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

#371

Post by kylehotchkiss » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

yeeyeeyee wrote: post #276

I love my car and I love driving to work every day. Cars enable privacy, freedom from bias and judgement, and a place to think. Also freedom from getting murdered on the Caltrain. "Loneliness is dangerous" is easy to say when you're on top of the social hierarchy with a job at Vox. Also, what a misleading lie of "a majority prefer to live in cities, suburbs, towns"; the survey "cited" gave 6 options, and 31% chose ru…

Yeah, it's frustrating to always see "people should use public transit" in opinion pieces every week without ever making efforts to discover why people aren't - for me, like yourself, it's safety. California public transport feels entirely unpoliced to me. I live next to a transit station in southern california, which goes to places I often want to visit, but I don't ever ride it because I read news about people getting attacked on it. Which of course happens when there isn't even the bare minimum of fare verification/enforcement at the stations.

I spent a few years living in India, where most major cities require you to go through a metal detector/bags though X-ray to board. Plus decent security coverage at the stations. Yeah, it takes a lot of human resources to do all that, but really gives the population confidence they can safely take the metro to work and back.

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

#372

Post by TremendousJudge » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:51 PM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #330

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…

The Netherlands is pretty rough without a car. Public transport is pretty bad compared to other European places. I'm dutch but live in Barcelona now which is a lot better. In the Netherlands everything is privatized so each line has to run a profit whereas here they view it as an investment into making the city liveable. So even people in the cities own a car to get around and the results are massive traffic jams. Sa…

In Barcelona you can go to many places without a car, but has awful traffic everywhere (and they drive really fast on the big streets). Plus, the police kicks you out of the street at night. I don't think it's a nice place to live.

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

#373

Post by __derek__ » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:51 PM UTC

vangelis wrote: post #369

__derek__ wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm looking for a rural place to purchase a home because sorry, I just don't want to tolerate people's selfishness anymore. Density should come with more rules, both laws that are enforced as well as cultural rules, and in American cities it seems chaos and lawlessness are embraced as tolerance and compassion. Have you lived in a rural area? If not, you should find a way to try it out before taking the leap. City f…

ATVs sound a lot louder at 2am in the city, but nobody is going to call you racist for complaining about the ones in the country.

IME, the difference is the ambient noise.

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

#374

Post by bart_spoon » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #336

hardnose wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they're not happening in cities. Neither is people willingly moving there. Dense urban living might appeal to young people but once you build a family and priorities change to peace & quiet, safety, good schools, and stable property values, dense urban living loses most of its appeal.

Your comment only makes sense in the US

This thread is about American urbanism.

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

#375

Post by r00fus » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

dont__panic wrote: post #202

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Restaurants close at 8/9 in high-price metro areas like the SF Bay also (suburbs).

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

#376

Post by nightski » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

AlwaysRock wrote: post #57

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…

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…

Hot take - walkability is super overrated. I don't want to go to the same 5 resturaunts I can walk to. I like variety. I work from home and don't commute, but when I do go out I want to explore.

Another hot take - Being in the middle of a city doesn't make one more social. Actually it can be more lonely ironically. You are surrounded by strangers.

In my current suburb I am good friend with all of my neighbors. We share vegetables from our gardens, have block parties, let children play together, it's extremely social.

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

#377

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

[deleted]

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

#378

Post by oftenwrong » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

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.

I also dislike rooms arranged in the 'theatre' style, but my family does like to watch television occasionally. We have a small television cart that we can roll around. It not only lets us put it aside when we're not watching anything, but it can move between rooms. It is actually a computer monitor + speakers + computer + webcam, and we also use it for video conferencing.

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

#379

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

Wow, is this article seriously going to ignore free time and responsibility?

Of course it was easy to make friends in college, because you had a light schedule that allowed leisure time and to actually do something with spontaneous events. It seems the author also ignores the recent research that shows that shared context is a huge contributor to building friendships, which college provides. And of course if you worked and went to school, you had very little time to build meaningful friendships.

Once you have a house, you have home maintenence. Once you have a job, you have as much or more work than in college. Your coworkers are likely to have families... not so much in college. Those coworkers and their family schedules are not going to be as similar as two college students.

Even removing commutes entirely, doesn't provide much additional leisure time to build friendships if you have a house, family, etc to be responsible for.

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

#380

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:58 PM UTC

giantrobot wrote: post #331

blackoil wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apartment need not suck. * Noise is an easily solvable problem, with insulation. * Proper ducts and exhausts can handle smells/smoke. * high rents means there is a demand but not enough supply. * car parking can be in basement, easily accessible. Benefits of a high quality apartment. * easy to secure/gate. * grocery, pharmacy,... are

Your supposed easily solved problems run up against cost or local building codes. Apartments tend to suck because builders put the bare minimum amount of work/cost necessary to get a building up to code. They have shit insulation because it's cheap but up to code. They have bad ducting and poor ventilation because it's cheap but up to code. The building codes are generated more from danger avoidance and other liabili…

They spec cheap insulation and whatnot because after every party that they're legally required to do business (a dozen item long list of licensed trades and government entities) with gets their pound of flesh that's all there's money left for.