Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection • Hacker News Board

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#171

Post by seabrookmx » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #111

seabrookmx wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making public transit better would also really help. Then you can access those things 10m away in a similar amount of time. For large items you'd use a car or pickup for, businesses would adapt by offering delivery. It's definitely possible, but the infrastructure investment would be gargantuan.

I'd love better public transit. But public transit in rural areas (and there will always be rural areas as long as there are farms and ranches, and communities to support them) is minimal to non-existent. Use is infrequent, meaning it would either have to be subsidized, which never makes folks in the city happy, or cost an arm and a leg per trip, making it impractical for rural users.

Yeah you have to draw the line somewhere. I grew up in a town of a few thousand people, 45m drive from the nearest "city."

With that population density it's never going to make sense to put something like light rail on that route. So these people will continue to use cars. And that's fine.. hopefully cars continue to get safer and easier on the environment.

I think it's the urban/suburban sprawls akin to LA that really could benefit from better transit/walkability.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#172

Post by spiffage » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #151

dont__panic wrote: post #22

I've seen so much anti-car, pro-walkability, pro-transit, pro-bikeability sentiment online recently. I really hope this is proof of the younger generations -- Millenials, Zoomers, and younger folks even -- waking up to the idea that the USA in particular has become a toxic environment thanks to cars. WFH was a big wakeup call, I think -- once you step away from the commute for a year or two, trying to sit in traffic…

I can relate to this! I lived parts of my life in car-only and walkable places. I so prefer walkability! But, it has downsides. Walkability, in a rich country, means insane real estate prices (in a poor country people don't have enough disposable income after food, clothing etc to create an auction effect). In a poor country on the other hand, it means crime. In rich country even poor people have cars so crime is mor…

Walkability in rich countries is expensive precisely because lots of people want walkability, and that want is underserved. It's signal that we should allow more of it to happen!

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#173

Post by umvi » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

kiba wrote: post #120

umvi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in highly walkable, pro-transit areas. It does have benefits, don't get me wrong. The flip side of the coin is that those areas usually have high population density. That comes with a lot of its own cons - noise pollution, air pollution, annoying neighbors you can hear and smell through your walls, etc. To avoid these cons, a lot of Americans want their own house on their own property and doing that means…

Noise and air pollution are in part caused by cars. Meanwhile in the suburb, you have lawn mowers and leaf blowers, which I absolutely hate with a passion. I don't know about annoying neighbors and smells. That seems to be a design and engineering issue.

> I don't know about annoying neighbors and smells.

If you live in a lower income area, get used to your condo/townhouse occasionally smelling like marijuana and/or tobacco whenever the neighbors decide to hotbox. Also get used to arguments and loud music late at night on weekends.

> That seems to be a design and engineering issue.

I'm sure you could build hermetically and acoustically sealed condos that keep out all unwanted noises and smells, but those sound like "rich people" condos that are not very economical.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#174

Post by bowsamic » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #100

hi41 wrote: post #16

Our homes are also designed in way that causes alienation from family members. Many rooms have TV and the seating is arranged in such a way that we can compulsively watch to dull our anxiety instead of having meaningful conversations with wife and kids. This is the default and without everyone’s okay in the family it’s hard to change this.

The seating arrangement in a house is entirely up to you. Hard to believe, but there's not even a hard government-mandated requirement on where your TV is positioned or fee if you forego it. At any rate, most homes have far more flexibility in seating arrangements and remodeling possibilities than your average apartment does. They also tend to have more outdoor seating and arrangements that make it easier for social…

No post body was provided.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#175

Post by navbaker » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

Invictus0 wrote: post #28

dont__panic wrote: post #22

I've seen so much anti-car, pro-walkability, pro-transit, pro-bikeability sentiment online recently. I really hope this is proof of the younger generations -- Millenials, Zoomers, and younger folks even -- waking up to the idea that the USA in particular has become a toxic environment thanks to cars. WFH was a big wakeup call, I think -- once you step away from the commute for a year or two, trying to sit in traffic…

I honestly think that most Americans have not traveled enough to realize there is a better way. Only 30% of Americans even have a passport.

Do you realize how massively big the US is and how incredibly diverse of an experience you can have just traveling to the next state over? Having a passport/leaving the country isn't a requirement to see that there is a better or different way to live.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#176

Post by jmyeet » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

The USA is really hostile to anyone who doesn’t want to have a car or perhaps more importantly can’t have a car. Who can’t have a car? People with certain disabilities for one.

Not a car-centric life has its origins in keeping poor people out and redlining. Now neighborhoods might not be legally segregated (sunset towns still exist however) but if those houses are so expensive that poor people can’t afford them then it amounts to de facto segregation.

You will hear counterarguments like “how can a highway be racist?” but when you look at what neighborhoods were destroyed to make room for that highway and the net effects of intergenerational wealth creation it turns out a highway can be racist.

Even something like turning right on red is so hostile to cyclists and pedestrians. This was originally introduced in the OPEC oil crisis to reduce car idling but despite clear evidence that it increases danger to cyclist and pedestrians it’s still here. Why? Driver convenience trumps everything.

