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Have you lived in Texas? My citation is that I live in Austin and living here without a car simply isn't possible for a lot of people. The public transit infras

Have you lived in Texas? My citation is that I live in Austin and living here without a car simply isn't possible for a lot of people. The public transit infrastructure is poor, walkability is inconsistent thanks to poor roadwork and sidewalk connections. It's a fact that Texas cities have generally handled density through sprawl.

sneak 7y ago
Yes, I have. I think you are saying something like “they have been designed to grow outwards” simply because that is how they have been built so far; I think it is about the same as saying an empty city-sized field is “designed to grow outwards”. Cities grow out, until they grow up. Even NYC didn’t have skyscrapers at one time. It will remain car-centric until such time density becomes sufficiently high that one can walk to enough different things, the achievement of which requires building vertically.
- bretthoerner 7y ago
  And lots of people already live car-free lives in Austin. It largely depends on the neighborhood you choose to live in.
  - fzeroracer 7y ago
    You can live a car-free life in Austin (as I do), but that does not make it a good city to do so in. Austin as a whole consistently ranks low in terms of walkability and the public transit here pales in comparison to other major cities. Just because a small slice of the city occupied by the upper-middle class have the luxury of living next door to work does not a good city make.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - bretthoerner 7y ago
      > but that does not make it a good city to do so in. > Austin as a whole Shrug, neighborhoods matter way, way more than arbitrarily drawn city borders. There are neighborhoods of Austin that are more enjoyable to live in car-free than ones in NYC, for example.
      - fzeroracer 7y ago
        Then I'm not sure what your point is if we want to point to arbitrary neighborhoods, say they're walkable and call it a day rather than address the ninety others which aren't. By your argument, we might as well say San Francisco is perfectly OK to live in because we can find one neighborhood that isn't a hellscape. You're not really addressing my points or arguments at all, just weirdly trying to sidestep it.
        bretthoerner 7y ago
        I just don't find arguments like "well if you lived in this random address in the City of Austin it probably wouldn't be walkable!" very interesting, sorry. Austin is 271 miles squares and SF is 46. Nobody should throw a dart (in any city) when selecting where to live and then make very location specific claims about the city (or region, state, country) as a whole based on their experience, IMO. If I go up thread you say "[Texas] cities are designed to grow outwards, rather than upwards" and "even if you removed [NIMBYs] greed from landlords and land value in cities would still be a problem." I mean... it's illegal to build anything except a single family home in most lots in Austin. NIMBYism is the problem. What else about Austin makes it "designed to grow outward" other than the zoning? How else do you push back against landlords and the high cost of land but via more units per acre? I assume you'll mention public transit, but I don't think any city built out a subway/rail system before it had some level of density. It's a chicken and egg problem and we need density in our urban core before we'll be able to pass more funding for transit, sadly. And we definitely can't afford to have a super great bus or rail system serving low density neighborhoods with low ridership. Also, I live in Central East Austin and many of my neighbors are poor. I don't buy arguments about central living being only for upper-middle class people (at least in Austin). The fact is most people choose to add miserable car commutes to their lives because they want more space, or they're afraid of living near people different than them (I'm being kind...), or whatever.
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  The problem is that many cities simply can't 'grow up' because they weren't designed to do so in the first place. What you're arguing simply doesn't play out in reality, or else cities like Seattle or California wouldn't be having this problem, now would they? The reality is that it's a problem you have to tackle before it becomes a problem. You have to design your city with public transit in mind, or else you end up with issues like LA where you have endlessly expanding highways with zero ways of managing traffic.
  - sneak 7y ago
    > The problem is that many cities simply can't 'grow up' because they weren't designed to do so in the first place. Pretty much every single city with skyscrapers stands in contradiction to this premise. No city in history, except those entirely planned ones in China recently, was originally designed to grow upwards. I think you have created a false dichotomy. Any city can build skyscrapers. The problems in Seattle and California are neighbors and government, not some ur-plan that makes skyscrapers impossible. Look at the giant ugly salesforce building, for example. Even ugly, I’d love to see a few dozen more built there. “It has always been done this way” is not the same thing as “it must be done this way”.
    - fzeroracer 7y ago
      You seem to think 'growing up' only means skyscrapers and not everything else around them. Why do you think American cities uniquely have problems with public transit, traffic etc compared to their contemporaries? The answer is because again, we designed our cities with urban sprawl and car ownership in mind (see: white flight). I didn't create a false dichotomy, you're attempting to over-simplify city growth into 'builds skyscrapers / doesn't build skyscrapers' when there's a lot more math that goes into the equation. Especially when you start factoring in our cultural demand for parking space and inefficient forms of transit.

