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Before life got in the way, I wanted a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Resource Management as a foundation for a Master's in Urban Planning. I currently ru

Before life got in the way, I wanted a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Resource Management as a foundation for a Master's in Urban Planning. I currently run r/UrbanForestry for the same reason: I don't think it makes sense to see human settlements as separate from nature. I think of nature as the fabric within which such configurations occur. It isn't inevitable that human development must be a concrete jungle. You can include plants, permeable surfaces, etc in your plans so people can live more lightly and less intrusively on the land. I also think America has a lot of room for adding back walkable mixed-use neighborhoods where at least some people can live, work and shop in the same neighborhood. Or at least live and shop if they are retirees, teens, or similar groups who aren't seeking a job or who already work at home or from home in some capacity. Studies suggest this leads to greater wealth in such neighborhoods (such as more sales) and we know vehicle traffic is a significant burden wrt human-caused climate change. Making it possible to skip the long commute makes for a better quality of life and less pollution adding to this issue. We currently frame this issue as a painful choice between short-term gratification and current high quality of life with a long-term cost of global disaster versus short-term sacrifice for slim hope of assuaging our guilt with no guarantee of real improvement in the future. I don't think that's necessary. I've lived without a car in the US for more than a decade. I think you can live that way and live well. I think we can design and build a world that provides a high quality of life for people and doesn't destroy the environment in the process.

