I've actually been thinking of moving to Vienna. Anybody in Vienna have a moment to type out some thoughts on what it's like to live there?
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Vienna again named world's most liveable city
101–110 of 119 posts
Re: Vienna again named world's most liveable city
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't mean to imply the midwest is a swampland; I'm from the midwest. And I was serious about the a place in the desert. I wasn't comparing it to anything, the palm desert outside of LA is amazing and I literally want to live there one day. The swampland is more of an exaggeration for the way people talk about why they don't want to move to SF, as if the cost of rent is the only reason one lives anywhere. And the…
I appreciate the civil tone, sorry if I flew off the handle. SF might be great for some, but it's not for me. Unfortunately, SF, Seattle, and Vancouver always top the lists and they're all places I wouldn't dream of living in any time soon. If I'm moving, I don't want to take a pay cut. I wouldn't trade a $50,000/yr job in the midwest for a $100,000/yr job in SF, because I'd actually have less money than I do now. I'…
FWIW, the NAR and some publications put out these Most Affordable Cities lists:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/morganbrennan/2012/04/05/america...
Re: Vienna again named world's most liveable city
#103The more I travel, the more convinced I am that the American experiment with car oriented cities was a disaster that will take untold billions of dollars to rectify. It's affected everything from public safety (e.g. police can no longer walk a patrol), to loss of community (people don't really shop in the same place they live), lost productivity (stuck in traffic), and on and on and on. I'm very encouraged by recent,…
You don't think that Vienna is drivable? It doesn't strike me an any more or less drivable than anywhere else in Europe. It's certainly not Amsterdam. The entire SWPL fascination with non-driving cities, or for that matter opposed to sprawl, is just weird. So some people like to drive: That doesn't oppress you. I personally love suburban cities. Everything is so easy: You can hop in your car and be anywhere you want…
Much of Washington, DC, and the close-in suburbs, was built for a certain level of automobile traffic. Dad carpooled to work, Mom did the shopping on the days that Dad wasn't driving, the kids took a school bus or walked to school. On the average, you had a car per household. The streets worked well for that level of traffic.
Now two automobiles per household is standard. Mom works, and the kids may well be in a private school that they must be driven to. Narrow streets have cars parked on both sides. Main streets don't efficiently handle the volume of cars on them. The configuration of the Beltway works miserably at rush hour volume, when many cars entering on the right from River Road have a mile or less to fight across three lanes to get to I-270.
I am not oppressed. I neither envy nor resent those who drive. I just think that after a certain level of traffic it is inefficient.
Re: Vienna again named world's most liveable city
#104The more I travel, the more convinced I am that the American experiment with car oriented cities was a disaster that will take untold billions of dollars to rectify. It's affected everything from public safety (e.g. police can no longer walk a patrol), to loss of community (people don't really shop in the same place they live), lost productivity (stuck in traffic), and on and on and on. I'm very encouraged by recent,…
You don't think that Vienna is drivable? It doesn't strike me an any more or less drivable than anywhere else in Europe. It's certainly not Amsterdam. The entire SWPL fascination with non-driving cities, or for that matter opposed to sprawl, is just weird. So some people like to drive: That doesn't oppress you. I personally love suburban cities. Everything is so easy: You can hop in your car and be anywhere you want…
sprawl doesn't scale and isn't healthy.
it's bad for everyone: takes the wealth out of the cities - which means bad schools in the cities.
it leads to segregation.
It wastes massive amounts of time/energy commuting.
It makes you fat if the only exercise you get is the walk from a parking lot to your destination. why do you think the US is the fattest country in the world? sprawl.
Re: Vienna again named world's most liveable city
#105I live in Vienna and I see these surveys all the time. I moved in Vienna 2.5 years ago. Vienna is a good place to live (otherwise I would have left) provided you don't care about things that are simply not available, for example no real IT sector, no startup scene etc. It's okay, but it's nothing spectacular. I don't understand what these people find so fascinating about the city. My friends share my opinion too. I g…
I live in Vienna too and one thing I like in particular is that despite I live in a metropole with its 2 million inhabitants, I can jump on my bike in the summer, ride for twenty minutes to Donau, Vienna's river, and go for a swim, while being in nature. I can't think of any other city that offers what a world city has to offer, and being able to enjoy nature to the extent that I can swim in its river without worryin…
Sydney Australia. I suspect the harbour's beaches are bit warmer than the Donau too.
