[powvans]

This is really amazing to see trending on HN. I spent a couple days in Pontevedra this summer while walking the Camino de Santiago. It was absolutely delightful and what I experienced aligns with the article. The old town was filled with wide streets almost exclusively for walking, cafes and restaurants that sprawled into plazas, and people young and old enjoying the car free public space. It was one of the first stops on our trip through Spain and as an American it was stunning.

In America the contrast is stark. Most of our public spaces prioritize cars instead of people. I’m lucky to live near the beltline in Atlanta. It’s incredible to see how people flock to the beltline for a car free experience. It’s such a rare thing in America. Where it exists you can see that there is tremendous demand for it. Supply on the other hand is unfortunately very difficult to deliver.

[MisterTea]

I was in Spain last month and what stood out is that walkability requires mom and pop stores as well as more integrated neighborhoods with small commercial shops mixed into residential. Small shops seemed to be the majority in the city centers. The only large store I saw was a Lidl. They have largeish indoor markets that are more like a mini mall of individual shops like a butcher, produce, baker, cheese, even restaurants and bars. And these are located in a neighborhood center serving the surrounding community.

The thing that kills walkability in the USA are the hyper scale stores and malls where everyone wants a mega store that has everything - one stop shops. They are too big to fit in small neighborhoods so they have to be built in a commercial district or large strip mall. And since they are big and house many shoppers at once they need big parking lots. Then they need big streets to feed those big parking lots. These big ass stores DEMAND cars and are very much a part of the problem.

If you want more walkability then incentivize lots of small shops over single giant shops. I would also argue that neighborhoods that are all residential for blocks and blocks are another problem so zoning should force a minimal commercial allotment to ensure walkable neighborhoods.

[thekyle]

I think big box stores are popular largely because it would be inconvenient to drive between many smaller shops just to find the same variety of goods. It’s the same dynamic we see with car-dependent shopping malls, where the main advantage is being able to park once and visit multiple stores. If instead you had to re-park at each individual store, the experience would be far less convenient.

But if a town is designed to be fully walkable so that people can easily walk from store to store (similar to the experience of shopping inside a indoor mall), then I think the appeal of large one-stop-shop stores is greatly reduced.

[prmoustache]

"so that people can easily walk from store to store (similar to the experience of shopping inside a indoor mall), "

That is funny to read that, because indoor malls were meant to replicate the experience of shopping in a commercial area in a city, not the opposite.

It actually failed though. I feel terrible, sleepy and only want to get out after more than half an hour in these indoor malls. Probably something that has to do with artificial light and aircons.

[an_aparallel]

The gruen transfer...look it up :)

[prmoustache]

Interesting. I guess the loud music and high temperature in some clothing stores is meant to achieve the same. They look like methofs law inforcement would use in an hostage situation.

In my case it gives me the urge of leaving as soon as possible. I could see how it could create impulse buy but most of the time I go to a shopping mall, it is to be able to try out clothing before buying and I will just lose patience and go away if it doesn't fit well. I tend to avoid them as much as I can anyway.

[MisterTea]

> But if a town is designed to be fully walkable

That is the point here. And do you always need to do all your shopping at once?If things were more walkable you can defer some shopping to other days.

[kccqzy]

You go to Midtown Manhattan and you continue to find plenty of chain stores like Target. Large scale stores are fine. Just don't dedicate space to parking. If you must, use underground parking garages not surface parking lots. You can cater to lots of shoppers if you assume shoppers will walk there or take public transportation.

[WorldMaker]

It's easy to forget the large Department Store started in downtown areas with plentiful multi-story buildings. We tend to remember the few that remain now as the anchors at the ends of malls, but they started as more natural vertical extensions of urban development.

[piva00]

> They have largeish indoor markets that are more like a mini mall of individual shops like a butcher, produce, baker, cheese, even restaurants and bars.

It's very common all over Europe, they are simply called "markets".

[oblio]

Yeah, that's hilarious, that's what markets ARE. That's how they were created. Like, thousands of years ago.

[goosejuice]

Mixed use zoning and some rules on what businesses can open would go a long way. Where I live I can walk to a small downtown that spans a few blocks with a train station. Unfortunately there is no where to buy groceries. There's like 3 ice cream shops, 3 pizza joints, and 9 salons though.

[ajmurmann]

Is there no demand for grocery stores? Seems like they naturally would pop up to fill demand

[bombcar]

Grocery stores are pretty low-margin, and need a certain amount of demand (for the size Americans are used to).

Some convenience stores get moderately close to being a grocery store.

It'd be an interesting experiment to see how few products you could carry (and of course, only one of each type) and have people still willing to shop there.

[ajmurmann]

American-sized grocery stores are relatively new though. When I lived in Germany downtowns had plenty of smaller, specialized stores. There'd be several small butchers, small bakeries and sometimes even a fish monger. Stores that carried produce would usually beer less specialized but there still would be plenty of small ones like Spa and Edeka used to have small locations in walkable areas. And of course proper markets at various frequencies.

[goosejuice]

> It'd be an interesting experiment to see how few products you could carry

Liquor store comes to mind. There are two cigar shops, two wine shops and a beer shop downtown. Just weird priorities I guess.

[bombcar]

I meant specifically what the smallest size you could get and people would still see you as a grocery store.

Basically, what is the minimum things you need for them to carry?

[goosejuice]

We have a very large number of grocery stores. They just aren't in walking distance of the downtown area. So there's demand, but apparently not enough for a bodega with produce.

[underlipton]

I don't know about that. There have been large grocery stores and retailers in Washington DC for years, and walkability is fine. It's most comfortable when it's just one or two in a neighborhood, of course, but a block's a block.

[mr3martinis]

Major retailers for sure but DC stores are typically more compact than their suburban counterparts. IMO it’s great. I far prefer the small WF in Logan Circle to a giant one in NOVA - it’s much faster to get in and out and still has everything I need.

[thuridas]

I would say that the causality goes in the other direction. We have big stores Carrefour and even some Coscos, but not in the middle of walkable cities.

[deltarholamda]

>Where it exists you can see that there is tremendous demand for it.

Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time, or they witness (or experience) violence, or some other anti-social behavior sours the whole thing.

I spent some time in NYC during the Giuliani years, after the city did a lot of work cleaning it all up: stopping turnstile jumpers, removing graffiti, more police, etc. It was great. You'd get the occasional guy that jumps on, makes a speech about how he's raising money for something or other, and walks around trying to sell chocolate bars. And there was the occasional dangerous person, insisting on getting up in your face.

So long as this sort of behavior remains at a very low level, something like maybe once every couple of weeks, that's probably okay. But public transit loses all appeal if it happens often. If it rises to the level of violence, everybody starts thinking about the suburbs.

Public transit requires a certain level of unspoken agreement. "We will all behave in this manner." If this unspoken agreement is broken often enough, then it must be enforced. If it is not, and other options present themselves, people will choose the other options.

