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If only we had a strategic reserve of bike lanes and sidewalks to release instead. If we didn’t do things like this [1] we really wouldn’t have these sorts of

If only we had a strategic reserve of bike lanes and sidewalks to release instead. If we didn’t do things like this [1] we really wouldn’t have these sorts of problems to this extent. [1] https://twitter.com/urbanthoughts11/status/1462837134361047045?s=10 https://twitter.com/urbanthoughts11/status/14628371343610470...

shadowgovt 5y ago
Bike lanes and sidewalks don't fix the commute to work being 30 minutes one way by car. US society (especially around cities, where most Americans live) is car-sized-vehicle-centric.
- ericmay 5y ago
  > Bike lanes and sidewalks don't fix the commute to work being 30 minutes one way by car. > US society (especially around cities, where most Americans live) is car-sized-vehicle-centric. Does suburban development, artificially cheap oil, and more highways and federal funding for them fix it?
- imtringued 5y ago
  That problem could be solved with a land value tax. Of course, it won't happen because everyone wants to extract economic rents including me. I mean think about it. You're earning money without incurring costs related to that income. You'd have to be stupid or have a lot of integrity to not want such a thing.
- ben_w 5y ago
  The flat under mine is used as an office, and the ground floor has a cafe-delicatessen and also a Domino’s; this type of mixed use seems reasonably common here in Berlin. How much difference would it make if American cities just started to allow residential buildings to be used this way?
  - tata71 5y ago
    more American towns — and cities
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Are you saying doing this would create more towns and cities, or that some towns and cities are already doing this?
  - mym1990 5y ago
    A lot of office space and future development in general is probably going to shift to mixed use in the future(adding the residential to the commercial specifically, a lot of offices already have the cafe/restaurants). It’s highly appealing but from what I have seen it is also very expensive for the consumer.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    There are two forces at work here, is my understanding. One has changed as the center of the economy in the US has changed and one will not without some kind of massive incentives. The first is heavy industry. Mixed-use made no sense when America was an industrial backbone because nobody thinks it's wise to put everyone's houses right next to the steel furnaces (1). But as US labor shifts from manufacturing to service sector, I anticipate we'll see more mixed-use. We already see quite a bit of it in city commercial districts. The second is suburbia. It doesn't matter how many apartment-bistros we rezone if "the good life" in America still looks like owning (or renting, nowadays) a 2-bedroom 2-story outside town with a lawn and a fence only to get on the freeway twice a day, 5-6 days a week to swear at traffic to get to and from work. But incentives will have to be massively restructured to alter that behavior because America is blessed with land (and its citizens blessed / cursed with a fascinatingly unlimited tolerance for travel time... I once had a coworker who did a 90-minute one-way drive from the next state over 5 days a week. Better jobs than her hometown, but she didn't want to leave home). It's generally still cheaper to buy (or rent from someone who bought) a home on nuked-and-paved farmland than deal with a landlord in a more concentrated urban center, where higher population density lets them charge more (and you never even have a prayer of owning that tenement building... 1950s suburbia is increasingly unattainable for most Americans, but it's a lie we still believe). (1) I'm distorting history a bit... In what is now the Rust Belt, homes within walking distance of the factories were common in the industrial-center cities. But so was lung cancer, and personal transportation hadn't yet exploded into ubiquity like it has now.
- echopurity 5y ago
  Yes, US society is a death cult.
mym1990 5y ago
If only we had wings and could fly we really wouldn’t have these sorts of problems to this extent… America is a country of 330+ million people, with an economy built on the foundation of oil. Not to mention the fact that selling a commodity vs building out infrastructure aren’t even in the same sphere of activity.
koheripbal 5y ago
Say that again when you have three kids all going to different schools/daycares, and then need to get to work.
- ericmay 5y ago
  How do people in Europe do it?
  - ryukafalz 5y ago
    I believe e.g. in the Netherlands, the parents would walk or bike with their kids up to around 8-12, and then the kids would walk or bike on their own. Seems like schools are typically pretty close to home as well though; I found a paper indicating that 90% of students are within 1 km of school there and 97% within 2 km: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33297559/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33297559/
  - k8sToGo 5y ago
    We drive our SUVs until the local government complains about parents dropping off and picking up children ;)

shadowgovt 5y ago

Bike lanes and sidewalks don't fix the commute to work being 30 minutes one way by car. US society (especially around cities, where most Americans live) is car-sized-vehicle-centric.

