[tvaughan]

> I often find myself trying to explain to people back home just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here.

Same. I’ve lived in Los Ángeles and Amsterdam, and it is impossible to explain to my friends and family just how awful the quality of life is in LA precisely because of the difference in attitudes and priorities over cars. Perhaps some have “nicer” (aka bigger) houses in LA than they would have in Ámsterdam, but once they leave their front door everything is objectively worse

[grecy]

Every time a politician anywhere in the world suggests adding more freeways or more lanes to freeways, I think they should be forced to live in LA for a year and do a ~1 hour commute each way in traffic.

They need to see first hand what happens when you just add more freeways and more lanes. It's not good.

[fnimick]

I had a conversation recently with someone lamenting that we didn't have roads like LA here in Boston. Saying their ideal road was 3 lanes, plus a bike lane, plus a bus lane in each direction. Imagine being a pedestrian trying to cross that!

I really don't understand someone who looks at that traffic disaster and wants to build the same thing here at home.

[kevin_thibedeau]

They're a car-centric person who wants the "nuisance" of bikes and busses out of their way while still pretending to have progressive values. People who only drive from garage to shopping center and back, never having to experience the dehumanizing impact of 6+ lanes affecting other transport modes.

[Gibbon1]

I feel like the more modes of transportation you mix together the worse the cognitive load on people. And it get rapidly worse the higher the density.

Inside of a mall where there are only pedestrians is very safe. Freeways are fairly safe. Protected bike lanes are safe. Light rail is safe.

Mix all of those on a strode, rail, buses, trucks, cars, bicycles, pedestrians, not safe.

[axpy]

This seems pretty counter intuitive but this is often the other way around. The safest streets in Europe are where cars, bikes and pedestrian mix together. It force focus on the driving task instead of doing something else. If you are interested, Freakonomics have an episode: "Why the U.S. so good at killing pedestrian". It's an interesting discussion with no simple answer.

[Karrot_Kream]

It's because US streets are designed much wider than equivalent European streets. US design standards have wider LOS than Europe so they design for faster vehicle travel and higher throughput, which puts pressure on slower modes. This comes at a financial costs (better pavement, wider roads) but the US gladly pays a fortune for roads.

[underdeserver]

As an equal-parts driver, biker, e-scooter rider and pedestrian, this is horrible. Yes, you have to focus on the driving, or walking, or scooting, but you're in constant stress because you can accidentally hit someone coming from any direction. Or they can hit you.

It's far better to have separate spaces, and cross only when you really have to.

[chmod775]

Maybe you should be stressed? The point might be that environments where you're not stressed because they lull you into a false sense of security tend to kill more pedestrians.

You're moving tons of metal at high speeds. Don't get too comfortable doing that.

[PaulHoule]

I'd consider Amsterdam, where many kinds of transportation are carefully weaved together

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Schiphol+Amsterdam+Airport...

In that area you will find highways, surface streets, bike paths, pedestrian walkways, trams, commuter trains and other kinds of transportation in a way that comes across as elegant, at least to me.

[kaibee]

I think they still keep them as fairly separate networks, even if they highly overlayed and so have many intersections.

[atchoo]

> the worse the cognitive load

Or maybe better the cognitive load? There are various studies that show removing white lines and navigation furniture to make junctions more of a puzzle, decreases speeds and increases attention and safety.

[DANmode]

> strode

Stroad.

[crooked-v]

That's someone who's never actually had to drive in LA traffic. I only had to visit once for the experience of 3 straight hours of gridlock traffic just to get across the city to be seared into my brain.

[Slow_Hand]

I’ve lived in LA for five years now and lived in Boston for seven years prior. They’re both uniquely terrible.

LA’s roads are easy to imagine because it’s synonymous with huge interstates, congestion, and long commutes.

Boston is terrible because it’s layout makes zero intuitive sense and looks like spaghetti when viewed from the sky. Of course Boston predates the automobile, so I understand why.