This happened en masse many decades ago in America. Those that could decamped for other places where their social expectations were met.

I'm a big supporter of urbanism. I loathe the time I spend in my car, and I don't even have that far of a commute, but I have zero other options if I want to live where crime is low and the schools aren't dysfunctional. Until this is addressed, there is no argument about commuter density or efficiency of movement or anything else the proponents of public transit like to talk about that will make a lick of difference.

The worst argument anybody can make is "but that's just life in the big city!" If so, then I'm not going to live and raise my family in the big city. Airy-fairy principles of efficiency or an arguable notion of convenience will not take precedence over safety and quality.

[oldjim798]

All this applies to cars as well. Drivers are wild and driving is absurdly dangerous. I hate driving because other drives act like they are the car in the world - particularly post covid. Here in Toronto turn signals feel like they have been uninstalled. We have a ton of street racers tearing up the roads. I see motorcyclists pop wheelies and rip down major streets weekly.

All of your complaints about lack of pro social behavior applies to drivers too.

[SpicyUme]

I sit on the bus watching 10~25% of drivers on their phones watching videos at 60mph on my way to work. All ages too, including surprising old people. I live on a street that's posted 25 MPH and watch people impatient with the light down the block try to cut around traffic at ~40 down a narrow 1.5 lane street. Several times this year I've watched people cross a double yellows to drive into oncoming traffic to make a turn or skip past traffic. On Monday I was late to work because a driver ran into a pedestrian, stopped, then drove off, leaving him bleeding from the head on the side of the road.

Yeah, let's talk about antisocial behaviors. I'm getting to the point where I think roads should be designed specifically to inconvenience drivers. And I am one, I like being able to drive across the state, or across town to places that can take a long time by transit. Cars can be great.

[II2II]

> All of your complaints about lack of pro social behavior applies to drivers too.

I would argue that drivers are worse. I've had motorists stop me while crossing a multilane street asking for directions. I'm thinking, "WTF, this isn't a safe place to stop and talk." I've also have had drivers pass by me while I was laying on the road. (One time after flipping on my bike because of street car tracks. The other time after being struck by another vehicle.) And these are normal people I'm talking about here, not some "big scary" stereotype.

[LexiMax]

I've had panhandlers walk up to me at stop lights in suburban sprawl cities. I find it very hard to believe that the GP hasn't experienced the same.

[tengbretson]

Would you agree that being able to drive away from that situation is different from sharing space in a confined metal tube for 20+ minutes?

[LexiMax]

If you're sitting next to a homeless person for 20+ minutes you're not in danger, you're just uncomfortable sharing space with the less fortunate.

[inglor_cz]

"you're just uncomfortable sharing space with the less fortunate."

This is the sort of vacuous moral posturing that loses elections and if it wins them, it makes cities unlivable.

Why should I be fine sitting next to someone who shit his pants several times and likely has lice and scabies? And yes, it occassionally happens even in Czech public transport.

If you not just tolerate this, but scold people for being disgusted, the public transport system will lose the middle class and with it, any benevolence of the tax payer.

Civilizations always have some minimum for public behavior. Not stinking to high heaven in closed spaces is one of them. If you fight against such bare minimums and tell people that they are bad people for requiring them, you are promoting pure, unadulterated barbarism.

[woodruffw]

My experience is that panhandlers on the road like to post up at long red lights, at which point you’re effectively forced to share space with them for N minutes unless you intend to run a red light. In the subway, you just change cars.

(I’m riding the subway right now, and two people just changed cars because of weak A/C.)

[dmd]

Well, as one data point, I've been driving in the Northeast US since 1996, mostly around Philadelphia and Boston, and that has never once happened to me.

[xarope]

Saw a juggler in Barcelona do this. Was juggling at the lights, then ran around asking for tips. Ran up to me too, as a pedestrian, but I was crossing the lights then so he decided to focus on the cars instead.

[ericmay]

> Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time

People love driving until they're stuck in traffic, or their kid dies in a fiery car crash after being ran into by a drunk driver, or they get a flat tire, or can't afford their monthly car payment.

To your point about society needing to be better, that applies generally and has nothing to do specifically with transit, walking around outside, or any other daily activities.

You can live in a big city, affordably, with a yard and even a garage and have public transit like a light rail or a bus system, or just damn sidewalks that go to places. These supposed trade-offs are non-existent except in extreme cases like New York City, which isn't what is generally being discussed.

[potato3732842]

>>> Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time

>People love driving until they're stuck in traffic, or their kid dies in a fiery car crash after being ran into by a drunk driver, or they get a flat tire, or can't afford their monthly car payment.

The relative rates of these things are very, very different (as are the harms).

[magicalist]

> The relative rates of these things are very, very different (as are the harms).

I mean, as a first approximation, about twice as many people die in car crashes than are murdered in the US every year so...

[mothballed]

It applies to public transit specifically because people have freedom of speech to be assholes on public transit. If I have an uber or a private taxi or even a private collectivo which is a private system that works like public transit in much the 3rd world, if I get sick of someone panhandling for the Nth time I can kick them the fuck out.

If you look at places with nice public transit like Germany or Japan, they have much weaker freedom of speech and assembly laws so they can enforce the kind of rules private enterprises do in the USA. Americans, and I agree with them on this point, aren't going to weaken civil rights just because it would happen to make public transit more viable.

Private transport just has a lot of opportunities to deal with security or annoyance concerns you can't address with public transit. I don't think the opposition is so much to mass transit, just public transit, if the USA had something like the jeepnees they have in the philippines where I could pay $.25 to go across town and the bus driver can shove the assholes right off he bus, it'd be awesome.

[afavour]

I don't think that's true at all. Police in NYC are able to remove passengers who are being a nuisance, there just aren't enough of them to police every car of every subway train.

In my experience (as an NYC resident) the people causing problems on the subway aren't just being assholes for the sake of it. They're homeless, have mental issues or frequently both. I suspect when you visit Germany or Japan you're seeing the effects of much more comprehensive social nets that actually care for these people rather than let them fall through the cracks and live on subway trains.

[mothballed]

You don't need police to trespass someone in private transit though. You can just tell them to leave, and if they don't they can be made to leave (depending on the state). If you're familiar with bouncers you understand this function.

Expecting a police to be available to every transit disturbance, I agree, is not going to end with a functional outcome.

[afavour]

I'm not sure why there would be a distinction, really. The NYC subway has a specific transit police force who would act as the "bouncers" in this scenario. Either way it has absolutely nothing to do with free speech. Disruptive passengers can be ejected on public transit.

[piva00]

I don't think it has anything to do with free speech laws, it's simply civics and the lack of it in American society due to a multitude of factors.

American society doesn't understand collectivism in any level, your country has been built upon individualism without much care for collective living, you just reap what you've sown.