signal11 5y ago
> I've lived without a car in the US for more than a decade. Is there a post/blog/thread/AMA about this? This sounds super interesting in itself!
- Gustomaximus 5y ago
  I think this would be very much based on where you live. I went 10+ years without a car while I was living in cities and it only made life simpler. I now live on a farm and life would be near impossible without a vehicle unless I went Armish style with horse and cart and buggy. If this person lived NY vs back country Montana it would be 2 very different stores.
  - signal11 5y ago
    You have a very good point. Cars give people a lot of personal autonomy. Yes, cities could be built with better/smarter public transport options, but even Londoners and New Yorkers (two cities with very good public transport) will say they need cars from time to time. And I suspect pre-COVID-level jam-packed public transport will find few takers in a post-COVID world. Outside cities, even in suburban areas, the need for cars is a no-brainer. But I'd still like to know how the parent poster manages.
Iv 5y ago
I live in the Japanese countryside and I absolutely need a car for living, but it makes me sad to realize that it would take almost nothing for me to get rid of the car. I spend my driving time 90% on a single road where all the places I need are. I spend 9% on another similar big axis. I occasionally go to Tokyo but to do so I park my car at the free parking on the highway bus station. A regular bus on the two axis I use would allow me to totally get rig of a car. I am pretty sure we could automate such a bus given today's tech.
- chapium 5y ago
  You might want to check out a pedelelec to see if it fits your need.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > A regular bus on the two axis I use would allow me to totally get rig of a car. Not if you need to carry a lot of stuff like groceries for a whole family. Unless you decide to do a bus trip every single day, losing time while waiting for the next bus the arrive.
  - nativeit 5y ago
    I admit that your point is valid in the scope of modern living. I do think this is reflective of some of what has been lost in the last century, however. With greater routine access to artisans, shops and grocers, the ability to obtain fresher, healthier ingredients in smaller quantities more frequently is a natural consequence. The sort of diets and lifestyles that we (American culture specifically) still sort of fetishizes through Food Network, A&E, and YouTube food entertainment series are enabled through the greater availability and access to Main Street shops that cater to narrower markets like bakers, delicatessens, butchers, farmers' markets, and general stores. Granted this isn't automatically a panacea, and may not necessarily scale to modern populaces effectively, but I am of the opinion that it's a component of a healthier and more sustainable way of living in areas that could support it.
  - SECProto 5y ago
    Lots of people all over the world do shopping for multiple days of groceries without having a car. It's not that hard - a large bag for veg, a somewhat smaller bag for protein, maybe a third bag for miscellaneous. Especially if you eat a reasonably traditional Japanese diet, it'd be easy - rice and miso you only buy once a month or so depending. Groceries in the West take up so much space because they are all prepackaged. A couple boxes of cereal and a loaf of bread takes up as much space as a week worth of veg. Using dishclothes and a washlet instead of paper towels or (most) toilet paper and you've got another couple volumetrically huge items off your shopping list
pineconewarrior 5y ago
> I don't think it makes sense to see human settlements as separate from nature Sounds like heidegger and marx! I agree
mkoubaa 5y ago
How do you think extended family housing complexes fit into this story? It's a norm in many cultures and for much or human history but an oddity in the US. Of course you can use as loose a definition of family as you like.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about that though I would like to figure out where that fits. Our current housing crisis is rooted in building housing designed for our standard nuclear family with a breadwinner father, homemaker mother and 2.5 minor kids. This became our standard post-WW2 with the birth of the suburbs and was avidly embraced because it worked to solve our housing crisis at that time. That was never the majority of the US population but it was a larger percentage of the population than it is currently and there were other housing options available if you were single. We have torn down a million SROs and largely eliminated the practice of boarding houses. Now we see such things as aimed at homeless people who can't make their lives work. At one time, that was normal housing for normal people. We have a higher percentage of households with one to three people and we mostly don't build housing for such households. This has driven an interest in alternatives like Tiny Homes, RV living and trailer courts. We really need to focus on building Missing Middle Housing and SROs. That would include duplexes which are a potential sensible option for living with extended family in some cases. SRO: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy
  - earleybird 5y ago
    That same time period (post WWII) saw a large shift from rural to city (suburb or otherwise). How does that factor into your view of normal housing?
    - nine_k 5y ago
      Cities had (and have) more and better jobs. Suburbs are, imho, the anti-city environment.
    - 5y ago
kodah 5y ago
Living without a car is a privilege of those who live in cities or some suburbs. I've never actually seen real plans or ideas to extend this stuff to the country side. Mostly just folks shrugging their shoulders and hoping that end of the problem will go away.
- bllguo 5y ago
  does it need to extend to the countryside? what percentage of cars are in rural areas vs. urban?
  - kodah 5y ago
    Yes. What folks that champion less cars often include as an incentive is a punishment for using cars. That punishment would likely be a tax that would disproportionately affect folks in the countryside, so any benefits made for cities would need to scale there as well. The total amount of cars is a red herring, it's the importance of vehicles. The story of what happened in France was very telling.
    - stephen_g 5y ago
      That doesn't necessarily follow, though. Congestion pricing, for example, can penalise car use where it's causing the problems like traffic and where alternatives exist (assuming good public transport, cycling infrastructure, etc., which you need to make any of this work), but not where it's less avoidable and not causing the same kind of issues and alternatives aren't there, like in the countryside.
      - kodah 5y ago
