8 ms·

Here, I live in a small midwestern city. More accurately I live on the outskirts of a small midwestern city and commute 40 minutes into downtown for work. Owni

Here, I live in a small midwestern city. More accurately I live on the outskirts of a small midwestern city and commute 40 minutes into downtown for work. Owning a car here is mandatory. Public transportation sucks and the contents/attractions of my city are scattered. For example, from where I live my favorite trail, which I'd love to walk this Saturday, is 23 miles north. The Ikea, which I also need to go to, is 23 miles south. There is no public transportation to get me to those places. Even if I lived in the city there is no public transportation to get me to those places. How do I live a life where I don't throw my whole paycheck into rent AND have the freedom to go out and do stuff around the city? (Note: these seem like pretty reasonable expectations to me) I live where the rent is low and own a car. You need to make an alternate lifestyle for me cheaper, not my current one more expensive. Likewise, I already have to pay for parking for my job. You're going to restrict supply and make me pay even more? Come on man... We need to talk about solutions which are viable and not waste time trying to punish the rural/suburban middle-class and poor into a lifestyle which isn't even feasible for them.

dashundchen 10y ago
That's the problem. How does a small Midwestern city take 40 minutes to drive halfway across, except for utterly horrible planning and land use? Why is a single city 40 miles wide? It got this way through 60 years of low density sprawl. Sprawling further and asking people to drive longer and longer distances is not a viable solution - socially, environmentally or fiscally. We need to remove the barriers and even encourage mid-scale density on all levels of government. We need to be thinking of creative transit, design and tech solutions to retrofit our cities for something besides single passenger cars because our cities are choking on them.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- GauntletWizard 10y ago
  Or, you know, people like to live in houses with a yard, where there might be wild animals living around or a forest somewhere within an hour's drive, and prefer that over cramped hovels.
  - dashundchen 10y ago
    Ironically if everyone lives in low density sprawl for nature, it destroys the same habitat where those wild animals once lived, or where that forest was, and it makes actual nature harder to access for anyone who can't afford or travel to the latest round of exurbia. Whereas if our cities were denser, there'd be more open space left, that is easier to access, by potentially more people. Density != cramped hovel. And density doesn't mean everyone lives in a highrise. There's points between single family homes on quarter acres and 60 story skyscrapers. Edit: I highly encourage you to checkout some examples of cities that saw most of their growth pre-auto: Here's my personal favorite - Leipzig Germany, metro population around 1 million: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leipzig,+Germany/ https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leipzig,+Germany/ A wide range of uses, densities, housing prices and modes of transportation (dedicated bike infrastructure, transit, and yes even cars). But the compact development area can leave so much more room for green space, nature preserves, public parks, agriculture, watershed protection. There's even many buildings that have yards - it's just everyone doesn't get their own acre.
    - Moru 10y ago
      Leipzig was heavily bombed in the war so I guess that helped with rebuilding the infrastructure to make room for alternative transportation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Leipzig_in_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Leipzig_in_World_Wa...
      - kchoudhu 10y ago
        The way forward for the midwest is clear, then.
      - more_original 10y ago
        Leipzig was rebuilt with essentially the same layout as before the war. If anything, additional space was used for larger roads. Here is a video comparing a tram ride through Leipzig in 1992 with one in 1931: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX4wGWzWqBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX4wGWzWqBk
      - 10y ago
- adrianN 10y ago
  In forty minutes you can cross Berlin. It boggles my mind that people want to live in places where you have to ride a car for twenty minutes just to get groceries.
