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The opening statement of this piece about "how much we've given up" to accommodate cars in the US leaves me pretty cold. This isn't Italy and we aren't bound by

The opening statement of this piece about "how much we've given up" to accommodate cars in the US leaves me pretty cold. This isn't Italy and we aren't bound by how far we can travel by foot. The US still has huge swaths of undeveloped land. Drive from Kansas City to Denver sometime, it's a mind-numbing exercise in endurance. Energy usage concerns (which are very real) not withstanding the actual physical footprint of all this infrastructure is a drop in the ocean. The US is huge.

lmm 10y ago
There are empty parts of Italy too - it's not like the whole country's the same density as Florence. The point (and it's an inherently subjective one) is how much nicer it is to live in Florence than in Atlanta.
Lazare 10y ago
Yeah. It's a fascinating comparison, but it's being presented as a clearly problematic tradeoff, but it's not clear why. The unspoken conceit of the argument is that all land is equally valuable. Which...maybe so! But if you believe that, I'd love to chat with you about doing a land deal... Edit: Plus if you look at the comments at the link, there's some pretty serious criticism of the basic accuracy too...
pif 10y ago
I'm Italian, I LOVE Florence and I upvoted you. Indeed, nothing was given up to build that interchange. If you want to build a new Florence in the US, you won't be room-bound. OTOH, one of the factor of Florence's charm is its history, and one cannot build several centuries of history out of a blueprint.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
return0 10y ago
Visitors in the US can't help to notice just how much emphasis was put on cars when designing cities (e.g. LA). I wonder if that design has paid off, given that today's technology can be used to significantly lower city traffic.
- ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
  A lot of that emphasis only dates from the mud 20th century, with the unholy trinity of urban renewal, the interstate highway system, and tearing out commuter rail/interurban/streetcar lines.
bitslayer 10y ago
The US is huge, and we could build anything we want. The problem is that we don't see what we have given up by not living closer together. The dream of car culture is that we as individuals can live in a huge area, with vast potential for interaction. But the truth of what we have built is that we are cut off from one another. The "square" that I pass through every morning is a massive intersection of two suburban highways. Behind our tinted windows, we wait in long lines for out turn signal. We drive to the gym and fight for that close up parking space so we won't have to walk. Why? Because the exterior environment we have built is horrific. This is not the life I want to live. I reject the idea that we can't live in nicer places. Americans learn the wrong lesson from visiting Europe. They think that a place has to be hundreds of years old to be livable. But we can build anything we want. Politics need to get out in front and not drag us back. Moneyed interests need to take a chance. Because when given a choice, people will choose a walkable, livable world.
- ryanmarsh 10y ago
  > the exterior environment we have built is horrific So true. Growing up in one of the most sprawled cities in America I had no sense for how ugly and disgusting our city was to pedestrians and why that might matter. Then I lived in Washington DC where walking almost anywhere was a pleasant experience. Now I hate the sprawl and what we've given up.
- VLM 10y ago
  > Because when given a choice, people will choose a walkable, livable world. Try an inductive proof. Assume that is true, see if characteristics under those circumstances match real world observations. So, wards of the state on welfare were ordered by the state to move to the unwanted burbs which they hated and wished they could live packed together in giant ultra dense urban projects. There are no slums or poor/bad neighborhoods in cities because cities being more desirable than burbs means slums and slum dwellers are all pushed into the burbs. Starving college students and recent grads live in the burbs because they're poor and McMansions are less desirable, then if or as they get higher incomes and have kids, they move into downtown because thats nicer. All economic development in the city is via private investment because everybody wants to live there, whereas all burb development is taxpayer funded. The suburbs are full of burned out abandoned buildings and empty lots whereas continuous construction and redevelopment fills the cities. Crime rates are extremely low in cities because the less well adjusted members of society are all pushed economically into the burbs, which are overflowing with violent crime, resulting in more poverty in an anti-virtuous cycle. The cities, being more desirable, have the best public schools and the burbs, being less desirable, have 50% dropout rates and massive discipline problems. It would make an interesting alternative history, but seems to have no relationship with reality. Therefore I think that's probably proven false.
tehwalrus 10y ago
It's not that you've give up the (unscarce) land, it's that you've given up the ability to walk through town on foot.
Shivetya 10y ago
still very many countries have incredible amounts of land going unused, usually owned by the state. with technology we no longer need to live on top of each other and should be free to choose to or to not too. cities are not inexpensive places to live and in some areas they aren't the safest either. still it should always be choice. we as a world are far from running out of space or arable lands
matwood 10y ago
> Drive from Kansas City to Denver sometime, it's a mind-numbing exercise in endurance. I just had terrible flashbacks from doing that drive multiple times when I moved from the east coast to Denver (and then back!).
wobbleblob 10y ago
Driving is nice there, but I think you've taken it too far. Why are there no sidewalks in the suburbs? People actively campaign their local government to stop them from building sidewalks along their street. Sometimes we visit relatives in Atlanta. The mall is literally across the street from where they live. The only legal way to get there is by car. You couldn't even walk to the next crosswalk. It's a mile or two down, and then back up to the mall, but as there is no sidewalk, the police will stop you and ask you why you are walking. Crazy.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  I agree that America has in the past de-emphasized safe pedestrian paths way too much in favor of car culture (the South in particular is pretty bad... Atlanta's not great, but I don't think their walking-unfriendliness compares to Houston or Dallas). I think the culture is changing somewhat though. I think there's a much greater desire for pedestrian friendliness than there used to be. Of course, any demand for improvements will always be the usual mix of NIMBY, people who think almost any government spending is useless, people who don't like change of any sort, people who fear sidewalks will bring in "undesirables", or people who don't seem to understand what an easement is. It really depends on the neighborhood culture, though. Personally around here (Tampa Florida) I think I've seen more concerns along the lines of "why can't my child safely walk to school". The statistics probably help shed light on the problem too... Florida cities in general has very high pedestrian fatality rates (due to the issue of being a traditional retirement area + poor pedestrian considerations in road design).
- mikeash 10y ago
  Exactly this, there is no reason you can't have something that's good for both cars and people with some effort, but so much of the US is just a giant middle finger to pedestrians. I live in a fairly walkable area of the suburbs. I routinely walk to the grocery store, hardware store, restaurants, etc. And yet, the infrastructure kind of sucks. The most direct paths are missing sidewalks in a couple of places. The main road only has a sidewalk on one side for most of it. Many of the intersections have crosswalks on only one, two, or three sides. There are a couple of businesses I almost never visit simply because getting there requires crossing three crosswalks of the same intersection, then doing it again on the way back. And it's a dangerous intersection to cross which requires great care, because people routinely blow through red lights to turn right on red. Naturally, there is zero police enforcement of this. It even goes beyond a lack of infrastructure and sometimes involves intentional barriers. I used to take a shortcut through the neighborhood next door, which gave me some variety and bypassed one of the bits of missing sidewalk. Then they put up a fence and I can't go that way anymore. So many places in this country are within a reasonable walking distance of things, but make it unnecessarily difficult to take advantage of that fact. Get rid of pointless fences, put sidewalks and crosswalks everywhere, and you'd improve things significantly.

