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Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

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Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#161

Post by BrianHenryIE »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #145
xibalba wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not faster to way to discredit oneself than to offer a pat, single variable explanation. As others point out, Americans like and want to transport themselves by car. Let's accept this, work with it, and build around it instead of lusting after a minority defined Utopia.

Well said. Another angle is the race angle. Most people advocating for lesser cars are young, healthy, rich and white. Healthy enough to not use cars and rich enough to live near work. https://theconversation.com/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-cycl... The group that talks about systemic racism is perpetuating it.

Take a hypothetical scenario (not dissimilar to war breaking out in WW2, and not dissimilar to the 2020 global pandemic upending our lives) – where the private motor vehicle is gone.

Society (cities) would quickly re-orientate themselves so work wasn't so far away from home. So shops weren't on the outskirts of town.

Your argument is predicated on cars existing. On cars causing the problem you suggest they solve.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#162

Post by chroem- »

gyc wrote: post #159
chroem- wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our vision is to build the first car-free city in the US What if I like my car, and the ability to easily travel outside the city limits that comes along with it?

Then you would probably choose to live somewhere else?

I'm raising this point because it seems like an idea that's mostly targeted at a very specific HN subculture. The shared area in the venn diagram of people who want to live without cars and people who want to live outside the urban core of a large city is quite small.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#163

Post by AussieWog93 »

iammisc wrote: post #103
AussieWog93 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is going to be controversial, but in the west, the ultimate cause of the decline in objective beauty is a rejection of Christianity, which, for millenia in the west, has insisted that there is such a thing as objective beauty. Just to play Devil's advocate, if that theory held up you'd expect there to be a correlation between how religious people in a given area are and how much they value architecture. Yet, fo…

No not really. Protestantism is so divorced from traditional Christianity as to be something else. Half the gospel preached is terrible new age nonsense bearing no resemblance to Christianity. If we look at more catholic countries in the Americas, the middle class neighborhoods do look nicer in my opinion. Edit: I should specify I don't believe this is specific to catholicism. Other religions also embrace beauty, lik…

Fair enough. Any Irish people reading this? Which areas are more architecturally beautiful? Catholic or Protestant?

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#164

Post by thex10 »

throwawaysea wrote: post #110
tortarga wrote: post #63

As the article hinted at the simple answer is Car Dependency. Suburbs are regulated and built to accommodate cars now and not people. The topic is explored thouroughly on the 'Not Just Bikes' youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes which uses information from urban planning group 'Strong Towns' https://www.strongtowns.org/ .

I often see urbanists and young people fantasize about life in car free mega cities. Having lived that life for years I can’t imagine why. A lot of cities that are beautiful and attractive also have room for cars. I would even argue it is a big part of what makes those cities attractive. There’s no substitute for the point to point on demand fast transportation that cars offer. In cities that aren’t overbuilt, it mak…

> I often see urbanists and young people fantasize about life in car free mega cities. Having lived that life for years I can’t imagine why.

I for one simply don't want to pay the to own and maintain a car, preferring instead to rent one or purchase a ride (via taxi or rideshare etc) as needed.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#165

Post by frankus »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #156
xibalba wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not faster to way to discredit oneself than to offer a pat, single variable explanation. As others point out, Americans like and want to transport themselves by car. Let's accept this, work with it, and build around it instead of lusting after a minority defined Utopia.

Right. It's not just car dependency, and ... it's Not Just Bikes either. It's almost a tautology to say that if you want to have a particular kind of nice neighborhood you'll have to include those uses in your planning. I think that most people want to be able to get from A to B in comfort, and are not necessarily married to one particular mode of transport. If the only way to get anywhere is by car, then of course p…

It’s worth remembering that for a lot of “A to B” trips the change in location is kind of incidental to the actual goal of shopping, socializing, dining out, etc. In other words you if locate a lot of “B”s close to your “A” (or vice versa) people will tend to be satisfied with slower modes like walking and biking (that also reduce the energy needed by a couple of orders of magnitude).

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#166

Post by kspacewalk2 »

throwawaysea wrote: post #110
tortarga wrote: post #63

As the article hinted at the simple answer is Car Dependency. Suburbs are regulated and built to accommodate cars now and not people. The topic is explored thouroughly on the 'Not Just Bikes' youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes which uses information from urban planning group 'Strong Towns' https://www.strongtowns.org/ .

