Please don't post flamewar rhetoric to HN.

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

Not to burst your Amsterdam bubble, but you basically have to be a millionaire to be able to buy a house there right now. House prices have been rising like crazy in the Netherlands and Amsterdam in particular. Amsterdam is now for the elite, basically the point the article is complaining about.

OK, but every single other town of any size in the Netherlands has an area comparable in walkability to Amsterdam. Maybe there’s no famous museum and not the same energy level, but you can hop on the train and go get it.

It’s called the “bid rent curve”, and almost every satellite town of a big European city can be a local spike where there’s urban density around the train station. Americans don’t really have trains, thus screwed.

Sadly true, after watching NotJustBike's video on Halloween I looked up Apollobuurt and it looks like places are a million or so (still cheaper than SF, at least!)

A second-tier city like Utrecht, etc. is more likely. Or just staying put because $currenthouse is paid off and that's awfully nice.

Amsterdam house prices are high - but interest rates are negative - and you can get very low down payment loans.

You just have to have faith that the Dutch government will continue to distort the market further and further.

Most people on here could probably get a loan to buy an apartment in Amsterdam or a modest house not even that far outside of the city (which is still super bike-able and walkable).

What an odd comment. You don't need to move out of the US in order to reduce how much you drive, or live somewhere your kids can walk to school (source: me). Expecting people to make such a drastic change for fairly minor lifestyle changes isn't realistic.

Also, I don't think it's fear that prevents Americans from moving across the world. I think it's more related to, they don't want to leave their family, friends, and life they've been building for the last 20-60 years.

You're also not allowed to simply move to other countries. You generally need to get some type of work authorization if you want to be able to get a job. This isn't available to everyone, and can often require proficiency in the native language.

Yes, this is why I referenced visas that might be attainable for people who can't go the usual "I work in tech and have companies courting me at every turn" route.

> I don't think it's fear that prevents Americans from moving across the world. I think it's more related to, they don't want to leave their family, friends, and life they've been building

You aren't wrong but it only applies to the minority who could afford the expense of an overseas move.

Moving across town routinely costs the equivalent of 2-6 mos rent and most Americans would struggle to manage that.

LA != America. I've lived in cities and rural mountains. I loved the walk-ability of Boston with really good public transport.However, most cities have awful public transport. Additionally, I can afford to live in/near a city. A lot of people can't and drive because they can get 2x the space with a yard for kids to plan in for less than a 1BR in the city. They get an awful commute in the bargain but I don't think it is about beautiful places at all, it is about lifestyle.

Also, I don't understand your edit. You say everyone should move to a beautiful city in Europe like Dublin and then you move out of Dublin because the city isn't bike-able. It sounds like you really just hate California so good for you that you don't live there anymore.

Fair point, but it's more complicated than that.

People choose where to live for a huge variety of reasons. I moved to Dublin because I wanted to live in Europe and it was the easiest place to get a job and a visa at the start of my career. It also was vastly more bike friendly than the place I came from. I rode my bike and walked everywhere and had no car for several years. I loved (and still love) that work culture is less-poisonous and everyone who works full time gets a month off a year.

Then, after having a kid, I got a 100% remote job. There were a lot of things I liked about Dublin, but it turns out I like paying basically nothing to buy a house an easy bike ride from a train station where I can restore degraded grazing land in to native broadleaf forest even more. Had there been reasonable options in Dublin (2 bed flat we could afford in a completely car-free area near secular schools), or if I had already been naturalised as an EU citizen, we would've looked at something else.

Meanwhile, the 1 year move to San Diego was because I wanted to try starting a company with a San Diegan. Also, California is vastly superior for funding. The decision to give up and leave California came after the very operators of this site rejected interviewed us and said no. Oh well.

Also, I didn't say everyone should move to a beautiful city, I shared my experiences and what I hope are useful tips for anyone else interested in the same. I don't even live in a beautiful city anymore, I live in the countryside, because it's cheap as hell, beautiful, and gives me more freedom to do what I want with my life. But I miss walkable, and cycleable, cities. In a few years we might move again, though we'll see how the gulf stream is looking at that point.

> A lot of people can't and drive because they can get 2x the space with a yard for kids to plan in for less than a 1BR in the city.

Until this year, this was true all over. Now, it's radically different. Homes go to all-cash buyers paying over list price. Scarce rentals get hundreds of applicants each.

There’s many towns in the USA where kids can walk to school and shops are walkable, etc. especially on the east coast there are numerous pre-war towns like this.

But your experience is in California, a place notorious for being designed around the highway.

> There’s many towns in the USA where kids can walk to school

Especially where there's no bus transport within 2 mi of the school. Kids walk to school inches away from dangerous roads.

> many towns in the USA shops are walkable, etc

"Many" is doing a lot of lifting here. What's a good estimate of the percent of platted neighborhoods (or Census Designated Places or zip-codes or whatever) that are generally walkable? Less than one? Less than .1% or .01% or .001%?

Not sure, but in the north east many of the old towns have residential and commercial very close to each other. Train lines run through town and the different stops have commercial around it with residential a short walk. Schools are spread across the community and crossing guards exist to help kids cross streets. Otherwise they use the sidewalk.