        That is my point. Having the right taxes and the right stop gaps that scale is the imperative. The problem is that you're among a crowd (as am I) who, some portion of, just want to see rural areas fail. As a result, I do my part in reminding them who this will impact. As another commenter so gleefully put it, they're "economically and culturally unproductive". It's not my first time reading disgusting rhetoric like that when people talking about these kinds of solutions get asked how they plan on dealing with the rest of America.
abledon 5y ago
I can't fathom how people grow up in cities with no access to nature, (the only nature available is hyper populated parks with dogshit and cigarette butts routinely cleaned up when the sanitation workers comb over the grounds). When the mind is developing, to have no access to real nature outside of cities,... how does it affect the mind, adhd, anxiety etc... seems like a no brainer to design heavy nature exposure into the cities of the future
- jerrysievert 5y ago
  > the only nature available is hyper populated parks with dogshit and cigarette butts wow, that's a hyper negative view of cities. am I spoiled by knowing that there are large "parks" around me, ranging from 200 acres to 1300+ acres that are within walking or bus distance? hardly the dogshit and cigarette butt filled parks that some others are describing.
  - hunter-gatherer 5y ago
    I grew up in SE Utah and have lived in DC/Maryland for some years of my adult life. To people like me, the 1300 acre parks a a very far cry from "nature". Probably just that perspective.
    - presentation 5y ago
      I grew up in the Midwest, experienced a lot of great nature and hiking around the US and Asia, but live in Tokyo and enjoy big cities. From my perspective—if the city is clean and quiet (my Apple watch says 95% of my neighborhood has an ambient noise level of 35dB, and I live near a popular central Tokyo station), and has enough nice parks near me (definitely don't need anywhere close to 1300 acres for that), that does the job—I don't feel any need whatsoever to live in immediate proximity to amazing natural amenities, and when I do go to them, a couple days is more than I need. Personally I think that Americans just don't realize that it's not cities that suck, it's American cities that suck. Plenty of pleasant cities to live in in the world.
dylanbfox 5y ago
I agree with all your points - but one thing I think about is: how do we fix what we have today? How do you fix the concrete jungles that most cities are today in the US. Or is it inevitable that more concrete will just be poured over time until some major natural disaster allows for a reset?
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  The Netherlands has reversed course from a car-centric culture to a more pedestrian- and bike-friendly culture. They did that very intentionally. As far as I can tell, there is no magic about it being The Netherlands -- except possibly the influence on the culture of the polder. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder From what I gather, protecting the polder so everyone survives is so important that it has, at times, required people at war to cooperate in keeping the water out. Today, globally, everyone knows we need solutions here or we are all doomed. We can stop quibbling about what various factions want for personal gain and start seeking answers that help some group live lighter on the land so we all benefit. Rinse and repeat. Start with low-hanging fruit. As that gets done, other things will become more reachable.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    I think the Netherlands is still one of the more car-centric cultures in Europe though. And I've lived in several countries. Perhaps the inner cities aren't, but outside of them it's very hard to do without a car. In many small villages/towns there is only a bus service during peak hours now. When I visit it's really a royal pain (and taxies are unaffordable as an alternative). And when you work in the Netherlands you're usually required to work nationwide which means countless hours in the car visiting clients. Public transport takes several times as long as car travel. I really hated it when I worked there (I'm from there as you might have guessed). All these hours driving in frantic traffic were so stressful. I work in Barcelona now where public transport is much better (rural is still worse than inner-city but both are much better than the Netherlands' services). It's the first place I've lived where I genuinely don't need a car, it would only be a burden to me. Time between metros is counted in seconds and the network is so big. As well as that there's buses and trams and regional trains passing through that can be used to hop from one side of the city to the other. The only thing that's genuinely better in the Netherlands is the bike lane network IMO :) That really is amazing. But I just don't see the feasibility of doing without a car completely there.
presentation 5y ago
I personally think that it's OK to view human development as separate from nature. I don't really care if the land within city limits is polluted or overexploited, so long as it's just the that city and the area outside of it is well preserved, and the city doesn't sprawl out like they do in the USA (suburbs...). Ultra dense city centers like Hong Kong are far more preferable to preserving the environment to sparse, but enormous settlements like Los Angeles, which are far more wasteful and harmful to the environment per-capita. While I agree it would be nice to have greener cities as a resident of a major city (Tokyo), it's not a requirement for a high quality of urban life, nor is it a requirement for preserving the environment.
- saeranv 5y ago
  I agree. I am also concerned about the way surbanism, and sprawl is conflated with being "eco-friendly", when it's the exact opposite: much more per-capita waste associated with suburban living then ultra-dense urban space.
option 5y ago
and/or we can make cars clean
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  It's fine for people to also work on that but the reality is that our car-centric design means seniors, handicapped people, minors too young to drive and poor people are still sidelined unnecessarily. As we live longer and continue to actively create a world that unnecessarily hampers our elderly, we actively flush resources down the drain unnecessarily. We cut people out of being productive members of society and turn them into a burden that has to be tended to and we actively interfere with them maintaining their physical mobility and ability to participate and contribute. I'm handicapped. I live without a car because I can't drive. Walking has helped rehabilitate my defective body. America being so car-centric unnecessarily interferes with people like me making an adequate living and making their lives work and turns us into a burden on society when we don't have to be. I'm not remotely the only one negatively impacted by our general lack of walkable mixed-use development, but I'm reluctant to start talking about other people I know who may not want their stories and their opinions being publicized.
