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A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

chrisbarber.co

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Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#71

Post by potato3732842 »

_fat_santa wrote: post #39

I don't know why more municipalities don't jump on this. In my area (I live in the US) we have a number of neighborhoods that are very walk-able and they are consistently the most competitive areas for housing. In all the spots, homes are expensive and that's even if they make it on the market because hardly anyone wants to sell when they live in a place like this.

Because it's not actually politically tractable. Pretty much every one of these proposals has some implied back side or quiet part you don't say out loud to it that the exact same people who like the sound of walkability in the abstract would be unwilling to make.

Think about how many people who support this stuff would be screaming bloody murder if some developer bought their neighbor's lot and coordinated with some other local developers to submit all their proposals for the most hard to approve stuff right at thanksgiving to take advantage of all the sped up paperwork and limits on how long government can sit on things and then built right up to the sidewalk.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#72

Post by dingnuts »

HEmanZ wrote: post #59
bix6 wrote: post #15

My dream is for my section of my town to ban cars. It’s already heavy pedestrian but if the cars went away (and everyone had to walk or e-bike or mobility scooter in the zone) it would be a utopia. Sure there’d be some issues to address and frustrations but we’d figure it out. The net would be amazingly positive.

How would you get groceries tho? Everyone would starve! (Ive had multiple family members who said this after I mentioned I didn’t have a car for 4 years while living in a major city)

[flagged]

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#74

Post by constantcrying »

petsfed wrote: post #60
constantcrying wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You're not wrong that such things make a city less walkable, but there's also a strong argument that just punishing people, instead of, you know, addressing the underlying problem doesn't solve the problem either. It just sets up a situation where people bounce from jail (due to the realities of living on the streets) to the homeless encampment (due to unpaid fines preventing them from earning any money). To be hone…

>Have you ever been around homeless people? Yes. At many stages of the descent from "I'm just crashing on your couch until I save up enough for another deposit" to "I'm sleeping in my car until I can find a job" to "I'm living in a shanty and rummaging through the trash to turn in aluminum cans for change". Both whilst living in the Bay Area, but also in Oregon and Washington. You're complaining (rightly) about the e…

> We have within easy reach the ability to 1) stop more people from becoming homeless, and 2) help people who are homeless get their lives back in order.

I live in a country with a right to housing. The government will literally pay your rent. Public transit is still full of homeless people. Guess why? Spoiler: It is not because housing is unaffordable or because transit is bad.

>Hell, I'm actively watching my brother-in-law and his baby mama descend through the mental illness and addiction process, and even though they've been evicted and are now dragging their daughter through the couch-surfing phase, they still aren't at the living-in-tents-shitting-on-the-street phase of that descent.

And you are sure that, if they stayed completely drug-free and sane, they couldn't find jobs which allowed them to pay rent? The problem here are the drugs, blaming anything else is absurd. There is exactly one way to help them and their child get the parents of the drugs and the child away from them until the parents stay sober.

Literally every single step in that tragedy, as you describe it, revolves around drugs. Seeking the cure in anything but getting rid of the drugs is absurd.

>We have within easy reach the ability to 1) stop more people from becoming homeless

No, we don't. The only way to stop people being homeless is getting rid of the drugs. Even if the government is legally obligated to pay for housing there are still homeless people because of the drugs.

>2) help people who are homeless get their lives back in order.

No. We need to get drug addicts sober. Anything else is secondary. Do you think your brother in law would be fixed if he got free housing, but remained a drug addict? Of course not.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#77

Post by thegreatpeter »

chaps wrote: post #27
hexis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, enjoy your safe space, wherever it is.

Chicago, friend. :) I'm reminded of being on an airplane sitting next to a cop who told me, "Did you know that Chicago is the murder capitol of the world?". It was fun to show her that Chicago isn't actually even in the top 10 of the US in terms of homicide. Where do you get your news from that makes you think crime is going up?

I moved out of Lincoln Park (Chicago) 2 years ago because my wife almost got hit by a teenager stealing a car.

It wasn't the first or last car theft we witnessed.

Chicago is safe 90% of the time. Statistically speaking, you won't be a victim of a crime. That doesn't mean the crime isn't happening and it doesn't mean it's getting properly reported either. Crime is here.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#78

Post by SoftTalker »

eptcyka wrote: post #25
iambateman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you source that fact? I'm seeing both violent and property crime as statistically way down over the few decades.

My anecdotal experience visiting LA and SF in 2022 was wild - homeless and mentally ill people yelling, being a public nuissance, defecating on the streets, multi-story tents on the same block as the Hollywood stars. It bewildered me that the same state that houses Apple and Google can’t afford to help these people. Whilst I am empathetic and understand that these people need help, I wouldn’t let an 8 year old roam t…

Those people are there because of the help. Every time a municipality expands support for the homeless and addicted they get more homeless addicts. Surrounding areas will in fact put people on buses and ship them out to towns where there is more support.

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#79

Post by lapetitejort »

hexis wrote: post #54
chaps wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago, friend. :) I'm reminded of being on an airplane sitting next to a cop who told me, "Did you know that Chicago is the murder capitol of the world?". It was fun to show her that Chicago isn't actually even in the top 10 of the US in terms of homicide. Where do you get your news from that makes you think crime is going up?

I get my information about dangerous public spaces with my eyes, ears, and memory that it used to be safer very recently.

Write a peer reviewed paper with facts and figures

Re: A list of changes to make it easier to build beautiful and walkable places

#80

Post by hexis »

enaaem wrote: post #46
hexis wrote: post #9

These are all great, I love city life and would embrace every single item, but without addressing the dramatic decline in public safety in virtually all US cities, none of these will matter at all.

Interesting thing is that cars are never considered to be threat to public safety. People have simply accepted that cycling/walking is unsafe (because of cars), so parents have to drive their kids everywhere. During the 70s in the Netherlands there were massive protests called 'Stop the Child murder', because cars were killing too many children on bicycles. This was actually a conservative protest, because people wer…

I think in the US we've done a great job educating a subset of the population about how dangerous cars are. In the wealthy, walkable neighborhood I live in, everyone is very sensitive to the dangers of cars. Cycling and walking are common, with many kids being involved too.

That said, this understanding is very unevenly distributed, in large part because our neighborhood also gets more police attention and is generally very safe.

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