I think people have a weird perception that everywhere in America is sprawled suburbs. People have choice here. Some people want to live in towns that are walkable and some people don't. I know a lot of people that would hate it and enjoy having their subdivisions un-walkable from just about anything and like getting in their vehicle to drive places.

I know my preferences for lifestyle have changed as I've gotten older and started a family, etc. I loved big city life, small apartments, etc at one time but wouldn't want to live like that today. Now I like being in a town where I can walk places and have parks nearby and commuter trains and decent sized properties. But in the future I could see myself wanting to be more remote. It's nice to have choice.

I don't think you can get a quantity (ie ".1%") from a non-quantifiable thing like "generally walkable". I consider my town very walkable except for grocery stores, which is a pretty core aspect.

The walkable bit I see, but proper, fully segregated cycle infra is very rare.

Yeah, if you want to ride a bike then you ride on the street and try and stay to the side. Kids can ride on the sidewalks.

It works for me because I can walk to my butcher, coffee shop, various restaurants, book store, etc and if I need to do more then I can drive my car. Sometimes we'll bike for fun when going to places not too far away. I only end up driving a couple times a week generally. I think it's a great balance and I wish more towns were like mine since the typical home near me is around $1M and out of reach for many people.

This sounds like my neighborhood (Coolidge corner, Brookline)

Where are you?

I'm all for moving to nice places but my takeaway from the article is that if people primarily focus on moving to the current supply of nice places it'll just continue to make nice places a luxury good.

If, instead, we actually kept building nice places then the supply would be such that it doesn't need to be a luxury good anymore.

I'm in the process of DAFT right now. I got lucky and found a decent place at a decent rate in the center of Amsterdam (this rate is only really affordable because I work in tech, though). I've taken exactly one taxi ride so far (airport to airbnb with lots of luggage). Every other time I've walked, cycled, or taken public transit (OV Chipkaart is really great). It feels great to just...be around people.

> I got lucky and found a decent place at a decent rate in the center of Amsterdam

The 2021 US ver of Finding A Place To Live is likely to mean you paid all cash+above listed price or you beat out hundreds of other applicants for one of the few rentals.

From what I'm reading, much of Europe is in a similar state.

That's wonderful! If you care to write about your experience with DAFT I'd love to read it. shawnindutch.com kept a blog about it for years but that appears to be a dead link now :-(

I'm not sure there'd be much to write about to be honest. There are a lot of resources and Facebook groups but we all basically use the same exact process. What are you curious about?

I suppose I am more curious about getting on in Dutch society, making friends, etc. I worry we'd have a hard time finding friends, especially since we're in our 30's and have two young kids, but then again I messaged NotJustBikes and he mentioned they moved with kids older than our own and they've gotten on fine.

I think as long as you make an effort you'd do great :)

"Can my child ride the bike to school" is the test for me as well. I'm struggling to find such a place, in Germany ideally.

Did the change in weather not upset you? LA's winters are mild at worst, I think that'd be the biggest hurdle for me.

I hated summer in Los Angeles and remember running the aircon in February thinking "I need to get the hell out of here".

January is rough but overall I prefer Irish weather.

Winter in Ireland are wet and dark, but they're not actually all that cold compared to anywhere in the northern US

That sounds pretty nice. I hate unfiltered sun.

China and India emit far more CO2 than we do.

China yes, India no.

Also, "far" isn't a description you should use. The China emissions relate to the US about the same way the US emissions relate to the entire EU.

Besides, any comparison that does not take the population into account is dishonest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

per Capita?

per capita isn't a useful metric. Imagine if you are China and your population is declining, but your GDP is still going up so your per-capita CO2 is going up. That's not fair for them.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...

At the same time, if you are a developing country and your GDP is going up, then your absolute emissions will also go up. That's not fair, either.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.KT?location...

So you look at emissions per dollar of GDP to measure how efficiently you are producing. This is why China's own CO2 commitments are expressed as Kg per GDP. This is what they are targeting to decline, it's what they set policy around, and it's how they publicly measure their own progress. So let's use their own preferred metric:

China's CO2 per GDP is ~.47 and dropping

For the US it's .24 and also dropping

India is .27 -- almost the same as the U.S.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?locat...

So what?

If that is true, why are there so many international tourists in U.S. cities every Summer?

Furthermore I've both vacationed to - and lived in - SF at different stages of my life.

Any stats about tourists in Houston or Phoenix?

I'm pretty sure that international tourism is more of a thing in more "walkable" cities like New York.

I think there are quite a few other factors that could explain the difference in international tourism between Phoenix and NY.

LA seems to be doing alright though with ~7.5M foreign visitors a year: https://www.discoverlosangeles.com/sites/default/files/2019-...

I think LA has some other advantages, like being a movie cultural center.

>I moved from LA to Dublin then back to San Diego for a year (bad idea, that!) then back to Dublin and recently to a dirt cheap place an hour away from Dublin

I'm sure all those long distance flights help the planet a great deal.

They do not.

But this article is about nice places, not particularly about climate breakdown, which is another pressing issue.

At the end of the day I want to live somewhere drivers don't get away with killing kids cycling to school.