[mothballed]

Have you considered that America is a wealthy country, where anyone with a job even flipping burgers can buy a 150cc motorcycle and then take his girl on a date without a process that involves getting accosted by a paranoid schizophrenic?

You can basically buy a small motorcycle or scooter or fast e-bike on credit for the cost of maintaining a bus pass. It's only a rational choice for elderly or people with such mental or physical disabilities they can't maintain or operate similarly cheap alternatives. The end result is public transit gets dominated by hood rats, mentally ill, homeless, and a few elderly and people with disabilities, and due to the first amendment you can't stop the first couple classes from harassing the rest so as soon as a normal person gets their 50cc scooter or whatever similarly cheap other option fixed they go right back on that.

[piva00]

Sweden is also a wealthy country, even more here in Stockholm, people can lease cars for cheap, can buy scooters, etc., and public transport is still great: clean, reliable, covers a huge area since it's very sprawlwd, with almost no disturbances (in more than 10 years I can count on my digits the amount of times I've seen someone being mildly disturbing to others passengers). I only cycle and ride public transport here since I never cared (nor had to care) about getting a Swedish driver's licence.

The issue is not free speech, it's how your society educates people to be citizens.

[oblio]

If the US builds high density corridors supported by high frequency, reliable public transit connecting desirable destinations (housing with shopping, CBDs, etc), I'm willing to bet a lot that every social class will be represented on those public transit lines.

[groggler]

Yeah, great.. I was recently hit by a paranoid schizophrenic on a E scooter.. More logically he could have been denied access since he had plenty of public transportation options where he wouldn't have gone on to eventually maime people.

[int_19h]

USA has many successful "collectivist" examples in its history. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_home_front_durin...

[ericmay]

I'm not sure that's quite the case, because as a country we do tend to be rather compassionate when motivated to do so. You frequently hear from travelers "Americans are the nicest folks you'll meet" and I generally believe that's true. It's not about individualism vs collectivism, but lack of empathy enforced through transportation methods that by design create a lack of social cohesion.

Scandinavian countries for example score much higher on the individualism scale, yet you don't see as much of this behavior as you might in the United States.

[piva00]

> You frequently hear from travelers "Americans are the nicest folks you'll meet"

It's fake niceness, it's the American way of being "polite", most times I interact with Americans it's pretty clear it's surface-level niceness, more like a theater than genuinely being it. To me it's quite grating and makes Americans feel untrustworthy.

> Scandinavian countries for example score much higher on the individualism scale, yet you don't see as much of this behavior as you might in the United States.

I live in Sweden and usually tell people that it's the most individualistic collectivisc place I've been to, people are individualistic in the sense of self-sufficiency but care about the collective if you are acting against it. In that sense we are much more collectivisc than the USA, whenever I've been in the US it's very clear that most aren't caring for the collective aspect at all.

[Daishiman]

Being nice and being empathetic are very different things. Niceties are protocol; you can be empathetic and considerate while displaying very different types of mannerisms.

[LargeWu]

Americans might be nice, but they're not necessarily kind.

[rcpt]

> Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time

OP is right. The demand is huge and supply is tiny. Even with those scary panhandlers people are jamming onto public transport (when it actually exists) and going far far out of their way to experience walkable areas.

> zero other options if I want to live where crime is low and the schools aren't dysfunctional

Crime in NYC is exceedingly low and the schools are great. Why don't you simply move to Chelsea or the Upper West Side?

[deltarholamda]

>Why don't you simply move to Chelsea or the Upper West Side?

Because I'm not in the top 0.1%.

"Why don't you just move into a $2-5 million dollar home?" is an astonishing take.

[rcpt]

Wait. Are the pedestrian friendly cities battlegrounds with panhandlers with horrible schools, or are they wildly expensive luxury destinations that are in such high demand that only the 0.1% can live there?

[deltarholamda]

I'd think "it can be both" would be obvious, but clearly not.

Rich people have been enjoying a different standard of life even in the midst of abject poverty since forever, but I guess this is news to some.

[rcpt]

So, OP is right. Despite the Nextdoor-tier rant about panhandlers the demand for walkable cities is huge. So huge that the super rich will pay handsomely and put up with panhandlers on top of it to live outside of car hell.

[Bratmon]

I don't understand why you're phrasing that like it's a dichotomy. It's clearly both.

[oblio]

It's almost like the US has a... missing middle?

[rafram]

The UWS above 96th is quite affordable. Manhattan Valley is pretty, safe, and close to the park.

[deltarholamda]

According to Zillow they start at about a million for 2/1 apartments and go up from there.

We have completely different definitions for affordable, unless $250K+/yr jobs are just falling out of the sky.

[sombrero_john]

Renting is perfectly fine. NYC has the strongest tenant protection laws in the country.

[sombrero_john]

There are many teachers, social workers, and bartenders living on the UWS. Hardly the top 0.1%.

[dataflow]

I imagined they thought you'd consider renting, not just buying. (It's still expensive, but not top-0.1% expensive.)

[starik36]

Just rented a 2 bedroom on the Upper West Side. The rent is $4600 a month. And these bedrooms are tiny.

Not everyone can "simply move to" Upper West Side.

[dfxm12]

Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time, or they witness (or experience) violence, or some other anti-social behavior sours the whole thing.

These are not issues with public transit. These are issues with municipalities that don't invest in their citizens.

For one example, public transit connects people to jobs. Some people in nicer areas with good jobs fight against public transit because they don't want the working class to have easy access to their neighborhood. So, again, the issue isn't public transit, it's people who don't want to share their municipality's resources. New York today has free kindergarten, universal school lunches and the excelsior scholarship program. Thanks to investments like this, we see crime in NY today is lower than even Giuliani's tenure as mayor...

[panick21_]

> Public transit requires a certain level of unspoken agreement. "We will all behave in this manner."

That literally all of society.

The American idea that you live in suburban home that is a quasi gated community, drive into a parking garage, then go up to an office, only interact with workmates and then driving back out with no social interaction other then work is just not how most society worked for all of history. And its not how the US worked until the 1960.

The reality is, violence and death on the roads, is far more common then on public transport. There are tons road rage incidents, an absurdly high number. Those lead to all kinds of problems and quite often shootings. You are in more danger then on public transport generally. And yet I almost never hear about that when Americans talk about transport policy.

But yes, there does need to be rules enforcement. But on the other hand its also true that the US often has very user-hostile design principles in pretty much every aspect of their city design and policing policy. And that often invites or re-enforces bad behavior.

[Earw0rm]

And social policy. You have too many people wandering around in a psychological state one negative interaction away from an incident that could easily escalate to murder.

Such people exist in every country, yes, but fewer in most places.

[lokar]

I lived in Manhattan (Chelsea) and took the subway to work and most other outings (when I could not walk) in the few years before Covid.