  - noobermin 10y ago
    You'd be surprised. I bet my socks that half of the people who make these arguments simply haven't lived in a world where they can exist without a car. They just can't imagine how it is possible because they are so embedded in a reality where cars are vital to life and it's hard to imagine outside of it.
    - walshemj 10y ago
      not every one can afford or want to live in central London or NYC
      - TillE 10y ago
        Rents in Berlin, even after a decade of increases that everyone is concerned about, are roughly equivalent to rents in Buffalo, not Manhattan. It's very odd to think that high rents is some inherent fact of city life.
        frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
        Why is that though? I just googled it and this article seems to think it's a result of bad economic times. Here's the last paragraph >It goes more or less without saying, then, that with an economy stuck in such a unique rut for so long, the housing prices remained similarly uniquely low as well. There was little incentive to build and invest in a city that wasn’t growing economically. Which is precisely what has helped make it so attractive to many, and such fertile ground for investors now that the economy is finally beginning to recover. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/the-history-behind-berlins-cheap-rents https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/the-history-behind-berlins-... The problem in my city is that in the city there is no middle, there's expensive apartments/townhouses and there's section 8. What I'm most interested in is how do we get mid-priced living introduced into urban areas?
shkkmo 10y ago
> I live where the rent is low and own a car. You need to make an alternate lifestyle for me cheaper, not my current one more expensive. You're current cheap lifestyle is subsidized, it's not about punishing you, it's about having you pay your fair share. It doesn't have to mean that your cost for parking at your work has to go up, but it may mean that you have to pay for the other places you park and for the roads you drive on.
- frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
  >it's not about punishing you Actually it is, here from the article. >We agree with most of the policies advocates like Piatowski want, including the “sticks” like parking and congestion fees—but not the way they’re being described. They're saying that the punishment is fine, just the messaging is wrong. If actual politicians on the left start trying this what do you think Republicans are going to say? "City liberals think the way you live is wrong and are trying to tax you into living like they do." Would the republicans saying that even be wrong? I don't think so, their messaging works because it's true, the messaging in this article won't because it's a lie. Hence why I call this a non-starter. Liberals can do better.
  - shkkmo 10y ago
    > "City liberals think the way you live is wrong and are trying to tax you into living like they do." Would the republicans saying that even be wrong? It would a lie to use those words describe the view point argued for in this article. If you are claiming that the article is a lie, written only to encourage a change in messaging rather than a change in perspective, you are violating the core principles of discussion of on HN which is "charity". > After all, very few people think that a zero car world is one that makes a lot of sense. Low-car makes much more sense that non-car as a policy talking point. How do we get people to make these choices. There’s an analogy here to alcohol. We tried prohibition in the twenties. It was moral absolutism, zero tolerance. Alcohol in any amount was evil. That didn’t work. I personally think that the article makes a very strong point about not viewing cars as evil and not seeking to achieve a non-car world. > The second point is that small changes matter. Even slight reductions in car use and car ownership will pay big dividends. Traffic congestion is subject to non-linear effects: small reductions in traffic volumes produce big reductions in traffic congestion. One of the points of the article is that by appropriately pricing cars usage by removing subsidies we can remove market distortion. By causing a minor reduction in car use we can make car use BETTER for those who really need / want it and are willing to pay its real cost.
st3v3r 10y ago
Except the rest of us are the ones paying to make your current lifestyle cheap.

