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

#201

Post by goodpoint » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #66

I love dense urban areas, but I'm not sure I buy the human connection angle. I've never felt so alone when living in cities. Something about constantly being surrounded by people makes you less likely to want to get to know them. Now that I live a bit more rural, I've found myself much more likely to get to know people. It helps that things aren't always busy or packed, and I can linger a bit more and have more pleas…

Most car-centric suburban sprawls encourage social isolation.

Dense urban areas - it really depends. YMMV indeed.

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

#202

Post by dont__panic » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #156

AlwaysRock wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the hardest parts about buying a home, apart from all the stuff that isnt fun about buying a home, is finding somewhere that is walkable to... anything. I've rented my whole life and spent my entire adult life in cities. The idea of having to get in the car to get milk or something from the corner store, or have to drive to ANY restaurant, or not have some type of walking/running path within a few blocks of my…

Town around 50000 is a good bet then. If you can work remotely, find a college town and live outside the center, about a mile. You can bike to anything, take the bus, or just walk. I did this. I have 100 restaurants, too many bars to count, music and theatre (three!) and festivals and arts within trivial distances. No car needed.

Even smaller towns are viable, too. My New England town has around 5,000 people in it. Aside from the early closing times for restaurants and breweries, (8 or 9!?!?!?!), I have access to exactly the same amenities I had in cities before. And lots more outdoor-oriented things as well. Plus... no traffic.

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

#203

Post by jimmaswell » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

dont__panic wrote: post #153

badpun wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I work from home. I'd still rather drive most of the time than rely on transit and live anywhere more dense. E-biking is nice and I do it for exercise often, but I wouldn't want to do it in the snow or rain, even with perfect separate bike lanes, no matter how much Netherlanders insist it's no big deal. Yep. Not to mention, biking excludes a lot of people and is pretty ableist to be honest. I for one get sick very…

Recumbent bikes, e-bikes, and other alternatives ( https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/who-else-benef... ) make "bike infrastructure" accessible to pretty much anyone. Considering the fact that it's impossible to live in the USA outside of a nursing home if you lose your ability to drive due to old age... I'm not sure accessibility is a great argument for car-centric infrastructure.

What percentage of people who are too old and disabled to drive a car are fit to ride a bike instead?

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

#204

Post by trgn » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

neves wrote: post #12

I took a lot of time to understand that American slums are parking lots with trailers.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

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

#205

Post by dangus » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #96

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'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…

Air pollution: Caused by what? Probably cars.

Noise pollution: Caused by what? Probably cars. (Sure, some sirens here and there, but rural and suburban living doesn't make you immune to the sounds of train crossings, highways, jake brakes, motorcycles, etc).

Annoying neighbors, smell/hearing through walls:

1. Easily mitigated through smart building design and practices, enforced by building code.

2. You can have completely detached single family homes and still build walkable transit-oriented suburbs just by sticking to some simple development practices:

- Banning subdevelopments that disconnect form the city street grid, requiring residential neighborhoods to fit into a holistic city plan rather than farm parcels being sold where the city greenlights residential development projects without an ounce of thought to how it integrates with the town/city.

- Prohibiting neighborhood designs that increase walking distance, like winding roads and cul-de-sacs.

- Building traffic-separated, safe, pleasant cycling and walking infrastructure that offer a workable alternative to driving

- Building roads with traffic calming measures in mind. For example, unnecessarily wide suburban neighborhood streets encourage speeding.

- Properly funding transit service and removing social stigma against transit usage ("I won't take the bus that's for poor people" - we literally need government ad campaigns to help change minds on the issue just like those used to promote seatbelts.

- Prohibiting parking lots against streets, like in big box store developments. Parking should be required to exist in the back of the lot wherever possible.

- Removing mandatory parking minimums. Believe it or not, real estate developers don't naturally want to build parking lots that can't make a return on investment. They're often required to by the city to make them in order to...you guessed it...help ease traffic!

