4 ms·

other than NYC, pretty much all US cities have household car ownership >50%. how are you going to sell your plan to these people?

dionidium 5y ago
Of course people own cars today; we prioritize driver interests wherever they conflict with other concerns. But even passive changes to the built environment -- allow more density, upzone urban neighborhoods, eliminate parking requirements -- will in many places result in cities that are far more car-hostile. In my view people will naturally respond to changing incentives. Car ownership rates should be understood to exist in a context where the alternatives are more or less illegal. If they weren't literally illegal, then they'd be more common.
- leetcrew 5y ago
  there's a significant difference between "allow denser construction" and "deliberately ratchet up the pain for drivers each year". a city that's genuinely designed for pedestrians sounds great! having my commute to work be even worse for n years until public transit reaches viability doesn't sound so great.
  - drewcoo 5y ago
    What's the difference? Is it that "deliberately ratchet up the pain for drivers each year" includes (malicious) intent, an overwrought exaggeration, a victim (gasp!), or a timeframe? Or is the whole comparison really just not in good faith?
    - leetcrew 5y ago
      eliminating free parking and parking minimums seems reasonable enough. people who need a car to get to the place where they make money can figure out how to pay for parking. stuff like prioritizing plowing the sidewalk over the road sounds like deliberately pissing drivers off. what it sounds like is important, and most people drive. imagine being a politician outside of maybe NYC and having that as part of your platform. other people like me have more specific issues. I'd actually love to bike or take public transit to work, but there's no bus/train that goes anywhere near my office, it would take over an hour to bike there, and all the other software companies are also outside the city. why are there no virtually no employers in my field in a major american city? kind of a tangent, but if you don't look at things like this too, you are making my life worse without offering anything.
      - dionidium 5y ago
        Right, there's no doubt that this is how American cities are organized today. What I'm advocating for is allowing that to change naturally over the course of a few decades by upzoning urban lots to allow for more density (everywhere, but especially near transit). As traffic increases in the denser zones, more people will choose to live there to avoid the commute (and because we know humans choose to move to densely-developed neighborhoods when they're allowed to), which generates even more density, and so on. The status quo today is that these alternatives are illegal in most parts of most cities.
        rootusrootus 5y ago
        I think the rub is that what you propose is not politically feasible. It may or may not be objectively a great idea, but we live in a democracy and the moment you do something overtly that causes pain for enough of the voting population to matter, they will just vote in a different politician who will reverse the policy.
        dionidium 5y ago
        Yes, I'm very pessimistic about democracy's ability to address the most important questions of our age. We're paying an enormous productivity price, locking young people out of access to the best places to live, and we're dealing with it on a timeline that's totally unresponsive to the scale of the problem. And what's so maddening is that it's a totally invented policy problem.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
tshaddox 5y ago
Was there a public referendum involved in the first place?
- bagacrap 5y ago
  democracy in general. If Joe Biden promised to cut back on motorways I don't think he'd have been elected.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Slowly. If you look at the Netherlands which is the standout example then you will see they didn't change everything overnight. It has been a process that took forty years and they still haven't finished.

dionidium 5y ago

Of course people own cars today; we prioritize driver interests wherever they conflict with other concerns. But even passive changes to the built environment -- allow more density, upzone urban neighborhoods, eliminate parking requirements -- will in many places result in cities that are far more car-hostile. In my view people will naturally respond to changing incentives. Car ownership rates should be understood to exist in a context where the alternatives are more or less illegal. If they weren't literally illegal, then they'd be more common.

leetcrew 5y ago
there's a significant difference between "allow denser construction" and "deliberately ratchet up the pain for drivers each year". a city that's genuinely designed for pedestrians sounds great! having my commute to work be even worse for n years until public transit reaches viability doesn't sound so great.
- drewcoo 5y ago
  What's the difference? Is it that "deliberately ratchet up the pain for drivers each year" includes (malicious) intent, an overwrought exaggeration, a victim (gasp!), or a timeframe? Or is the whole comparison really just not in good faith?
  - leetcrew 5y ago
    eliminating free parking and parking minimums seems reasonable enough. people who need a car to get to the place where they make money can figure out how to pay for parking. stuff like prioritizing plowing the sidewalk over the road sounds like deliberately pissing drivers off. what it sounds like is important, and most people drive. imagine being a politician outside of maybe NYC and having that as part of your platform. other people like me have more specific issues. I'd actually love to bike or take public transit to work, but there's no bus/train that goes anywhere near my office, it would take over an hour to bike there, and all the other software companies are also outside the city. why are there no virtually no employers in my field in a major american city? kind of a tangent, but if you don't look at things like this too, you are making my life worse without offering anything.
    - dionidium 5y ago
      Right, there's no doubt that this is how American cities are organized today. What I'm advocating for is allowing that to change naturally over the course of a few decades by upzoning urban lots to allow for more density (everywhere, but especially near transit). As traffic increases in the denser zones, more people will choose to live there to avoid the commute (and because we know humans choose to move to densely-developed neighborhoods when they're allowed to), which generates even more density, and so on. The status quo today is that these alternatives are illegal in most parts of most cities.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        I think the rub is that what you propose is not politically feasible. It may or may not be objectively a great idea, but we live in a democracy and the moment you do something overtly that causes pain for enough of the voting population to matter, they will just vote in a different politician who will reverse the policy.
        dionidium 5y ago
        Yes, I'm very pessimistic about democracy's ability to address the most important questions of our age. We're paying an enormous productivity price, locking young people out of access to the best places to live, and we're dealing with it on a timeline that's totally unresponsive to the scale of the problem. And what's so maddening is that it's a totally invented policy problem.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

tshaddox 5y ago

Was there a public referendum involved in the first place?

bagacrap 5y ago
democracy in general. If Joe Biden promised to cut back on motorways I don't think he'd have been elected.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

Slowly. If you look at the Netherlands which is the standout example then you will see they didn't change everything overnight. It has been a process that took forty years and they still haven't finished.