- occz 5y ago
  Exhaust from ICEs is hardly the only negative externality that cars bring, though.
john_moscow 5y ago
Why oh why has it become some sort of a religion to deny yourself the comfort of having your own private space? The joy of taking care of your own garden. The discipline of maintaining your roof, driveway and a million other small things. The peacefulness of not hearing your neighbors talk when you are trying to fall asleep... Humanity has found a way to split atom, to defeat the plague, to send people to the Moon, and now we cheerfully celebrate turning ourselves into caged animals. I just don't get it, really. We have the smarts and the technology to make comfortable living eco-friendly. We see the birth rates decline, implying that people's satisfaction with their life quality is not worth sharing it with the next generation. And we stubbornly do everything we can to lower it further. For common sense's sake, please look at the big picture. Your guilt is someone else's profit margin. You are being taught to hate yourself because this way you will settle for a lower salary and won't have a family to distract you from your work. Please, don't get yourself manipulated.
- saeranv 5y ago
  There's plenty of objective, and subjective reasons why people would prefer higher-density living. Higher density means easy access to higher-quality resourcs like jobs, diversity, jobs, public transportation, restaurants/other amenities; which just can't be achieved with low-density occupancy. Finally, it's important to recognize how harmful sprawl is to the environment. The high-occupancy dwellers are using a fraction of energy a typical surbanite is.
  - john_moscow 5y ago
    Well, it would work if the same rules applied to everyone. But instead, we have a ruling class that owns the companies, lives in detached houses in gated communities, has multiple cars, flies first class to vacations. And we have the serfs working "jobs" in these companies, treated like shit by egomaniac bosses, and are constantly told to adopt the continuously lowering living standard in the name of rather abstract and unquantifiable goals. That also, coincidentally, prevents them from competing with the ruling class. Am I really the only one seeing massive hypocrisy here?
haroldp 5y ago
> I also think America has a lot of room for adding back walkable mixed-use neighborhoods Euclid v Ambler was the wellspring of bad urban planning and a watershed of horrific outcomes. We need to return to people owning the property they own, and developing (and redeveloping) it in any way that doesn't hurt or endanger other people.
WalterBright 5y ago
> permeable surfaces To minimize the size of the driveway at my house, but provide overflow parking, I decided to try "grasscrete". Grasscrete is essentially concrete blocks with holes in them so the grass can grow through. The concrete will support cars so they don't sink into the muck. After a while, enough grass grows through it to hide the whole thing and it looks like more lawn instead of more concrete. The results are very good.
- altcognito 5y ago
  This is a curious idea, I’m wondering how that holds up since it would retain so much water. In cold areas, any water caught in the gaps would break up the concrete when it gets cold enough to ice over.
  - modo_mario 5y ago
    the blocks creating the gaps generally aren't connected to eachother so they can't really be broken open like that
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Right. They're put down like paving stones are. How much support they need underneath depends on the weight put on it, and the frequency of use. Mine is used for occasional parking of random cars, which isn't hard on the blocks.
  - necovek 5y ago
    It has been used in parking spaces for apartment blocks since at least 1970s in former Yugoslavia: https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153127031260943&id=265072550942&set=a.323633595942&locale2=sr_RS&refid=13&__tn__=%2B%3D https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153127031260943&id=2... There is nothing particularly worrisome about them, except that it doesn't really grow much grass if frequently used.
- npsomaratna 5y ago
  Thank you for bringing this up. I didn't realize that an option like this existed; and I'll be considering it the next time I have to redo a parking area.
BrianHenryIE 5y ago
A man after my own heart! I've been living in California (Sac) for five years, I'm 37, I've never learned to drive. I've been in a car only twice in the past 500+ days (both times to bring my dog to the vet). I feel good because of it. I evangalise. The world will be better without private cars.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sleepysysadmin 5y ago
>I don't think it makes sense to see human settlements as separate from nature. I think of nature as the fabric within which such configurations occur. For sure we are not. If we put a bubble(mars dome) around Toronto. Everyone dies in a very short period of time. Nature outside of Toronto is required for Toronto to survive. The more you push nature away by urban sprawl, the worse it becomes for the people living there. >It isn't inevitable that human development must be a concrete jungle. You can include plants, permeable surfaces, etc in your plans so people can live more lightly and less intrusively on the land. A requirement in the long run. I suppose my example of Toronto is a bad one because of the giant boreal forest to the north is mitigating the problem. Similarly oceanic cities like NYC are also mitigated. >I also think America has a lot of room for adding back walkable mixed-use neighborhoods where at least some people can live, work and shop in the same neighborhood. I understand but I doubt it'll happen. >Studies suggest this leads to greater wealth in such neighborhoods (such as more sales) and we know vehicle traffic is a significant burden wrt human-caused climate change. Let's not forget such a huge cost to society. We have how much debt and capital tied up in transportation which the majority of the time sits idle in a driveway? Let's not forget how transportation is one of our only high energy sinks. You can charge your phone off a wall outlet in 30 minutes but it takes days to charge a car off the same outlet. The urban sprawl and death of small towns is because the cost of energy became so high and you cant compete. Naturally influencing why politicians then set policy to intentionally harm small towns.
SyzygistSix 5y ago
In Florida a new subdivision was put in that kept all the live oaks, used permeable paving stones for the road and the landscaping used all local plants, replicating the original ecosystem. The difference was amazing and quite beautiful. Yes, it was a fancier, more expensive subdivision but not so much so that the design was unfeasible to be replicated elsewhere. From the beginning it was a neighborhood in the woods, not some sterile, paved over monstrosity.