Re: Vienna again named world's most liveable city
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Behold: 1. Sprawl cities have shorter commutes [1 - compare sprawl king LA to NYC]. Even within dense places like Manhattan & EU cities, commutes take a long time. Whilst studying abroad in EU Subway Wonderland, my ~3mi subway+walk commute took 20-40mins. In Sprawl City USA, my 15mi commute took 15-20mins, with easy parking both sides. 2. This is common in dense urban cities: Parking in urban cities is a nightmare. P…
>2. This is common in dense urban cities: Parking in urban cities is a nightmare. Parking in suburban sprawl cities is a breeze. It seems like you missed the point entirely of samtp's comment on this one. He wasn't comparing "taking a long time parking" to "taking a short time parking", but was comparing "taking any time parking" versus "not having to park at all ". >3. Never seen the movie Pi? No. Would you care to…
2. Not sure there is a point to be had, then. Suburban places virtually always have ample parking (many claim there is too much parking!). It's not an inconvenience...
3. It's a great movie, you should see it! My point is simply that even living within NYC, you're not ensured to have social interaction. And likewise living in suburbia doesn't doom one to have little social interaction.
Re: Vienna again named world's most liveable city
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't think that Vienna is drivable? It doesn't strike me an any more or less drivable than anywhere else in Europe. It's certainly not Amsterdam. The entire SWPL fascination with non-driving cities, or for that matter opposed to sprawl, is just weird. So some people like to drive: That doesn't oppress you. I personally love suburban cities. Everything is so easy: You can hop in your car and be anywhere you want…
> So some people like to drive: That doesn't oppress you. I love driving too. But relative to walking or public transit, driving is hugely resource-intensive, it has high environmental costs, you get traffic problems if too many people do it, and it requires costly investments in public and private infrastructure -- road construction and maintenance, along with huge amounts of real estate devoted to parking -- that e…
>In an (economically) ideal world, we would properly tax all the negative environmental externalities, ban free parking, and charge a small fee for the use of public roads.
Totally on board with you!
Of course, there are supposedly large subsidies to public transport as well - and just think of the Muni busses, which would get the double whammy of having to internalize all of the costs you list PLUS the government subsidies!
Until the externalities are internalized, though, there's no need to go on an anti-suburbia anti-car crusade. Maybe suburbia would become more popular with all of the externalities fixed: Private busses could take much toil out of long distance car commutes.
Re: Vienna again named world's most liveable city
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So some people like to drive: That doesn't oppress you. I love driving too. But relative to walking or public transit, driving is hugely resource-intensive, it has high environmental costs, you get traffic problems if too many people do it, and it requires costly investments in public and private infrastructure -- road construction and maintenance, along with huge amounts of real estate devoted to parking -- that e…
>In an (economically) ideal world, we would properly tax all the negative environmental externalities, ban free parking, and charge a small fee for the use of public roads. Totally on board with you! Of course, there are supposedly large subsidies to public transport as well - and just think of the Muni busses, which would get the double whammy of having to internalize all of the costs you list PLUS the government su…
The two major subsidies for cars are gas (which should cost several times its current US price) and parking (which is often provided free by businesses using otherwise-valuable real estate). Neither of those subsidies really apply to public transit, even buses, though transit does receive relatively minor subsidies of its own.
> Until the externalities are internalized, though, there's no need to go on an anti-suburbia anti-car crusade.
Precisely the opposite: once the externalities are internalized, how anyone spends their money is no one else's business. But until that point, cars still have huge negative externalities, i.e. they are actively hurting society, so it's perfectly reasonable to crusade against them!
Re: Vienna again named world's most liveable city
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
>In an (economically) ideal world, we would properly tax all the negative environmental externalities, ban free parking, and charge a small fee for the use of public roads. Totally on board with you! Of course, there are supposedly large subsidies to public transport as well - and just think of the Muni busses, which would get the double whammy of having to internalize all of the costs you list PLUS the government su…
The two major subsidies for cars are gas (which should cost several times its current US price) and parking (which is often provided free by businesses using otherwise-valuable real estate). Neither of those subsidies really apply to public transit, even buses, though transit does receive relatively minor subsidies of its own. > Until the externalities are internalized, though, there's no need to go on an anti-suburb…
1. Parking provided by businesses is not free. It's already internalized. Only free city parking is not internalized.
2. You show only that the governments are failing to internalize these costs. Don't punish the users: punish the governments. They're the ones in the wrong.
Re: Vienna again named world's most liveable city
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
The two major subsidies for cars are gas (which should cost several times its current US price) and parking (which is often provided free by businesses using otherwise-valuable real estate). Neither of those subsidies really apply to public transit, even buses, though transit does receive relatively minor subsidies of its own. > Until the externalities are internalized, though, there's no need to go on an anti-suburb…
1. Parking provided by businesses is not free. It's already internalized. Only free city parking is not internalized. 2. You show only that the governments are failing to internalize these costs. Don't punish the users: punish the governments. They're the ones in the wrong.
Governments are controlled by people (at least with democracies), people want cheap subsidized private transportation, so the people get what they want until its not tenable anymore.