I do enjoy the prevalence of bike culture in Boston. It’s just the right size to pedal most places and there are fairly good accomodations for cycling, like bike lanes.

But hey, at least I don’t live in Philadelphia. By far the worst driving experience each time I visit. :)

[kaashif]

> Of course Boston predates the automobile, so I understand why.

New York City's grid plan far predates the automobile: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioners%27_Plan_of_181...

Grids are sometimes but not always caused by cities being designed for cars.

[armandhammer]

It's the opposite, no? Cities / suburbs that were built after 1950 often don't have a grid system.

[brailsafe]

I think this is exactly what Seattle is building at it's already awful waterfront

[hombre_fatal]

Austin too.

https://twitter.com/kelseyhuse30/status/1684337210760241152

[Slow_Hand]

Funnily I live in LA and have a one-hour commute each way. But I drive a Vespa and am therefore limited to taking the side streets.

I don’t mind it all that much, aside from the distance. One thing that helps is that motor bikes are permitted to split lanes and thus I can flow through congested traffic quite easily. It’s quite fun and I find that it allows me to enter a flow state more readily and it takes some of the edge off of the whole traffic experience because I get to keep moving.

[PaulHoule]

Try Massachusetts. You drive just as far, there are hardly any businesses to patronize on your commute (except for maybe two Dunkin Donuts), sometimes traffic is going 95 mph at 1am in the morning on Rt 128 in heavy rain, and it snows.

[systems_glitch]

Out in route 128, down by the power lines.

[Karrot_Kream]

The reason LA doesn't have bike lanes is that LA City Councilmembers have fought back bike lanes for years. It's zero sum thinking. The Councilmembers think that making driving worse for cyclists hurts the dominant mode so hurts the most people, even though many of the arterials in LA just cannot be expanded because of existing businesses, homes, and ROWs.

[Lammy]

Ironically the reason LA's freeway traffic is so bad is because so much of the system was left unfinished: https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-forgotten-freeways-20141...

[chrismcb]

I lived in a place for most of my life that refused to build freeways "because they didn't want to become like LA" meanwhile more people moved there, traffic got worse. Going "across town" about 15 miles was a burden. You hated to do it. I then moved to a town that had a few freeways and 15 miles away was considered close. The town I grew up in, finally built some cross town roads, and travel time improved. I think you can have too many freeways, but you can definitely have to few

[xmprt]

I think the problem with the town you grew up in is that they didn't build any good modes of transportation and not that they didn't build freeways. Sure freeways can fix the problem of people getting from point A to point B, but they're probably one of the worse ways to go about it. Street cars, bus rapid transit, metros, etc., are all better across the board even for the people who do want to drive because it allows non-drivers to get to point B without a car, thereby clearing up traffic for the drivers.

[chrismcb]

In a town that is very forward out, almost any form of public transportation is worse than cars. And while I agree that public transportation helps. My current turn has horrible transportation abs more freeways and it is far easier to get around in than my old town.

[escapedmoose]

I grew up in a similar place, which had too few freeways around it and navigating anywhere was a major headache. Now I live in a highly walkable town near a few freeways, and it’s much nicer; I can avoid driving altogether and walk/bike around town, or I can easily get to the nearby city by car. There’s a happy medium to be found.

[angmarsbane]

Austin?

[eredengrin]

I'd say split it half and half, 6 months LA to learn the pain of the wrong way, then 6 months in a place with proper transit like Amsterdam or Seoul, then they come back with a vision of what could be.

[PaulHoule]

LA is by no means the worst that America has to offer. At least within a 1 hour radius you have a staggering population and amount of commerce available. People visiting LA from "average" places in the U.S. will note that it's really dense, about as dense as the outer boroughs of New York City. If it's "sprawling" it is not because it is uneconomical in the use of space but because the whole area that is habitable is crammed with people.

