We really do have to radically re-think our cities but the biggest issues aren't going to be practical but emotional. In London parents drive their children around in 4x4s, knowing that their vehicle causes the pollution that is affecting their own children's health. I'm not sure how you even start to get around that but to some extent you will never persuade everybody to reduce their damaging behaviour. You need to enable people to travel in non-damaging ways; cycling and walking primary. That should be the first priority, although fighting the ingrained car culture will be the hardest battle.
To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
71–80 of 344 posts
Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should people who can't afford housing be automatically labelled "poor"? It's certainly one indicator. Not segrating people improves the world. Segragating them introduces division, self-evidentially. Something to be avoided, then, and worked against. Planners will try to mix properties in a new development, if the local politics is to provide for everyone fairly.
You cannot mix a new development like that. Building a house is expensive, so only the rich and upper middle class can afford it. The poor always have and always will live in the houses the above lived in some years back and left for something newer. What planners need to do it make sure that when the rich vacate the neighborhood they left behind is good. Part of that is making sure that some of the rich decide to re…
House price in many places is not linked to age so much - houses don't depreciate like cars - as location. Terrible houses and tiny flats in desirable places sell for huge sums.
Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
#73We really do have to radically re-think our cities but the biggest issues aren't going to be practical but emotional. In London parents drive their children around in 4x4s, knowing that their vehicle causes the pollution that is affecting their own children's health. I'm not sure how you even start to get around that but to some extent you will never persuade everybody to reduce their damaging behaviour. You need to…
You can get easily insulted for proper choices. Homophobic comments on cycling and veganism are common. I rather believe that we are doomed - that we will destroy nature sufficiently for it to stop producing enough food to sustain us as species - than that we will change.
Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
San Francisco at 884k isn't that far ahead of Copenhagen at 602k, but yet the difference is very clear.
yeah, nothing to do with the bay area being littered with large cities and population number being cut by municipalities. are we playing special cases here? Vatican City with population 1000 should be Eden then.
> According to OECD, the Copenhagen Metropolitan Region had close to 2.4 million inhabitants in 2005:
Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe there is a nefarious scheme in play. People who live in cities don't need cars. People who live outside cities still need cars. The manufacturers try to fill that need. The manufacturers, sellers, etc. make the economy go 'round. It will all change if/when economic forces bring it about. Directly forcing it through politics probably isn't the right approach.
> I don't believe there is a nefarious scheme in play. I don't either but I do see it a sad lack of imagination and resignation to out-of-date mythologies about individualism. There's no defensible reason why work-home-school-retail structures rural places can't nucleate closer together into walkable "main street" towns. Much of the design of fly-over states is dictated by developers. It starts when a farmer who want…
>Much of the design of fly-over states is dictated by developers.
Unnecessary bullshit. The entire part of the South Bay and nearly all of Los Angeles suffers from the same driving dependency. It has nothing to do with ignorant armchair analysis of how “the flyover states” work.
Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
#76Cars are not the cause of the issue with cities, cars are symptom of bad zoning and regulation which more times than not prevents owners of property from doing what they want. when every new building requires effectively bring special interest groups, politicians, regulatory boards, and unions, their due is it a surprise cities are not getting better. they are serving a politically connected elite, not the people who…
In cites like Los Angeles, cars are part of a feedback loop which makes them both symptom and cause.
Los Angeles is low-density partly because it spends lots of land on roads and parking lots. It needs lots of roads and parking lots because everyone drives. And everyone drives because the city is low density.
Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
those utopia still haven't solve some basic problems: if one looks for work accessible to his housing without cars and relying only to transit, he'll be disadvantaged on the marked compared to one with a car that can choose his working environment freely. "but one can just relocate near the new job!" - yes, if you are a single income family, otherwise the partner has to change job too (and even then changing school t…
I didn't mention utopia. I did say "Its just cars are so entrenched in western cultures that its easy to overlook all the problems" Eg in a society dominated by cars, there are going to be people without cars that can't easily get to work. You didn't have that problem pre car, and no one complains about not being able to get to work easily because they don't have a helicopter. Cars create sprawl, and create a situati…
> in a society dominated by cars, there are going to be people without cars that can't easily get to work. You didn't have that problem pre car,
"pre car" people would walk or ride horses/bicycles for hours to work. You can still do that now, or go faster by bus.
> Cars create sprawl,
Growing cities create sprawl. Necessary infrastructure for large cities (yes, you need fire trucks, garbage trucks, buses) as well as parking space for convenient door-to-door transport slightly increases it.
Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
#78We really do have to radically re-think our cities but the biggest issues aren't going to be practical but emotional. In London parents drive their children around in 4x4s, knowing that their vehicle causes the pollution that is affecting their own children's health. I'm not sure how you even start to get around that but to some extent you will never persuade everybody to reduce their damaging behaviour. You need to…
You can get easily insulted for proper choices. Homophobic comments on cycling and veganism are common. I rather believe that we are doomed - that we will destroy nature sufficiently for it to stop producing enough food to sustain us as species - than that we will change.
Humans tend to make changes when there are no other options... and often, after significant damage has been done. Presumably if we "stop producing enough food to sustain us", a lot of humans would die off, but some would survive on the reduced food supply, and make changes to prevent further loss of food. Bear in mind, it's incredibly unlikely that all possible human food sources die off simultaneously.
A good example of change in behavior to ensure survival, is that major powers used to go much more openly to war for territory and resources right up until those powers got the ability to utterly destroy humanity. While there are still countries who are enemies of each other, and who fight small proxy wars and the like, nobody in their right mind would stage an invasion of another major power, likely ever again.
Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
#79I'd hate walking everywhere, having to get tiny amounts of groceries every day instead of stocking up every 2 weeks, etc. Walking/standing all day at conventions feels like death and a half a mile trip to the fast food places around here turns from 2 minutes to 10 minutes if I walk, which I tried when someone from Europe said that's walking distance. Walking such distances just makes me constantly wish I was driving or something. I find the drive thru experience really nice - bring the dog along in the passenger seat, get a burger, eat in the parking lot and give her some of the beef, whole trip takes under 10 minutes. A joy instead of a drag like walking is.
If a city of the future must abandon cars then the way I'd like it is if there were equal or less walking compared to driving. Futurama tubes would be great.
Side note: "No walking is a prescription for obesity" - exercising for weight loss has been thoroughly debunked. [1]
1: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-you-shouldn-t-exercis...
Re: To build the cities of the future, we must get out of our cars
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
yeah, nothing to do with the bay area being littered with large cities and population number being cut by municipalities. are we playing special cases here? Vatican City with population 1000 should be Eden then.
> According to OECD, the Copenhagen Metropolitan Region had close to 2.4 million inhabitants in 2005: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_metropolitan_area
jesus are we really comparing this
https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Francisco+Bay+Area,+CA...
and this
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Copenhagen,+Denmark/@55.67...
(should open at the same scale)
as if they were comparable sprawl?