It was fine. You would get some people trying to sell stuff or in some kind of distress, but it was not all the time and it was easy to manage.

Americans who don't live in dense cities (and use transit) seem to be obsessed with the idea that these are some intolerable dystopias that must be dismantled.

It was the best place I have ever lived, except for the weather...

[FuriouslyAdrift]

I found the density of Manhattan oppressive and stifling. Coming from Wrigleyville, in Chicago, it felt very impersonal and alienating.

I ended up buying a house in an internal suburb (a former suburb from the 1930s that had been swallowed by the city) that is also a historic neighborhood (so it's character cannot be destroyed by developers).

[goosejuice]

Funny, I find Wrigleyville oppressive. I lived by that red line for a few years. It takes a lot of patience to live there.

[FuriouslyAdrift]

When I lived there it was middle class Polish and gay (since Boystown is right next to it).

Pierogis, coffee, and cute little shops. That and great music.

[goosejuice]

I was right by Halsted and Addison. By oppressive I mean brutal in a sense. The drunks falling into the street. People shitting in my alley. Trying to get on and off the red line during a game. The huge crowds. Fights on the El platform. Cat calling. Harassment. People sleeping in my stairwell.

It was rather eventful let's say. I just didn't really know what I was getting into being new to the city. It's pretty amazing what you grow accustom to.

[lokar]

It’s fine that not everyone likes the same things.

What bother me is a loud minority of anti-urbanists complaining about cities they don’t live in and pushing for policies that hurt them. All while economic data clearly shows cities are more productive and subsidize they rest of society.

[ionwake]

>Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time

As a european I read this comment, its sort of implications, and reckon US must be hell in some areas. TBH London has seen a big drop in health, pan handlers have "lightly" started appearing on public transport, I think I only began noticing it since 2020.

My point is even with the occasionaly pan handler in London, that statement wouldn't make sense, as it is not "obviosuly bad" in that regard.

[deltarholamda]

Well, panhandling was just one thing mentioned, and to focus on that to the exclusion of the others seems disingenuous.

But it does depend on the nature of the panhandling, doesn't it? Passive panhandling is one thing, and aggressive panhandling is something else, right?

The point is that people will accept some level of anti-social behavior, however they define that, and above that level they do not. No amount of bluster or "why I just never" or incredulity doesn't change that. If you want walkable cities with good public transit you make it attractive and hospitable to a wide majority of people.

Or don't, no skin off my nose, but acting shocked that there are people who think and react differently than you do is silly IMO.

[ionwake]

Im confused, you seem to be offended for some reason

EDIT> I reread your comment what on earth are you talking about? Im not acting shocked, and nothing about my reply is anything to do with other people having differing opinions.

[deltarholamda]

Fair enough, though I'm not offended. I detected condescension where none was meant, and I apologize for that.

[ionwake]

No worries bro its all good man

[dfxm12]

As a North American who has contended with public transit in many different cities on this continent, I can tell you, you should infer that a person making comments like this has been primed by conservative media to: fear everyone who isn't exactly like them, overestimate the crime in cities, demand a fascist police state, blame the victims of circumstance (and be blind to the systemic issues that put them in said circumstances), blindly dismiss any honest attempts to fix the underlying issues as "communism".

[everdrive]

>The worst argument anybody can make is "but that's just life in the big city!"

A cousin was visiting us in our nice suburb. We had a slow, not-busy road we walked on when we lived there, and we'd wave to anyone; neighbors, vehicles, etc. Our cousin was sort of uncomfortable, and asked "do you know all these people?" I explained that we knew some of them but were just being polite and friendly. She explained that that were she lived (Boston) you just couldn't safely wave at just anybody you passed.

I don't think this occurred to her at the time, but that means she lives in a pretty awful place. Why exactly would it be _dangerous_ to wave at someone in a friendly way? There's only one answer to that question; because you live around violent or unstable people.

Before anyone says I'm just privileged, I've lived in rough areas before, and I can't fathom why anyone would put up with that sort of daily violence, noise and general degradation of quality of life if they otherwise didn't have to. We ultimately ended up moving out of the city just like you said because the crime was getting worse year by year. Do you want some drunk kid blasting his bass right outside your house at 11pm on a weeknight? (for hours, no less) And if you go and try to get him to turn it down there's a significant chance you'll be met with violence? Or people harassing your wife if she's ever "foolish" enough to walk down the street without you? Or to need to explain to your wife "hey, we can't walk through that group of kids, I can't really defend you against more than two attackers." All of these were regular issues for us. Home invasions on our block started ramping up, we knew people who were attacked, shot, killed, just while walking home.

To your point, this wasn't academic. It can be quite the 3rd rail to try to explain _why_ the violence in the city is bad, what is the cause and what is the solution. But when we're talking about my family's safety, I just don't care. I'm not going to live like that, and would have done almost anything to get my family out of that sort of situation. I really can't even fathom people who would write these things off. "Sure, my wife might be murdered and abused in a home invasion, but there are really cool walk-able restaurants!" It's pathological.

[abap_rocky]

Sure, when you compare a "nice suburb" to a "rough area" of the city you'll come to such conclusions. But if the city you lived in is anything like mine, that disorder you experienced is likely highly localized to those "rough areas". Given this, it might be more helpful to compare a "nice suburb" to a "nice area" in a city.

I'm glad you chose the experience of taking a walk as your original example because it was instrumental in helping me to decide that I wanted to raise my family in the city.

COVID offered an opportunity for my young family to spend a month in the suburbs and the thing that sticks with me now after all these years later is how much I hated taking our then 1 year-old for a walk as compared to the city. In the suburbs we walked past the same houses on the same sidewalk-lacking streets barely seeing anyone else. If we wanted anything beyond that it required loading our toddler into the car.

Compare this to a nice area of the city where the density allows for a vast array of possible destinations and plenty of folks to smile or wave at on the way. Walks these days could be to the local park on a Saturday morning for the farmers market, or to the local Italian Ice spot because the weather hasn't gotten too cold yet. While it's still possible to have those experiences in the suburbs, it's hard to be as spontaneous when you've got to consider things like car seats and parking.

[oblio]

> She explained that that were she lived (Boston) you just couldn't safely wave at just anybody you passed.

I was born and raised in urban environments.

Let me translate this for rural (or fake rural aka suburbia) minded folks:

In cities people don't wave except to people they actually know/have seen several times because...

It's gauche, awkward, weird.

There are just too many people in cities and nobody can pretend their city is just one big village. People just go on with their lives and don't wave 1 million times per day. Waving is reserved to actual acquaintances.

In this specific case, it was most likely a bad neighborhood or someone with a heightened sense of fear due to reasons that cannot be clarified without knowing the person directly.

[jghn]

> (Boston) .... Why exactly would it be _dangerous_ to wave at someone in a friendly way?