In Southern New Hampshire people drive almost as far although there is hardly anything to drive to. The confluence of Route 101 and I-93 south of Manchester is as bad as anything you'll find in a city 100 times Manchester's size leaving the question of where the hell all these cars are coming from and where they are going.

(The answer is that the population is dispersed over a large area with a hierarchical road network that, as much as possible, wants to be like your lungs. Thus you always get stuck in traffic at several bottlenecks on your drive that you can't avoid.)

[jjav]

> Perhaps some have “nicer” (aka bigger) houses in LA than they would have in Ámsterdam

The (insane) cost of housing in LA doesn't exactly lead to people having bigger houses (or often affording any house).

[rconti]

Gotta imagine the cost per square foot is significantly less in LA than Amsterdam. Obviously depends where in "LA".

[sershe]

Subjectively worse, not objectively worse. I think driving is much more convenient and nice for most things I like to do. The only exceptions I can think of are if I were a kid in a car-centric area (strangely, the thinking in the US is usually reversed, kids supposedly need to be in the burbs), or if I was drunk. I don't often get drunk, so I'd prefer to drive for everything from minor groceries to outdoor activities ~100% of the time.

[aesclepius]

Jesus it's objectively worse. NY/Chicago/London/Paris/Tokyo you can conceivably and easily nip out to a grocer's, bodega, cafe or pub within 10 minutes of where you are. LA? Outside of certain certain pockets like DTLA, KTown, WeHo or similar walking is tough and if your friend is across town you're SoL without a car.

[sershe]

But I don't want to! I literally just walked to the store and it was in absoute perfect conditions - we wanted to go for a walk anyway, the weather is perfect (sunny but not hot), the store is 10min walk from my house, the neighborhood is nice and not drive-thru so there is ~0 non-local traffic. The plan was we go for a walk, and pop by a store and get one item. But as usual it never ends up being that way, so we had one paper bag of items - 6 pack of beer, some cheese, box of blueberries, nothing very heavy.

I am pretty fit, like I deadlift 280lbs :) and still walking with this stupid bag ruined the whole walk back. And it wasn't even much - if I replaced beer with food it would be like, 2-3 days worth.

I would have rather just finished the walk, then drove 3mins to the same store. In the most perfect conditions imaginable, with minimal amount of groceries. And what if it was 100F, or 32F, or raining, or I didn't want to go for a walk, or I needed to get some large items like sugar or rice or a gallon of milk or a lot of beer for a party?

Walking to a store is simply not an advantage at all. And if you go to even a poor country you can see most people agree - as soon as they can they start driving to big box stores, and small local stores die.

And regardless, even if (which I wouldn't grant) the majority would prefer to walk rather than drive, it's still SUBJECTIVE, not OBJECTIVE. A ton of people prefer to drive.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

Not gonna lie, having a 10 minute walk ruined by carrying a bag home sounds like you maybe need to deadlift less and cardio more or something. Or maybe get better bags?

Walking to stores is an advantage because it allows for a density of services unavailable if parking lots are a serious consideration for businesses. I can go to my local convenience store, and my barber, and a no-waste shop, and my local bar, all in one pleasant morning… plus I don’t have to worry about a dui!

[SoftTalker]

Yeah if you're going to walk with groceries, use a mesh or canvas bag with handles, or a grocery basket/cart if you're buying more than a few items. Carrying paper bags sucks because you have to hold them in your arms and support the bottom of the bag.

[wheels]

In many countries adults just continue to wear backpacks. One of the things I keep in my backpack is a big IKEA bag, meaning I'm pretty set for shopping on foot (or bike, which is more common for me). Medium sized purchases go in the backpack, larger things go in the IKEA bag.

[sershe]

I mountaineer too, it's just a chore to walk with groceries, esp. if the weather is bad and you have to do it every 3 days given how little one can carry.