dashundchen 10y ago

That's the problem. How does a small Midwestern city take 40 minutes to drive halfway across, except for utterly horrible planning and land use? Why is a single city 40 miles wide? It got this way through 60 years of low density sprawl. Sprawling further and asking people to drive longer and longer distances is not a viable solution - socially, environmentally or fiscally. We need to remove the barriers and even encourage mid-scale density on all levels of government. We need to be thinking of creative transit, design and tech solutions to retrofit our cities for something besides single passenger cars because our cities are choking on them.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
GauntletWizard 10y ago
Or, you know, people like to live in houses with a yard, where there might be wild animals living around or a forest somewhere within an hour's drive, and prefer that over cramped hovels.
- dashundchen 10y ago
  Ironically if everyone lives in low density sprawl for nature, it destroys the same habitat where those wild animals once lived, or where that forest was, and it makes actual nature harder to access for anyone who can't afford or travel to the latest round of exurbia. Whereas if our cities were denser, there'd be more open space left, that is easier to access, by potentially more people. Density != cramped hovel. And density doesn't mean everyone lives in a highrise. There's points between single family homes on quarter acres and 60 story skyscrapers. Edit: I highly encourage you to checkout some examples of cities that saw most of their growth pre-auto: Here's my personal favorite - Leipzig Germany, metro population around 1 million: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leipzig,+Germany/ https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leipzig,+Germany/ A wide range of uses, densities, housing prices and modes of transportation (dedicated bike infrastructure, transit, and yes even cars). But the compact development area can leave so much more room for green space, nature preserves, public parks, agriculture, watershed protection. There's even many buildings that have yards - it's just everyone doesn't get their own acre.
  - Moru 10y ago
    Leipzig was heavily bombed in the war so I guess that helped with rebuilding the infrastructure to make room for alternative transportation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Leipzig_in_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Leipzig_in_World_Wa...
    - kchoudhu 10y ago
      The way forward for the midwest is clear, then.
    - more_original 10y ago
      Leipzig was rebuilt with essentially the same layout as before the war. If anything, additional space was used for larger roads. Here is a video comparing a tram ride through Leipzig in 1992 with one in 1931: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX4wGWzWqBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX4wGWzWqBk
    - 10y ago
adrianN 10y ago
In forty minutes you can cross Berlin. It boggles my mind that people want to live in places where you have to ride a car for twenty minutes just to get groceries.
- noobermin 10y ago
  You'd be surprised. I bet my socks that half of the people who make these arguments simply haven't lived in a world where they can exist without a car. They just can't imagine how it is possible because they are so embedded in a reality where cars are vital to life and it's hard to imagine outside of it.
  - walshemj 10y ago
    not every one can afford or want to live in central London or NYC
    - TillE 10y ago
      Rents in Berlin, even after a decade of increases that everyone is concerned about, are roughly equivalent to rents in Buffalo, not Manhattan. It's very odd to think that high rents is some inherent fact of city life.
      - frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
        Why is that though? I just googled it and this article seems to think it's a result of bad economic times. Here's the last paragraph >It goes more or less without saying, then, that with an economy stuck in such a unique rut for so long, the housing prices remained similarly uniquely low as well. There was little incentive to build and invest in a city that wasn’t growing economically. Which is precisely what has helped make it so attractive to many, and such fertile ground for investors now that the economy is finally beginning to recover. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/the-history-behind-berlins-cheap-rents https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/the-history-behind-berlins-... The problem in my city is that in the city there is no middle, there's expensive apartments/townhouses and there's section 8. What I'm most interested in is how do we get mid-priced living introduced into urban areas?

shkkmo 10y ago

> I live where the rent is low and own a car. You need to make an alternate lifestyle for me cheaper, not my current one more expensive. You're current cheap lifestyle is subsidized, it's not about punishing you, it's about having you pay your fair share. It doesn't have to mean that your cost for parking at your work has to go up, but it may mean that you have to pay for the other places you park and for the roads you drive on.

frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
>it's not about punishing you Actually it is, here from the article. >We agree with most of the policies advocates like Piatowski want, including the “sticks” like parking and congestion fees—but not the way they’re being described. They're saying that the punishment is fine, just the messaging is wrong. If actual politicians on the left start trying this what do you think Republicans are going to say? "City liberals think the way you live is wrong and are trying to tax you into living like they do." Would the republicans saying that even be wrong? I don't think so, their messaging works because it's true, the messaging in this article won't because it's a lie. Hence why I call this a non-starter. Liberals can do better.
- shkkmo 10y ago
  > "City liberals think the way you live is wrong and are trying to tax you into living like they do." Would the republicans saying that even be wrong? It would a lie to use those words describe the view point argued for in this article. If you are claiming that the article is a lie, written only to encourage a change in messaging rather than a change in perspective, you are violating the core principles of discussion of on HN which is "charity". > After all, very few people think that a zero car world is one that makes a lot of sense. Low-car makes much more sense that non-car as a policy talking point. How do we get people to make these choices. There’s an analogy here to alcohol. We tried prohibition in the twenties. It was moral absolutism, zero tolerance. Alcohol in any amount was evil. That didn’t work. I personally think that the article makes a very strong point about not viewing cars as evil and not seeking to achieve a non-car world. > The second point is that small changes matter. Even slight reductions in car use and car ownership will pay big dividends. Traffic congestion is subject to non-linear effects: small reductions in traffic volumes produce big reductions in traffic congestion. One of the points of the article is that by appropriately pricing cars usage by removing subsidies we can remove market distortion. By causing a minor reduction in car use we can make car use BETTER for those who really need / want it and are willing to pay its real cost.

st3v3r 10y ago

Except the rest of us are the ones paying to make your current lifestyle cheap.