[chongli]

Huh? Americans don't have a cultural aversion to using world class public transit when in a place like Tokyo. They have a cultural aversion to altering their cities in the radical ways that'd be necessary to build a functional public transit. They call this NIMBY.

[rhino369]

It's not really even cultural. It is a socio-economic and technological issue. Every rich country that settled new territory or experienced massive growth after the invention of the car has cities that are spread out.

Europe was already developed pre-car. Asia had huge population growth when their people generally couldn't afford cars.

This is why US cities that were big before the Model T have a dense core with decent public transit. And cities that exploded after the Model T are basically suburbs of themselves, LA, Houston, Jacksonville. It's always why newly formed European suburbs often are just as car reliant as US suburbs. Though it's worth noting that some European suburbs existed before cars and at the time were just outlying cities that now got subsumed into the metro area.

If Japan had a new city naturally develop in an open area, it would a lot more like LA than Tokyo.

[Retric]

DC in the US is a solid counter example as low density city older than the car. Density is based on a huge range of factors with for example geography playing a significant role. Another huge factor is they type of industry. Garment factory's for example have historically had very high density's where Iron Works are much lower density.

[rhino369]

DC is a pretty good counter example. As you say the type of work matters, and DC has never an industrial town. It was also a planned city. It was intended to not be dense from the start. Something like 40% of DC is federal government land.

DC also is doing a decent job at using mass transit to re-densify areas. The orange line corridor is making suburbs become dense. That is pretty unique in America.

[antisthenes]

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

For a city that was "intended to not be dense from the start", it sure is up there as far as density and would be #16 on the list if it counted as a part of a state.

DC is incredibly dense by American standards and is actually one of the very few places in the US that you can get by without a car (which is, of course, priced into exorbitant rents and property prices)

I guess what I meant to say is that the grandparent comment is blatantly false. DC _is_ a high density city and is much more like a European city in that it combines decent public transport and medium-rise developments.

[Retric]

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

  DC has 158.1 km2 with 681,170 people or 4,308 people per km ^2.

  Paris has 105.4 km2 with 2,265,886 people or 250,065 people per km2

In other words DC has less than 2% of Paris's population density. Note, Paris is a turist destination so many shot's look like DC, but this is the real city: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/04/15/17/278DF7CF0000057...

[LordKano]

DC would have a much greater population density if developers were permitted to build upwards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_of_Buildings_Act_of_191...

[querulous]

toronto and vancouver are both post-car cities that have great (by north american standards) transit

[rhino369]

Toronto was a fairly big city already in 1900. LA started growing massive in 1890-1910, but really exploded after.

Vancouver went grew 250% from 1900 til 1911, which was right around when cars started being affordable for the common person. Vancouver also is somewhat restrained by being on a peninsula.

LA started growing massive in 1890-1910, but really exploded after. LA added 3.7 million people since 1910, but Vancouver only 500k.

[Retric]

[citation needed] people in power have a problem with it. In large part because it takes to long to build to fit into a normal election cycle.

However, subways for example are heavily utilized when they are useful.

[ergothus]

A lot of Americans (in my anecdotal experience) have a very negative view of public transit. It's what you take when you are too poor or desperate to have a car. Chicken/egg, that's how it ends up, particularly in smaller metro areas (not your major cities, but cities).

I currently live in Seattle, and when I met guests and said we'd be taking the bus to my house (which involved a walk of about a block in good weather, with a bus line that ran every ~15 mins, would get us there in 30 mins, and I was covering the $3.50/person) they refused and called a $45 cab (they paid) to take the trip (still took 30 mins - the bus was an express).

I'm willing to bet a lot of city dwellers that DON'T use their public transit system have this negative view. They got it from somewhere else, brought it with them, and have no personal experience to change it. This will certainly impact how they vote on things like paying for transit and managing lines and stations.

From my own experience, I've lived in a place were the bus coverage was pretty good, but they ran in circles and were infrequent. So going from Point A to Point B might take 20 mins with a bus that came every 1.5 hours, but going from Point B to Point A would take over an hour, on that same bus that came every 1.5 hours. In another place (Richmond, VA) the coverage was TERRIBLE. Going to work from my apt (roughly 5 miles away) meant that I had a bus with 2 time slots I could catch (one at 6 something am and the other at 7 something - no buses ran after that until end of workday), it would take over an hour to make the trip, the bus was loud, smelly, and bouncy (I was unable to read on that bus, but have no such issues in Seattle), and if I had to work past 6pm, I had no transit options to get home, nor if something caused me to want to get home before the end of the workday. Needless to say, while there I drove myself and contributed to the traffic, parking, and environmental problems. I haven't even mentioned the other passengers on the bus, but let's just say all of us on the bus probably were on it for lack of other options. Very few people "elected" to take the bus, they were forced to.

[sotojuan]

I see this attitude even in NYC itself. A lot of people dislike the idea of taking the bus (even though it costs the same as the subway) for some reason.

[pcsanwald]

I dislike taking the NYC bus because of the time variability it adds. Variability in the subway times during "normal" times are way lower.

A huge line at a stop, the amount of stops a bus makes, and traffic, can all make a huge difference in the amount of time a trip can take. Also, some of the crosstown buses are slower on average than walking.

[cashmonkey85]

Reply to the parent comment then. He was the one claiming Americans must drive cars.

My reply was to what's called a "parent" comment. And in that comment was context. And using that context you should understand my comment. They need to be read together. My comment and the parent comment. Read both together. First the parent comment and then my comment, the "child" comment.

[BurningFrog]

NIMBY-ism mostly depends on legislation.

Most people do not want new construction in their neighborhood. I assume that's as true in Japan as elsewhere.

Regardless of culture, if the neighbors have a veto against construction, it will be stopped. If they do not, it will be built.