I think I mentioned the drinking aspect in the original comment. I could do all of these things by car, probably faster too... except drinking. So I guess it depends on how often one drinks :)

[atchoo]

As a mountaineer, you no doubt have a wonderfully ergonomic high volume backpack that is great for a week of shopping. Two if your diet is basic meat and veg not processed food in lots of packaging.

Same to the OP. You should own a decent feckin' shopping bag. It's basic adulting where I live. You have observed the problem yet not doing anything about which is just really weird.

[maxbond]

The paper bags they give you are terrible, they're barely fit to walk to the car with. They always fall apart on the walk home, and the ergonomics suck too. But with any reasonable bag I find it's not a big deal.

[elliottkember]

> I mountaineer too, it's just a chore to walk with groceries

[johnnyanmac]

>Walking to stores is an advantage because it allows for a density of services unavailable if parking lots are a serious consideration for businesses.

in my case it doesn't matter because the nearest store is a mile and a half uphill. Nothing can fix that.

It's also a desert so there's plenty of space. Suburbs are simply incompatible with these ideas.

[wizofaus]

> Suburbs are simply incompatible with these ideas

Indeed. But you seem convinced it's the idea of walking to fulfill basic daily needs that's the problem...

[mtalantikite]

> And what if it was 100F, or 32F, or raining, or I didn't want to go for a walk, or I needed to get some large items like sugar or rice or a gallon of milk or a lot of beer for a party?

As a New Yorker, you just described daily life here? It’s really not a big deal — things are so close you can take multiple trips if you need to. Get some canvas bags. Plus since everything is so close you end up just doing smaller trips every day or so. If the shop is longer than 10-15 minutes and I’ve got more than, say, 40 pounds of groceries I might get a car back home, but that’s a rare trip. And honestly I’ll probably just walk it back anyway.

Maybe we just have a higher tolerance for pain here — I’ve certainly had people visit who think of themselves as fit and they get gassed out by regular New York walking life.

[climb_stealth]

> I’ve certainly had people visit who think of themselves as fit and they get gassed out by regular New York walking life

It's interesting how things become normal once you do it every day. I used to live in a fifth floor apartment without lift. Quite a few stairs to climb. Three things come to my mind.

a) You very quickly learn not to forget anything when leaving the house.

b) There is some perverse sense of satisfaction in having guests over and walking up the stairs together; and purposefully keeping a calm breath whilst the guests are wheezing and complaining.

c) Some tradesman was working on one of the floors. I will never forget the sight of him carrying something heavy up those stairs whilst practically breathing through the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

For very legitimate reasons life like this is not for everybody. But I would say for able-bodied healthy people it would be good to have a bit of regular forced exercise like that.

[mtalantikite]

> I will never forget the sight of him carrying something heavy up those stairs...

Oh man, absolutely. I still have a vivid memory of moving out of a 5 floor walk-up with a narrow stairwell and as I was walking back into the building out comes the guy bear hugging my Fender Rhodes electric piano. It's gotta be around 150 pounds and very bulky. He was walking like it was nothing.

[LampDrewNear]

You can still drive perfectly well in walkable cities.

And maybe it's just a TV trope, but do your paper bags lack handles? In Europe essentially all grocery bags have handles and are easy to carry. The amount of food you bought sounds easy to me to carry home, and I don't even lift.

[sershe]

It's a tradeoff - the argument is about car vs walking infrastructure, and while it's nice to have both I'd prefer to lose the latter if I had to make a choice. Driving in Amsterdam is... inconvenient. At least in central areas, I've never been far out.

They have handles, it's still just inconvenient to carry and makes a nice walk into a chore, vs driving with much more groceries per trip.

[makapuf]

Problem is, current level of car usage is absolutely unsustainable with current co2 emissions targets, even with electric cars if they use coal.

[yawaramin]

Sounds like you need one of those walker bags with wheels. It would make grocery walks much easier.

[foooorsyth]

I agree with your general point about the romanticization of no-car life. I grew up without a car in a walkable city. It was nice but there are legitimate trade offs.

