are highly aware of "everything is bigger in Texas" trope and take pride in it. My favorite example is that everyone knows that Texas State Capitol is taller than United States Capitol (92.24m vs 88m)... But nobody will ever tell you that Texas State Capitol is only 6th tallest state capitol. Source: lived in Austin for 2 years. https://en.wikipedia.or…
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>having to pilot a huge deadly vehicle everywhere is vastly more stressful than just walking to handle my groceries. That's a nice luxury to have. I take it you're fortunate enough to live in a very temperate area with palatable weather year-round, rather than somewhere that gets 110° F in the summer, or ice storms in the winter? Not everyone can afford to live on the beautiful, comfortable, and exorbitantly expensiv…
Have people not lived in those places in the past?