5 ms·

Even from the perspective of personal preference, I think it's fair to say that, at least in the US, there is a wide variety of sparse cities for people to choo

Even from the perspective of personal preference, I think it's fair to say that, at least in the US, there is a wide variety of sparse cities for people to choose from, and only a few actually dense cities. This leaves those preferring density at a relative disadvantage. Unrelated: it's unclear to me how self-driving cars can help pollution. They're a solution to the problem of the high cost of labor, and not much else. If anything, self-driving cars will make it cheaper for everyone to ride cars everywhere, and so people will more often ride cars everywhere, and more pollution will be the result.

wonder_er 9y ago
> This leaves those preferring density at a relative disadvantage. 100% agree. I much prefer to live in a dense, urban, walkable area, but most built environments that satisfy these criteria violate modern zoning regulations. So, the USA's supply of pleasant, dense environments is dwindling because every time an olde/walkable area revitalizes enough to attract new development, that new development must comply with modern zoning, and kills the thing that that makes the area attractive. It's thoroughly frustrating.
- baby 9y ago
  The only city I've been in the US that made me think "wow, that's kind of walkable" was Boston. Are there any other dense cities I should visit?
  - wonder_er 9y ago
    There's lots of old, walkable downtowns in the midwest that have a feeling of appropriate density. Most of them are part of old cities that are past their prime in economic vitality, so those areas don't have the same liveliness as what you might get in downtown Boston. (I used to work for a company based there, and would spend hours walking around at night.) I'd recommend Pittsburgh for walkability, too. It's one of the most delightful cities I've wandered around recently. Unfortunately, even Boston, Pittsburgh, NYC, and the lesser-known but walkable/dense areas are pretty unappealing when compared to some cities in south/central america and Europe, that were built before cars took over everything. I suspect once a few large cities go bankrupt and cannot enforce their zoning regulations, new construction will move in the direction of rational density again.
  - ryanianian 9y ago
    There are a couple pictures from the article that are in Hoboken, NJ. (My home-town although the article doesn't call it out.). The city is consistently rated among the most walkable cities in the US. It's right across the river from NYC but feels even more walkable than NYC. This said, the only reason why Hoboken and many other walkable cities can get public-support for being so walkable (and encouraging city planning as such) is the ample public-transit options. This leads to no need for having a car which leads to most people not having one which leads to most people preferring walkable versus drivable. It's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem.
  - com2kid 9y ago
    Lots of DT areas of cities are walkable, but Boston is kind of unique in that it has miles and miles of walkable streets. Its urban core is just really big. Portions of Seattle are very walkable (From the International District going north, quite a few miles), and individual parts of Chicago are walkable. Heck there are 2 or 3 mile stretches of San Diego are walkable (there might be more than that, I only spent a week there!)
    - baby 9y ago
      I wouldn't call Chicago and San Diego walkable (I'm talking about like european cities walkable)
      - com2kid 9y ago
        > Chicago Some individual portions of Chicago are very walkable. Likewise with some small bits of San Diego, though you are right, not as good as European cities.
      - chc 9y ago
        I don't know about European cities, but it's generally easier to walk around the San Diego Gaslamp Quarter than it is to drive.
        baby 9y ago
        I was there two weeks ago. It’s pretty much one street with a dozens of bars. Quite empty during the week.
        jandrewrogers 9y ago
        Gaslamp is a tourist area, you wouldn’t want to live there, there isn’t much around. It used to be really dodgy, no one sensible would go there, but they rehabilitated it to a significant extent. Unfortunately, it is mostly only frequented by 20-somethings getting drunk at the myriad bars and tourists.
    - jandrewrogers 9y ago
  - bluGill 9y ago
    Most cities have a walkable area someplace, normally just outside of downtown (close enough to downtown that residents walk downtown), but often note actually downtown. Often is is just a few blocks so it is easy to miss (and there is a lot of traffic which is not ideal)
  - Johnny555 9y ago
    San Francisco is quite walkable -- when I lived there, within a 5 block radius (roughly a 10 minute walk) I had 2 grocery stores, at least a half dozen corner markets, miscellaneous shops (dry cleaner, shoe repair, a cigar store, produce market, etc), numerous bars and restaurants. The entire city is only 7 miles wide, so about half the city is within a 30 minute walking radius.
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  - ocschwar 9y ago
    Brooklyn. Provincetown, MA. Charlestown, SC
bostonpete 9y ago
> Unrelated: it's unclear to me how self-driving cars can help pollution. Well, d--b said "both noise and air". Drivers can contribute a fair amount of noise in busy cities when they get irate and lay on the horn...