My mom used a wheelie cart to do our shopping growing up. As a kid I thought it was embarrassing but now I get it. Cargo bikes are another good option. Having to carry home groceries without some sort of cargo apparatus like that does suck, even in nice weather.

[spixy]

Then go there with some backpack.

I have a store in same building than my flat (but other side), and it is the best. Dont need to have car, dont need to worry about DUI...

100F (38C) is here twice maybe per year? Cannot you survive 38C for a few minutes?

If it is 32F (0C). I just put warm clothes on? 32F is not very cold temperature anyway.

Raining = umbrella (but I go without it, 2 minutes of rain wont kill me).

How many times a year do you host a party? For me its just once a year (birthday), I just go to store multiple times.

But I understand that your store is 10 min walk which sucks. I guess your city is not dense enough.

[sershe]

Or I could just drive. How is walking with all these inconveniences "objectively better"? :)

[wizofaus]

If all the externalities involved in having everyone use cars for every trip where they don't feel like walking are managed (including health impacts from pollution, sedentary lifestyles etc., time wasted sitting in rush hour traffic, dominance of cityscape by infrastructure dedicated to automobile traffic etc. etc.) then sure, driving is objectively better. I've yet to come across anywhere in the world that's true though.

[webkike]

When you live closer to grocery stores, you buy less food more often. I live two blocks away from the grocery store, I go fairly frequently, and I never have an issue with the weight I’m carrying. And I deadlift the same as you

[EarthMephit]

That's because 10 minutes away is too far, that's almost a mile, and it becomes a chore.

I live a block from a store, and its much, much easier and more plesant than going to the effort of getting the car out, driving somewhere, having to find a parking spot, etc... Driving's a pain in the arse.

A decently walkable suburb/city would have a store within a block or two, maybe a five minute walk.

[scrollaway]

The US is too far gone for this to make sense. “Walking to get groceries”, I mean jeez this means something utterly different in the US vs Europe.

Here, walking to get groceries means depending on what I need, I walk down the road to get some daily fresh produce, or a few minutes more to get more variety of non perishables, cleaning products etc. It’s a lovely walk, it’s relaxing, and I come back with at most 3-4kg. I do this regularly, and I can do it on my way home when I take the metro for whatever.

In the US, it’s literally something you have to plan for. No kidding you don’t want to walk; one of the goals is to minimise time spent especially if it’s not relaxing time.

[pandaman]

I can't speak for all people in the US but my family is not content with selection in a single store. We buy different kinds of items in different stores. And I mean big stores, with big parking lots and dozens of isles. It is also not very clear that you spend less time shopping: you cannot possibly live off 3-4kg of food for a week or two so you must shop very frequently.

[scrollaway]

I think this video sums up how I, and most europeans, feel about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk

If you don't understand the core differences between how to even buy shopping and the influence this has on how you live your life… it's not possible to explain that, actually yeah, it's possible to never do shopping by car, even to feed a whole family.

[rdtsc]

Grew up in the city and yeah you get used to it. We had our own bags my mom sewed or mesh bags. If we bought something like beer it wasn’t in 6 packs but one or two bottles at a time. Also we had decent public transportation, we’d hop on a trolleybus (electric buses) even for a few stops if the bags got heavy.

At the same time I agree that it wasn’t fun and I didn’t enjoy it as a kid. If we could have an option to have a car, drive it and fill the trunk with groceries and drive back we would have.

[kiliantics]

It's tragically hilarious to me that the car brain imagination can only consider moving a multi tonne large dangerous vehicle around in order to simply ease the discomfort of the small bag of groceries. Most people use little wheeled carts that are light and foldable and easy to push or pull around.

[sershe]

Yeah, most people thru history were also subsistence farmers and it's "tragically hilarious" that "civilized brain" only considers I dunno, engineering or science or art to make a living, or whatever when you could be subsistence farming for reliable and easy to produce food.

