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I kinda agree with you. One thing that was striking to me when I started to travel throughout bits of the rest of the world is how abruptly cities just...stop.
by bane 11y ago
I kinda agree with you. One thing that was striking to me when I started to travel throughout bits of the rest of the world is how abruptly cities just...stop. Outside of that there's farmland, forests and small villages.
In the U.S. it seems there's a slow decrease in density from a city core out dozens of miles; from tall density out to suburbs, then individual developments and maybe around then you'll get the kind of farm environment you'd find in Europe.
It's not to say that all of Europe/Asia, or all of the U.S. is the same in this way. But it seems to be a pattern. In the U.S. people try to move away from cities once they can, in Europe people seem to gravitate towards historic centers.
I think lots of it has to do with livability. In France it might be convenient to take a daily trip to the local market to get some groceries for dinner -- not much more work than going through the pantry. Density might not be too high, and the environments are pleasant, relaxing and convenient.
In the U.S. cities built before the car are better, but can still be a grind. Big swaths of NYC are hard to do daily shopping in for example. Cities built after the car are a mess wholesale and people live far from each other and spread very far out, and the things they need to live are similarly spread everywhere.
In Korea, my parents-in-law live in a proper house (not an apartment flat), but a grocery store is a 2 minute walk, and a large commercial center with pretty much every other service you might want is about 5 more. I easily triple my walking-time in Korea even on lazy do-nothing days compared to life in the U.S.
- atom-morgan 11y ago> One thing that was striking to me when I started to travel throughout bits of the rest of the world is how abruptly cities just...stop. Seoul is a perfect example. If you take a train going out of the city you feel like you jump back in time 100 years in a matter of a few minutes.
- bane 11y agoYeah, it's really weird, huge apartment buildings and then just greenery and farms. If you look back at the final row of buildings it looks like a realization of some sort of "the inevitable wave of progress" metaphor.
- dba7dba 11y agoS Korea implemented whats called Green Belt decades ago. Basically large swaths of land where you basically cannot build anything. They were not designated such because of some specific species or such. They just wanted to ensure there is some unpaved land. Great planning looking back.
- cmurf 11y agoSome U.S. cities and counties do this, it's called open space. Thing is that it restricts the future growth of the tax base. Cities want more tax base, even to the degree they'll approve building permits when city doesn't have the funds for years or decades for things like flood management in those newly zoned areas. And then cities are also beholden to the existing voters who, by and large, are intractable in the U.S. when it comes to building high density housing, especially when it needs to go vertical.
- maxerickson 11y agoIt has a lot to do with zoning, building restrictions and the price of land.
- bane 11y agoOf course, but it's interesting that the pattern in different countries seems to be the way that it is. This is ultimately an effect of the local land governance practices and the U.S. seems fairly strange.