271–280 of 699 posts
Not sure what your situation is but there are a fair number of options for people who are decent programmers to move to Europe permanently..
This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense…
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Many suburbanites, however, have the entitled attitude that cities should accommodate their car trips to dense areas at the expense of people actually living there. Often their mindset is that cities are strictly where people go instead of where people live . In the US this mentality is exarcebated by the white flight and the decay of inner cities, but does also exist in Europe.
I don't know how it is outside of Canada, but here in Toronto what drives me insane is that Cities are essentially completely beholden to the province and it makes everything worse. Something simple like setting up a toll to use city streets to reduce congestion is completely off the table. We end up highly taxing corporate zoned housing to try to kinda indirectly tax the work place of the suburbanites that are makin…
I don't necessarily think suburbia is the culprit for traffic though. It probably is in North America where suburbs often means "not even public transport available to the city". They were planned for and built for cars! My suburb was not. People lived here before cars too.
I use public transport for most of my needs (including commuting) and drive very few miles per year - but I use my car many times for short distances, mostly things like picking up kids from daycare etc.
This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense…
"But privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are an archaic solution to the transportation problem, and they are not effective in today's society." Don't assume that every place is like the place you know. Visit the US, particularly the Midwest, and you'll come to understand why privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are the only solution to this particular transportation problem. The major cities are too dispersed with countle…
From Wikipedia: "There was a dense system of inter-city railways in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but after the decline of passenger railroad in North America in the 1960s, the inter-city lines decreased greatly and today the system is far less dense."
Wisconsin used to have inter-city rail servicing most/all of its population centers and even many of the smaller towns: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3701p.rr006200/?r=0.514,0.298,...
Yes, today cars are the default, but that took a long time. Things will continue to change and it's hard to predict exactly how.
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I think what stops most people is the 50% paycut compared to US salaries I'd move to Berlin in a heartbeat if it weren't for that
It's not a fair comparison though. Yes, the salary is lower, but you can free or almost free healthcare, you get many vacation days, you get vacation money (at least in the netherlands), you get paid time off when sick, more job stability, unemployment benefits, etc.
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It took major redevelopment for many US cities to become car-centric, so I am not seeing why we could not do another redevelopment to create pedestrian-friendly cities.
>so I am not seeing why we could not do another redevelopment to create pedestrian-friendly cities. We have 2 local cities that made themselves bike friendly. Property values are going up in that area. However, the people living there were already 10%ers. Its cool to see lots of bike lanes and walkers, but they also managed to price the people that cant afford cars out.
This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. Cities get bigger and denser, and wasting a big % of land on parking spaces, roads, intersections and accepting a horrible air quality (that reduces citizen life spans and health quality) and noise pollution just does not make any sense anymore. Carse are effective in less dense…
Your overall point is correct about how car-centric cities are in the USA vs Europe, but just wanted to point this out.
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"But privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are an archaic solution to the transportation problem, and they are not effective in today's society." Don't assume that every place is like the place you know. Visit the US, particularly the Midwest, and you'll come to understand why privately owned gasoline-guzzlers are the only solution to this particular transportation problem. The major cities are too dispersed with countle…
It seems that the city in this article strikes a great balance - parking on the periphery for people who commute in, but the city center is car-free. The same could work for the US midwest. You drive to the edge of Chicago and then take an (improved) subway in, for example.
I say this as a local who has gotten into countless arguments with friends and family on the subject. I probably believed it as well a few lifetimes ago before I moved to NYC for 13 years and have since been completely converted.
It would require an enormous investment in public transportation and real bike lanes - I mean protected bike lanes like they're doing in NYC, not two faded white arrows in the rightmost lane - and then a generational shift where we convince the younger generations that car-ownership is overrated, wasteful, and terrible for the local economy.
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When i lived in Uppsala, Sweden i biked all year around.
Well, I do as well, but my mother definitely wouldn't and I wouldn't even let her. It's very dangerous even in a car.