signal11 5y ago

> I've lived without a car in the US for more than a decade. Is there a post/blog/thread/AMA about this? This sounds super interesting in itself!

Gustomaximus 5y ago
I think this would be very much based on where you live. I went 10+ years without a car while I was living in cities and it only made life simpler. I now live on a farm and life would be near impossible without a vehicle unless I went Armish style with horse and cart and buggy. If this person lived NY vs back country Montana it would be 2 very different stores.
- signal11 5y ago
  You have a very good point. Cars give people a lot of personal autonomy. Yes, cities could be built with better/smarter public transport options, but even Londoners and New Yorkers (two cities with very good public transport) will say they need cars from time to time. And I suspect pre-COVID-level jam-packed public transport will find few takers in a post-COVID world. Outside cities, even in suburban areas, the need for cars is a no-brainer. But I'd still like to know how the parent poster manages.

Iv 5y ago

I live in the Japanese countryside and I absolutely need a car for living, but it makes me sad to realize that it would take almost nothing for me to get rid of the car. I spend my driving time 90% on a single road where all the places I need are. I spend 9% on another similar big axis. I occasionally go to Tokyo but to do so I park my car at the free parking on the highway bus station. A regular bus on the two axis I use would allow me to totally get rig of a car. I am pretty sure we could automate such a bus given today's tech.

chapium 5y ago
You might want to check out a pedelelec to see if it fits your need.
ekianjo 5y ago
> A regular bus on the two axis I use would allow me to totally get rig of a car. Not if you need to carry a lot of stuff like groceries for a whole family. Unless you decide to do a bus trip every single day, losing time while waiting for the next bus the arrive.
- nativeit 5y ago
  I admit that your point is valid in the scope of modern living. I do think this is reflective of some of what has been lost in the last century, however. With greater routine access to artisans, shops and grocers, the ability to obtain fresher, healthier ingredients in smaller quantities more frequently is a natural consequence. The sort of diets and lifestyles that we (American culture specifically) still sort of fetishizes through Food Network, A&E, and YouTube food entertainment series are enabled through the greater availability and access to Main Street shops that cater to narrower markets like bakers, delicatessens, butchers, farmers' markets, and general stores. Granted this isn't automatically a panacea, and may not necessarily scale to modern populaces effectively, but I am of the opinion that it's a component of a healthier and more sustainable way of living in areas that could support it.
- SECProto 5y ago
  Lots of people all over the world do shopping for multiple days of groceries without having a car. It's not that hard - a large bag for veg, a somewhat smaller bag for protein, maybe a third bag for miscellaneous. Especially if you eat a reasonably traditional Japanese diet, it'd be easy - rice and miso you only buy once a month or so depending. Groceries in the West take up so much space because they are all prepackaged. A couple boxes of cereal and a loaf of bread takes up as much space as a week worth of veg. Using dishclothes and a washlet instead of paper towels or (most) toilet paper and you've got another couple volumetrically huge items off your shopping list

pineconewarrior 5y ago

> I don't think it makes sense to see human settlements as separate from nature Sounds like heidegger and marx! I agree