It's not dangerous at all to do this. It's just considered odd & borderline impolite to do that. It's hard to explain to an outsider, but you see it brought up a ton on places like r/boston. The stereotype is that people in the northeast are "kind but not nice". By and large we don't engage in frivolity like greeting random people when walking around.

[jen20]

This is also true of the tube in London - if you talk to a stranger on the morning commute you may as well have peed in their backpack - the response is about the same.

[matwood]

And it can make sense. A lot of people are packed in small space and commuting. Not exactly an uplifting part of the day. I can understand it's considered polite to try to keep quiet.

What's funny is where I live now in Italy (outside of the big tourists areas) is the exact opposite. Any line or idle time you have with random people will become a conversation. It's almost weird to not have a conversation.

[ikjasdlk2234]

>She explained that that were she lived (Boston) you just couldn't safely wave at just anybody you passed.

This is the most hilarious thing I've read on this site. Your cousin might get some weird looks waving to random people, but why would they feel unsafe? I have never known more of my neighbors than in Boston, and I've lived all over the U.S.

[potato3732842]

People in New England are generally not at all polite but very kind.

Like if you waved at someone they'd give you the bird but if you dropped your groceries someone would help you pick them up.

I live in a rough area. The kind of problems it brings are far, far, far more manageable than the kind of problems that trying to exist in a "nice" area where some large fraction of people will hate me for how I live and have no real problems so they'll focus on me. Nobody gives a shit what you do in the hood. If you don't make part of your living doing some sort of business outside the law the violence will probably never visit you. That said, despite violence being not great, property crime generally is quite low here compared to even much nicer areas in other corners of the country so that takes a lot of the inconvenience off IMO.

[matwood]

I think the mistake you're making is assuming the entirety of all cities are rough areas. There are plenty of rough suburbs you don't want to live in either.

> She explained that that were she lived (Boston) you just couldn't safely wave at just anybody you passed.

I don't really understand this. It's well known people in the NE don't simply wave at everyone. I grew up in the south so it's odd to me to not ask any person I interact with how their day is going, but I've never seen it as some safety issue. Just different culturally.

> Do you want some drunk kid blasting his bass right outside your house at 11pm on a weeknight? (for hours, no less)

I'm not sure if this is alluding to race, so I'll ignore that part, but kids are going to be kids. Suburbs, city, doesn't matter - if you have teenagers around you'll have things like this. When we lived in a suburb my wife always complained about the kids doing this and I would always chuckle because at one point I was one of those kids ;)

[com2kid]

I live in Seattle and we wave to our neighbors every day. We also have block parties with big cookouts, kids running up and down the streets and sidewalks playing with each other after school, and I get to enjoy a highly walkable lifestyle. My son's normal is multiple parks within a few blocks, walking to a small grocery store to pickup ingredients to make dinner, and having multiple friends he can walk to and visit throughout the day.

[SpicyUme]

are you my neighbor? Sounds like where I am, but with only one small corner market in walking distance. There used to be a bigger grocery/deli until about 5 years ago. Now it feels like we're in a bit of a donut hole within Seattle.

[Zigurd]

The semi rural and rural US south is, in many places, much more dangerous based on crime statistics. Stranger danger is also much less of a factor than is perceived.

[SilverElfin]

Maybe. But I know that many blue cities also play games with crime metrics and what gets classified as what. Not to mention the utter lack of prosecution and consequences trains citizens to stop reporting, leading to the data changing in misleading ways.

[jghn]

> But I know that many blue cities also play games with crime metrics

How do you *know* this?

[OkayPhysicist]

You've fallen for right wing propaganda. Crime has continuously fallen since the 70's. Individual areas of cities might get worse (there's a cyclical nature to newly built up, desirable areas aging and becoming low-income as other areas get rebuilt), but it is an indisputable fact that you are less likely to be violently attacked today than just about any other point in living history.

And the difference in crime rates in urban and rural areas is grossly overblown. Looking at California numbers, a city-slicker has about a .9% chance of becoming a victim of violent crime, and hick has about a .6% chance. That's a small reduction to a small probability. For context, if your risk tolerance hasn't forced you to cut out meat and alcohol from your diet to avoid cancer, you're miscalculating risk if you think you should flee the cities to avoid violence.

[okdood64]

Thank you for this. This is precisely my issue with public transport in the US (granted my experience has only been in SF, Oakland, NYC and Chicago).

It’s emotionally taxing when you need to keep your guard up all the time. I can’t even imagine how much worse it would be on someone if they had kids to tow around as well.

[oldjim798]

How is driving not emotionally taxing the exact same way? Driving with my kids is fucking terrifying. I have 2 under 6, and I have to lock them into these giant car seats to keep them safe (to be clear I like modern car seats, their designs just remind me how vulnerable kids are). Every time I go through a intersection I worry what happens if someone runs the red and smashes into our side.

I no longer speed when I drive because I want the kids to be safe and the insane rage other drivers send our way because I'm going 40 km/hr on a 40 km/hr road. I've had driver try to force us off the road, tail gate us hard, pass us across double yellow lines, scream at us.

Driving is exhausting.

[rcpt]

And when they get a bit older you need to stay in the house all day trying to keep them off the worst parts of the Internet because cars have completely destroyed kids freedom

[SilverElfin]

> Every time I go through an intersection I worry what happens if someone runs the red and smashes into our side.

Something like this is a lot more rare than harassment on public transit. And not exactly avoidable. So it isn’t worth thinking about. But on public transit you have to maintain constant vigilance just to avoid the many bad situations that could come your way. You’re very exposed and vulnerable. The crime rates on transit are after everyone puts in the effort to avoid being a victim.

[alistairSH]

Two thoughts...

Is it actually true that car accidents are far more rare than harassment on the subway? I don't take public transit enough to comment (there is none here).

Car accidents have a much higher likelihood of maiming or killing me. Even if they're more rare, I would posit (but don't have numbers) that the total cost to society (including property damage) is MUCH higher.

[Zigurd]

Data point: I've been in two car wrecks. Once as a passenger where the driver spun it on the Mass Pike to 128 ramp, and once when I got T-boned on my way home from having my car serviced. That was my favorite car. Nobody's ever bothered me on public transport. Not on the MBTA, not on MBTA, Metro North, or LIRR commuter rail, not on Amtrak to New York, not on the New York public transit systems.

[oblio]

It's not just about crashes. It's also about close calls (in both directions, being hit and hitting others), people driving while checking their phones, rude drivers: tailgaters, honkers, high beamers, etc. The list is endless.

Oh, and my God, the mind numbing boredom.

[potato3732842]

Because if you don't suck your have bad interactions monthly or less and when you do have them they're pretty easy to explain away in a way that doesn't involve the other guy having malice or whatever.

Maybe try going whatever speed the rest of the traffic is going. Less ire will be directed at you if you're not everyone's problem point.

