Let’s Build a Future Without Cars • Hacker News Board

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#61

Post by enobrev » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 6:54 PM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #43

api wrote: post #15

It's always important to consider the dark side. We didn't do much of that when we built car culture in the first place, so let's do it now. So try: "Let's build an unaffordable future where the super-rich live in hyper-inflated city real estate and the poor are consigned to unreachable rural pockets of cultural stagnation or to over-crowded ghettoes." How will we create livable walkable cities where real estate does…

Livable, walkable, affordable cities are dense. That is the primary factor in whether or not you can afford to live within walking/biking/subway distance. The rich people that want to live close to work are going to get first dibs on usable housing, and unless you build more than that, middle class residents don't stand a chance. So much of that "hyper inflated city real estate" is not especially dense. So you get lo…

This is exactly why I call downtown (in New York and Chicago, at least) a suburb. I grew up in the city (Chicago and Brooklyn). The local city folk do NOT live in the city center. It's mostly tourists and people from the suburbs or out of state - all of whom pay more to enjoy proximity to the city center without having to deal with the diversity of living in a city.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#62

Post by enobrev » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 6:57 PM UTC

kposehn wrote: post #32

This article, while well written and trying to think ahead, forgets something very important: cars are such a symbol because they appeal to one of the core aspects of human nature. The freedom of movement, the ability to choose where you go, the notion of being unrestricted and able to move about freely. Being herded on a bus is not in our nature. Furthermore, to some degree, cars are actually more efficient from a p…

Solid points. To add to your safety point regarding flying cars: as bad as people are at driving in 2 dimensions, I can't imagine how horrible we would be driving in 3.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#63

Post by swah » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:00 PM UTC

sgentle wrote: post #40

To me, what would be interesting about a world without cars (or even with cars, but vastly more attractive public transport) is that it would partly reverse a sad isolationist trend that's come along with the power and control given to us by modern technology. I used to catch a bus every day through the city, and there were a lot of strange people on those trips. Gangs of 9 year old gangster kids drunk up the back. L…

If you're truly introspective you can live in a building and never say hello to your neighbors. Everyone is in the same place but minding their business, listening their favorite music, etc.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#64

Post by justincormack » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:03 PM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #43

api wrote: post #15

It's always important to consider the dark side. We didn't do much of that when we built car culture in the first place, so let's do it now. So try: "Let's build an unaffordable future where the super-rich live in hyper-inflated city real estate and the poor are consigned to unreachable rural pockets of cultural stagnation or to over-crowded ghettoes." How will we create livable walkable cities where real estate does…

Livable, walkable, affordable cities are dense. That is the primary factor in whether or not you can afford to live within walking/biking/subway distance. The rich people that want to live close to work are going to get first dibs on usable housing, and unless you build more than that, middle class residents don't stand a chance. So much of that "hyper inflated city real estate" is not especially dense. So you get lo…

Zoning regulations that mix living and work? Like much of Europe. The emphasis on commuting to a work district is a lot of the problem. If workplaces were evenly distributed you could walk to a nearby one.

Or telecommuting of course.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#65

Post by gonzo » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:18 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #55

sgentle wrote: post #40

To me, what would be interesting about a world without cars (or even with cars, but vastly more attractive public transport) is that it would partly reverse a sad isolationist trend that's come along with the power and control given to us by modern technology. I used to catch a bus every day through the city, and there were a lot of strange people on those trips. Gangs of 9 year old gangster kids drunk up the back. L…

Unknown experiences are fundamentally scary; so scary that we feel more afraid of walking in a dark alley than we do of heart disease. Bah, that isn't the fear of the unknown vs. the fear of the known. It is immediate, physical fear (in thirty seconds those gang members are going to mug me) vs. eventual, abstract fear (in twenty years, something might go wrong inside me).

when something does, eventually, "go wrong", it makes all the fear of gang attack seem trivial.

(I survived an ascending aortic dissection in Aug 09.)

