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

#461

Post by mancerayder » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

mtalantikite wrote: post #221

mancerayder wrote: post #84

High density is for young people. I've lived in ultra high density for decades and it's starting to really hurt. I sleep poorly due to noise (mostly from neighbors) and it's not fun to go for a walk anymore. 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 rul…

Sounds like you should move to a rural place, and that's great! There's plenty of that in the US. And it sounds like you live in a place where biking on the sidewalk is legal, which I agree it shouldn't be (it's not here in NYC). But let's not throw away high density living because old people think the kids are making too much noise. As a New Yorker, I prefer the boisterousness of the city, because it sounds like joy…

NYC has an insane number of bikes on the sidewalks, especially e bikes, and especially in Manhattan, and especially in the non touristy areas.

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

#462

Post by mancerayder » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:17 PM UTC

steve-benjamins wrote: post #181

mancerayder wrote: post #84

High density is for young people. I've lived in ultra high density for decades and it's starting to really hurt. I sleep poorly due to noise (mostly from neighbors) and it's not fun to go for a walk anymore. 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 rul…

What city is this?

That's NYC.

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

#463

Post by ryukafalz » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:18 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #328

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…

Life is very short. If living in a walkable city is a major goal of yours, just move to one now rather than waiting and hoping your not-walkable city will transform itself. First of all, it probably won’t. But more importantly, even if it does, 20% or more of your remaining healthy lifespan will elapse while it’s happening. Don’t wait. Carpe deambulatio.

This works for some people, but others like myself have too many close ties locally to pack up and move. (As much as I'd like to if things were different.)

And broadly speaking, while that may be good for the individual I don't think it's good for society. We need some people fighting for walkable cities where they are, else we'll never get any more of them. And the highway widenings continue unabated...

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

#464

Post by cr1895 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:19 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…

>The Netherlands is pretty rough without a car.

Hard disagree. It depends on too many factors to make a universal statement like this.

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

#465

Post by asdff » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:19 PM UTC

zeristor wrote: post #46

ylhert wrote: post #9

The car has done so much damage to our world and most people are completely blind to it. Obesity, climate change, isolation/loneliness, excess deaths/injuries from collisions, out of control housing costs, can all be tied back in a major way to car centric society. And yet people will defend their car and the "convenience" of it like their life depends on it, and force it down the throats of everyone around them. Bog…

Maybe this is the great filter as to why we don't see any Extraterrestrial Civilisations, once they get to the 'car' they wither.

The modern human sits for 95% of the day. We evolved to forage out in the environment for resources, not to wake up just to sit at breakfast then sit in the car then sit at work then sit in the car then sit in front of the tv or computer then sleep. It's no wonder so many people have issues with maintaining a healthy weight when they literally aren't moving in a given day.

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

#466

Post by odiroot » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:19 PM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #84

High density is for young people. I've lived in ultra high density for decades and it's starting to really hurt. I sleep poorly due to noise (mostly from neighbors) and it's not fun to go for a walk anymore. 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 rul…

> Density should come with more rules, both laws that are enforced as well as cultural rules,

Singapore figured it out. Makes it a very liveable yet super-dense city.

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

#467

Post by ryukafalz » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #458

jimmaswell wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

All of them with an ebike and bike infrastructure. Hell, a golf cart would be an improvement due to the efficiencies of moving a smaller mass to get to your point A and Bs. Many nursing communities in Florida are in fact golf cart centric. I'd rather have the elderly in command of something that only goes 20mph and weighs 40 lbs than something that is capable of factors more that speed at orders of magnitudes more we…

There's also the Canta, which you can drive in the bike lanes in the Netherlands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canta_(vehicle)

Seats one person and can be adapted for various disabilities (you can wheel a wheelchair into one for example).

EDIT: Wait apparently some can seat two! Though I don’t think the wheelchair-adapted one can for space reasons.

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

#468

Post by FFRefresh » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:25 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #376

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…

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 sh…

I think with the popular conception/definition of walkability and the assigned importance of that conception is a little over-rated.

I personally feel like it overvalues commercial activity (restaurants, retail, grocery, entertainment). Obviously, it depends on how often you want to partake in said commercial activities as far as how you would value it.

I would love if the conception of walkability could also take into account:

'How far can I walk without having to worry about cars/crossing streets/waiting for lights?'

'How safe/comfortable is the walk? Will I be walking by people who will harass me/be high on drugs/try to sell me something?'

'How easy is it to string together a run without having to stop?'

'How busy are the sidewalks? Will I have to be dodging people on their phones all the time?'

'Is it easy to take a dog for a walk? Or are there limited green spaces?'

'Are there social/interest groups nearby that meet up?'

I find some of these types of factors much more important than closeness to X number of commercial venues. So a busy downtown street may get a high walkability score (i.e. Walk Score) because of the restuarants/retail/theaters, but it might be atrocious to my conception of walkability.

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

#469

Post by _ktx2 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:25 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #445

econonut wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

Recreating your post after it was flagged and dead is classless. I'm surprised someone did this so brazenly. I'm not going to respond to all of the points that you raised that I think are false or misleading, but I'll respond to some.

> There's a lot of miles of power lines and roads for what is, in the end, maybe 10k people in that county outside the cities/towns.

Power plants are (mostly) created in rural areas, so your argument is a bit backwards: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-every-power-plant-in...

Your story that the last miles are costing us an arm and leg don't really hold up to comprehensive analysis: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/the-u-s-elec....

The tldr of this is that the higher number of connections to the energy grid, the higher the cost of the grid. It doesn't really matter how you distribute them.

> But we don't need to be encouraging "lifestyle ruralism". That's extremely infrastructure-heavy and it's absolutely true that people living in, say, Mikado MI (pop 899) or along one of the state highways out there are using disproportionate amount of infrastructure funding relative to the number of actual people there.

I grew up near rural areas and lived in one for a bit. I don't know what "infrastructure heavy" you're talking about. My water was drawn from a well into a community water storage tank that was then pumped to the local community. This was repeated all through that area. Water, in this case, was a co-op as well as energy. Sewage was done on-site; I had an aerobic septic system. For all intents and purposes, with respect to the angle of your argument, the footprint of my town was miniscule compared to a city.

More anecdotally, when I worked for a water startup we had a way easier time getting into rural areas because many of them had never had public water infrastructure.

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

#470

Post by asdff » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

mtalantikite wrote: post #122

Every time I'm on the west side of LA I think about how we could have built a gorgeous, walkable city like you see all over the Mediterranean, but instead we got LA. Of course there's a little glimpse of it in that part of LA, but you still just can't easily live in LA without a car.

It's pretty easy to be car light though. Every artery has at least one bus line. A bike going 12mph is faster than traffic on surface streets in my experience when you account for filtering to the front of the intersections at lights (I take the lane otherwise); I regularly beat cars I see on my commute or errand runs. Plus there are grocery stores and restaurants in every neighborhood. You can probably get all your basics within 2 miles of your place. 300 days of sun means you can do this all year, and if you are in the valley where its pretty hot, you can just buy an ebike and not pedal too hard and wear white. Lack of humidity means you cool off as soon as the bike starts moving or you are in any shadows.

Santa Monica is a good model for how the rest of the west side will look after the city finally implements the bike lane plan they created in 2010, and imo that is one of the most bikeable cities in the country.