We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#51

Post by oftenwrong » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:19 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #3

I agree, but "people" should mean all people, not just the able bodied. Cities keep on inexplicably designing these cool pedestrian only areas for the able bodied and young. There are people who can only travel limited distances, so if you set the beach front back half a mile, you've now cut it off from many older and disabled people. What I am saying is: For the physically young and able, vehicle-less areas as great…

From my observations, walkable neighbourhoods can be great for disabled people. I live in a very walkable neighbourhood where there are many homes, businesses, schools, and more in walking distance, as well as bus lines and a subway station. Everything within 10 minutes at a normal pace. There is a home for people in wheelchairs (not sure of the correct term) down the street from me, and the people that live there are always out and about. Same with a man in a wheelchair that lives one street over. Same with the slow, tiny, 90-something-year-old lady that lives across the street from me. Same with the blind man who lives down the street. None of these people have to drive, and I believe none of them even own cars, but they are able to get around with little issue because they have the option to just jaunt down the sidewalk 10 minutes for most things, or use accessible transit connections for longer trips.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#52

Post by davidw » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

MR4D wrote: post #39

davidw wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is from a small town in Italy. It doesn't have transit, but it's quite possible to get around it on foot or by bike, because it's compact.

I think your point gets missed by many people. Europeans tend to have cities that have been around much longer than cars have, and you can see it in the design - they were built back when horses were the fastest mode of transportation. Many small American towns were built after the introduction of the automobile (or at least significant chucks of the towns were). Trying to undo history, or even taking a new mode of d…

The town I live in now, Bend, Oregon is barely over 100 years old, which is pretty new even for the US. And yet the downtown is still fairly walkable, if perhaps not quite as much as an Italian town.

The really bad stuff only really started coming out after we got zoning and then accelerated with post WWII development.

Can we make something just as walkable and nice as those Italian cities? Maybe not, but we can certainly walk back some of the worst excesses of the late 20th century.

This site has a lot of ideas and discussion: https://www.strongtowns.org/

Oh, and it also turns out that much of suburbia is not very sustainable financially, and nor is it great for the environment.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#53

Post by yongjik » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

trothamel wrote: post #42

yongjik wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The distance from a car door to a shop is a good ten minutes, so she simply doesn't go there. She goes to out-of-town supermarkets with disabled bays right near the entrance. ...which is rather ironic, considering "ten-minute walk from parking lot to shop entrance" is an almost unique American suburban problem: we need huge parking lots because everybody's driving. Construct a city so that 95% of the people take pu…

Short of things like taxis and ubers and so on, is there any form of public transportation that is so dense, when it comes to stopping locations?

Sorry I wasn't clear: I meant "at the front door" for those 5% who have to drive. The rest can walk. It's good for health, and usually still faster than being stuck in the sea of single occupancy vehicles! :)

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#54

Post by the_gastropod » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:25 PM UTC

kylec wrote: post #31

If walkable cities are so great, why did we ever invent cars?

This is a straw man. Nobody's suggesting cars are "bad" or "evil". What is being suggested, is that operating cars (especially at high speeds) should be done away from where we live. Supporting the use of cars within our towns and cities is: dangerous, expensive, and wasteful (of time and natural resources).

Cars are great for traveling great distances (20+ miles) quickly. Using them for day-to-day travel within your own city is akin to taking a cruise ship out on the lake for a weekend fishing trip.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#55

Post by joshuaheard » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:30 PM UTC

Visiting the Leonardo Da Vinci museum, I saw an exhibit where Leonardo did an urban design plan. In it, he made the street level pedestrian only. Under the street was another level for horses and wagons (cars and busses today), where each building had an underground entrance to this level through an underground garage. This seems like an elegant solution in an urban area from the man who invented the helicopter, parachute, and painted the Mona Lisa.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#56

Post by RangerScience » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:33 PM UTC

johngalt wrote: post #24

This is one of those scaling vs. switching cost problems. If you have a small town, then cars are a better option than transit. In a large metropolis, transit is better. The problem is that as a city scales up, each individual step results in continually adding infrastructure for cars without ever making the active decision to switch, and redesign the entire city. When a small town grows into a medium, it makes sense…

Pre-auto LA was a series of towns connected by a trolley network. Seemed to work pretty well.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#57

Post by spraak » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #3

I agree, but "people" should mean all people, not just the able bodied. Cities keep on inexplicably designing these cool pedestrian only areas for the able bodied and young. There are people who can only travel limited distances, so if you set the beach front back half a mile, you've now cut it off from many older and disabled people. What I am saying is: For the physically young and able, vehicle-less areas as great…

From the_gastropod below:

> Cars are not the only solution here. Transporting a single disabled person does not require a 100+ horsepower 2-ton vehicle.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#58

Post by spraak » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:37 PM UTC

whitepoplar wrote: post #38

For anyone who wants to see a pragmatic way to build cities and communities, I'd highly recommend Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language . https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Constructi...

This book is really amazing in its level of detail and specificity and incredible how it's still relevant.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#59

Post by oftenwrong » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #49

> Websites like Zillow and Apartments.com offer calculations for commute length and walkability to everyday destinations like grocery stores If I'm walking to the store, do I (a) try to carry 20+ grocery bags home for my family of five or (b) make a grocery trip twice a week? I don't love either of those. And that's only groceries, not shopping in general. My wife got a 50lb bag of fertilizer from Tractor Supply yest…

To give you an idea: I have a 3 grocers within walking distance, and I will usually just go buy what I need for whatever I am going to make the same day. One bag is usually fine. I have never purchased that much fertilizer, but I have purchased a 50lb bag of sand at the hardware store on the corner. It is so close, I would be surprised if my walk home was not shorter than your wife's walk back to her car. Living in the dense city requires many sacrifices, but one of the best upsides is being able to walk places.

Re: We Should Be Building Cities for People, Not Cars (2016)

#60

Post by spraak » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #49

> Websites like Zillow and Apartments.com offer calculations for commute length and walkability to everyday destinations like grocery stores If I'm walking to the store, do I (a) try to carry 20+ grocery bags home for my family of five or (b) make a grocery trip twice a week? I don't love either of those. And that's only groceries, not shopping in general. My wife got a 50lb bag of fertilizer from Tractor Supply yest…

> If you have a city of single-family residences (and three quarters of Americans do live in single-family residences), it's really hard to not build for cars.

Yes, and how those cities are designed are a big part of the problem.