[alistairSH]

I can make most of the same arguments about driving.

People run red lights, they speed, they swerve, they get in fender-benders and flee, they honk, they smoke weed and drink vodka while they drive. All illegal, all common occurrences. And I live in a wealthy, safe suburb.

[matwood]

When I lived in a pretty wealthy suburb some of the most dangerous people around were those driving home from the bar.

[afavour]

I take my kids on the NYC subway very often. It isn't emotionally taxing because the vast, vast majority of journeys encounter no issues at all. What you're describing is a self inflicted state of mind.

I don't drive as often but I've run into far more potentially dangerous situations driving on the highway with my kids than I have on the subway.

[insane_dreamer]

I’m much more worried about my teenager driving than I am him taking public transport.

[dropofwill]

Pontevedra is at least 100 times smaller then NYC, it's more comparable to the suburbs that you're moving your family to.

[verzali]

Yep, population of 80,000 vs 8,000,000.

[Muromec]

>Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time, or they witness (or experience) violence, or some other anti-social behavior sours the whole thing.

Haven't seen any of that in 30 years of using public transport in several countries. Are you ok in US?

The closest to anarchy I have been in public transport was withnessin a hobo refusing to pay for the ride to trigger the police response and be booked.

[coryrc]

No, not at all. Have you seen the news? We'll be at Weimar Republic levels of inflation soon and half the voters think the person that's causing it will fix it.

[oldsecondhand]

The problems you mentioned are policing and welfare problems, both things that America sucks at.

[okr]

Or it becomes too expensive like in germany. Then it will suck too.

[eCa]

€58 a month for all local/regional public transport is very cheap.

Where I am, in another part of western Europe, a single-region ticket is normally ~30-50% more expensive than the all-of-Germany ticket.

[okr]

It is subsidized. Through taxes you pay the full prize anyways. Just that someone else than you who decides, what do with your money, like subsidized public transport.

[GrzegorzWidla]

Nothing is more subsidised than cars and their infrastructure.

[Fricken]

My daily bicycle commute takes me right through the heart of my city's homeless district, and like with many cities things have gotten a lot worse since COVID.

Cars are far and away the biggest threat to my safety, and the source of all the harrassment I receive while out in public. I mean, every now and then some guttersnipe blurts out incoherencies at me, but that's not something to be afraid of.

I regard driving, in cities, to be an inherently anti-social activity. If you want a healthy community with safe and lively streets you got to be out in it, not sealed off in a protective cage.

[deltarholamda]

Do you have a wife? Kids? Would you let them bicycle through the homeless district?

I don't get hassled either, but it's not about me. My job as a husband and father is to protect my family.

[rcpt]

"wife I forbid you from traveling on that road"

Do you have a wife?

[deltarholamda]

My wife is far more risk adverse than I am. We'd be moving if she had to bike through a Hooverville to buy milk.

[Fricken]

If I see your wife and kids in trouble I'll intervene, don't worry.

Of course, motor vehicle crashes are the second biggest killer of kids after guns. I don't know where homeless people sit on the threat scale but it's a negligibly small amount.

[deltarholamda]

That's a non-answer, so I assume that's a "no" on the wife, kids, and/or letting them pedal through tent city.

In any event, homeless people are low on the threat scale because people generally avoid riding a Schwinn through homeless encampments, which should be perfectly obvious but I guess not.

[Fricken]

I don't have kids. The homeless district is easy to avoid, and there's a k-12 school right on the edge of it with many kids walking, cycling and taking the bus to school. I've never heard of a serious incident involving homeless people.

Here's a fun fact for you: statistically cyclists live longer than non-cyclists, and that's in spite of all the hazards they have to deal with while out riding.

[Muromec]

I for once don't let mine out of the house without a full face cover so strangers on the street don't get any ideas, so I'm right there with you.

[jghn]

> Would you let them bicycle through the homeless district?

I have lived in and around more than one area known to have a high density of people experiencing homelessness. It seems a lot, lot scarier than it really is. Once you get used to just tuning them out it's fine. The vast, vast majority of the crime in that community happens amongst themselves. Are there exceptions to that? Of course. But the numbers are low, just like most crime.

[vkou]

> Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time

Everyone loves driving until they have to:

* Pay through the nose for parking.

* Pay through the nose for tolls.

* Pay through the nose for gas, maintenance, insurance.

* Replace a car that they can't afford to keep running.

* Are stuck in endless traffic hell that them and all the other drivers on the road have created.

* Are seriously injured or killed by a reckless/drunk/idiot/inattentive/unlucky driver.

----

The first bullet point in particular drives people into a frothing rage. Drivers, as a group, are incredibly and irrationally entitled to free storage of their cars on public/private space.

The last bullet point is far more likely to happen to you in a car, than you are to be assaulted on a bus or train. Across my immediate family, I can count three serious crashes (Only one of which the family member in question was at fault for). None of us have ever been assaulted on public transit, and we've taken a lot of it.

If my direct connection bus came back - or at least bus frequency were increased - (Thanks, budget cuts, for adding a 10-25 minute transfer to my downtown to downtown commute), my car would once again be collecting dust in the garage.

People take transit when its relatively fast and gets them to where they need to go. That's the primary driver for ridership.

[matwood]

Spot on. Where I live now we have a single car for convenience, but we can go weeks without driving. It's amazing, and I don't understand how I managed to commute by driving for so many years without going crazy.

[insane_dreamer]

In my experience cars are much more dangerous than public transport.

I've taken public transport my whole life, in numerous countries, and only bought a car for the first time 7 years ago when moving back to the US. Never had any incident on public transport or felt unsafe. Was it always as comfortable and convenient as my car? No, but that's a separate issue.

I'm a weekend road cyclist and I've had a number of very close calls with cars -- invariably big pick up trucks, sometimes flying an American flag (you know the type) -- purposely rev up and buzz by me as close as possible on small country roads, sometimes honking as well or flipping the bird out the window. Any little stumble or twitch at that point and there were a couple of times I would have been in the hospital or dead.

Yeah, there are sometimes strange people on public transport, as well as homeless, etc. But I've encountered more *holes driving cars than on the bus or subway.

[BrenBarn]

> Public transit requires a certain level of unspoken agreement. "We will all behave in this manner." If this unspoken agreement is broken often enough, then it must be enforced.

All of society requires this, not just public transit.

[CHB0403085482]

>Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time, or they witness (or experience) violence, or some other anti-social behavior sours the whole thing.

Tokyo got this solved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KMYAEIXVzA

[speleding]

You can have walkable neighborhoods and still allow some cars. They can only enter a neighborhood at low speed as a destination, to park there. To get from one neighborhood to another you have normal roads and highways. The Netherlands does this (although they have a lot of public transport as well. And bikes of course)

[user94wjwuid]

You are 1,000,000,000% more likely to die hit by a car as a pedestrian than die from a panhandler asking for a buck

[ponector]

>>but that's just life in the big city!

