6 ms·

I’m happy for you but not everyone lives in such a place that has that many options within spitting distance.

dionidium 8y ago
Sure, but the point is that nothing in your post was made possible by the automobile. People in walkable cities do everything you mention and they did all those things before the invention of the automobile. If you build a suburb so that you need a car, then, sure, I guess you'll need a car. But that's not because any of those activities require a car. It's just that your town was built to require it! If we put a dome over your town and sucked out all the oxygen, then you'd also need spacesuit to perform all those tasks, too. But it wouldn't be because any of those tasks require a space suit. You'd need the space suit because we sucked out all the oxygen.
- GiorgioG 8y ago
  > If you build a suburb I didn't build a suburb - it was already here, just like you didn't build the city you live in. I drove to the suburb to begin with of my own free will because I didn't like living in a city (having already done so, Buffalo & Boston.) I'd already made the choice to live a lifestyle that is automobile-inclusive ;) You don't get to judge or decide for me what is right for me and vice-versa. We all have a choices to make and do the best we can with what we have. It's interesting that for all the intelligent people on HN, there's a lack of empathy and understanding that everyone has their own perception of reality. What's 'right' and 'real' in your mind may 1) not actually be reality 2) be neither 'right' nor 'wrong', but just a personal preference/opinion. I got a taste of this myself when I stumbled upon this book (and it's second part) https://www.amazon.com/DAY-Through-German-Eyes-Hidden-ebook/dp/B00VX372UE https://www.amazon.com/DAY-Through-German-Eyes-Hidden-ebook/... (D-Day through German Eyes.) It's been eye-opening for me because I'd always assumed the Germans troops were evil men who were all bent on conquering Europe.
  - dionidium 8y ago
    Unfortunately, this live-and-let-live account of history simply isn’t true. The suburbs were made possible via massive government subsidies, both in infrastructure and incentives for suburban homeownership. Also, exclusionary zoning played an enormous role in deciding what those places looked like and they did it in large part to control who got to live there. Finally, your lifestyle choices have externalities, from the immediately obvious 30k deaths a year, to more dangerous streets for people who choose not to drive, to environmental damage, to cities clogged with the cars of suburban commuters twice a day.
    - GiorgioG 8y ago
      Your urban lifestyle choices have externalities as well, you just choose to ignore (or not look for them.) http://science.time.com/2012/09/18/urban-planet-how-growing-cities-will-wreck-the-environment-unless-we-build-them-right/ http://science.time.com/2012/09/18/urban-planet-how-growing-... https://www.prb.org/urbanizationanenvironmentalforcetobereckonedwith/ https://www.prb.org/urbanizationanenvironmentalforcetobereck...
      - dionidium 8y ago
        Respectfully, you've misunderstood what they mean by urbanization in those articles and completely missed their point, which is about the growth of urban areas (which includes suburbs) in general: "It’s true that as people in developing nations move from the countryside to the city, the shift may reduce the pressure on land, which could in turn be good for the environment. This is especially so in desperately poor countries like Madagascar, where residents in the countryside slash and burn forests each growing season to clear space for farming. But the real difference is that in developing nations, the move from rural areas to cities often leads to an accompanying increase in income — and that increase in income leads to an increase in the consumption of food and energy, which in turns produces an uptick in carbon emissions." In other words, wealthier people living in urban areas -- in both city cores and in the suburbs -- are worse for the environment than rural poor folks, and as developing nations urbanize, we can expect to see an increase in these impacts.
adrianN 8y ago
So your argument is that you need your car because you don't live in a place that is designed for humans, so we shouldn't change cities to be less car dependent?
- whatsstolat 8y ago
  Flipside is suburban areas have more land attached to the house (for a given $) and bigger parks etc. That's more humane than inner cities.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    Not if it means no convenience stores in walking/biking distance, forcing you to buy a car for basic necessities.
    - GiorgioG 8y ago
      It's not forced - we choose to buy them ;)
      - KozmoNau7 8y ago
        Is it really a choice, when you have no practical alternative?
        GiorgioG 8y ago
        I have a choice, I can live in a walkable place, but it involves tradeoffs that I don't care to make - because I don't see car ownership (or driving) as a negative thing, unlike this echo chamber.
    - whatsstolat 8y ago
      Depends. Most suburbs and towns have convenience stores at least where I have lived. USA might be different. Delivery is another option.
- 8y ago
numtel 8y ago
Tiny villages in Mexico have these kinds of options. It's not an amazing achievement.
- GiorgioG 8y ago
  I'm happy for the Mexicans - not sure why that's relevant.
  - numtel 8y ago
    Our zoning regulations enforce the automobile's hegemony, increasing distances and exposing pedestrians to the elements as well as dangerous traffic. Without being forced to build in this financially insolvent manner, [1] no community would choose to isolate people from each other in the way that we do now in the United States. Our neighboring country, Mexico, (among many others) shows that a costly design is not required for urban and suburban environments to work for humans. The impending arrival self-driving car gives hope that the gigantic proportion of land devoted to car storage can be radically reduced, giving space for more buildings and habitable spaces between the buildings we have already constructed. This is a good sign for the future but we sure took an expensive, circuitous route to get there, all the while losing local power over our communities to industrial interests. [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/19/the-sprawl-conversation https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/19/the-sprawl-con...

