[ilyanep]

I love how in the US, instead of building all these services and offices near each other and walkable from people's homes, we insist on ideas that force people to drive dozens of miles to get a walkable and convenient experience.

[silverpepsi]

These Obama "we"s that contradict all known facts must stop. It's a kind of logical falacy to throw out a we that includes a vast majority that you know are not in agreement with you!

Americans absolutely freaking love their cars and have no desire to change the drive-thru lifestyle. I can't convince my parents not to feel pity on me when I'm overseas without one, they don't understand and can't understand that I am not merely indifferent, I hate the burden of a car and living in the inconvenient cities that pop up as an result of mass car ownership. The preferences of my friends in their 30s make it clear to me this American preference is not changing within our lifetimes. The lifestyle I want is only available, for the most part, in Asia. A recent long stay in Paris was even quite a surprise for me, I found the population density way too low to enjoy the convenient walk everywhere lifestyle easily found in Shanghai, Seoul, Bangkok, Istanbul etc.

[ryukafalz]

Right - I moved to the city because here in the US it's the only option to get any human-scale density. The next level down that you can commonly find is car-centric suburbia. The remaining human-scale places in the US outside of city centers are mostly isolated remnants from before we started knocking them all down to make room for cars. Nobody's building new ones.

(Unlike some other countries.)

[bobthepanda]

The neat thing about malls is that they are

1. Usually already located at a crossroads; you want a mall at a busy junction to attract custom

2. Usually already a local transit hub, since they tend to be a major concentration of jobs

3. Are separated from any pesky residential neighbors by major roads and/or large swathes for parking

4. Have a lot of land in the form of said large swathes of parking

These characteristics actually make them ideal for densification into a more walkable oasis; they already have some mixed uses, and the parking lots are developable without much fuss from neighbors. And you can do the whole thing in phases.

A bunch of malls in the Seattle area are getting redeveloped in this manner.

[alistairSH]

#1 is a mixed bag. Access by car is "easy", but traffic can be awful.

#3 is a negative. The separation from housing makes them LESS suitable for office space.

Put the two together, and even if the mall is redeveloped into nice office space with room to walk around, people outside the mall have to drive to do so. For people on the other side of those major arteries, they literally have to drive 1-2 blocks to walk around the mall (or former mall).

None of which is to imply we shouldn't redevelop malls into mixed use "urban" hubs. But, we shouldn't assume that redeveloping the mall in isolation will succeed. The surrounding area might need significant changes to fully utilize the former mall zone.

[bobthepanda]

#3 is a negative if you decide to only build office space on the mall property. But one can choose to build both residential and office space. Like this actual project: https://www.gglo.com/project/northgate-mall-redevelopment/

Neighbors in single family suburban homes are more likely to be NIMBYs and block development, so insulation from them is a feature, not a bug.

[MomoXenosaga]

To be fair the US has the space to do what Asian and European countries couldn't. Also America was basically virgin land. The invention of the car and highways shaped US cities when Tokyo and Paris were already centuries old.

Also are Americans really unhappy with suburbia?

[beowulfey]

I think you’ll find its pretty split. Lots of people prefer the privacy of a private car and large yards, but others would prefer walkable denser areas.

On the whole it might be slightly trending to the latter.

[alistairSH]

Also are Americans really unhappy with suburbia?

Yes and no.

I'm an avid cyclist, so follow local traffic and infrastructure plans and related political/governmental issues. I live in a fairly dense suburb about 40 minutes outside DC (near Dulles Airport).

From what I can see, there is a subset of people who love owning a yard and having some of their own space for kids or gardening or whatever. And they like having a garage to store all their crap (and occasionally a car).

But, within that group, there is often a sort of despair (probably too strong a word) about the rotting infrastructure that surrounds them. Potholed roads, bridges literally crumbling, too much traffic, etc. This group pushes hard for more road construction, more sprawl, etc despite studies that mostly show more infrastructure doesn't help (demand always catches up). And they don't want to fund it via taxes.

There is another group that lives in the suburbs by necessity. Jobs are out here, costs are manageable, etc. They'd move to a city, if it were easier/affordable. I fall into this group. I actually sold my single-family home a few years ago and bought a smaller townhouse in a denser neighborhood so I could walk more places. Cost was the same and I enjoy the downsized home/yard, ability to walk/cycle for coffee or beer, and walk to work (thought that last bit was dumb luck on an office move).

And the vast majority are somewhere in between. Mostly ambivalent. Maybe some notion of the "American Dream" (big colonial home, white picket fence, etc), but content somewhere in the middle.

tl;dr - Americans like the cost and convenience of the suburbs, but much of that comes from indefinitely deferred infrastructure investment (though a massive chunk of suburban residents don't actually realize just how badly that spending is being deferred).

[cableshaft]

I once had a thought experiment of how a suburban city could be reworked with a focus on coworking centers.

Like the center of a neighborhood would be a coworking center and a park, it could be surrounded on each side by a subdivision, and the corners could be commercial/services. That way you'd be able to easily walk to your job if you wanted, and head home to let out pets or have lunch, no problem.

It would require pretty much everyone to move to coworking for it to be viable, though, and you might find out you don't like spending so much time with your neighbors.

[unishark]

I've lived in a few different suburbs and generally there has always been a mall within a mile or so. Certainly never dozens of miles.

Jobs are different since you generally don't work at the nearest one.

[agogdog]

After living in various parts of Europe for a few years and coming back, the US way of doing it seems mind-boggingly wasteful. Huge swaths of our country are long roads that lead to massive parking lots.

And of course we're obese, many people couldn't walk to accomplish errands if they wanted to.

[cableshaft]

I've been watching some Virtual Japan videos on YouTube lately, and it was really interesting how so many major streets in Japan don't seem to even be built for cars, people just walk in the center of the street and from location to location no problem, there might be some motorbikes but that's about it.

I don't think I've ever been to a city where they decide they don't need cars on their major streets. All of our cities presuppose that enough people will need to drive through it, and everything is much more spaced out because of it.

I'm sure Europe is similar.

Like here's one of Harajuku: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VXKHlhJzd0