In a big American city. School issues as well American due to funding structure. I'm not saying there aren't problems at school in other countries, but not like that: schools in cheap US districts are extremely underfunded.

[insane_dreamer]

This may be the US (or NYC) public transport experience but it is generally not the European one.

[CPLX]

I took my kid to school in Downtown Brooklyn on the subway today. It was great.

New York is great and the subway is amazing. I remain mystified by what I see people say on cable news or podcasts.

Or maybe everyone secretly just really loves strip malls, who knows.

[dfee]

From a website I read last night:

> Mountain Life

> I love the fact you can drive down the road and wave at friends you know.....and hell you probably will be drinking a beer with them later that day. I love the fact everyone is pretty laid back and neighbors know each other..Anyone for BBQ?. I enjoy the fact I can chill out relax NOT hearing the city noise. I love the fact at night you can look up and see the night sky and here coyote's screeching in the background. I respect the fact I grew up in an environment that was NOT surrounded by pavement and was NOT surrounded by buildings. There was endless landscapes and forests of exploration. I could find any tree and build my fort. I could spend hours hiking with my dog and find no end. I could take a nap in a field of grass and not worry someone would cross my path. The Santa Cruz Mountains have so much to offer and I feel like there is so much to learn about them.

https://santacruzmtns.com/About.html

[bee_rider]

A bit weird they decided to include some barbs about how their environment was NOT like some city, even when trying to be positive.

[Der_Einzige]

Living rent free in their minds. New Yorkers don't think about them at all, just like the scene from Mad Men.

[dfee]

I think you're right. It's strange getting into a taxi and seeing NY1 – there really is minimal consideration of the rest of the country.

[dfee]

Me? I was just providing an alternate perspective that life beyond the boroughs is not just strip malls.

I've spent a bunch of time in Manhattan. Cumulatively, many months of my life. It's a fun experience, but I'm not interested in raising my kids there.

[CPLX]

> just providing an alternate perspective that life beyond the boroughs is not just strip malls.

It kind of is. Where'd you buy your charcoal? Did it have a parking lot out front and two stores on either side of it sharing the same overall building?

Of course there are exceptions, maybe you're one of them. But they are so small numerically as to be irrelevant. The vast majority of the country is living nearly all their personal life in tract housing and their commercial and social life in a strip mall. I've travelled a lot, just calling it like I see it.

Regardless of all that though, if you like it then great for you!

My comment above was just noting that city living is fine. I keep seeing in the media that NYC is scary or dangerous or something and that's fucking ridiculous, it's not.

[bee_rider]

Not you, the person you were quoting. They are the one that decided to include all the “NOT” stuff, right?

[Gigachad]

How is this such a common occurrence? I take the train to work almost every day in Australia and I’ve probably been asked for money twice in the last 3 years, and never seen a violent situation.

[jakubmazanec]

> Everybody loves public transit until they get panhandled for the jillionth time, or they witness (or experience) violence, or some other anti-social behavior sours the whole thing.

Maybe this is just another "American version" of something - in Czechia, public transportation is truly safe (incidents happen, of course, but it's like one per year that makes it to the news), even at night.

[dbingham]

This all comes down to "We can't have nice things in America because of our toxic mix of individualism and capitalism."

Because we insist on trying to privatize everything, refuse to provide a safe floor for people, and make poverty and mental health challenges moral issues (meaning we degrade people who experience them and leave them to fend for themselves) we create an environment where true community is impossible.

Unless, of course, we apply authoritarian and abusive policing controls against those we've left behind, rounding them up and sending them somewhere else. Which of course achieves a temporary "peace" at the cost of a deep insecurity and fear, because we all know the moment we slip or step out of line, we're gone.

It really is toxic and has led directly to society breaking down to the point where we're now falling into full scale fascism.

[rurban]

You can have nice things also. Eg the inner city of Park City, Utah is also car free, and busses are running for free in the winter season.

[LexiMax]

> This happened en masse many decades ago in America.

There was a name for this trend - White flight.

I grew up in southern suburbia and in walkable southern towns - they do exist, in pockets.

I learned two things from my experiences. First is that anywhere there is foot traffic, you will get homelessness, panhandling, crime, and just generally people you don't recognize. It's not because big cities aren't being policed adequately or anything policymakers are doing, it's just something that naturally comes with the territory.

The second lesson I took away is that we as a society often can't tell the difference between "This place makes me feel uncomfortable" and "This place isn't safe." Despite all of those issues I outlined above, I felt very safe and comfortable living day to day in urbanist spaces.

[ktosobcy]

This is not a problem with public transport but with utter lack of urban planning and convoluted social dynamics in the USA.

Dense cities and lack of urban sprawl reults in awesome places to live and you don't need to even use public transport in those as everything is just close by.

Also - IMHO the problem with the USA is more focus on competition (you have to "win") instead of cooperation hence more fracutred society that yields more povery and "not-nice" public spaces...

> The worst argument anybody can make is "but that's just life in the big city!" If so, then I'm not going to live and raise my family in the big city. Airy-fairy principles of efficiency or an arguable notion of convenience will not take precedence over safety and quality.

I live in a rather smallish city/town (~45k).

[bix6]

I hate public transit because it takes 2x+ the time to get anywhere since it’s such an afterthought. The routes are horrible and the vehicles too infrequent.

When I lived in Berlin I could get anywhere in the city within 15-30 mins, it was insane.

I ride my bike or e-bike everywhere I can. Cars are the worst.

[ux266478]

What he suggests is completely besides public transit, it's about spaces in general where cars aren't allowed or catered to. It doesn't just apply to big cities, but mid-sized and small cities have an absolute dearth of pedestrian-focused plazas. Small towns are extremely hostile to basic foot traffic. There's no reason for this to be the case. In Europe the small town equivalent will have a center where most of the commerce and services are, where cars are completely forbidden. You simply drive into town, park somewhere and carry out your business on foot. It's very nice.

Plazas do exist in the US, but they're rare. Very rare, especially outside of New England. That's what OP is talking about, public transit is a 'solution' to a different problem, and one that I don't like either. See, my biggest problem with urbanism is that it's overwhelmingly focused on building huge megacities, which are inherently unwalkable nonsense. Instead, walkability becomes rhetoric for any mode of transit that isn't a car. I hate that. I want walkable living spaces that are actually walkable, not urban environments where I walk to the train station because the city is too large for its own good.

I don't want to replace the personal car with public transit. It misses the point entirely. I don't want to have to use anything more intensive than an e-scooter to get around the place I live at all. Walking to the train station and riding that for 10-20 minutes to get to the other side of the city sucks. The social problems endemic to public transit in the US are just icing on the cake. Tokyo is a hellish nightmare compared to an Italian commune.

