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When everyone is going 60 mph, going 60 mph gets you nowhere fast. Going that fast takes up a lot of space. To go that fast in cities we had to rip out the plac

When everyone is going 60 mph, going 60 mph gets you nowhere fast. Going that fast takes up a lot of space. To go that fast in cities we had to rip out the places to go to make room for the means of getting to those places at 60 mph, and for room to store your giant protective metal shell when you're not using it. We stopped building the sorts of places where you can still get somewhere going at a reasonable speed around the end of WW2, and made it illegal, so it's now very expensive to live in a sensible neighbourhood, there aren't many left. It's a simple supply and demand problem, though not so simple once you attempt to unpack the reasons as to why we have this simple supply and demand problem. There's a banality to true evil. It's a quirk of human social psychology that when everyone is doing the wrong thing, it stops being the wrong thing. This why rape=bad, and destroying the planet=pretty alright if you ask me.

closeparen 8y ago
San Francisco's many single-family-home neighborhoods have all you really need to accomodate car storage: garages instead of living space on the ground floor. Houses still come right up the sidewalk and squeeze wall-to-wall against each other. Typical American suburbia takes density way lower than that. People here seem to value that separation for reasons above and beyond their parking needs. For example, not hearing the neighbors' footsteps through the ceilings or their TVs and family disputes through the walls. Giving each child their own bedroom. Having room for play and gatherings in the backyard. This suggests that, even without cars, we'd still insist on a pretty low densities. (Since it is homeowners in the center who control land use in the center, the frustrations of outer-ring commuters under such an arrangement don't make a difference). I'm fortunate that I can afford to live in a high-rise district and commute in reasonable time by train and elevator. But even with so many places a short walk from home, it's a big metro area - there are many more I want to go which are not so close. Without a car, I felt isolated and trapped. It's great to have neighborhood businesses, but you get tired of the monotony after a while.

closeparen 8y ago

San Francisco's many single-family-home neighborhoods have all you really need to accomodate car storage: garages instead of living space on the ground floor. Houses still come right up the sidewalk and squeeze wall-to-wall against each other. Typical American suburbia takes density way lower than that. People here seem to value that separation for reasons above and beyond their parking needs. For example, not hearing the neighbors' footsteps through the ceilings or their TVs and family disputes through the walls. Giving each child their own bedroom. Having room for play and gatherings in the backyard. This suggests that, even without cars, we'd still insist on a pretty low densities. (Since it is homeowners in the center who control land use in the center, the frustrations of outer-ring commuters under such an arrangement don't make a difference). I'm fortunate that I can afford to live in a high-rise district and commute in reasonable time by train and elevator. But even with so many places a short walk from home, it's a big metro area - there are many more I want to go which are not so close. Without a car, I felt isolated and trapped. It's great to have neighborhood businesses, but you get tired of the monotony after a while.