161–170 of 193 posts
About half of the items in that list are satisfied by Peter Cooper Village in NYC.[1] Go there and see if you like it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_Town%E2%80%93Peter_...
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This is why Housing First is such a brilliant idea. Give them help, but require them to be stably housed (i.e. on a viable path out of long-term homelessness) before they can access the help.
My town set up an apartment building specifically to house the "chronically" homeless. It cost a fortune to build (something like twice the cost per square foot as normal, or maybe more). The rationale was exactly that, give them stable housing so they can work on their addictions and life skills. Fast forward five years, the place is a shithole. Roach-infested, apartments severely damaged and filthy, needles and gar…
My town has some people obsessed with "walkability" and the want to take the ONLY alternative to I 80/94/6/US 41 down to one lane each way... People will die if they get there way, as ambulance and fire vehicles become mired in congestion. Not to mention that the weather for walking is only present for about 20 days per year. Walking everywhere isn't a practical for most people in the Calumet Region of Indiana. There…
Congestion is the result of having too many cars on the road. The only viable solution to having too many cars around is replacing some of the cars with alternative modes of transportation that are more scalable and less congestion-prone. It's not rocket surgery.
I thought I was fairly explicit that this wasn't just a typical low traffic suburb. We routinely have backups that go for miles. It's been a feature of the area (the crossroads of the nation) since my dad was a kid in the 1950s.
Fewer lanes is insane, but they want to do it anyway
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.
I mean, we just got a signalized crosswalk on a state highway to my city's most popular custard stand, 3 years after a student was killed by drivers and others were injured. https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/17-year-old-hit-kill... || https://www.stlpr.org/news-briefs/2025-07-16/deadly-crossing...
and even still, the only thing separating the highway and a crowd of 100+ people in line for custard is a fence on an 8-12" tall curb https://maps.app.goo.gl/2pD9mSzr9yTAK1z19
I wish we had a society where the "real" felony is developing harmful infrastructure in the first place. Manslaughterers losing their license or going to jail, and band-aid fixes like paint, signals, and frangible fences do actually nothing to prevent the next fatality.
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.
> (and everyone had to walk or e-bike or mobility scooter in the zone) E-bikes are very popular where I live. At first it was great to see people of all ages out biking everywhere. But now everyone has started modifying their e-bikes to be overpowered and not require any pedaling. A lot of the cheap e-bikes have trivial procedures to unlock the power limit. Anyone who can search Reddit can figure out what to buy and…
Fat tire E-bikes, recommended by Bicycling magazine.[1]
1933 Harley-Davidson motorcycle.[2]
It is an electric motorcycle.
It would be better to treat the more powerful E-bikes as electric scooters. Lose the pedals, lower the CG, require license plates, turn signals, and helmets. That's standard practice in China, which encourages electric scooters but discourages high-speed E-bikes.[3] "Electric mobility devices" - e-bikes, Segways, hoverboards, etc. are limited to 20km/h and have size restrictions. China already had a huge scooter fleet, which is going electric, but e-bikes never really caught on. E-scooters did, instead.
[1] https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/a33313406/best-fat-tire...
[2] https://www.rideapart.com/features/247168/rebirth-of-an-amer...
[3] https://www.pacificprime.cn/blog/scooters-and-mopeds-china-c...
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Yes, that is shown in the data I linked, but the rebound is much smaller than the previous drop.
And yet, public disorder is increasing. Sure, it is better than the 90s, but that can hardly be the standard. Those days were awful, we can and should do much better than that.
In terms of actual crime, we're doing about as well as we were back in the late '50s.
You sound like many people here in Seattle who gripe about "public safety", but this is a very safe city - it's kind of absurd. When you press them on it, you find out that they simply don't like to look at homeless people, or junkies, and they mistake the discomfort they feel when witnessing such sights for actual danger.
Statistics show that homeless people and street junkies are far more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of violent crime. Merely seeing them does not harm you; nor are they likely to do anything which would harm you.
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> (and everyone had to walk or e-bike or mobility scooter in the zone) E-bikes are very popular where I live. At first it was great to see people of all ages out biking everywhere. But now everyone has started modifying their e-bikes to be overpowered and not require any pedaling. A lot of the cheap e-bikes have trivial procedures to unlock the power limit. Anyone who can search Reddit can figure out what to buy and…
The problem is people not cars or bikes because we rarely take into account how what we do affects other people. Riding my bike, I try to always consider the delta in speed between me and other folks. Sure I can speed along the walkway if there's no one else but as soon as there are or could be people around, I better slow down. Not only for safety but also to reduce stress on whoever is slower. Maybe we're too focus…
I think this is unquestionably a problem in modern society. Too many interactions are purely transactional. People are isolated and lonely. Many people are only out for themselves. Community has definitely broken down
I don't know how to fix this and I'm definitely part of the problem, but I think it is a very big problem
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.
I love the European model of retractable bollards that are down overnight and then go up in the morning and stay up until late in the evening. Allows for night time delivery vehicle access while preserving a car free space for the whole day for residents and visitors.
"Here's what people said:" before the actual list was super annoying. > Allow single‑stair buildings up to 6 stories This seemed like a terrible suggestion, but it caused me to google it and now I see it's not that terrible. I didn't fully understand all of these, and some are clearly specific to California. I also worry about some of these opening the floodgates for greedy developers (a lot of existing laws are due…
"Greedy developers" is a signal someone doesn't know anything about real estate. It's up there with "late-stage capitalism" as a sure sign someone doesn't understand the subject matter.
Being from Connecticut, this case comes to mind as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
Where a developer planned some huge build, forced people out of their homes via eminent domain, and then never actually broke ground at all.
These companies shut down once they hit some snag and then pop up somewhere else under a different name.