[ainiriand]

Funny enough it is the same with the cinema for me, too much impolite behaviour so I prefer to watch at home.

[smw]

Or, you know, we could handle homelessness. I lived in Amsterdam for the last two years and despite walking everywhere and intentionally exploring, I never saw a person sleeping on the street, and the only time I was asked for money was an obvious tourist.

I don't think the NL government is remotely perfect, and they definitely are struggling to build enough housing, but their 'housing first' strategy towards homelessness seems to mostly work?

[c22]

Are you kidding? I see antisocial, dangerous, and violent behaviors from other people driving cars every single day...

[cyberax]

> I'm a big supporter of urbanism.

Well, it leads to the behavior that you mentioned. It's unavoidable and it'll keep getting worse as the price of housing in dense cities continues to soar.

Your only choice? Move to suburbs and wait for self-driving cars. I get downvoted every time I say this, but that's the simple truth.

[Der_Einzige]

No one wants public transit!

I've spent a lot of time in Singapore, with literally the worlds lowest crime rates, highest trust in society, and best mass transit in the world.

It costs 100K USD to get a SHITTY car, like a Toyota Prius.

Everyone in Singapore is desperate to make lots of money, is desperate to buy a cool car, and is desperate to never step one foot onto the transit system again.

Mass Transit is a cope for being poor, even in a society with no crime and the highest trust in society. Using it is admitting that "I failed to make enough money to get out of here"

We have car culture because everyone wants it. Americans can literally buy a C8 corvette factory order at 20% off MSRP right now. The world salivates at such deals and is extremely jealous of our way of life.

Liberals who try to kill car culture are exactly why Trump got elected and why he's so popular right now.

[justinrubek]

The propaganda machine is still going as strong as ever.

[Zigurd]

Having ridden in a Ferrari in Singapore, I get the impression that paying car tax is a bit of a flex.

[fowl338]

As a dual EU-US citizen who has spent decades on each side, Western Europeans don't strike me as extremely jealous of the American way of life. Quite the opposite. But if believing that makes you feel better go ahead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[mancerayder]

>I'm a big supporter of urbanism. I loathe the time I spend in my car, and I don't even have that far of a commute, but I have zero other options if I want to live where crime is low and the schools aren't dysfunctional. Until this is addressed, there is no argument about commuter density or efficiency of movement or anything else the proponents of public transit like to talk about that will make a lick of difference.

The post-Giuliani years were great until we started implementing an approach maybe described as "property crime enforcement leads to injustice because it's due to inequality, and moreover should be treated as a societal issue" justice system adjustment. There, spikes of menacing and assaults on public transit occurred, to the point where a disconnect became quite obvious to commuters.

The problem with this narrative is that wealthy people take black cars to drive them around, leave the city on the weekends, and ultimately don't have the day to day concerns around safety.

Add to that an interesting fact that the most progressive neighborhoods are generally the safest (with an anti-police and criminal justice reform bent) while the poorest have a pro police attitude. Here's an interactive map that lets you compare votes across neighborhoods of the different Democratic candidates in the 2021 election where we had Adams making his pro-police rhetoric center to his campaign. Look where his support trends highest: https://www.urbanresearchmaps.org/nycrcv2021/?office=mayor&c...

[NoboruWataya]

I also know Pontevedra from walking the Camino and I suspect its reliance on Camino tourism is probably a big driver for this move. You will know as well as I do that the only parts of the Camino that suck are when you are walking for miles alongside a busy highway. A bit grim but thankfully not very common.

[jandrewrogers]

There is another practical reality that separates the US from Europe specifically with respect to walkability. The US has much more extreme weather in many places. What would be called severe heat or cold in much of Europe, which I've suffered through for the week if need be, is normal weather in many parts of the US for several months on end. You need alternative transportation for those extended periods.

Few people enjoy being outside in a tropical swamp with a double-digit UV index. Same with the extreme cold that you get in the central US far from the ocean.

I live in Seattle, where many people walk everywhere all year (myself included), no car needed. But that is because the weather is perfect for that kind of thing, being 5-25°C with limited precipitation virtually the entire year. If I lived in Houston, for example, I would be driving in the summer regardless of how walkable the city is.

[pezezin]

Europe also spans some extreme weather, from the frozen North to the scorching hot Meditarranean.

I am from Spain, where 40ºC in summer is normal but winters are mild. I have friends and colleagues from Finland and Latvia, which are pretty much the opposite. And yet all our countries are walkable.

[Vinnl]

And like in the US, population is mostly concentrated in the spots where it's not that extreme, so that's where most people are/would be able to benefit from human-centred urban design.

[erentz]

And yet Seattle has very few pedestrianized spaces for the size of the city. It’s as car dominated and sprawling as any major North American city.

[jandrewrogers]

Difficult to call it sprawling given the geography, and I don't know what "pedestrianized" even means here since walking in many neighborhoods is both common and designed for.

There is plenty of accommodation for vehicles in Seattle, that is true. Even people that walk everywhere often own one in order to take advantage of the prodigious outdoor activities for which the region is famous.

[erentz]

It’s definitely very sprawling from Olympia to Mt Vernon. We only just managed to pedestrianize Pike Place Market. I struggle to think of a pedestrian neighborhood. Just cuz you can walk doesn’t rise to that level. Ballard no. It’s all cars and car parks. Fremont no. U district no. Cap Hill no. Queen Anne no. West Seattle no. They’re all car dominated neighborhoods without much pedestrian space and poor accommodation for cycling too.

[jandrewrogers]

Olympia and Mt Vernon are not part of Seattle. Does anyone think Segovia and Toledo are part of Madrid?

[int_19h]

It definitely is sprawling compared to your typical European city.

[pezezin]

I am Spanish, so I grew up with what you describe.

I now live in rural Japan, a country that outside of the big cities also suffers from awful American-style urban sprawl, and holy guacamole, how can people live like this? The area where I live is just big box stores and houses scattered everywhere, and you need a car to do anything. It has made me really appreciate my homeland...

[RataNova]

There's such a clear appetite for more human-centered design

[stronglikedan]

> Most of our public spaces prioritize cars instead of people.

Maybe most but there's plenty of public space that doesn't. People choose to live around the public spaces that do. Some even try to change that instead of moving somewhere that doesn't. The great thing about America is that there's plenty of everything for everyone, but it's not just going to come to you.

[crote]

That's factually incorrect. Most of America has outlawed proper mixed-use zoning, which means those nice walkable neighborhoods are literally illegal to build.

Even if you don't want to live in a detached home deep in suburbia, there often isn't an affordable alternative.

[swiftcoder]

There really aren't all that many options for people-centric urban spaces in the US. A handful of small districts in various cities, but nothing approaching the scale of such things in the thriving Spanish cities.

[justinrubek]

There's plenty of everything, as long as all you want is cars.