lmm 10y ago

There are empty parts of Italy too - it's not like the whole country's the same density as Florence. The point (and it's an inherently subjective one) is how much nicer it is to live in Florence than in Atlanta.

Lazare 10y ago

Yeah. It's a fascinating comparison, but it's being presented as a clearly problematic tradeoff, but it's not clear why. The unspoken conceit of the argument is that all land is equally valuable. Which...maybe so! But if you believe that, I'd love to chat with you about doing a land deal... Edit: Plus if you look at the comments at the link, there's some pretty serious criticism of the basic accuracy too...

pif 10y ago

I'm Italian, I LOVE Florence and I upvoted you. Indeed, nothing was given up to build that interchange. If you want to build a new Florence in the US, you won't be room-bound. OTOH, one of the factor of Florence's charm is its history, and one cannot build several centuries of history out of a blueprint.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

return0 10y ago

Visitors in the US can't help to notice just how much emphasis was put on cars when designing cities (e.g. LA). I wonder if that design has paid off, given that today's technology can be used to significantly lower city traffic.

ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
A lot of that emphasis only dates from the mud 20th century, with the unholy trinity of urban renewal, the interstate highway system, and tearing out commuter rail/interurban/streetcar lines.

bitslayer 10y ago

The US is huge, and we could build anything we want. The problem is that we don't see what we have given up by not living closer together. The dream of car culture is that we as individuals can live in a huge area, with vast potential for interaction. But the truth of what we have built is that we are cut off from one another. The "square" that I pass through every morning is a massive intersection of two suburban highways. Behind our tinted windows, we wait in long lines for out turn signal. We drive to the gym and fight for that close up parking space so we won't have to walk. Why? Because the exterior environment we have built is horrific. This is not the life I want to live. I reject the idea that we can't live in nicer places. Americans learn the wrong lesson from visiting Europe. They think that a place has to be hundreds of years old to be livable. But we can build anything we want. Politics need to get out in front and not drag us back. Moneyed interests need to take a chance. Because when given a choice, people will choose a walkable, livable world.

