Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities • Hacker News Board

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#331

Post by taeric » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 4:05 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #328

taeric wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was meaning it in terms of purchasable supply. Nothing is stopping anyone from building a new city center in the middle of Montana, such that it has plenty of buildable supply. That is, you can say that dense cities are more effecient, but that only matters if you can build another one. Otherwise, there are more affordable homes further from existing city center then there are in them. And that is going to be hard…

> Nothing is stopping anyone from building a new city center in the middle of Montana, such that it has plenty of buildable supply. I don’t think it is that easy. The state has to approve a new town. I don’t think you can just create one at will. Nearby landowners are certainly going to have opinions. > You seem to be pointing that existing cities should double down on their density. Ideally, yes. But really I am say…

I think it is easier than you'd think to get a builder to build a neighborhood. Convincing mixed zoning to move in is more difficult. Largely due to how confusing store ownership is. Often the buildings need to exist and be owned before businesses look to lease in places.

None of which is to say I disagree with zoning being problematic. I fully agree with that points. I just think it is oversold. Folks like having room, and folks are typically over afraid of letting kids play in parks on their own. (I can't really argue against some of that fear... :( )

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#332

Post by hanniabu » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

brandonmenc wrote: post #295

hanniabu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many choose suburbs because there aren't walkable cities as an option

I have never met anyone who lives in the suburbs because "the city wasn't walkable." It is always because they want a larger house, more land, and no shared walls.

If you live in a truly walkable city you don't need a yard because there's parks. You also don't feel crammed because it's walkable and spend time walking around as opposed to a small yard or no yard where your options are to be inside or drive somewhere. And you don't need a larger house if there's a more appealing outside. Ayooooo these issues go away for most people when you introduce real walkable cities

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#333

Post by iammisc » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

antb123 wrote: post #306

throw0101a wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's hard to find because those two preferences are in direct, irresolvable conflict. Plenty of places that were built pre-WW2 have people walking for groceries and such, cycling and taking transit to work, and yet still have cars (street parking and back yard garages) for other longer distance errands: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb Two go-to…

After living in Europe for a while Toronto is "ok" but still very car dependent. I would point to Scandinavia (Finland, Denmark, etc) and parts of France and Germany as places that have cars but maintain walkable, bikeable cities.

Well I think there are cultural differences and that Europe is not the only acceptable model.

Both america and Canada are bigger and wilder than Europe. Cars are nice and a necessity to live in both countries. The neighborhood here is a good example of a walkable neighborhood that is also uniquely north American. That's okay. We don't need to replicate Europe when we have perfectly good, culturally appropriate models here.

The neighborhood here is exactly like my neighborhoods. It's lovely. I don't need to have old town Prague levels of walkability to be happy. Quite the opposite, where I am is perfect

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#334

Post by iammisc » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

aix1 wrote: post #246

dghlsakjg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amsterdam has big parking lots outside the city center. If you park there you get a free transit pass into the city I believe. Makes a lot of sense really

In Britain this is called Park & Ride (or P+R for short): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_and_ride

Same in the us

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#335

Post by iammisc » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

verall wrote: post #112

notJim wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO Portland is actually kind of like this (for now). I've heard Berkeley, CA sort of, too. In Portland (where I live), I have a driveway and convenient street parking right outside my house, but I can also walk to many shops and restaurants, and have a pretty good busline nearby. I usually take the bus if I'm going downtown, so I don't have to worry about parking. But in my part of town, which is less dense, I can c…

This might not be news for you, but you're in a really desireable location. The land you're on is probably really expensive right now.

It's desirable only because they don't build the outer burbs this way. As you drive out of the city, the time of building gets later and later. When you hit some point where the homes were built in the 60s, suddenly the walkable neighborhoods, which were the standard before then, make way for huge, sidewalkless developments.

If they just built more of the commenters neighborhood, and my neighborhood, there would be more desirable land.

Portland is not running out of land...

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#336

Post by analog31 » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #298

voisin wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your city may be similar to mine, insofar as the "residents" of the downtown area are mainly the people who work there and have already paid for parking. If massive parking requirements is the #1 urban planning disaster of the last century, the #2 surely has to be zoning regulations that prevented mixed use areas where people can live/work/play in close proximity. And this was only to… force people to buy cars to g…

You can see this in the south bay in an incredibly acute way. Where are Google, Microsoft, and a bunch of other enormous campuses located? East of the 101. Where are all of the residential areas? West of the 101. Gazillions of commuters need to cross the 101 to get from their home to their office twice a day. This means that everything is limited by a few small overpasses that are crazy expensive to expand. What if p…

My town, though much smaller, has its own "101" with similar bottlenecks. But there are now (at least) three bike bridges across it. While not free to build, they're doubtlessly much cheaper, especially since the bikes can use already existing neighborhood streets with minimal impact on the residents. I'm not sure there's a master plan for improving bike routes, but when they have to tear up a road for some reason, they usually design its replacement to accommodate bikes with dedicated lanes, bridges, tunnels, etc.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#337

Post by tblt » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #327

ganzuul wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European cities are overrun by electric scooters. It's not a big step. heh

Usually provided by American companies supported by venture capital. As a resident of a very walkable European city I can assure you that most of us didn't ask for those pests.

As a resident of another very walkable European city, I love the ease and affordability of e-scooters. They haven’t replaced walking for me, they’ve replaced the longer trips where I might take a bus, train or taxi. They’re cheaper, more convenient and especially during the pandemic have meant fresh air and the joy of being outside.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#338

Post by brandonmenc » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

hanniabu wrote: post #332

brandonmenc wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never met anyone who lives in the suburbs because "the city wasn't walkable." It is always because they want a larger house, more land, and no shared walls.

If you live in a truly walkable city you don't need a yard because there's parks. You also don't feel crammed because it's walkable and spend time walking around as opposed to a small yard or no yard where your options are to be inside or drive somewhere. And you don't need a larger house if there's a more appealing outside. Ayooooo these issues go away for most people when you introduce real walkable cities

> you don't need a yard because there's parks

Americans want their own private spaces and that preference is not going to change, especially when there is so much land available.

> you don't need a larger house if there's a more appealing outside

The outside is intolerable at best, if not outright dangerous for up to half of the year in much of the US. imo, our attitudes about walkability are due in large part to not having a mild climate like Europe.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#339

Post by whatever_dude » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

kiba wrote: post #18

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…

I often joke that aliens would mistake the cars, not people, to be the dominant intelligent species of this planet.

That's the entire premise of classic Transformers.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#340

Post by SirZimzim » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #261

Sometimes I think Americans don’t know how badly they want this. Americans will tell you how wonderful European cities are with their small streets and their public squares filled with great restaurants. They think we don’t have cities like that because we’re lacking some fundamental European-ness. No. We just put cars everywhere. Cars ruin everything. Now you have wider streets. Louder streets. More dangerous street…

I always wish for big pedestrian zones like those public squares in Europe. I have noticed closing off streets has become more common but we need to commit and make those full time pedestrian areas. We don't need to park 3 feet away from everything.