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by throwawaysea
1676 days ago
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> My colleagues in the Bay Area all lived in SF, then quickly moved to the subrurbs when they got older. Sure, there is no pedestrian/biking utopia in the US, but there are places where you can pretty much get by without a car. And many people don't choose to live there. Agree. I don't understand the claims in this discussion about kids not being able to get around in suburbs on their own. I lived part of my childhood in a dense metropolis and part in a suburb. I was able to get around the suburb just fine on my own on a bicycle. This was before bike lanes (which many suburbs now have), and I would just ride on the sidewalk - this is perfectly safe and legal. > And when I talked to my colleagues you know what their desired was? Make enough money to buy a car and get the equivalent of a single family home. This isn't surprising to me, particularly if people know what the two different lifestyles are like (with and without a car). I am more of an advocate for different cities to have different styles of living for different people. The big issue in discussions like this, is a belief that there must be only one way to do things, and it must be forced onto every town and city through aggressive activism, which people who are older or have children or other responsibilities just don't have time to combat. That's not just disruptive but also unethical, in my opinion. This thread also has several people with a fetishistic obsession with life in the Netherlands. Granted - the Not Just Bikes channel that many have mentioned is run by someone who moved to NL - so the bias there is expected. But lots of people who fantasize about NL would not actually like living there. To be blunt about it, most of the Dutch cities are soulless and boring. At first the immediate walk-out-the-door access to local businesses/destinations was charming. But ultimately I felt that the anti-car lifestyle led to a cultural lack of spontaneity and people implicitly had committed to a limited life that is centered around just what is nearby. Ironically, unlike the GP, I felt those living in NL who reported high levels of happiness were the ones who didn't know there were other options. |
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It's not just a vague grass-is-greener issue. And sure, Dutch cities can be soulless and boring by some measures, but that's the norm for American suburbia too.
It's not just a matter of self-report of happiness, the support for the Netherlands style of living is strong by a ton of measures.
Here's the thing: stuff like the eyes-on-the-street effect are HUGE. A sprawly American suburb that still has a neighborhood park where there are reliably dozens of kids who know each other… that works, because it's safe enough to let your kids go to the park with their friends without adult supervision. The fact is, other kids there means it's not bizarre to see one isolated seemingly-abandoned kid, and if they get hurt, there are other kids around to help them or to run home or call their parents etc.
It's not strictly a matter of cars. The whole issue of "stroad" vs road isn't anti-car. Roads are for cars mainly. Stroads are fundamentally dangerous. They are part of the development style that makes it unsafe for younger kids to get out on their bikes and be independent.
Given the choice of dense urban life vs car-dependent-sprawl, it's understandable why many people choose the latter. The problem is the missing-middle. Why is it illegal in most places to build moderate-dense walkable mixed-use neighborhoods that are neither densely urban nor car-dependent-sprawl? The capacity of people to choose different lifestyles along this continuum is missing. The rare places in the middle are crazy expensive because demand far outstrips supply. So, we really don't get anywhere with a conversation focused on which of the limited polarized choices people are stuck with in the USA.