d--b 9y ago
Maybe I'm wrong on that one, but I'm thinking that when cars and bus drive themselves, there will probably a lot more cheap options to go from one place to another than using one's own car. Dense cities will most likely restrict access to personal cars by a lot (using congestion fees or whatever), that's why I think that self driving cars will bring down the number of cars in the city.
singron 9y ago
Self-driving cars can significantly reduce the need for parking space, which in itself is not great for the environment and causes many transit distances to be longer. I think it's possible that self driving cars could increase total driving like you explain, but i think it's also possible that they will drive down car ownership. Once you pay primarily based on usage (parking, insurance, depreciation are mostly fixed costs), you are more likely to drive sparingly.
- ryanianian 9y ago
  Self-driving in itself won't help, but it's much more feasible for a fully autonomous system of cars to be totally electric since you can plan for the charging logistics as part of the system's design. A walkable, pro-self-driving-car city could also theoretically tax self-driving-car rides to offset environmental impact.
chc 9y ago
Isn't this pretty much true by definition, though? People who want density will tend to all go to the same relatively few places (that's how you get density), whereas people who want to avoid density will go to different places (because if they all went to the same place it would become dense).
- bluGill 9y ago
  Most people have much more complex wants and density if at best a small part of the picture. People want the best of all worlds. I want to own 100 acres (for my pet goats - even though I don't have the time to care for them I want them). I want my kid's school to be a most 200 meters from my front door (with a playground). I want my office, church, a dozen restaurants, and 30 other retail stores to be at most 500 meters from my front door. I'm not rich enough to afford that though so I have to compromise. Even if I was that rich, it is not possible for more than 2 people rich enough to afford that to live within 1000 meters of each other, and to support that requires thousands of not rich people living in 1000 meters. People will choose a walkable neighborhood when they think it is a good compromise. Some valuable large livestock more than others and so will be late to move to the walkable city. Others want to spend their free time at the theater and will move to the walkable neighborhood early just because it is the fastest way to bed after the late night show. Most people are not so into either choice that one answer is obvious. If you want a walkable neighborhood to work you need to fix the local schools. At least in the US most walkable neighborhoods are old areas of town where the schools are bad, those who want children feel compelled to move to the suburbs and the car lifestyle just because of how much better the schools are. If you want walkable neighborhoods you need to fix zoning so that it is possible for them to happen. Strongtowns has a lot of analysis of what makes it possible - there are thousands of subtle things required, heavy handed efforts tend to leave a lot of the subtle problems in place.
goda90 9y ago
When the streets are only used by self driving cars, then traffic will flow much more smoothly. No accidents, no police stops, one speed, smooth computer merging. Less hard acceleration and braking, less idling, less time spent in a running vehicle by each user.
- Johnny555 9y ago
  You have a lot more faith in technology than I do -- there will still be accidents, as good as self-driving cars are, they are still subject to the laws of physics and sometimes cars will run into each other or other objects or people. We already have effectively self-driving cars with Uber and other car-sharing services, and all you need to do is go to SFO's departure level during peak travel times to see the traffic havoc that self-driving cars will bring -- too many cars and not enough curb space to drop off/pick up everyone. When self-driving cars are cheap and plentiful then downtown streets will look the same -- self-driving cars will more than double car traffic since instead of 200 employees driving to work and parking into the parking garage (making one trip), now 1000 employees will be dropped off by their self-driving car, which will then have to drive away to park or look for the next passenger, making a second trip on already crowded streets.
  - goda90 9y ago
    The key really is self driving only. No human drivers. Communication between cars and road systems. At that point, collision avoidance becomes only about pedestrians, animals, and other random objects that enter the street unexpectedly. The self driving car will be able to see, predict, and respond to that, and communicate the need to stop to the cars behind far faster than a human driver. With inter-car communication, there won't be any confusion about where each car intends to go. No long waits for an opening. Car design will push towards passenger comfort, and no longer towards "power" and "handling". This could mean smaller cars overall. 1-2 passenger vehicles could be common. Yeah, it's definitely far down the road, and there will be a lot of forces that'll make it difficult to reach, but I think self driving cars are a chance to make things better.
    - 9y ago

