Are you really going to claim that living in a city is part of the natural world? Why is it that whenever a city has a blackout, people call the police terrified of seeing stars in the sky?
>Urbanists hate them because they are designed for cars instead of people
That may be a valid point for old cities that predate the industrial revolution. But there's nothing about NYC, LA or any of the other major US cities that are people centric. Besides, I can flip that argument on its head, cities are limiting and put people in cocoons never having to leave their own neighborhood and see the world. Have car, can travel.
>There are numerous videos from urbanism channels
Because videos from random youtubers with stated agendas are objective sources?
>The automobile is America’s largest wealth destroyer that takes car payments averaging something like $500-700 a month
That's cherry picked if I've ever seen it. There's a massive used car market and cars can last for decades when cared for. Mine is old enough to drink at this point and cost $4k outright. Now there definitely is a problem with new cars, especially EVs being a right to repair nightmare. But there's a large overlap between those who push BEVs and urbanization. I agree that there is a massive issue with the TCO of these vehicles, a battery lasts 10 years and will cost more than the value of the car to replace at that point and they aren't even making them easy to replace. And nobody seems to care. If you ask me, it almost seems as if a backdoor way to make sure the poor cant afford a car and are forced to live in cities in 20 years.
Look, you have your preference, that's cool. That's the nice thing about choice, you can live where you want and you don't have to show the commissar work papers that let you live there. Cities aren't going anywhere so there's no need to feel threatened by suburbs. People who want to live in suburbs and have a patch of grass to call their own will. And they aren't hurting you by doing so.
I don't know, I live in NYC and just walking down the street to the train I can hear half a dozen languages being spoken. I can head over to Jackson Heights and eat food from a couple dozen different cultures. And the money I don't spend on a car I can put towards leaving the country, which I generally do 2-3x per year.
I’ll pick little example. Get on Google Maps. Put a pin down at Trebes Park in Chicago. “Walk” North on Racine. At what point does this look like an uncomfortable place to walk? At what point do the trees go away? At what point are you further than 1-1.5 miles from a grocery store? A park or playground?
> Besides, I can flip that argument on its head, cities are limiting and put people in cocoons never having to leave their own neighborhood and see the world.
You think city people can’t rent a car or get on public transit to the airport? The average American spends $5,000 a year on their cars’ total cost of ownership, that could buy you a week long car rental every month.
Again, I’m advocating for reduction in car trips and not designing the lived environment for cars, I’m not saying that nobody should own a car or that city people will never own a car. I own a car myself. I’m just saying that we are putting cars above people on the priority list.
> Have car, can travel.
> That’s the nice thing about choice…
What if you don’t have a car? What do you mean by “choice?” You don’t have a choice, you have to own a car! I think you’re mistaking me here: real choice would be being able to choose not to own a car while still living in the suburbs. Real choice would be someone in a big urban city like LA not having to own a car (but you pretty much have to in a city where public transit was destroyed and the city has been designed around driving for decades).
I’m trying to say that living in the suburbs without being dependent on cars is actually is possible, but not in a poorly designed suburban environment that makes no consideration to other modes.
You’re looking at this as me coming after you and your lifestyle. I’m not. I’m trying to make your patch of grass better! I’m trying to increase the amount of choice that suburban people have! I’m not asking you to make your house smaller or give up your yard.
Compared to the real nature they look uncomfortable to walk.
>> What if you don’t have a car?
Then you get to live in a city and use every opportunity on HN to dunk on suburbs.
>> I’m trying to increase the amount of choice that suburban people have!
How nice of you. I guess there are no more problems to solve in the cities and now you have all the time to help the unfortunate suburbanites.
But man, this anti-car movement has gone completely off the deep end, to the point where it's practically become a religion where pedestrian walkways and bike paths will bring about a utopian society and cars and highways are the devil to be defeated.
The only thing reducing the number of cars on the road is going to do, is make it more enjoyable to use a car.
I’m not telling people who love cars to stop driving. I own a car myself! I just want to live in a world where I’m not forced to use it for every single daily task.
So, yeah, it would be amazing if you didn’t have to take your car to work or school or the grocery store. Maybe you would still choose to! But the beauty of it is that a good slice of people would say, “geez, why am I paying this car payment and insurance and gas when I only use the car twice a week, maybe our family can go down to one car or keep our cars for longer.”
Suburban dwellers often already live “shoulder to shoulder,” but you can’t actually walk or cycle between close destinations because of the built environment being designed and optimized vehicular traffic.
I’m actually advocating for making your suburbs better and more livable. I’m trying to tell you that many rural towns don’t actually require you to take a car to every single destination. Rural towns existed before the car.
As I said, people and business flock to areas where they are welcomed and the limiting factor is money.
Urbanists hate them because they are designed for cars instead of people, and are actively hostile to simply existing in the outside natural world.
Try this experiment: go to your local big box plaza or McDonald’s. Get out of your car and stand on the sidewalk on the four+ lane stroad. How does it sound? How does it feel to be there? What’s it like to cross the street at the crosswalk? Do you feel comfortable and safe?
But really, it feels terrible, doesn’t it? Like being inside a noisy wind tunnel. But there are these designed places where city planners are telling you that you should technically be able to walk there (sidewalks and crosswalks and signals), even though you know that nobody in their right mind would want to spend a spare moment there. You can’t actually be a happy person in that place unless you stay inside your car, completely removed from the real world, and these spaces take up the majority of the American suburb.
But that specific experience isn’t universal to all suburbs, it just happens to be common in North America. Urbanists hate the suburbs that disconnect the pedestrian environment even in cases where on a Birds Eye view you can see that some of the shopping and schools are so close to the residents. There are endless cases of easy 1/4 mile walks turned into a twisted loop of 1.5 mile long excursions just to follow the car infrastructure to the nearest safe crossings and access roads.
The automobile is America’s largest wealth destroyer that takes car payments averaging something like $500-700 a month and sends them to rapidly depreciating assets that fund a handful of corporations in the automotive industry. Meanwhile, these cars are fueled by oil we have scientifically proven to already use too much of.
There are numerous videos from urbanism channels like Not Just Bikes proving that car-light or car-free suburban living or even rural living is possible and exists successfully in places outside of North America. There are farming towns in places like the Netherlands and Japan where getting around via bicycle, train, and bus is completely viable.
Considering the electrification of bicycles and other similar light vehicles, getting around via non-automobile should be better than ever. No more excuses about being sweaty before work, the only barrier now is that there’s no bicycle infrastructure, no safe place to actually ride your e-bike between destinations.
Cars have only existed for a tiny fraction of human history. Far-flung villages and cities have existed for millennia. The bicycle can move a human faster, more reliably, and cheaper than a horse ever could. Trains are far more energy efficient, pleasant, accessible to people with disabilities, and safe than automobiles, and North America had loads of them before they ever had automobiles. The majority of towns and small cities in the US had something to do with the railroads or canals and waterways, nothing at all to do with personal vehicles or owning a 7,000 pound lifted truck.
The American suburb’s design is a purposeful choice, not a development model that is an inevitability nor does it have to be a model that we stick with forever. We don’t have to build a single new development this way if we choose not to.
Here’s a delightful fun fact: if the global car death count occurred in aviation, it would be equivalent of 20 commercial planes crashing and killing all occupants every single day.