Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work • Hacker News Board

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#171

Post by zjaffee » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 1:26 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #151

zjaffee wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you live in downtown, as that's the only neighborhood that fits all of those things within walking distance. The majority of people who live in LA, live somewhere nestled into the bigger sprawl that is the region. While there are plenty of neighborhoods that have walkable aspects, the city is by no means walkable (even with transit) to huge portions of the city.

West Hollywood, Hollywood, Sunset, Santa Monica, there are a lot of walkable areas in the LA metro.

Sunset is hardly part of a broader walkable neighborhood, it's a single street where there are various gaps along it where there's little built for the pedestrian. Parts of Hollywood, Downtown Santa Monica, Koreatown, Downtown, and Westlake are in my experience the only truly walkable areas. There are a few more where you can walk for some things, but you'd likely still need a car unless you were to order everything you buy online.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#172

Post by zjaffee » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 1:27 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #145

zjaffee wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you live in downtown, as that's the only neighborhood that fits all of those things within walking distance. The majority of people who live in LA, live somewhere nestled into the bigger sprawl that is the region. While there are plenty of neighborhoods that have walkable aspects, the city is by no means walkable (even with transit) to huge portions of the city.

Actually, it sounds like he/she doesn’t live downtown. I had all that when I was living in Westwood, which is far far far aaay from downtown, but I could have had that in belverly hills, or Culver City, or even (but just barely) Brentwood.

What museum is walkable from westwood?

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#173

Post by ilaksh » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 1:48 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #167

ilaksh wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is that most cities are nothing like New York. The density is just completely different.

I didn't live in a very dense part of New York; I lived on the border between Queens and Long Island, and pretty much my entire neighborhood, and all the neighborhoods for miles, basically consisted of single-family detached homes with small yards and backyards. The main ingredient that you need for carfree kids to work is usable transit. And by usable, I mean it was frequent; if I missed my bus I would only ever be…

Queens has a population density of 20000 per square mile. The average US urban area is 283 per square mile.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#174

Post by Finnucane » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 1:53 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #140

Finnucane wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 19th century many American urban centers become quite densely built up with all manners of buildings. These urban centers were also prone to fire. A number of cities experienced major fires that wiped out large swaths of what had been built. So they got rebuilt with more modern structures.

Most of the terrible modernism comes from the postwar era, when city planners would drive concrete highways through minority neighborhoods and bulldoze "slums" for modernist housing projects that were supposed to cure society's ills.

I’ll take “what is Scollay Square “ for $500. The point being that it’s not a linear progression. And we won’t mention what two world wars did to cities in Europe.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#175

Post by grabbby » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 2:31 AM UTC

Grabbing really only takes on a disconcerting tone when your grabbing tits, grabbing ass, grabbing them by the balls.

When the context is food, it’s mostly harmless.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#176

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 2:31 AM UTC

SystemOut wrote: post #100

I don't understand why Americans love their cars so much. I grew up in Oklahoma and you pretty much have to have a car. Huge amount of land, not many people. Virtually no public transportation. I moved to the Bay Area back in 2000 and car-pooled for exactly one year of that time and then took BART the other 16 years before moving to Chicago. Even though I like driving I really hate traffic. Why would I sit in traffic…

Why would I sit in traffic when I can read/sleep/work/etc.

This might sound really weird, but I actually in ways miss my long commutes when I live and work in the burbs or was working from home full time with a short commute. The commute gave me time to unwind, listen to podcasts, and just not have to deal with people between the time I was at work and was at home.

But I don't know why folks don't push for mass transit more in cities.

In my neck of the woods, the people in the affluent burbs actually push against mass transit because it makes it too easy for “those people” to come up here. Yes my complexion associates me one of “those people”.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#177

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 2:35 AM UTC

johngorse wrote: post #54

Why do people with car drive alone to work? There is a big chance that someone from your neighborhood is going at least in your direction. We practice co-driving in Europe all the time.

I don’t want to deal with other people when I am in the car. I like the solitude. Some days I may be working from home, some days I may go in late and/or stay late. I don’t want the responsibility of being a means of transportation for another adult.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#178

Post by clairity » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 3:26 AM UTC

zjaffee wrote: post #172

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it sounds like he/she doesn’t live downtown. I had all that when I was living in Westwood, which is far far far aaay from downtown, but I could have had that in belverly hills, or Culver City, or even (but just barely) Brentwood.

What museum is walkable from westwood?

the hammer (it's free now too): https://hammer.ucla.edu/

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#179

Post by clairity » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 3:45 AM UTC

zjaffee wrote: post #170

clairity wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't. downtown is dense but isn't remarkable for walkability in LA (until relatively recently it wasn't even particularly walkable). my listed criteria wasn't even complete, just what came to mind in the 30 seconds i thought about it. there are plenty of neighborhoods that are walkable in LA (silverlake, hollywood, highland park, even north hollywood, etc.). the whole city doesn't need to be reachable by foot to b…

None of those neighborhoods are walking distance to museums unless I'm forgetting something. Additionally, I wouldn't call silverlake a walkable neighborhood but I'll give you the other ones. My definition would be could you live comfortably without ever using a car, such as being able to go grocery shopping without having to walk a ton, be near enough to the rail system such that you can get around easily, be in a n…

silverlake: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/holyland-exhibition

i'll leave it to you to find the others, but one of my faves in culver city is the museum of jurassic technology (has a rooftop aviary): http://mjt.org/

> "My definition would be could you live comfortably without ever using a car"

that's a pretty high bar. how would you move in/out without a car/truck/van? carry everything by hand? i don't own a car but i use one periodically.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#180

Post by clairity » Wed, Jan 23, 2019, 3:52 AM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #156

clairity wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gotcha. san diego is probably the only place with better weather, if that's possible, and seemingly with more intermingled trees (a good portion of LA's trees are in the hills dividing the valleys and basins). venice is super-walkable, and i'd guess it's better to live in the venice/santa monica bubble without a car than with, because getting out of the westside is awful by car for large parts of the day. within the…

How many people can A) afford to live in Venice Beach and B) manage to get a job within walking distance?

a bunch on HN? those two things are now correlated since tech took over venice (particularly snapchat) and prices skyrocketed. venice was actually somewhat affordable for a beach area not that long ago (unlike santa monica or malibu).