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> This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward. You're really lo
by strictnein 8y ago
> This may be shocking to people with an American upbringing, but cars (especially privately owned ones) just do not make sense going forward.
You're really looking at this from a very narrow mindset. It isn't going into the city that a lot of Americans really want and need cars, it's heading out of the city.
This may be shocking to people with a European upbringing, but when you have a vast country with lots of open space and beautiful nature, it's super awesome and amazingly freeing to just go wherever you want to on a whim. Wake up Saturday morning - let's head up to that state park with the cool water falls and hike around for the day. 10 minutes later you're on the road and an hour or two later you're surrounded by nature. Real nature too, not some small 10 acre park somewhere.
There's real freedom in being able to go where you want, when you want. It's not just a "convenience" thing.
- fergie 8y agoThere are several European countries with a lower population density than the US, and places like Norway and Finland are _much_ more sparsely populated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoThat's not terribly significant. An average density for an entire nation says nothing about the spaces between population centers. There are national parks in the US that are bigger than entire European nations. Destinations that are more remote from American cities, than all of Europe.
- collyw 8y agoDo you honestly think we can't do that in Europe?
- drstewart 8y agoDo you honestly think there are no walkable cities in the US or whatever outlandish claims are being made by Europeans in this thread?
- the_clarence 8y agoThere is no comparison to be made between european cities where you can walk for hours and hours and see a thousand things vs americans cities where you will mostly spend your time crossing large streets. If you really believe this you probably never have been to Europe.
- collyw 8y ago"I know european cities are much more pedestrian friendly & that US cities in general are more oriented towards the car lifestyle" Doesn't sound so outlandish to me.
- the_clarence 8y agoI’ll re-iterate this here, because I got downvoted there. There is no comparison. Tell me one city in the US that can compare to London, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, etc.
- zeitg3ist 8y agoI mean, I live in Europe and I can do the same thing... or do you think Europeans don’t have national parks and never take car trips? OP was criticizing cars as a daily method of transportation inside cities.
- newshorts 8y agoTry going to Yosemite on the weekend from the Bay Area. If you want to see the endgame for cars as a primary means of transportation check out San Francisco. We tried to go to Tahoe one weekend and gave up after waiting in line to get on the bay bridge for 2 hours and moving only 2 blocks. Another time it literally took 10 hours to return from a ski trip and it’s supposed to be a 3 hour drive. We don’t go anywhere in California now. If we want to ski, we fly out of state. The problem is cars don’t scale.