Sure, but the point is that nothing in your post was made possible by the automobile. People in walkable cities do everything you mention and they did all those things before the invention of the automobile. If you build a suburb so that you need a car, then, sure, I guess you'll need a car. But that's not because any of those activities require a car. It's just that your town was built to require it! If we put a dome over your town and sucked out all the oxygen, then you'd also need spacesuit to perform all those tasks, too. But it wouldn't be because any of those tasks require a space suit. You'd need the space suit because we sucked out all the oxygen.

GiorgioG 8y ago
> If you build a suburb I didn't build a suburb - it was already here, just like you didn't build the city you live in. I drove to the suburb to begin with of my own free will because I didn't like living in a city (having already done so, Buffalo & Boston.) I'd already made the choice to live a lifestyle that is automobile-inclusive ;) You don't get to judge or decide for me what is right for me and vice-versa. We all have a choices to make and do the best we can with what we have. It's interesting that for all the intelligent people on HN, there's a lack of empathy and understanding that everyone has their own perception of reality. What's 'right' and 'real' in your mind may 1) not actually be reality 2) be neither 'right' nor 'wrong', but just a personal preference/opinion. I got a taste of this myself when I stumbled upon this book (and it's second part) https://www.amazon.com/DAY-Through-German-Eyes-Hidden-ebook/dp/B00VX372UE https://www.amazon.com/DAY-Through-German-Eyes-Hidden-ebook/... (D-Day through German Eyes.) It's been eye-opening for me because I'd always assumed the Germans troops were evil men who were all bent on conquering Europe.
- dionidium 8y ago
  Unfortunately, this live-and-let-live account of history simply isn’t true. The suburbs were made possible via massive government subsidies, both in infrastructure and incentives for suburban homeownership. Also, exclusionary zoning played an enormous role in deciding what those places looked like and they did it in large part to control who got to live there. Finally, your lifestyle choices have externalities, from the immediately obvious 30k deaths a year, to more dangerous streets for people who choose not to drive, to environmental damage, to cities clogged with the cars of suburban commuters twice a day.
  - GiorgioG 8y ago
    Your urban lifestyle choices have externalities as well, you just choose to ignore (or not look for them.) http://science.time.com/2012/09/18/urban-planet-how-growing-cities-will-wreck-the-environment-unless-we-build-them-right/ http://science.time.com/2012/09/18/urban-planet-how-growing-... https://www.prb.org/urbanizationanenvironmentalforcetobereckonedwith/ https://www.prb.org/urbanizationanenvironmentalforcetobereck...
    - dionidium 8y ago
      Respectfully, you've misunderstood what they mean by urbanization in those articles and completely missed their point, which is about the growth of urban areas (which includes suburbs) in general: "It’s true that as people in developing nations move from the countryside to the city, the shift may reduce the pressure on land, which could in turn be good for the environment. This is especially so in desperately poor countries like Madagascar, where residents in the countryside slash and burn forests each growing season to clear space for farming. But the real difference is that in developing nations, the move from rural areas to cities often leads to an accompanying increase in income — and that increase in income leads to an increase in the consumption of food and energy, which in turns produces an uptick in carbon emissions." In other words, wealthier people living in urban areas -- in both city cores and in the suburbs -- are worse for the environment than rural poor folks, and as developing nations urbanize, we can expect to see an increase in these impacts.

adrianN 8y ago

So your argument is that you need your car because you don't live in a place that is designed for humans, so we shouldn't change cities to be less car dependent?

whatsstolat 8y ago
Flipside is suburban areas have more land attached to the house (for a given $) and bigger parks etc. That's more humane than inner cities.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  Not if it means no convenience stores in walking/biking distance, forcing you to buy a car for basic necessities.
  - GiorgioG 8y ago
    It's not forced - we choose to buy them ;)
    - KozmoNau7 8y ago
      Is it really a choice, when you have no practical alternative?
      - GiorgioG 8y ago
        I have a choice, I can live in a walkable place, but it involves tradeoffs that I don't care to make - because I don't see car ownership (or driving) as a negative thing, unlike this echo chamber.
  - whatsstolat 8y ago
    Depends. Most suburbs and towns have convenience stores at least where I have lived. USA might be different. Delivery is another option.
8y ago

numtel 8y ago

Tiny villages in Mexico have these kinds of options. It's not an amazing achievement.

GiorgioG 8y ago
I'm happy for the Mexicans - not sure why that's relevant.
- numtel 8y ago
  Our zoning regulations enforce the automobile's hegemony, increasing distances and exposing pedestrians to the elements as well as dangerous traffic. Without being forced to build in this financially insolvent manner, [1] no community would choose to isolate people from each other in the way that we do now in the United States. Our neighboring country, Mexico, (among many others) shows that a costly design is not required for urban and suburban environments to work for humans. The impending arrival self-driving car gives hope that the gigantic proportion of land devoted to car storage can be radically reduced, giving space for more buildings and habitable spaces between the buildings we have already constructed. This is a good sign for the future but we sure took an expensive, circuitous route to get there, all the while losing local power over our communities to industrial interests. [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/19/the-sprawl-conversation https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/19/the-sprawl-con...