mkoubaa 5y ago

How do you think extended family housing complexes fit into this story? It's a norm in many cultures and for much or human history but an oddity in the US. Of course you can use as loose a definition of family as you like.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about that though I would like to figure out where that fits. Our current housing crisis is rooted in building housing designed for our standard nuclear family with a breadwinner father, homemaker mother and 2.5 minor kids. This became our standard post-WW2 with the birth of the suburbs and was avidly embraced because it worked to solve our housing crisis at that time. That was never the majority of the US population but it was a larger percentage of the population than it is currently and there were other housing options available if you were single. We have torn down a million SROs and largely eliminated the practice of boarding houses. Now we see such things as aimed at homeless people who can't make their lives work. At one time, that was normal housing for normal people. We have a higher percentage of households with one to three people and we mostly don't build housing for such households. This has driven an interest in alternatives like Tiny Homes, RV living and trailer courts. We really need to focus on building Missing Middle Housing and SROs. That would include duplexes which are a potential sensible option for living with extended family in some cases. SRO: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy
- earleybird 5y ago
  That same time period (post WWII) saw a large shift from rural to city (suburb or otherwise). How does that factor into your view of normal housing?
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Cities had (and have) more and better jobs. Suburbs are, imho, the anti-city environment.
  - 5y ago

kodah 5y ago

Living without a car is a privilege of those who live in cities or some suburbs. I've never actually seen real plans or ideas to extend this stuff to the country side. Mostly just folks shrugging their shoulders and hoping that end of the problem will go away.

bllguo 5y ago
does it need to extend to the countryside? what percentage of cars are in rural areas vs. urban?
- kodah 5y ago
  Yes. What folks that champion less cars often include as an incentive is a punishment for using cars. That punishment would likely be a tax that would disproportionately affect folks in the countryside, so any benefits made for cities would need to scale there as well. The total amount of cars is a red herring, it's the importance of vehicles. The story of what happened in France was very telling.
  - stephen_g 5y ago
    That doesn't necessarily follow, though. Congestion pricing, for example, can penalise car use where it's causing the problems like traffic and where alternatives exist (assuming good public transport, cycling infrastructure, etc., which you need to make any of this work), but not where it's less avoidable and not causing the same kind of issues and alternatives aren't there, like in the countryside.
    - kodah 5y ago
      That is my point. Having the right taxes and the right stop gaps that scale is the imperative. The problem is that you're among a crowd (as am I) who, some portion of, just want to see rural areas fail. As a result, I do my part in reminding them who this will impact. As another commenter so gleefully put it, they're "economically and culturally unproductive". It's not my first time reading disgusting rhetoric like that when people talking about these kinds of solutions get asked how they plan on dealing with the rest of America.

abledon 5y ago

I can't fathom how people grow up in cities with no access to nature, (the only nature available is hyper populated parks with dogshit and cigarette butts routinely cleaned up when the sanitation workers comb over the grounds). When the mind is developing, to have no access to real nature outside of cities,... how does it affect the mind, adhd, anxiety etc... seems like a no brainer to design heavy nature exposure into the cities of the future

jerrysievert 5y ago
> the only nature available is hyper populated parks with dogshit and cigarette butts wow, that's a hyper negative view of cities. am I spoiled by knowing that there are large "parks" around me, ranging from 200 acres to 1300+ acres that are within walking or bus distance? hardly the dogshit and cigarette butt filled parks that some others are describing.
- hunter-gatherer 5y ago
  I grew up in SE Utah and have lived in DC/Maryland for some years of my adult life. To people like me, the 1300 acre parks a a very far cry from "nature". Probably just that perspective.
  - presentation 5y ago
    I grew up in the Midwest, experienced a lot of great nature and hiking around the US and Asia, but live in Tokyo and enjoy big cities. From my perspective—if the city is clean and quiet (my Apple watch says 95% of my neighborhood has an ambient noise level of 35dB, and I live near a popular central Tokyo station), and has enough nice parks near me (definitely don't need anywhere close to 1300 acres for that), that does the job—I don't feel any need whatsoever to live in immediate proximity to amazing natural amenities, and when I do go to them, a couple days is more than I need. Personally I think that Americans just don't realize that it's not cities that suck, it's American cities that suck. Plenty of pleasant cities to live in in the world.

dylanbfox 5y ago

I agree with all your points - but one thing I think about is: how do we fix what we have today? How do you fix the concrete jungles that most cities are today in the US. Or is it inevitable that more concrete will just be poured over time until some major natural disaster allows for a reset?