When it comes to walkability most Americans still want their cars and will nearly always choose more space over walkability.

Even when they do want walkability what they talk mean is they still want their large house on an acre lot that happens to be walkable and that just doesn’t scale.

I also believe that America’s car worship contributes to the profound selfishness and lack of empathy of most Americans. It’s a bubble that allows you not to have to deal with other people.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#177

Post by Steltek » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #147

I love the car and car culture. I've road tripped across the U.S. and live in an RV. I will never go back to living in an apartment. There's no human connection there. I spent years living in apartments and maybe met one or two people, with no meaningful connections ever developed. Cars are great for road tripping, and America is highly optimized for it. You can, with the same vehicle, without unpacking once, travel…

Your positive examples all have one thing in common: they're not happening in cities. Just because a car makes sense in the countryside or beach does not mean it makes sense inside of a city.

A problem with our approach to urban planning is that we get large, sterile apartment buildings or detached single family homes but absolutely nothing in between. If that missing middle was allowed by right, you'd find what I enjoy right now: both human connections and a car-lite lifestyle.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#178

Post by phil21 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

frenchy wrote: post #56

Invictus0 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think that most Americans have not traveled enough to realize there is a better way. Only 30% of Americans even have a passport.

30% of people can be a lot of people, expecially in a political environment where there are only 2 parties, and the district lines are optimized/gerimandered. Also, you really don't have to travel to realize that life can be different elsewhere. In fact, if you're going for an out-of-touch idealized belief, not traveling is almost a benefit: see "Paris syndrome".

> Also, you really don't have to travel to realize that life can be different elsewhere.

I think you sort of do, or at least I did.

I like to think I realized quite well that life could be wildly different throughout the world - it's what motivated my initial travels.

Hearing about how the Netherlands does transit vs. actually feeling and experiencing it immersed over a month of living there is just an entirely different level of understanding.

In this example I went from thinking the NL style transit is pretty neato, to now thinking that transportation is one of the most fundamental pieces that forms a society and it's future. It's not just energy and moving mass around. Get transportation wrong and you will fundamentally break society in unexpected ways.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#179

Post by ThatGeoGuy » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

deltarholamda wrote: post #124

mtalantikite wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is advocating that rural America, or even most of exurban America, should be accessible by public transit. It's just that we literally only have one city in the entire United States that has a massive subway and bus system that operates 24 hours, which allows you to live without a car. It'd be great to have more cities as dense as NYC in this country.

>It'd be great to have more cities as dense as NYC in this country. Yes, but remember that density is not without its problems as well. Socially of course, but also practically--density requires more competent urban management for things like sewer and water, which the US is famous for being awful at. In the not so distant past, even rural places had (limited) access to public transportation. My mother lived way out…

This seems like scare-mongering, or FUD, in my humble opinion.

The reason that sewage and water is so hard to get right in the United States is in part due to sprawl, as well as the lack of political will to actually maintain infrastructure once it is built.

A bit of a deflection I'll admit but - look at the NY subway. It barely receives the funding to keep basic maintenance afloat. Compared to equivalently sized systems in Europe it fails because there's a massive political diaspora to overcome since culturally taking transit is "for the poors" (you know what that translates to) and we can't be giving them anything.

Similar holds true for sewage and water (for water, look at Flint Michigan). Housing, transportation, zoning, etc. are all the same problem. The reasons we fail at them are all connected and without taking a holistic approach we likely will remain bad at it. Pointing to any one thing and claiming "well even if we do that we'll still suck at 99% of everything else" isn't really a helpful description of reality, it just means there's more work to do.

I guess what I would really push back on in your argument is the point that higher density requires higher competence. At some meaningless level, sure, we have engineers that have to solve harder problems. But the reasons that the US is bad at a lot of urbanist policies isn't because we lack competency (you could just hire people from overseas) - it's because we've allowed ourselves to build a system that incentivizes that incompetency at multiple levels through restrictive zoning, endless veto privileges a la "community feedback" / NIMBYism, car culture and the social disdain for what is perceived as normal in other countries (trains, bikes), etc.

This isn't a problem with the US geographically or its people, and the problems have solutions. I think if you talk to most people in cities they probably agree wholly or in part on a lot of fronts, even if there's still a prevailing "got mine" attitude depending on where you ask.

Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

#180

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #93

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would be if there wasn't so much money to be made in Manhattan. The price of Manhattan apartments has almost nothing to do with how desirable it is - other than the fact that desirability is largely a function of the financial opportunities there. Park City, Utah is expensive and nothing like Manhattan - so is Malibu and Ketchum, Idaho. San Jose is a large city and much more expensive than NYC (in terms of house…

You’re comparing incomparable values. San Jose house prices are high because you can’t amortize the land costs. Square foot by square foot, Manhattan land is far more expensive than San Jose. Chicago land may appear cheaper, but it’s only because they have higher taxes on it than San Jose.

> Square foot by square foot, Manhattan land is far more expensive than San Jose.

People can't finance land. You finance housing. Sqft / sqft for housing, Manhattan is not much more expensive. The land is much more expensive BECAUSE you can build much more housing.