I didn't drive until I was 29-30 and lived mostly in walkable areas so I can easily consider the alternatives. They are just, as I found out when I tried car-dependent lifestyle, inferior. One might even say, "objectively worse"...

[escapedmoose]

Walking to the store is great when it’s a habit to do so every day, so you’re just picking up some fresh meat and produce for whatever dinner you’re making that night. It’s a very pleasant (and healthy) lifestyle. For trips where you need to make larger and heavier purchases, it’s also very enjoyable to bike.

[slifin]

Sounds like you need a walking trolley for groceries

It's like a bag with wheels you can drag, that was my immediate thought anyway

There's tons of micro mobility that could have also helped

[jjav]

> NY/Chicago/London/Paris/Tokyo you can conceivably and easily nip out to a grocer's, bodega, cafe or pub within 10 minutes of where you are.

This keeps coming up on HN but it's not as absolutist as it's made to be.

There are lots and lots of suburban places in the US where you can walk to things as you describe. NY/Chicago/London/Paris/Tokyo do not have a monopoly on walkability.

I live in very suburban (approaching on rural, but still suburban) area in the outskirts of silicon valley. Within 10 minutes I can walk to two supermarkets, several cafes and two pubs. Also to movie theaters, library, two drug stores, many restaurants, child care, a department store and many other businesses.

But unlike Manhattan, within 10 minutes (ok maybe 12) I can also walk to an open space forest where I can hike, mountain bike and go camping. Unlike in Manhattan, I can road bike many tens of miles of rural low-to-no-traffic roads out of my front door. We have many open soccer fields within easy walk (kid loves soccer so this is great).

Suburbs can be very walkable and have more variety of amenities within easy reach than a dense city.

[Karrot_Kream]

I think people are criticizing "American suburbia", not a a truly suburban form which is more urban than a rural form and less urban than an urban form. I live in what I call a "bike suburb". While the grocery and a couple other businesses are a 7-8 min walk away on a multi use path, the rest of the town opens up in a 5 min bike. Likewise I'm a 15-20 min drive away from tons of nature, and if we do need to drive around it's not as convenient as it is in suburbia but not too difficult either.

But a lot of suburbia is completely inaccessible or hostile by foot and unbikeable. Since you're in Silicon Valley, you can probably think of tons of places like that. Mixed use zoning and infill developmental priorities are what create this urban form. This is the important bit, not squabbling over which city is better than the other.

[jjav]

> Since you're in Silicon Valley, you can probably think of tons of places like that.

I sort of can't, which is why I always express doubt about these suburbs where one must supposedly drive 30 minutes to the nearest store (not a quote from this thread, but one that I've seen many times on HN).

I've lived also in south San Jose, Cambpell and Cupertino. In all those I could also walk to supermarkets and many other businesses.

[Karrot_Kream]

San Leandro, Union City, Fremont, and further East like Danville and Pleasanton can be pretty bad to walk around in. The West part of the Bay has generally been wealthier and historically had more pedestrian affordances. I'm pretty sure all of these factors go into making the Bay as a whole such an expensive and desirable place to live.

[lisper]

Also, when grocery shopping using a car, I can carry a shit-ton more than I can on foot, so I don't have to go shopping nearly as often. In a pedestrian-centric town, grocery shopping is a daily chore. Using my car, I only have to go once a week or so.

[ulfw]

This is exactly why I lived in Santa Monica when I lived in LA. One of the few walkables cities in the area (not all of SaMo mind you. Just talking about the area between Ocean and say 7th or 8th)

[burnished]

Normally I'd agree with your pedantry, but seriously have you been to LA? "Objective" feels like the right qualifier in this case

[sershe]

I've visited, although didn't spend much time in the city itself. I think it's not amazing for me cause other amenities LA has are not the type of stuff I need or enjoy, and there's a huge number of people who do need and enjoy them making the place really crowded. On the other hand, Amsterdam wouldn't be my first choice for similar reason (I've visited a couple times).