DoreenMichele 5y ago
The Netherlands has reversed course from a car-centric culture to a more pedestrian- and bike-friendly culture. They did that very intentionally. As far as I can tell, there is no magic about it being The Netherlands -- except possibly the influence on the culture of the polder. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder From what I gather, protecting the polder so everyone survives is so important that it has, at times, required people at war to cooperate in keeping the water out. Today, globally, everyone knows we need solutions here or we are all doomed. We can stop quibbling about what various factions want for personal gain and start seeking answers that help some group live lighter on the land so we all benefit. Rinse and repeat. Start with low-hanging fruit. As that gets done, other things will become more reachable.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  I think the Netherlands is still one of the more car-centric cultures in Europe though. And I've lived in several countries. Perhaps the inner cities aren't, but outside of them it's very hard to do without a car. In many small villages/towns there is only a bus service during peak hours now. When I visit it's really a royal pain (and taxies are unaffordable as an alternative). And when you work in the Netherlands you're usually required to work nationwide which means countless hours in the car visiting clients. Public transport takes several times as long as car travel. I really hated it when I worked there (I'm from there as you might have guessed). All these hours driving in frantic traffic were so stressful. I work in Barcelona now where public transport is much better (rural is still worse than inner-city but both are much better than the Netherlands' services). It's the first place I've lived where I genuinely don't need a car, it would only be a burden to me. Time between metros is counted in seconds and the network is so big. As well as that there's buses and trams and regional trains passing through that can be used to hop from one side of the city to the other. The only thing that's genuinely better in the Netherlands is the bike lane network IMO :) That really is amazing. But I just don't see the feasibility of doing without a car completely there.

presentation 5y ago

I personally think that it's OK to view human development as separate from nature. I don't really care if the land within city limits is polluted or overexploited, so long as it's just the that city and the area outside of it is well preserved, and the city doesn't sprawl out like they do in the USA (suburbs...). Ultra dense city centers like Hong Kong are far more preferable to preserving the environment to sparse, but enormous settlements like Los Angeles, which are far more wasteful and harmful to the environment per-capita. While I agree it would be nice to have greener cities as a resident of a major city (Tokyo), it's not a requirement for a high quality of urban life, nor is it a requirement for preserving the environment.

saeranv 5y ago
I agree. I am also concerned about the way surbanism, and sprawl is conflated with being "eco-friendly", when it's the exact opposite: much more per-capita waste associated with suburban living then ultra-dense urban space.

option 5y ago

and/or we can make cars clean

DoreenMichele 5y ago
It's fine for people to also work on that but the reality is that our car-centric design means seniors, handicapped people, minors too young to drive and poor people are still sidelined unnecessarily. As we live longer and continue to actively create a world that unnecessarily hampers our elderly, we actively flush resources down the drain unnecessarily. We cut people out of being productive members of society and turn them into a burden that has to be tended to and we actively interfere with them maintaining their physical mobility and ability to participate and contribute. I'm handicapped. I live without a car because I can't drive. Walking has helped rehabilitate my defective body. America being so car-centric unnecessarily interferes with people like me making an adequate living and making their lives work and turns us into a burden on society when we don't have to be. I'm not remotely the only one negatively impacted by our general lack of walkable mixed-use development, but I'm reluctant to start talking about other people I know who may not want their stories and their opinions being publicized.
occz 5y ago
Exhaust from ICEs is hardly the only negative externality that cars bring, though.

john_moscow 5y ago

Why oh why has it become some sort of a religion to deny yourself the comfort of having your own private space? The joy of taking care of your own garden. The discipline of maintaining your roof, driveway and a million other small things. The peacefulness of not hearing your neighbors talk when you are trying to fall asleep... Humanity has found a way to split atom, to defeat the plague, to send people to the Moon, and now we cheerfully celebrate turning ourselves into caged animals. I just don't get it, really. We have the smarts and the technology to make comfortable living eco-friendly. We see the birth rates decline, implying that people's satisfaction with their life quality is not worth sharing it with the next generation. And we stubbornly do everything we can to lower it further. For common sense's sake, please look at the big picture. Your guilt is someone else's profit margin. You are being taught to hate yourself because this way you will settle for a lower salary and won't have a family to distract you from your work. Please, don't get yourself manipulated.