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#66

Post by sliverstorm » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:21 PM UTC

gonzo wrote: post #65

sliverstorm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unknown experiences are fundamentally scary; so scary that we feel more afraid of walking in a dark alley than we do of heart disease. Bah, that isn't the fear of the unknown vs. the fear of the known. It is immediate, physical fear (in thirty seconds those gang members are going to mug me) vs. eventual, abstract fear (in twenty years, something might go wrong inside me).

when something does, eventually, "go wrong", it makes all the fear of gang attack seem trivial. (I survived an ascending aortic dissection in Aug 09.)

Naturally, but that doesn't change the fact that distant threats are less fearsome than immediate ones, and that abstract threats are also less fearsome.

To be clear, when I say "abstract threats" I mean things we cannot properly think about. We know what it feels like to get punched, and we have some idea what it feels like to be stabbed, but we have no idea how to assign fear to something like chemotherapy until it happens to us. We know it is Bad(tm), but not the same way we know getting cut with a knife is bad.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#67

Post by twomills » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:22 PM UTC

Let's build a future where people aren't packed together like sardines twenty-four hours a day. Urban living takes the idea of personal space and crushes it down to a bubble three inches around your head, to the point where people think it's acceptable for your neighbors to hear you through the walls, to spend an hour every day sitting in a metal box with fifty strangers you don't talk to or even acknowledge, to walk by graffiti and not take it as a personal insult to your home city and by extension yourself. If the news that someone you know got mugged doesn't badly shock you, you owe it yourself to move somewhere better.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#68

Post by orangecat » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:22 PM UTC

grannyg00se wrote: post #25

kaiju wrote: post #5

I love cars. I love driving them, I love working on them, I love the design language and history. They're one of the finest expressions of man's use of engineering to conquer his surroundings and go extremely fast. I'd also love a future where you don't need a car to commute, though.

I often wonder why there is such a common city style of dense commercial infrastructure (downtown) surrounded by further and further distant residential infrastructure. Why don't we construct buildings that have both residential floors and commercial floors, for instance? At least then you'd have more options for living very close to where you work.

Why don't we construct buildings that have both residential floors and commercial floors, for instance? At least then you'd have more options for living very close to where you work.

Houston sort of does this via very relaxed zoning, which allows office buildings and stores to be placed right next to houses and apartments. It works better than you'd expect and it's usually not hard to live close to work, especially since housing is so cheap.

I'm in NYC now, and enjoy not needing a car, but the difference in rent comes to more than a new car every year.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#69

Post by hammock » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:24 PM UTC

DanI-S wrote: post #34

fennecfoxen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like trains and commuting by train too. I can't stand traffic either. But cars remain awesomely effective, because they can go from point to point, and they're so competitive that trains are only really competitive if: * you're going to be traveling for very long distances (but not long enough for airports to be faster), or * traffic is going to be utterly miserable, or * the train is RIGHT THERE and very convenien…

Knowing that the median household income in the US is $44k, I am continually shocked at the amount of money spent on cars. "Slightly less than one-third of households said they had one personal vehicle1 available for use in 2001. A little more than one-third of households (40 million out of 107 million households) had 2 vehicles and slightly less than one-quarter had 3 or more vehicles available." [0] This is an unim…

"Buy a car to get to work, go to work to pay for car" is something that I'd bet a lot of people are familiar with. Suburban sprawl and the middle class.

Re: Let’s Build a Future Without Cars

#70

Post by mortenjorck » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 7:27 PM UTC

nickpinkston wrote: post #23

uvdiv wrote: post #13

Let's built a future with 300mph self-driving supercars and mach 20 spaceplanes -- addressing the actual desires and wants of most users (mobility, convenience) rather than imposing personal ethics of asceticism (mass transit, anti-urbanization). The author brings up a lot of valid problems with contemporary car travel (and notably none of its revolutionary advantages), but most of these orthogonal to the personal-vs…

Yes, I came in here to comment of this. Let's cure the ills of a device that is massively useful. Sure - cities should look more like NYC and less like Houston - I'll give the car haters that, but I'm with uvdiv, that I'd far prefer fast, clean versions that drove themselves. The great part of high-speed rail, etc. is that you can relax while they do the driving and you arrive close to your destination. However, driv…

PS - Does anyone find "driverless car" to be the 21st century equivalent of "horseless carriage"?

The best words I've read all week.