wonder_er 9y ago

> This leaves those preferring density at a relative disadvantage. 100% agree. I much prefer to live in a dense, urban, walkable area, but most built environments that satisfy these criteria violate modern zoning regulations. So, the USA's supply of pleasant, dense environments is dwindling because every time an olde/walkable area revitalizes enough to attract new development, that new development must comply with modern zoning, and kills the thing that that makes the area attractive. It's thoroughly frustrating.

baby 9y ago
The only city I've been in the US that made me think "wow, that's kind of walkable" was Boston. Are there any other dense cities I should visit?
- wonder_er 9y ago
  There's lots of old, walkable downtowns in the midwest that have a feeling of appropriate density. Most of them are part of old cities that are past their prime in economic vitality, so those areas don't have the same liveliness as what you might get in downtown Boston. (I used to work for a company based there, and would spend hours walking around at night.) I'd recommend Pittsburgh for walkability, too. It's one of the most delightful cities I've wandered around recently. Unfortunately, even Boston, Pittsburgh, NYC, and the lesser-known but walkable/dense areas are pretty unappealing when compared to some cities in south/central america and Europe, that were built before cars took over everything. I suspect once a few large cities go bankrupt and cannot enforce their zoning regulations, new construction will move in the direction of rational density again.
- ryanianian 9y ago
  There are a couple pictures from the article that are in Hoboken, NJ. (My home-town although the article doesn't call it out.). The city is consistently rated among the most walkable cities in the US. It's right across the river from NYC but feels even more walkable than NYC. This said, the only reason why Hoboken and many other walkable cities can get public-support for being so walkable (and encouraging city planning as such) is the ample public-transit options. This leads to no need for having a car which leads to most people not having one which leads to most people preferring walkable versus drivable. It's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem.
- com2kid 9y ago
  Lots of DT areas of cities are walkable, but Boston is kind of unique in that it has miles and miles of walkable streets. Its urban core is just really big. Portions of Seattle are very walkable (From the International District going north, quite a few miles), and individual parts of Chicago are walkable. Heck there are 2 or 3 mile stretches of San Diego are walkable (there might be more than that, I only spent a week there!)
  - baby 9y ago
    I wouldn't call Chicago and San Diego walkable (I'm talking about like european cities walkable)
    - com2kid 9y ago
      > Chicago Some individual portions of Chicago are very walkable. Likewise with some small bits of San Diego, though you are right, not as good as European cities.
    - chc 9y ago
      I don't know about European cities, but it's generally easier to walk around the San Diego Gaslamp Quarter than it is to drive.
      - baby 9y ago
        I was there two weeks ago. It’s pretty much one street with a dozens of bars. Quite empty during the week.
      - jandrewrogers 9y ago
        Gaslamp is a tourist area, you wouldn’t want to live there, there isn’t much around. It used to be really dodgy, no one sensible would go there, but they rehabilitated it to a significant extent. Unfortunately, it is mostly only frequented by 20-somethings getting drunk at the myriad bars and tourists.
  - jandrewrogers 9y ago
- bluGill 9y ago
  Most cities have a walkable area someplace, normally just outside of downtown (close enough to downtown that residents walk downtown), but often note actually downtown. Often is is just a few blocks so it is easy to miss (and there is a lot of traffic which is not ideal)
- Johnny555 9y ago
  San Francisco is quite walkable -- when I lived there, within a 5 block radius (roughly a 10 minute walk) I had 2 grocery stores, at least a half dozen corner markets, miscellaneous shops (dry cleaner, shoe repair, a cigar store, produce market, etc), numerous bars and restaurants. The entire city is only 7 miles wide, so about half the city is within a 30 minute walking radius.
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  - deleted 9y ago
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- ocschwar 9y ago
  Brooklyn. Provincetown, MA. Charlestown, SC

bostonpete 9y ago

> Unrelated: it's unclear to me how self-driving cars can help pollution. Well, d--b said "both noise and air". Drivers can contribute a fair amount of noise in busy cities when they get irate and lay on the horn...