If choosing between areas that either are less crowded, or have all the stuff I enjoy, I'd prefer an LA-like one to an Amsterdam-like one.

[badtension]

Objectively we are still animals that need at least some movement. The environment described by the parent is hostile to our most basic needs.

[sershe]

I find I'd much rather drive to the mountains, or a lake, or at least a nice big park, and recreate there. Walking to a store in Amsterdam or Munich or Vancouver or Moscow was neither much fun nor a lot of exercise.

[badtension]

I am not talking about spending the leisure time but the amount of movement we need every day just to keep our bodies healthy. Sitting all the time is detrimental to us.

[tempaccount1234]

As a European who owns both a car and a bike, regularly driving somewhere just to do a bit of walking there feels like a complete waste of resources to me. I use my car for work related travel, at distances over 5 miles or to move heavy stuff. For anything else the default choice (which includes grocery shopping) is walking or biking. Amsterdam has great bike paths, I’d probably cycle even more there.

[kaibee]

> I find I'd much rather drive to the mountains, or a lake, or at least a nice big park, and recreate there.

This is not a sustainable solution to population level health needs, even if maybe in your particular situation you do actually get enough vacation days and free time on weekends to be able to do this (I also doubt this).

[sershe]

Well, a more sustainable solution is everyone exercising at home whenever they want in the way they want, or going for a run around the block. Going to the store by car + going for a run, is still faster and more convenient than walking to the store (per unit of exercise - e.g. driving to the store 10 times and running 2 miles vs walking 0.2 miles to the store).

[sagarm]

In the real world, people in cities are healthier because physical activity is integrated into their daily routine.

[ehnto]

A gym is a great example of how we tend to support parts of life communally when we can live more densely.

For me the competing requirements are space for gym equipment and space for a workshop. I could have space for both if I lived further out, but then all other aspects of life would get worse. I'd have to drive constantly, to work, to social outings, to fun weekend stuff, it'd be a drag.

As you are pointing out though, we all have our tradeoffs we make. My only counterpoint would be that most cities are doing a terrible job of offering options to people who do want the more dense, "less car" communities.

[nimbleplum40]

Build roads through natural environments is pretty bad for wildlife though and really harms the environment. It’s definitely not sustainable.

[rewmie]

I'm not sure you noticed you actually said you'd rather have enjoyable but infrequent events in one place than basic mundane and recurring chores.

A honest, objective comparison would be between going to a store in, say, LA or Amsterdam, and going to a lake or nice big park in LA or Amsterdam.

In Amsterdam, you can go to stores on foot without any issue. Not in LA.

In LA you need to drive for hours to go to any of the nice spots you listed. In Amsterdam you can walk to a nice park or a nice lake, and for the same amount of time you need to drive in LA to reach any decent spot, in Amsterdam you can actually reach at least two different countries, and by train you can reach spots like Paris.

[sershe]

Going to the store - I'd prefer to drive in LA on an average day of the year.

For the mid-range activities we have to compare like with like. For some low-mid range activity (like a local park) indeed, walking in Amsterdam would be more convenient. Something more remote/infrequent (e.g. a specialized gym like a climbing gym or a large pool), I'd prefer to drive rather than take transit.

As for the surrounding area it doesn't really depend on the city itself, LA is surrounded by desert and mountains, Amsterdam is in one of the most historically agriculturally productive (and so, densely populated for centuries) and flat areas in Europe. If LA was built like Amsterdam, it'd still take forever to get anywhere interesting outside of the city.

[godzillabrennus]

You mirror my sentiments. I greatly enjoy my time in my car. I rather have a bigger home and drive to recreation areas.

[sershe]

Personally I don't even like driving :) To me it's a minor annoyance, like washing the dishes. But it's just SO much more convenient, so it's worth it.

[leokennis]

> I think driving is much more convenient and nice for most things I like to do

Sure…is that because driving is inherently more convenient than walking, or because your city was designed so driving was more convenient than walking?