I often see urbanists and young people fantasize about life in car free mega cities. Having lived that life for years I can’t imagine why. A lot of cities that are beautiful and attractive also have room for cars. I would even argue it is a big part of what makes those cities attractive. There’s no substitute for the point to point on demand fast transportation that cars offer. In cities that aren’t overbuilt, it mak…

"Car free" is a straw man that's easy to argue against, and misses the point. Rather, most urbanists call for cities that are fair to all who inhabit it, regardless of whether they are currently inside of a car. A bus that carries 50 ought to have priority over several cars that carry 1 apiece. Neighbourhoods should not be artificially embalmed in time by excessive zoning rules to only allow car-dependent architecture. People who live in a city should have an actual choice in terms of what density and transportation mode is best for them. (That definitely includes single family homes and cars). That'll obviously be different from person to person, and even more obviously that'll change over one's lifetime. So make a city liveable and navigable and interesting for those who are 8, 80 and everything in between. Make that the goal, and you'll be heading in the right direction.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#167

Post by UncleOxidant »

a2tech wrote: post #69
UncleOxidant wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cabinet making is a lost art. It used to be very common, but now most cabinetry is mass produced in factories so there aren't many people around who are skilled in the art.

Cabinets are not almost exclusively made to order in factories. At least the ones that aren't picked up in a box at Lowes. We just had a new bathroom installed and each cabinet was hand made--in a factory settings of course, to our specifications.

A lot of them are picked up in a box at Lowes (or Depot or Ikea). Sure you can have custom ones made in a factory, but 60+ years ago most every carpenter worth his (well, they mostly were male then) salt knew how to make decent cabinets. I went to an estate sale a few years back where the deceased had been a cabinet maker - the cabinets and homemade furniture were amazing.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#168

Post by short12 »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #157
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. Another angle is the race angle. Most people advocating for lesser cars are young, healthy, rich and white. Healthy enough to not use cars and rich enough to live near work. https://theconversation.com/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-cycl... The group that talks about systemic racism is perpetuating it.

"Healthy enough not to use cars" - man, that's a good one. I'll remember it next time my half-senile father in law has no other choice but to drive somewhere because there's no way around his car dependent neighbourhood - oh wait, that's every day.

If he is senile he should not be driving anywhere

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#169

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

BrianHenryIE wrote: post #150
xibalba wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not faster to way to discredit oneself than to offer a pat, single variable explanation. As others point out, Americans like and want to transport themselves by car. Let's accept this, work with it, and build around it instead of lusting after a minority defined Utopia.

Wrong. I tried to find the tweet, but it was succinctly put ~"it's said people in Los Angeles love their cars, but people in LA have no choice but to own a car, it's not love, it is necessity". In every city that has made a concerted effort to accommodate all modes of transport, driving as a percentage has gone down. "build it and they will come" is better suited to transport than it ever was to SaaS. It is easy to c…

Look, the fact is, even in places with excellent public transport, the car is still the best way to travel short of helicopter. How do we know this? Look at the rich and powerful of New York, they are driven to their destinations, they don't take the subway, and if they do, it's notably unusual.

Re: Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

#170

Post by BrianHenryIE »

bombcar wrote: post #120
throwawaysea wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often see urbanists and young people fantasize about life in car free mega cities. Having lived that life for years I can’t imagine why. A lot of cities that are beautiful and attractive also have room for cars. I would even argue it is a big part of what makes those cities attractive. There’s no substitute for the point to point on demand fast transportation that cars offer. In cities that aren’t overbuilt, it mak…

Even famously “mass transit unfriendly” cities can be fit for a car-free lifestyle if you work at it. But I suspect a huge part of it is visiting Europe or Asia as a tourist and enjoying being without a car. But they didn’t actually live there.

> Even famously “mass transit unfriendly” cities can be fit for a car-free lifestyle if you work at it.

I think it's such a pervasive meme that the US is bad for transit that people don't even try. I don't ever use cars (like twice in 450 days) AND I live beside one of the major transport hubs in my city (65/Folsom in Sacramento), yet I don't know where or when buses could bring me.

There is a dearth in communication.

I was in Orlando last week and the buses were great, and empty.

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