4 ms·

I’m lucky enough to live in a neighborhood that has the following within 3 short blocks of me: Organic grocery store, park, church, dentist, urgent care, bars,

by reidjs 5y ago

I’m lucky enough to live in a neighborhood that has the following within 3 short blocks of me: Organic grocery store, park, church, dentist, urgent care, bars, restaurants, hardware store, barber, liquor store, outdoor gym, and others. The only problem? No parking. So I sold my car. I have never lived in such an amazing neighborhood and I think most people never will because they feel compelled to live miles away from cities. I think it’s because most city neighborhoods aren’t like my neighborhood where everything is so accessible.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago
People feel compelled to live away from cities because they don't want to pay $1 million to live in a 2 bedroom apartment with kids and rely on public transit that cuts lines because of pandemic related financial stress and have to dodge drug usage, feces, and mentally disturbed individuals on the streets (thinking about SF here). In cities that are not NYC and SF lots of families live in the city centers and love it because it's somewhat affordable and not ludicrously dangerous for children.
opportune 5y ago
Exactly the same with me. I have everything I need in walking distance, the car is not necessary. I guess the problem is how do we get neighborhoods to “evolve” in this direction naturally? My neighborhood I think was essentially built in the 20s before cars were common household items. The lot sizes are small, there are no setbacks or tree mandates. It seems hard to get a suburban area to morph into a walkable neighborhood like that unless the location is highly desirable (which, to be fair, applies to huge parts of the SF Bay Area from the Peninsula to South Bay, but not the whole country), which would incentivize wide-scale new construction enough for people to put up with the short term pains of living in something built for walkability in a larger community that is still car-based.
- zwkrt 5y ago
  > how do we get neighborhoods to “evolve” in this direction naturally? Get rid of cars and people will quickly find they like walkable neighborhoods.
- bart_spoon 5y ago
  I’m not sure it happens naturally at this point. It requires conscious action. I recently moved back to my suburban childhood city, and under the mayor’s directive over the last 10 years, they’ve been attempting to overhaul the town from a truly stereotypical American suburb of big box stores, chain restaurants, and completely unwalkable neighborhoods, to something denser and less car centric. They’ve encouraged a lot of development to the “downtown” area, which used to be basically town hall and the library, to a place with a large central park/amphitheater with biweekly free concerts, a farmers market, and town festivals, lots of mixed use apartment/retail/business buildings, extensive bike/walking paths, etc. They’ve torn up an old train rail that was in disrepair that cut through the city and turned it into a pedestrian nature trail that connects the northern and southern parts of the city to the downtown core. They’ve partnered with private enterprise to develop a “test kitchen” that acts as a sort of incubator for chefs before they establish their new restaurant to encourage more varied and unique culinary experiences. They’ve developed an “IoT” lab to act as an incubator to attract tech startups to the area, as well as a makerspace/trade hub to connect employers and people seeking training in the trades. They’ve been working with developers to buy up old single family homes in the downtown area to develop into denser townhome and apartment complexes. They’ve done a lot of this over the complaints of the usual loud minority who screech about any and all change. It isn’t all perfect, and there’s much to be done, and part of it was enabled due to the fact that it’s a relatively wealthy suburb, but it’s blown me away how they’ve taken what used to be the epitome of an American suburb and turned it into a city in track for something more sustainable. I could never have walked anywhere growing up, but since moving back, I’ve bought a bike and am strongly considering selling my second vehicle due to lack of use. But the point is that it’s all been active development by the mayor and the city council, at times over fierce objections by others.
- CanceledAccount 5y ago
  It’s very easy: remove zoning restrictions and allow mixed use development. The natural organic state of cities is dense, mixed use, walkable and high efficiency, just like we see in all the oldest cities in the world. Artificial legal restrictions maintain our rigid system of suburbs and car focused transportation.
rufus_foreman 5y ago
I have most of that around the same distance in my neighborhood, but if I walked 3 blocks right now I would be completely soaked in sweat, and would likely have a few mosquito bites also.

by reidjs 5y ago

notsureaboutpg 5y ago

People feel compelled to live away from cities because they don't want to pay $1 million to live in a 2 bedroom apartment with kids and rely on public transit that cuts lines because of pandemic related financial stress and have to dodge drug usage, feces, and mentally disturbed individuals on the streets (thinking about SF here). In cities that are not NYC and SF lots of families live in the city centers and love it because it's somewhat affordable and not ludicrously dangerous for children.

opportune 5y ago

Exactly the same with me. I have everything I need in walking distance, the car is not necessary. I guess the problem is how do we get neighborhoods to “evolve” in this direction naturally? My neighborhood I think was essentially built in the 20s before cars were common household items. The lot sizes are small, there are no setbacks or tree mandates. It seems hard to get a suburban area to morph into a walkable neighborhood like that unless the location is highly desirable (which, to be fair, applies to huge parts of the SF Bay Area from the Peninsula to South Bay, but not the whole country), which would incentivize wide-scale new construction enough for people to put up with the short term pains of living in something built for walkability in a larger community that is still car-based.

zwkrt 5y ago
> how do we get neighborhoods to “evolve” in this direction naturally? Get rid of cars and people will quickly find they like walkable neighborhoods.
bart_spoon 5y ago
I’m not sure it happens naturally at this point. It requires conscious action. I recently moved back to my suburban childhood city, and under the mayor’s directive over the last 10 years, they’ve been attempting to overhaul the town from a truly stereotypical American suburb of big box stores, chain restaurants, and completely unwalkable neighborhoods, to something denser and less car centric. They’ve encouraged a lot of development to the “downtown” area, which used to be basically town hall and the library, to a place with a large central park/amphitheater with biweekly free concerts, a farmers market, and town festivals, lots of mixed use apartment/retail/business buildings, extensive bike/walking paths, etc. They’ve torn up an old train rail that was in disrepair that cut through the city and turned it into a pedestrian nature trail that connects the northern and southern parts of the city to the downtown core. They’ve partnered with private enterprise to develop a “test kitchen” that acts as a sort of incubator for chefs before they establish their new restaurant to encourage more varied and unique culinary experiences. They’ve developed an “IoT” lab to act as an incubator to attract tech startups to the area, as well as a makerspace/trade hub to connect employers and people seeking training in the trades. They’ve been working with developers to buy up old single family homes in the downtown area to develop into denser townhome and apartment complexes. They’ve done a lot of this over the complaints of the usual loud minority who screech about any and all change. It isn’t all perfect, and there’s much to be done, and part of it was enabled due to the fact that it’s a relatively wealthy suburb, but it’s blown me away how they’ve taken what used to be the epitome of an American suburb and turned it into a city in track for something more sustainable. I could never have walked anywhere growing up, but since moving back, I’ve bought a bike and am strongly considering selling my second vehicle due to lack of use. But the point is that it’s all been active development by the mayor and the city council, at times over fierce objections by others.
CanceledAccount 5y ago
It’s very easy: remove zoning restrictions and allow mixed use development. The natural organic state of cities is dense, mixed use, walkable and high efficiency, just like we see in all the oldest cities in the world. Artificial legal restrictions maintain our rigid system of suburbs and car focused transportation.

rufus_foreman 5y ago

I have most of that around the same distance in my neighborhood, but if I walked 3 blocks right now I would be completely soaked in sweat, and would likely have a few mosquito bites also.