d--b 9y ago

Maybe I'm wrong on that one, but I'm thinking that when cars and bus drive themselves, there will probably a lot more cheap options to go from one place to another than using one's own car. Dense cities will most likely restrict access to personal cars by a lot (using congestion fees or whatever), that's why I think that self driving cars will bring down the number of cars in the city.

singron 9y ago

Self-driving cars can significantly reduce the need for parking space, which in itself is not great for the environment and causes many transit distances to be longer. I think it's possible that self driving cars could increase total driving like you explain, but i think it's also possible that they will drive down car ownership. Once you pay primarily based on usage (parking, insurance, depreciation are mostly fixed costs), you are more likely to drive sparingly.

ryanianian 9y ago
Self-driving in itself won't help, but it's much more feasible for a fully autonomous system of cars to be totally electric since you can plan for the charging logistics as part of the system's design. A walkable, pro-self-driving-car city could also theoretically tax self-driving-car rides to offset environmental impact.

chc 9y ago

Isn't this pretty much true by definition, though? People who want density will tend to all go to the same relatively few places (that's how you get density), whereas people who want to avoid density will go to different places (because if they all went to the same place it would become dense).

bluGill 9y ago
Most people have much more complex wants and density if at best a small part of the picture. People want the best of all worlds. I want to own 100 acres (for my pet goats - even though I don't have the time to care for them I want them). I want my kid's school to be a most 200 meters from my front door (with a playground). I want my office, church, a dozen restaurants, and 30 other retail stores to be at most 500 meters from my front door. I'm not rich enough to afford that though so I have to compromise. Even if I was that rich, it is not possible for more than 2 people rich enough to afford that to live within 1000 meters of each other, and to support that requires thousands of not rich people living in 1000 meters. People will choose a walkable neighborhood when they think it is a good compromise. Some valuable large livestock more than others and so will be late to move to the walkable city. Others want to spend their free time at the theater and will move to the walkable neighborhood early just because it is the fastest way to bed after the late night show. Most people are not so into either choice that one answer is obvious. If you want a walkable neighborhood to work you need to fix the local schools. At least in the US most walkable neighborhoods are old areas of town where the schools are bad, those who want children feel compelled to move to the suburbs and the car lifestyle just because of how much better the schools are. If you want walkable neighborhoods you need to fix zoning so that it is possible for them to happen. Strongtowns has a lot of analysis of what makes it possible - there are thousands of subtle things required, heavy handed efforts tend to leave a lot of the subtle problems in place.

goda90 9y ago

When the streets are only used by self driving cars, then traffic will flow much more smoothly. No accidents, no police stops, one speed, smooth computer merging. Less hard acceleration and braking, less idling, less time spent in a running vehicle by each user.

Johnny555 9y ago
You have a lot more faith in technology than I do -- there will still be accidents, as good as self-driving cars are, they are still subject to the laws of physics and sometimes cars will run into each other or other objects or people. We already have effectively self-driving cars with Uber and other car-sharing services, and all you need to do is go to SFO's departure level during peak travel times to see the traffic havoc that self-driving cars will bring -- too many cars and not enough curb space to drop off/pick up everyone. When self-driving cars are cheap and plentiful then downtown streets will look the same -- self-driving cars will more than double car traffic since instead of 200 employees driving to work and parking into the parking garage (making one trip), now 1000 employees will be dropped off by their self-driving car, which will then have to drive away to park or look for the next passenger, making a second trip on already crowded streets.
- goda90 9y ago
  The key really is self driving only. No human drivers. Communication between cars and road systems. At that point, collision avoidance becomes only about pedestrians, animals, and other random objects that enter the street unexpectedly. The self driving car will be able to see, predict, and respond to that, and communicate the need to stop to the cars behind far faster than a human driver. With inter-car communication, there won't be any confusion about where each car intends to go. No long waits for an opening. Car design will push towards passenger comfort, and no longer towards "power" and "handling". This could mean smaller cars overall. 1-2 passenger vehicles could be common. Yeah, it's definitely far down the road, and there will be a lot of forces that'll make it difficult to reach, but I think self driving cars are a chance to make things better.
  - 9y ago