I figure the best way to understand it is as an incremental set of small choices that each seemed like a good idea at the time. Fundamentally people like traveling in cars, and hate traffic. These two things pretty easily make the case as the underlying principals of everything driving car-centered city design today- parking minimums, wider & wider roads, cannibalizing trolley track, marginalization of pedestrian & bicyclists, etc. Then you begin to get second order effects- because everyone drives, things like storefront design codes are just inherently designed for the gaze of the automobile driver. (That one was an eye-opener for some of the subtle effects of car-centric worldview)

Building a city around cars means building it around people who live far away. The people who live out in the suburbs and commute in get a lot more out of the roads than the people who are a block away from every place they need to go.

>Building a city around cars means building it around people who live far away.

No, that's what the suburban rail is for (see: NYC).

If anything, the suburban people can always park on the outskirts of city centers, and use public transportation (or walk) in the city.

But no, the cities had to be designed for the automobile. There was a lot of money to be made that way for the auto companies.

Think it sounds like a conspiracy theory? You are right, except that it's actually true[1].

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

Aka, the superwealthy.

I don't see how living in the suburbs makes you super-wealthy. In most American cities that I know of, the very poor live in the city, the middle class lives in the suburbs, and the very rich live in top-floor penthouses and wherever else they want. Roads, cars and long commutes are very much a middle-class thing, because the poor can't afford all the driving and the rich can buy a great house in the middle of the city where it would be the most expensive.

I got a lot of downvotes and it's because I didn't direct my comment well enough, this is who I was referring to as the superwealthy:

> people who are a block away from every place they need to go.

I don't know of any city in the U.S. where a middle class person can live within walking distance of everything that they need. Take a look at the most urban cities in the U.S., San Francisco, New York, Boston. You're not living in a walkable place in those cities unless you have a title that includes "executive" or "vice" in it.

The closest is probably Chicago.

I'd argue that the super-wealthy only live in the suburbs because that's the best place to live in a city designed to serve the suburbs. In London, the super wealthy live right in the centre...

The situation is reversed in the USA. In the US, the wealthy and middle class live in suburbs. The poor live in the "inner city" which essentially is a euphemism for ghetto.

That situation reversed again in the USA about twenty years ago.

The typical American situation today in 2018, is the poor live in inner-ring "old" suburbs, or the edge of the inner city. The middle class live in outer-ring "new" suburbs. The wealthy live in the heart of city, or in any part of the city dense enough to feel urban-ish (any 'gentrified' neighborhood).

Depending on the city, the suburbs can be much cheaper.

Uhh... you haven't been to the suburbs lately.

I don't think many cities were "built around cars", that was mostly a process of evolution. In Europe, many cities had their cores layout even by the romans, latest for sure in the medieval times[1]. At the time the first cars arrived, cities had large roads, used by pedestrians, riders and horse carts. Allowing cars on those streets was the logical thing back when there were not many of them. And while the cars were pushing out pedestrians from the streets quickly, fundamentally the cars still "worked". Street side parking could still deal with all cars, you could drive to the shops you wanted to visit and park there - which still holds true in extremely low density areas today.

With each decade, car ownership grew significantly, but back then it was decided to deal with the increasing traffic by making cities more "car friendly". To a certain point that worked, but later even large efforts couldn't keep up, but the damanges were done to the cities. To reverse them, it will take a long time, as the car traffic needs to be replaced by other means of transportation.

This was brought up in Adam Ruins Everything, and his Automotive episode was so misleading that I don't trust anything he says.

>I don’t get why cities are built around cars.

Sure there is a fantasy that we could have cities that don't require roads. However our modern 5,000,000 population Metro areas wouldnt exist. Instead housing prices would skyrocket, and the lowest income people would be forced to live in rural areas.

> In densely populated cities cars should be banned outside of major roads

>I’d love it even more when there was no car sound

These are short sighted.

EDIT: I'm sorry to kill the fantasy, but wouldnt you rather hear why an idea doesnt work? Or maybe this is another case of 10%ers that care more about quiet streets than societal impact.

You assume the issue is binary: cars or no cars. Nobody is asking for no cars. We want less cars.

Right now, cars are first class citizens in every American city. Motorists get what they want, and walkers, cyclists, and transport users get what's left over.

It doesn't have to be that way. European cities get by fine without cars in city centers.

Do you really need a car to get to work in midtown Manhattan? Why are the 2 subway systems with stops every 5th block, 3 rail systems, and 2 bus systems that serve it not good enough? Do you really need 6 car lanes on 6th Ave while cyclists fear for their lives in the traffic and pedestrians smoosh on the sidewalks?

> European cities get by fine without cars in city centers.

Where did you get that from? Some of them, sometimes, with exceptions, with mixed success. Certainly not Prague (which is where I live). The public transport system is absolutely fantastic, but as of now it's at 100 % capacity (locally) and the city center is still full of cars. People need to move stuff, plumbers, electricians can't haul their tools around in a bag, the streets need to remain perfectly accessible for ambulances and firetrucks.

Don't forget that most European cities are hundreds of years old, built on river banks, rocks, hills, the complete opposite of most US cities.

> Don't forget that most European cities are hundreds of years old, built on river banks, rocks, hills, the complete opposite of most US cities.

What, do you think that North America is a minecraft flatworld? Plenty of American cities are built on variable terrain. The city I live in, Weehawken (Lenape for "rocks bigger than trees"), is bisected by a 300 foot sheer cliff called "The Palisade" because it looks like a castle wall. You have to take an elevator or a long staircase if you want to get uptown.

The only US cities designed from the ground up with cars in mind are in the western desert valleys where nobody could reasonably live until air conditioning was invented: Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles. Many German cities were being rebuilt almost from scratch at the same time. Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Dresden, and Berlin all had to be almost completely replaced. Their maps were redrawn with cars in mind, and they managed to stay largely walkable.

Meanwhile, London has roughly the same transit woes as New York. Was London founded after the invention of the car? No! Unlike the planners of Munich and Dresden and Hamburg, London's rebuilders after the war prioritized automobiles over people, and it shows.

New York got its modern street layout in 1807, the same year Napoleon conquered Bohemia, and I'm pretty certain he didn't enter Prague in an open-top car.

Car-centric city planning isn't a natural phenomenon, it is an intentional choice, and it can be undone at any time.

How it is a fantasy when many cities around the world already do this to varying extents? Did the definition of the word 'fantasy' change while I wasn't looking?

Yes, US cities wouldn't be able to change to this overnight, but over the course of years and decades it's definitely possible.

Post a city please.

It would be helpful to see real world executions.

Well, Lisbon, Madrid, Valencia and Sevilla. Sure, there are cars and roads, but the public transport system is good enough that you don't really need it. You only need a car to get out of the city. Also, in Sevilla (and now Valencia too) there are enough dedicated bike lanes that you can go to almost anywhere on bike, and you won't need to mix in with the cars or pedestrians.

Middle class definitely live in the city in those examples (and you won't be surrounded by homeless people) . In general European city centers come from medieval times, making them very walk-able (and touristic).

>Sure, there are cars and roads, but the public transport system is good enough that you don't really need it.

There is massive gulf between what you described and carless.

Sure. Keep in mind, the idea isn't "no cars around at all", it's about balance and prioritization.

Houten, the Dutch suburb that's really built for bikes, even by Dutch standards: https://www.citylab.com/solutions/2015/06/a-case-study-in-bi...

"Superblocks" in Barcelona: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/08/inside-a-pede...

Personal swipes will get you banned on HN, so please edit those out of what you post here, regardless of how wrong someone else is. Your comment would be fine without the first sentence.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html