Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not for human connection

Re:Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not fo... by matthewdgreen on Thursday August 25, 2022 @11:07AM (#32594667)

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-mall hell with a massive commute. I don't think any of this precisely "what people want", really: most folks are just given a very small menu to choose from.

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Re:Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not fo... by riversflow on Thursday August 25, 2022 @01:19PM (#32596881)

> I think most Americans would like to have the conveniences of a walkable area and the space/affordability advantages of a suburb

I don't know about that. It seems to me that most Americans will sit and wait in their idling car for several minutes so they can get a parking spot that is 100 feet closer to the store's entrance.

I personally park my car immediately when I get in a lot and start walking, which makes it very noticeable how many people would rather hunt for a spot slightly closer. Also, in larger shopping centers my observation is that most people will move their car between each shop to minimize walking.

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Re:Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not fo... by ryukafalz on Thursday August 25, 2022 @11:27AM (#32594997)

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.

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Re:Too many Americans live in places built for cars – not fo... by bombcar on Thursday August 25, 2022 @11:31AM (#32595082)

Walkable towns abound in the US. They’re all what most would consider “rural” but a town that’s not even two miles wide can’t help but be walkable.

But people don’t want them, they prefer the suburbs or the city - the suburbs often because it’s near the jobs in the city and yet still has some of the spacing they want.

One solution is to stop building suburbs as they were in the 50s and build them as many small towns even if butted up against each other. Even the worst suburbs have shopping areas, etc, that could be spread out and made accessible.

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