Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

governing.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 370 posts

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#191

Post by PrisonerofWS »

It's absolute pie in the sky to think Americans will give up their cars. Walkability is great for a sunny Saturday morning farmers market. But that's not going to move the needle on carbon in any significant way. Living in a "walkable" neighborhood with two cars in the driveway is like recycling. It makes us feel like we're doing something meaningful to rationalize all the junk we buy on Amazon.

But one car per household would make a significant difference. It's not just carbon emissions. It's also the energy required to manufacture and ship the second car. You can still drive anywhere, anytime but one car forces you to coordinate and make choices. Gotta start somewhere.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#192

Post by newobj »

PrisonerofWS wrote: post #191

It's absolute pie in the sky to think Americans will give up their cars. Walkability is great for a sunny Saturday morning farmers market. But that's not going to move the needle on carbon in any significant way. Living in a "walkable" neighborhood with two cars in the driveway is like recycling. It makes us feel like we're doing something meaningful to rationalize all the junk we buy on Amazon. But one car per house…

It’s actually possible for walkability to have nothing to do with environmentalism.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#193

Post by generalizations »

PrisonerofWS wrote: post #191

It's absolute pie in the sky to think Americans will give up their cars. Walkability is great for a sunny Saturday morning farmers market. But that's not going to move the needle on carbon in any significant way. Living in a "walkable" neighborhood with two cars in the driveway is like recycling. It makes us feel like we're doing something meaningful to rationalize all the junk we buy on Amazon. But one car per house…

> one car forces you to coordinate and make choices

Choices like, "oh, I can't live in the country because my spouse can't go anywhere while I'm at work an hour away."

One car per household is a great way to lower the quality of life for a large fraction of households.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#195

Post by pxeboot »

PrisonerofWS wrote: post #191

It's absolute pie in the sky to think Americans will give up their cars. Walkability is great for a sunny Saturday morning farmers market. But that's not going to move the needle on carbon in any significant way. Living in a "walkable" neighborhood with two cars in the driveway is like recycling. It makes us feel like we're doing something meaningful to rationalize all the junk we buy on Amazon. But one car per house…

> It's absolute pie in the sky to think Americans will give up their cars.

Yep. I live in a very walkable neighborhood and walk to work. Almost everybody else still drives a full size truck or SUV, even if they are only going a few blocks.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#196

Post by browningstreet »

jackson1442 wrote: post #5

I like my car and I like driving. That said, I don't like driving _everywhere_. When I moved to university, it was incredibly freeing to just be able to walk somewhere I wanted to go rather than getting in my car and driving miles to get anywhere. I grew up in a suburb in Texas so walking anywhere except _maybe_ a friend's house was entirely out of the question. I visited Portland recently and it was lovely to be abl…

I live adjacent to a mid- sized downtown area. It’s walkable, but from my house to anything on the other side of it… not as walkable. Driving it is very annoying though… lights, weird traffic patterns, a million turns, one way streets, etc. if any single one of those roads were converted to a bike only street, it’d be 100x easier and more rewarding to bike it.

I wish American towns… especially the smaller ones where streets are too narrow for bike lanes, would embrace no-car streets. The fact that they don’t exist AT ALL is disheartening.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#197

Post by granshaw »

iammisc wrote: post #6
foxpurple wrote: post #2

I recently moved from a house in the suburbs in Australia to an apartment in the city. Got rid of my car and now I just walk to everything I need. I couldn’t be happier. Driving was such a huge stress on my life that is now gone. I can get anything I need within a 10 minute walk. The thing is it just doesn’t seem like the average person is willing to give up single family houses to gain walkability. For me, I would n…

Or... hear me out. You could just build walkable suburbs. Why there is a distinction between 'suburb' and 'smaller city' is beyond me, but there really is. A small city still has a walkable downtown core with apartments around which there is a small area of single family homes within walking distance to the downtown area. A suburb is just tracts of single family homes and nothing else for miles on end. No real 'busin…

This exists in some areas for example the closer Chicago “suburbs” like Lakeview

There the lot sizes aren’t big so there’s density, but at the same time no high rises so it still feels pleasant. And every few blocks is zoned commercial

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#198

Post by notatoad »

robbedpeter wrote: post #177
notatoad wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i was just reading an article in my local paper this morning about a new building in town that got a zoning variance approved. it's a ten-unit visitor accomodation development, and they have ten parking stalls on the property (which is less than the minimum parking spaces code requires). there was apparently a 45-minute debate at the council meeting where neighbours were arguing that the development should be denied…

During holidays, visitors can mean many more than two additional cars per family. Living in that building means choosing not to entertain friends and family, or irritating the crap out of your neighbors by taking up the parking. If they're lucky, they'll be communicative and work out parking custody, but more than likely it'll be a resentful petty mess.

it is visitor accomodation - like a hotel. nobody lives in it, it's just ten hotel suites.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#200

Post by matttproud »

notJim wrote: post #31
standardUser wrote: post #4

Add up the roads, parking spaces, parking garages, gas stations (not to mention auto shops, drive thrus and car washes) and the total urban footprint is a gargantuan 50-60% by many calculations. That's not automatically a bad thing, especially if you are a car, but all of that space creates massive buffers separating all of the other stuff that humans want to walk to. To make it worse, those buffers are far and away…

Something I only recently learned is that zoning rules generally require housing developments to include a certain amount of parking. This drives up the cost of housing, because of the space required (either up or out.) Many cities are reducing or eliminating these requirements in an effort to make housing more affordable. However, it does mean that parking will become harder, as there will be more competition for st…

If you want an introduction into the policy side, read:

Duany, et al.’s Suburban Nation. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780865477506

Kunstler‘s Geography of Nowhere. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Geography-Of-Nowhere/...

It is extremely dismal but also theoretically fixable for future development.

Post reply on HN