ericmay 5y ago
> Bike lanes and sidewalks don't fix the commute to work being 30 minutes one way by car. > US society (especially around cities, where most Americans live) is car-sized-vehicle-centric. Does suburban development, artificially cheap oil, and more highways and federal funding for them fix it?
imtringued 5y ago
That problem could be solved with a land value tax. Of course, it won't happen because everyone wants to extract economic rents including me. I mean think about it. You're earning money without incurring costs related to that income. You'd have to be stupid or have a lot of integrity to not want such a thing.
ben_w 5y ago
The flat under mine is used as an office, and the ground floor has a cafe-delicatessen and also a Domino’s; this type of mixed use seems reasonably common here in Berlin. How much difference would it make if American cities just started to allow residential buildings to be used this way?
- tata71 5y ago
  more American towns — and cities
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Are you saying doing this would create more towns and cities, or that some towns and cities are already doing this?
- mym1990 5y ago
  A lot of office space and future development in general is probably going to shift to mixed use in the future(adding the residential to the commercial specifically, a lot of offices already have the cafe/restaurants). It’s highly appealing but from what I have seen it is also very expensive for the consumer.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  There are two forces at work here, is my understanding. One has changed as the center of the economy in the US has changed and one will not without some kind of massive incentives. The first is heavy industry. Mixed-use made no sense when America was an industrial backbone because nobody thinks it's wise to put everyone's houses right next to the steel furnaces (1). But as US labor shifts from manufacturing to service sector, I anticipate we'll see more mixed-use. We already see quite a bit of it in city commercial districts. The second is suburbia. It doesn't matter how many apartment-bistros we rezone if "the good life" in America still looks like owning (or renting, nowadays) a 2-bedroom 2-story outside town with a lawn and a fence only to get on the freeway twice a day, 5-6 days a week to swear at traffic to get to and from work. But incentives will have to be massively restructured to alter that behavior because America is blessed with land (and its citizens blessed / cursed with a fascinatingly unlimited tolerance for travel time... I once had a coworker who did a 90-minute one-way drive from the next state over 5 days a week. Better jobs than her hometown, but she didn't want to leave home). It's generally still cheaper to buy (or rent from someone who bought) a home on nuked-and-paved farmland than deal with a landlord in a more concentrated urban center, where higher population density lets them charge more (and you never even have a prayer of owning that tenement building... 1950s suburbia is increasingly unattainable for most Americans, but it's a lie we still believe). (1) I'm distorting history a bit... In what is now the Rust Belt, homes within walking distance of the factories were common in the industrial-center cities. But so was lung cancer, and personal transportation hadn't yet exploded into ubiquity like it has now.
echopurity 5y ago
Yes, US society is a death cult.

mym1990 5y ago

If only we had wings and could fly we really wouldn’t have these sorts of problems to this extent… America is a country of 330+ million people, with an economy built on the foundation of oil. Not to mention the fact that selling a commodity vs building out infrastructure aren’t even in the same sphere of activity.

koheripbal 5y ago

Say that again when you have three kids all going to different schools/daycares, and then need to get to work.

ericmay 5y ago
How do people in Europe do it?
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  I believe e.g. in the Netherlands, the parents would walk or bike with their kids up to around 8-12, and then the kids would walk or bike on their own. Seems like schools are typically pretty close to home as well though; I found a paper indicating that 90% of students are within 1 km of school there and 97% within 2 km: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33297559/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33297559/
- k8sToGo 5y ago
  We drive our SUVs until the local government complains about parents dropping off and picking up children ;)