[makeitdouble]

A thought exercice: would you enjoy living in a 3x bigger house and drive a small cart from room to room ? with a well adapted house it could be more convenient. Would it be nicer ?

[sershe]

I don't think this is very relevant. I would prefer to live in a 3x bigger house, but it would still be walkable.

A reverse (also not very relevant) thought experiment - would you prefer to live in one room that is office/bedroom/bathroom/kitchen, just because you don't have to walk at all, everything is so close, why sprawl? :)

[makeitdouble]

European and asian cities pretty much feel like a 10x - 20x bigger house for many.

You walk down 2 blocks to get some milk and bread for the breakfast, post office is 3 blocks in the other direction, 1 block another way and you have fruits and vegetable. Basically you can treat the immediate surroundings as an extension of your house where you just "go" without a modal distinction of getting into a car, parking, back into the car, parking again.

Even taking a bus or train feels less of a discontinuation as you just walk in walk out and at no point have to switch to a "driver" mode.

[sershe]

I dunno, I used to feel this friction (I didn't use to drive until I was ~30), how driving is a thing and not driving is frictionless, but I think it was just psychological. It feels reverse now - the only frictionless places for ~everyone are grocery stores and such, cause they are everywhere. And maybe things you consciously live next to, like if you decide to live next to an olympic pool facility or a nightclub. Transit has pretty high fixed cost of getting anywhere, even in transit friendly placed like Munich or Moscow.. everything takes at least 30-40 minutes given to/from and wait times, any time of day. And that's if you don't have any transfers. I used to take it for granted but now when I look up transit directions it just weird to think it used to take so long and I thought it was normal.

Whereas if you drive you can choose when to go and so make it convenient - like I go to a climbing gym at 6am in winter, no traffic and less people. Also, many things you don't even need to leave the house for - even with a relatively small house (1100sqft) I have room for a weight rack and home office, no need to go to a real office or to a gym.

[Karrot_Kream]

This is why I personally prefer biking. I'm about to bike to the climbing gym. The one I like to go to is a 15 min bike ride away, so I'm already warmed up by the time I get to the gym. Likewise I can go whenever I want to avoid crowds.

[throwaway22032]

FWIW I agree with this wholeheartedly.

I own a car in London and there are many cases in which it's objectively superior for me to use it purely based on time savings. Generally any journey that's more than about 3-4 miles from the absolute centre of town.

It's also more comfortable, private, has AC, I don't need to wear headphones to listen to music, can carry more, etc.

It's just fundamentally better. If the UK had an equivalent of LA I'd move there in a heartbeat.

The only people I hear who are rabidly anti-car are those who ideologically prefer not to use one. They're generally not people who tried it and found it lacking.

[mbs159]

It is more convenient because city infrastructure in the US was designed specifically for the car, not for humans.

[msla]

> Los Ángeles

Why the accent? Is it not the one in California?

[thenewwazoo]

Almost certainly autocorrect. Bilingual devices sometimes forget (or mistake) the language you’re typing in. I’m typing this on a Spanish keyboard, for example.

[tvaughan]

This is the answer

[downWidOutaFite]

Reminds me of the runin I had with someone from San Rafael north of SF. They corrected me when I pronounced it as the spanish name it is. Apparently it's officially pronounced ra-fell, and they're adamant about it.

[systems_glitch]

Our town is Buena Vista, the first word is pronounced "Bew-nuh" -- and it's not strictly local, horse saddles were produced here in the early 1900s until I guess sometime before WW2, and old-timers who worked horses in the surrounding states know the local pronunciation!

The conflict aversion way to pronounce it is "BV" :P

[panzagl]

It's pronounced 'Bew-nuh' in both Virginia and Colorado.

[TacticalCoder]

That's the spanish spelling of the city's name.

[DANmode]

It's just a mistake they made due to their keyboard localization settings.

Finish the comment to confirm ;]