It isn't as simple as building things closer and removing the lawn. The author completely forgot about rain, snow, and ice. Very few Americans will put up with freezing weather, perhaps marching through miles of it, putting in 9 hours at the factory, and marching back home again.
Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
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Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#72Most Americans want it to be that way, and that’s why it is that way. Zoning laws didn’t push people into a car lifestyle. Americans created those zoning laws because they like the car lifestyle and want to perpetuate it. The same is true for suburban zoning in general. People have not been tricked into this: this is what they want.
No one is swimming across this river so clearly we don't need a bridge.
Your assertion certainly explains why the most walkable places in the country also have the highest housing costs, no one wants to live there!
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#73The 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…
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Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#74Most Americans want it to be that way, and that’s why it is that way. Zoning laws didn’t push people into a car lifestyle. Americans created those zoning laws because they like the car lifestyle and want to perpetuate it. The same is true for suburban zoning in general. People have not been tricked into this: this is what they want.
It seems a bit of a stretch to suggest that the public at large "wanted" to adjust zoning laws to end up with a car-centric environment. Automakers created the concept of jaywalking [1]. Judges defended the rights of the public to enjoy the streets without cars [2]. Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, GM, and Mack Trucks were convicted of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to local transit companies [3]. We live in a manufactured environment, and its manufacture was the result of a decades-long marketing and lobbying effort by industry interest groups, not some grassroots democratic movement.
That said, people generally resist any kind of change. That's _why_ it took nearly 50 years of lobbying and an unelected tyrant like Robert Moses to, for instance, really shift New York City's infrastructure in favor of cars. The question is how to make it clear to individuals why a life stuck in traffic isn't in their best interest anymore and hold the government accountable for making improvements.
[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history
[2] https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/when-cities-treated-cars-...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#75Most Americans want it to be that way, and that’s why it is that way. Zoning laws didn’t push people into a car lifestyle. Americans created those zoning laws because they like the car lifestyle and want to perpetuate it. The same is true for suburban zoning in general. People have not been tricked into this: this is what they want.
Not necessarily. Lots more people would want to live in cities, but it's cities that are keeping people out.
You wouldn't want to build a 10 story apartment building out on the edge of town away from transit - but it's patently bizarre that cities like Seattle and San Francisco have single family zoning within walking distance of their downtown core.
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Frankly, I'm not sure it would work. The population of the US is more than double what it was in 1950. I personally don't want to live in a dense population area - it's overwhelming, panic inducing, yet still somehow lonely. So what would a car-less community I could tolerate look like? Probably a lot like it does right now, just with more commercial entities within a mile or two of my home. It would also be a lot ha…
Making public transit better would also really help. Then you can access those things 10m away in a similar amount of time. For large items you'd use a car or pickup for, businesses would adapt by offering delivery. It's definitely possible, but the infrastructure investment would be gargantuan.
It’s much easier now than even a few years ago - everyone offers delivery.
Same day is a bit of a sticker but you can find towns near major areas where you won’t need your car most days (assuming you can find work).
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#77I love dense urban areas, but I'm not sure I buy the human connection angle. I've never felt so alone when living in cities. Something about constantly being surrounded by people makes you less likely to want to get to know them. Now that I live a bit more rural, I've found myself much more likely to get to know people. It helps that things aren't always busy or packed, and I can linger a bit more and have more pleas…
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Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#78Most Americans want it to be that way, and that’s why it is that way. Zoning laws didn’t push people into a car lifestyle. Americans created those zoning laws because they like the car lifestyle and want to perpetuate it. The same is true for suburban zoning in general. People have not been tricked into this: this is what they want.
I think most Americans would like to have the conveniences of a walkable area and the space/affordability advantages of a suburb. Some parts of the world accomplish this by building many walkable towns and neighborhoods that people can live in. For some reason in much of the US we give people a binary choice of living in a small number of extremely expensive, dense cities -- or living in sidewalkless suburban strip-m…
Agreed. And we used to build those in-between places in the US; most of the remaining walkable small towns in the US were built a long time ago. (I’m about to move to one because yeah that’s what I’m looking for; glad I live on the east coast where there are still a few options.) But we’ve largely outlawed building any new ones.
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know a lot of Americans who are well-travelled and have seen world-class transit in Europe and Asia, and most of them still choose to live in suburbs. The average American wants to live in a detached house that they own. This does not lead to dense cities. It leads to sprawl, which is what we got because it’s what we want.
I spent time in Singapore where living in dense high rises and traveling on a very well run public transit system is commonplace. Same thing. I found that people who could afford cars bought them for the convenience (despite the 100% import duty and $100,000 COE charge for 10 year permit). And same with detached housing. It’s was pretty much the ideal for families. Constant complaints of noise in apartment buildings,…
The problem is the vast middle ground between those two extremes that just doesn't exist in America. In Europe they seem to be more commonly called some variation of "villages". Single family homes with small lots, with larger community greenspace, and a small central hub with some shopping for necessities and a reliable connection to a larger public transit system.
Meanwhile, the American suburb seems to have been modeled after manor estates but shrunk down to a level where it doesn't make sense. Each property has more personal land, but not enough to be "self-sufficient". That slight lowering of density prevents easy walkable access to any sort of central community hub, which makes it financially unviable to have a small community shopping district. That makes a shared public transit access point difficult to implement, since there's no community hub. Everything else spirals from there, making cars (and particularly bigger cars - remember, you need to keep the "estate" supplied with the necessities from a store located a 20-30 minute drive away) the only way for a family to function.
I don't want to live in Hong Kong density, but I absolutely don't want to live in the typical American suburbia.
Re: Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you tie housing costs to cars?
Easy, supply and demand. Before cars, dense housing was the norm, but cars popularized spreading everything out as much as possible so you have room for wide roads and lots of parking. Less density -> less housing overall -> decreased supply -> increased prices
Less density doesn't imply less housing, especially when empty land is cheap, as it typically is in the USA. You just use more space.
I hate cars, and I hate how expensive housing is, but as far as I can tell, housing is even more expensive in places (in the USA anyway) where cars are less necessary.