ryanmarsh 10y ago
> the exterior environment we have built is horrific So true. Growing up in one of the most sprawled cities in America I had no sense for how ugly and disgusting our city was to pedestrians and why that might matter. Then I lived in Washington DC where walking almost anywhere was a pleasant experience. Now I hate the sprawl and what we've given up.
VLM 10y ago
> Because when given a choice, people will choose a walkable, livable world. Try an inductive proof. Assume that is true, see if characteristics under those circumstances match real world observations. So, wards of the state on welfare were ordered by the state to move to the unwanted burbs which they hated and wished they could live packed together in giant ultra dense urban projects. There are no slums or poor/bad neighborhoods in cities because cities being more desirable than burbs means slums and slum dwellers are all pushed into the burbs. Starving college students and recent grads live in the burbs because they're poor and McMansions are less desirable, then if or as they get higher incomes and have kids, they move into downtown because thats nicer. All economic development in the city is via private investment because everybody wants to live there, whereas all burb development is taxpayer funded. The suburbs are full of burned out abandoned buildings and empty lots whereas continuous construction and redevelopment fills the cities. Crime rates are extremely low in cities because the less well adjusted members of society are all pushed economically into the burbs, which are overflowing with violent crime, resulting in more poverty in an anti-virtuous cycle. The cities, being more desirable, have the best public schools and the burbs, being less desirable, have 50% dropout rates and massive discipline problems. It would make an interesting alternative history, but seems to have no relationship with reality. Therefore I think that's probably proven false.

tehwalrus 10y ago

It's not that you've give up the (unscarce) land, it's that you've given up the ability to walk through town on foot.

Shivetya 10y ago

still very many countries have incredible amounts of land going unused, usually owned by the state. with technology we no longer need to live on top of each other and should be free to choose to or to not too. cities are not inexpensive places to live and in some areas they aren't the safest either. still it should always be choice. we as a world are far from running out of space or arable lands

matwood 10y ago

> Drive from Kansas City to Denver sometime, it's a mind-numbing exercise in endurance. I just had terrible flashbacks from doing that drive multiple times when I moved from the east coast to Denver (and then back!).

wobbleblob 10y ago

Driving is nice there, but I think you've taken it too far. Why are there no sidewalks in the suburbs? People actively campaign their local government to stop them from building sidewalks along their street. Sometimes we visit relatives in Atlanta. The mall is literally across the street from where they live. The only legal way to get there is by car. You couldn't even walk to the next crosswalk. It's a mile or two down, and then back up to the mall, but as there is no sidewalk, the police will stop you and ask you why you are walking. Crazy.

soundwave106 10y ago
I agree that America has in the past de-emphasized safe pedestrian paths way too much in favor of car culture (the South in particular is pretty bad... Atlanta's not great, but I don't think their walking-unfriendliness compares to Houston or Dallas). I think the culture is changing somewhat though. I think there's a much greater desire for pedestrian friendliness than there used to be. Of course, any demand for improvements will always be the usual mix of NIMBY, people who think almost any government spending is useless, people who don't like change of any sort, people who fear sidewalks will bring in "undesirables", or people who don't seem to understand what an easement is. It really depends on the neighborhood culture, though. Personally around here (Tampa Florida) I think I've seen more concerns along the lines of "why can't my child safely walk to school". The statistics probably help shed light on the problem too... Florida cities in general has very high pedestrian fatality rates (due to the issue of being a traditional retirement area + poor pedestrian considerations in road design).
mikeash 10y ago
Exactly this, there is no reason you can't have something that's good for both cars and people with some effort, but so much of the US is just a giant middle finger to pedestrians. I live in a fairly walkable area of the suburbs. I routinely walk to the grocery store, hardware store, restaurants, etc. And yet, the infrastructure kind of sucks. The most direct paths are missing sidewalks in a couple of places. The main road only has a sidewalk on one side for most of it. Many of the intersections have crosswalks on only one, two, or three sides. There are a couple of businesses I almost never visit simply because getting there requires crossing three crosswalks of the same intersection, then doing it again on the way back. And it's a dangerous intersection to cross which requires great care, because people routinely blow through red lights to turn right on red. Naturally, there is zero police enforcement of this. It even goes beyond a lack of infrastructure and sometimes involves intentional barriers. I used to take a shortcut through the neighborhood next door, which gave me some variety and bypassed one of the bits of missing sidewalk. Then they put up a fence and I can't go that way anymore. So many places in this country are within a reasonable walking distance of things, but make it unnecessarily difficult to take advantage of that fact. Get rid of pointless fences, put sidewalks and crosswalks everywhere, and you'd improve things significantly.