- Prohibiting excessive dead space/green space/setbacks in developments.

Overall, I don't agree that there are downsides to walkable areas that have to exist.

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

#206

Post by econonut » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #110

mminer237 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because the young people online are much more drawn to the active, exciting urban lifestyle than the average American. The average American would much rather have the safety, quiet, and just space that comes with suburban living. People want yards to play with their kids, and that sort of spread-out living just necessitates cars. Housing prices aren't high because of cars. Housing prices are high because…

While all that might be true, it is also true that hardly anyone would be willing to cover the true cost of living in rural areas far away from things. In pretty much every country I'm aware of the urban population is strongly subsidising the rural. And that is only covering first order cost (just look at the massive subsidies to get broadband to rural communities), if we would put prizes on second order cost like po…

Could you be specific about how the urban population is subsidizing the rural? Also, where does most of your food come from?

What do you mean in regards to CO2? I'd suggest that many people living a rural lifestyle completely offset their CO2 footprint due to carbon sequestration. I know I have enough trees and vegetation on my acreage to completely offset my carbon emissions. But, of course, to counter your argument I really only need to offset the extra emissions that come with driving an extra n miles into the city.

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

#207

Post by itsoktocry » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

dont__panic wrote: post #167

sleepdreamy wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? Just curious

Many European cities have walkable downtown streets closed to cars with lots of successful businesses. Burlington, VT. Boulder, CO. Old Town Arvada, CO. All have very successful pedestrian-only streets in the USA with lots of healthy businesses.

Yeah, tourist-centric destinations can do things like this. We do it where I live too, in the summer. Closing down a few streets is a world away from banning cars from downtown. How many people can actually live in an area like that?

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

#208

Post by pif » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #182

falcolas wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the hardest parts about buying a home, apart from all the stuff that isnt fun about buying a home, is finding somewhere that is walkable to... anything. That's because if you want an individual home, you're giving up the customer density required to make those amenities viable. In a world with the internet, at-home delivery, and yes, cars, it's simply not economically viable to create a grocery store that on…

That’s just wrong. The village I come from in germany has 8000 inhabitants, pretty much only single/double houses, practically no flats and perfectly walkable. Multiple bakeries and grocery stores, never further than 15 minutes walk. It’s just that these small groceries cannot outcompete supermarkets once people are in the habit of going everywhere by car.

Parent wrote:

> it's simply not economically viable

You replied:

> t’s just that these small groceries cannot outcompete supermarkets

So you are confirming what he said.

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

#209

Post by falcolas » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:09 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…

> In the not so distant past, even rural places had (limited) access to public transportation

Actually, rural America has fantastic public transportation - if you're attending public school. Everyone else is SOL.

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

#210

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

woopwoop wrote: post #107

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…

Manhattan does not sit atop some massive pile of natural resources. Opportunity is great there exactly because there are so many people. Network effects are large. By the way, I do not think New York is expensive because it is desirable. It is expensive because it is desirable, there aren't enough places to live, and they aren't building more because of regulations. But it would not be expensive if no one wanted to l…

This is satire, right?

NYC is located at the mouth of the Hudson and one end of Long Island sound, two relatively sheltered waterways. For hundreds of years this facilitated huge amounts of resource extraction from the region. Upon this resource extraction economy resource processing was built. Naturally it was located where the labor was the the products flowed through, the port. From there industrialization and an industrialized economy way built upon the resource processing. Through little other than historical luck of geography of the industries (that really took hold in NYC was finance. It has been that finance industry that has carried NYC through the transition to a service economy.

So basically, NYC is valuable today because it was yesterday and if you follow the recursion back to the base case you find natural resources.

While the natural resources are now gone or irrelevant they were the startup capital for the NYC we have today. There is no inherent value to a mass of people unless there is some productive activity for them to engage in. NYC got lucky and developed a finance industry. See Detroit for what happens when you don't make the transition.