saeranv 5y ago
There's plenty of objective, and subjective reasons why people would prefer higher-density living. Higher density means easy access to higher-quality resourcs like jobs, diversity, jobs, public transportation, restaurants/other amenities; which just can't be achieved with low-density occupancy. Finally, it's important to recognize how harmful sprawl is to the environment. The high-occupancy dwellers are using a fraction of energy a typical surbanite is.
- john_moscow 5y ago
  Well, it would work if the same rules applied to everyone. But instead, we have a ruling class that owns the companies, lives in detached houses in gated communities, has multiple cars, flies first class to vacations. And we have the serfs working "jobs" in these companies, treated like shit by egomaniac bosses, and are constantly told to adopt the continuously lowering living standard in the name of rather abstract and unquantifiable goals. That also, coincidentally, prevents them from competing with the ruling class. Am I really the only one seeing massive hypocrisy here?

haroldp 5y ago

> I also think America has a lot of room for adding back walkable mixed-use neighborhoods Euclid v Ambler was the wellspring of bad urban planning and a watershed of horrific outcomes. We need to return to people owning the property they own, and developing (and redeveloping) it in any way that doesn't hurt or endanger other people.

WalterBright 5y ago

> permeable surfaces To minimize the size of the driveway at my house, but provide overflow parking, I decided to try "grasscrete". Grasscrete is essentially concrete blocks with holes in them so the grass can grow through. The concrete will support cars so they don't sink into the muck. After a while, enough grass grows through it to hide the whole thing and it looks like more lawn instead of more concrete. The results are very good.

altcognito 5y ago
This is a curious idea, I’m wondering how that holds up since it would retain so much water. In cold areas, any water caught in the gaps would break up the concrete when it gets cold enough to ice over.
- modo_mario 5y ago
  the blocks creating the gaps generally aren't connected to eachother so they can't really be broken open like that
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Right. They're put down like paving stones are. How much support they need underneath depends on the weight put on it, and the frequency of use. Mine is used for occasional parking of random cars, which isn't hard on the blocks.
- necovek 5y ago
  It has been used in parking spaces for apartment blocks since at least 1970s in former Yugoslavia: https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153127031260943&id=265072550942&set=a.323633595942&locale2=sr_RS&refid=13&__tn__=%2B%3D https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153127031260943&id=2... There is nothing particularly worrisome about them, except that it doesn't really grow much grass if frequently used.
npsomaratna 5y ago
Thank you for bringing this up. I didn't realize that an option like this existed; and I'll be considering it the next time I have to redo a parking area.

BrianHenryIE 5y ago

A man after my own heart! I've been living in California (Sac) for five years, I'm 37, I've never learned to drive. I've been in a car only twice in the past 500+ days (both times to bring my dog to the vet). I feel good because of it. I evangalise. The world will be better without private cars.

deleted 5y ago

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sleepysysadmin 5y ago

>I don't think it makes sense to see human settlements as separate from nature. I think of nature as the fabric within which such configurations occur. For sure we are not. If we put a bubble(mars dome) around Toronto. Everyone dies in a very short period of time. Nature outside of Toronto is required for Toronto to survive. The more you push nature away by urban sprawl, the worse it becomes for the people living there. >It isn't inevitable that human development must be a concrete jungle. You can include plants, permeable surfaces, etc in your plans so people can live more lightly and less intrusively on the land. A requirement in the long run. I suppose my example of Toronto is a bad one because of the giant boreal forest to the north is mitigating the problem. Similarly oceanic cities like NYC are also mitigated. >I also think America has a lot of room for adding back walkable mixed-use neighborhoods where at least some people can live, work and shop in the same neighborhood. I understand but I doubt it'll happen. >Studies suggest this leads to greater wealth in such neighborhoods (such as more sales) and we know vehicle traffic is a significant burden wrt human-caused climate change. Let's not forget such a huge cost to society. We have how much debt and capital tied up in transportation which the majority of the time sits idle in a driveway? Let's not forget how transportation is one of our only high energy sinks. You can charge your phone off a wall outlet in 30 minutes but it takes days to charge a car off the same outlet. The urban sprawl and death of small towns is because the cost of energy became so high and you cant compete. Naturally influencing why politicians then set policy to intentionally harm small towns.

SyzygistSix 5y ago

In Florida a new subdivision was put in that kept all the live oaks, used permeable paving stones for the road and the landscaping used all local plants, replicating the original ecosystem. The difference was amazing and quite beautiful. Yes, it was a fancier, more expensive subdivision but not so much so that the design was unfeasible to be replicated elsewhere. From the beginning it was a neighborhood in the woods, not some sterile, paved over monstrosity.