[cardanome]

Transitioning from car-centric to human-centric cities is not about sacrifice. It is about understanding how cars actually keep cities from being places that could be much more enjoyable to live in.

Having finding trouble an apartment? Without all the wasted space for cars we could have much denser cities. Problem solved!

Want to have a place where children can actually play outside safely? Again, ban cars and you don't have to move to the country or suburbia.

Tired of how loud cities are? Oh boy, do I have a solution for that.

I am not preaching sacrifice, I am saying if we change some things we can achieve much better living conditions for everyone, a plus in living standard.

So it is more of a matter of getting people to be conscious about how things actually work.

So no, I am not Utopian. The point still stands that Tech wont solve the issues. It is sink or swim for humanity.

[YarickR2]

OMG . Not personal, but you're delusional and/or straight up lying. Denser cities are more enjoyable to live ? Wrong. Denser cities safer for children to play outside ? Wrong. Cities are loud because of cars ? With all that increased density you will have your surroundings much noisier when it hurts most - at the end of the day, when everyone is back from the job, and having a good time at home. Loud music, celebrations, brawls, arguments, etc. No, cramping more people in the same space will not this space more livable; ask Chinese .

[cardanome]

I don't get why I am getting such emotional responses.

Most of the noise in cities comes from cars, that is a fact. Even dense cities can be fairly quiet. I suggest watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8

Plus China has probably not the best building codes, the problem can be further improved by having proper sound isolation in homes.

Dense cities mean you will have everything in walking distance. There will be much more space for parks and other areas of recreation.

[livueta]

You're preaching to the choir: I personally agree with much of this (lived in metro Tokyo), but that's honestly quite irrelevant. The point of contention isn't whether it'd be better in some absolute sense - it's whether you can convince enough people of the correctness of your vision to attain the support required to implement it.

It's not like your average American isn't aware of these arguments; they're just not broadly convincing (even if, from your or my perspective, they are). If they were, population flows would be headed in the other direction.

I'm pushing back here because your solution appears to be to continue to make the same arguments that have, so far, failed to convince enough people to deflect us from our current trajectory. More of the same, but louder? And given the urgency of the position, it's not like waiting on natural generational shift is much of an answer.

That's more or less why I take the exact opposite position and am bullish on anything that involves supply-side efficiency and bearish on anything that involves people having spontaneous moral awakenings.

[bluescrn]

'Take away cars and meat from the poors and forcibly relocate them into tiny pods in Mega-City One'

Don't you see any problems with that plan?

[cardanome]

I have never owned a car in my life. Am I living in 1984?

It is really not a big deal.

[bluescrn]

It's not about car-free life. It's about dense cities being terrible places to live unless you're at a level of wealth high enough to isolate yourself from the poverty, crime, noise, etc in a secure luxury apartment in an upmarket area.

IMHO, big cities are dying, they're a relic of the past. The Internet had already killed physical retail. The pandemic killed off more businesses while WFH workers fled the cities. Soft-on-crime policy trends seem to be hastening the decline.

And in a digitally connected world there's simply fewer reasons to physically pack ever more people into small spaces.

[cardanome]

Cities in the Netherlands are very good and safe places to raise kids in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHlpmxLTxpw

It is just a matter for human instead of car-centric city planning. This will also help with poverty and crime.