sneak 7y ago

Yes, I have. I think you are saying something like “they have been designed to grow outwards” simply because that is how they have been built so far; I think it is about the same as saying an empty city-sized field is “designed to grow outwards”. Cities grow out, until they grow up. Even NYC didn’t have skyscrapers at one time. It will remain car-centric until such time density becomes sufficiently high that one can walk to enough different things, the achievement of which requires building vertically.

bretthoerner 7y ago
And lots of people already live car-free lives in Austin. It largely depends on the neighborhood you choose to live in.
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  You can live a car-free life in Austin (as I do), but that does not make it a good city to do so in. Austin as a whole consistently ranks low in terms of walkability and the public transit here pales in comparison to other major cities. Just because a small slice of the city occupied by the upper-middle class have the luxury of living next door to work does not a good city make.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - bretthoerner 7y ago
    > but that does not make it a good city to do so in. > Austin as a whole Shrug, neighborhoods matter way, way more than arbitrarily drawn city borders. There are neighborhoods of Austin that are more enjoyable to live in car-free than ones in NYC, for example.
    - fzeroracer 7y ago
      Then I'm not sure what your point is if we want to point to arbitrary neighborhoods, say they're walkable and call it a day rather than address the ninety others which aren't. By your argument, we might as well say San Francisco is perfectly OK to live in because we can find one neighborhood that isn't a hellscape. You're not really addressing my points or arguments at all, just weirdly trying to sidestep it.
      - bretthoerner 7y ago
        I just don't find arguments like "well if you lived in this random address in the City of Austin it probably wouldn't be walkable!" very interesting, sorry. Austin is 271 miles squares and SF is 46. Nobody should throw a dart (in any city) when selecting where to live and then make very location specific claims about the city (or region, state, country) as a whole based on their experience, IMO. If I go up thread you say "[Texas] cities are designed to grow outwards, rather than upwards" and "even if you removed [NIMBYs] greed from landlords and land value in cities would still be a problem." I mean... it's illegal to build anything except a single family home in most lots in Austin. NIMBYism is the problem. What else about Austin makes it "designed to grow outward" other than the zoning? How else do you push back against landlords and the high cost of land but via more units per acre? I assume you'll mention public transit, but I don't think any city built out a subway/rail system before it had some level of density. It's a chicken and egg problem and we need density in our urban core before we'll be able to pass more funding for transit, sadly. And we definitely can't afford to have a super great bus or rail system serving low density neighborhoods with low ridership. Also, I live in Central East Austin and many of my neighbors are poor. I don't buy arguments about central living being only for upper-middle class people (at least in Austin). The fact is most people choose to add miserable car commutes to their lives because they want more space, or they're afraid of living near people different than them (I'm being kind...), or whatever.
fzeroracer 7y ago
The problem is that many cities simply can't 'grow up' because they weren't designed to do so in the first place. What you're arguing simply doesn't play out in reality, or else cities like Seattle or California wouldn't be having this problem, now would they? The reality is that it's a problem you have to tackle before it becomes a problem. You have to design your city with public transit in mind, or else you end up with issues like LA where you have endlessly expanding highways with zero ways of managing traffic.
- sneak 7y ago
  > The problem is that many cities simply can't 'grow up' because they weren't designed to do so in the first place. Pretty much every single city with skyscrapers stands in contradiction to this premise. No city in history, except those entirely planned ones in China recently, was originally designed to grow upwards. I think you have created a false dichotomy. Any city can build skyscrapers. The problems in Seattle and California are neighbors and government, not some ur-plan that makes skyscrapers impossible. Look at the giant ugly salesforce building, for example. Even ugly, I’d love to see a few dozen more built there. “It has always been done this way” is not the same thing as “it must be done this way”.
  - fzeroracer 7y ago
    You seem to think 'growing up' only means skyscrapers and not everything else around them. Why do you think American cities uniquely have problems with public transit, traffic etc compared to their contemporaries? The answer is because again, we designed our cities with urban sprawl and car ownership in mind (see: white flight). I didn't create a false dichotomy, you're attempting to over-simplify city growth into 'builds skyscrapers / doesn't build skyscrapers' when there's a lot more math that goes into the equation. Especially when you start factoring in our cultural demand for parking space and inefficient forms of transit.