6 ms·

I live in Västerås which is sometimes touted as one of the, at least, top 10 cycling cities in Sweden with 390 kilometers of cycle/walking paths. And still we

by sandos 5y ago

I live in Västerås which is sometimes touted as one of the, at least, top 10 cycling cities in Sweden with 390 kilometers of cycle/walking paths. And still we have expansive shopping malls outside of town which is heavily in favor or cars. We still have the downtown shopping but it can barely hang by, and parking is very expensive. It would not really have been possible to build all this shopping in the city center, so there is the physical limitations. I think this is the main problem, that the cities outgrow themselves, and it is just so much cheaper and economical to build mega-malls instead of smaller centres for shopping and amenities. They do exist here, but are very small. So you can often get by with walking of bicycling but the "big" shopping is done using a car, the local shops are 99% food-related or restaurants.

jseban 5y ago
Yeah it's just transport and travel that naturally outgrows the pace of walking and cycling, it's just technological progress.
- yarky 5y ago
  > just technological progress. Despite the social consequences.
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    What on earth does that even mean? Ir seems to imply that it is a demand that technology not change things socially or if they will be bad. Both are flat out impossible as the inventor(s) don't even know what will change ahead of time. It is neither reasonable nor actionable. If it doesn't imply that it is meaningless as the dumb luddite line "Science never sacrifices, it always murders." How the fuck is a process of discovery supposed to sacrifice anything when it isn't even an entity! Attributing responsibility of murders to it is similiarly daft - why not blame murders on violence instead? Sure scientests should come out with ethical codes of "what not to do" after infamous incidents like say Harry Harlowe's gratitutousness monkey torture or human experimentation on the vulnerable but moral culpability is on the men responsible, not those who engage in a common different process. It would nonsensic like trying to declare eaters responsible for some depraved cannibal eating an infant!
    - yarky 5y ago
      The question is how will a group of people decide their own key performance measures. Different groups have different KPIs either intrinsically or some statistic, e.g. PDG, ESG indicators, Real return, etc. If your only or main KPI ignores the social consequences , then you're doing it > Despite de social consequences. But I get your point, it's a well known school of thought based on selfishness, I'd guess.
null_object 5y ago
>It would not really have been possible to build all this shopping in the city center, so there is the physical limitations. I think this is the main problem, that the cities outgrow themselves, and it is just so much cheaper and economical to build mega-malls instead of smaller centres for shopping and amenities. But this is a matter of chosen-lifestyle. This was really brought home to me talking to my mother-in-law (who lives in Nyköping). She is a keen walker and owns a bike - but when I ranted about the incredible scale of traffic in what is a small and should be an eminently walkable town, she said "How else can people buy their weekly groceries?" The point of walkable towns (which these small and quite intimate towns in central Sweden could be), is that the center of town would be full of flourishing small and specialized grocery and other stores, and people would buy food from their nearby store, and keep the center of the town alive and busy. Instead of this, people prefer to sit alone in their car and drive at a snail's pace in a polluting traffic-jam, to a stadium-sized parking-lot where anonymous super-grocery chains are located out of reach of the 'poors' who have no car, and therefore no means of getting there.
- nradov 5y ago
  People prefer to buy all of their weekly groceries at a single store instead of chasing all over town, and they want to spend as little as possible. This is totally rational. You can't expect them to shop at nearby stores if the selection is poor, prices are high, and parking is limited.
  - secabeen 5y ago
    > People prefer to buy all of their weekly groceries at a single store instead of chasing all over town Right. The change only works when you switch to a model of buying your daily groceries, because the market is close, and smaller, and quick to get in and out of. You may still make a weekly or bi-weekly trip to the big market in a car to get bulk stuff, but each day's meals are based around the perishables that you bought earlier that day or the day before. (Yes, this is hard, and it only worked for us when we lived in Chicago, and the market was a few blocks away or we passed by grocers on the way to and from work, but it was a nice way to live.)

by sandos 5y ago

jseban 5y ago

Yeah it's just transport and travel that naturally outgrows the pace of walking and cycling, it's just technological progress.

yarky 5y ago
> just technological progress. Despite the social consequences.
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  What on earth does that even mean? Ir seems to imply that it is a demand that technology not change things socially or if they will be bad. Both are flat out impossible as the inventor(s) don't even know what will change ahead of time. It is neither reasonable nor actionable. If it doesn't imply that it is meaningless as the dumb luddite line "Science never sacrifices, it always murders." How the fuck is a process of discovery supposed to sacrifice anything when it isn't even an entity! Attributing responsibility of murders to it is similiarly daft - why not blame murders on violence instead? Sure scientests should come out with ethical codes of "what not to do" after infamous incidents like say Harry Harlowe's gratitutousness monkey torture or human experimentation on the vulnerable but moral culpability is on the men responsible, not those who engage in a common different process. It would nonsensic like trying to declare eaters responsible for some depraved cannibal eating an infant!
  - yarky 5y ago
    The question is how will a group of people decide their own key performance measures. Different groups have different KPIs either intrinsically or some statistic, e.g. PDG, ESG indicators, Real return, etc. If your only or main KPI ignores the social consequences , then you're doing it > Despite de social consequences. But I get your point, it's a well known school of thought based on selfishness, I'd guess.

null_object 5y ago

>It would not really have been possible to build all this shopping in the city center, so there is the physical limitations. I think this is the main problem, that the cities outgrow themselves, and it is just so much cheaper and economical to build mega-malls instead of smaller centres for shopping and amenities. But this is a matter of chosen-lifestyle. This was really brought home to me talking to my mother-in-law (who lives in Nyköping). She is a keen walker and owns a bike - but when I ranted about the incredible scale of traffic in what is a small and should be an eminently walkable town, she said "How else can people buy their weekly groceries?" The point of walkable towns (which these small and quite intimate towns in central Sweden could be), is that the center of town would be full of flourishing small and specialized grocery and other stores, and people would buy food from their nearby store, and keep the center of the town alive and busy. Instead of this, people prefer to sit alone in their car and drive at a snail's pace in a polluting traffic-jam, to a stadium-sized parking-lot where anonymous super-grocery chains are located out of reach of the 'poors' who have no car, and therefore no means of getting there.

nradov 5y ago
People prefer to buy all of their weekly groceries at a single store instead of chasing all over town, and they want to spend as little as possible. This is totally rational. You can't expect them to shop at nearby stores if the selection is poor, prices are high, and parking is limited.
- secabeen 5y ago
  > People prefer to buy all of their weekly groceries at a single store instead of chasing all over town Right. The change only works when you switch to a model of buying your daily groceries, because the market is close, and smaller, and quick to get in and out of. You may still make a weekly or bi-weekly trip to the big market in a car to get bulk stuff, but each day's meals are based around the perishables that you bought earlier that day or the day before. (Yes, this is hard, and it only worked for us when we lived in Chicago, and the market was a few blocks away or we passed by grocers on the way to and from work, but it was a nice way to live.)