9 ms·

+1. Walkability is the main thing that keeps me in the city. A very large part of me wants to go back to the suburbs, rent a house, have a yard, garage -- space

+1. Walkability is the main thing that keeps me in the city. A very large part of me wants to go back to the suburbs, rent a house, have a yard, garage -- space in general. However, every time I actually visit someone in the suburbs, the long drive there, watching things get more and more spread apart until it's just strip malls, grocery stores, and subdivisions, really saps the excitement out of having more space for me.

sanderjd 5y ago
There's no reason (besides inertia) that we can't have both. This is how thriving smaller downtowns are, single family homes within walking distance to amenities. It's just that all those areas get really expensive because there are so few of them. But there don't have to be so few places like that.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  How do those smaller downtowns thrive? The few I know usually have rich populations that do not mind spending more than what Costco/Target/Walmart/big grocery stores sell at. All it takes is the big box stores to setup camp 10 minutes outside of town and almost everyone with a car will opt to save money and shop there.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    Yes, it requires a population that appreciates the local amenities to the point of paying more for them. Lots of these people exist, even if they aren't the majority of people. It's just that right now they are concentrated in the dense part of cities. But many of them would love to live in a bigger house if they could still walk to amenities, and would still be willing to pay more for the privilege.
  - novok 5y ago
    You put in stores that sell things that the big boxes wont sell. Such as specialized restaurants, vacuum repair shops and so on. You can also put smaller versions of 'big boxes' or other chains in these downtowns, such as chipolte, walgreens, trader joes, "city" target, etc. Downtowns can also have rather large things like movie theaters themselves.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Most consumer vacuum cleaners aren't really repairable any more. They're used for a few years until one of the plastic parts breaks, then discarded and replaced. Even if parts are available the repair service labor is too expensive.
      - greedo 5y ago
        As usual, it depends. As more people buy upscale gear (Miele or Oreck come to mind), they last much longer and are designed with servicing in mind. And the local vacuum shop services almost every vacuum around. Most vacuums are easy to fix assuming the motor isn't shot. It's replacing a frayed power cord, or a belt/beater. It's kind of similar to how good shoes can be resoled.
        perl4ever 5y ago
        I had an Oreck years ago, I thought it was a good brand, it looked solid, ads made a big deal of it being lightweight and used by hotels...but it didn't suck. And I thought that's just the way things are. But I got a Hoover upright, which was much cheaper, looks cheaper, like a toy, mostly garish purple plastic, and is also much heavier. But it sucks up an order of magnitude more dirt. It's bagless, which some people don't like, but it makes it very visible how much crud it's removing and allows it to be dumped after every use. So I feel like the Oreck was perhaps a swindle, having the looks and characteristics that older people associate with appliances from long ago, except the actual performance. And I'm glad I didn't spend a lot on a Dyson just to get a vacuum with no bag. I've never gone there, but I think there's a storefront near me that says they repair vacuum cleaners. Don't recall what kind.
        greedo 5y ago
        My Oreck worked great for 18 years, but it did have flaws. I disliked the bags (difficult to change), but it ran like a champ with a lot of abuse. My Miele isn't as light, but does a far better job (and is HEPA compliant). Hopefully it lasts as long as my Oreck.
  - socialdemocrat 5y ago
    In Europe many smaller stores are competitive by aiming for high turnaround. The cut down on the selection to the things that get sold fast. German Lidl and Aldi are based on these principles and known to have very low prices. In fact I think they outcompeted wall-mart when it tried to setup shop in Germany. I remember quite good prices in the Netherlands as well which is quite densely populated and where people shop in downtown stores rather than out of town big box stores. The exception would be things like hardware and furniture.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Lidl and Aldi are also doing very well in the US, and putting pressure on big grocery stores. But these are still too big to be downtown stores, and the merchandise is usually sold in quantities that make sense for a car. They very well might work in a downtown, but I have yet to see it in the US.
      - Jensson 5y ago
        > They very well might work in a downtown, but I have yet to see it in the US. But you see it in Europe. I walk to lidl and buy my groceries, basically every person I know walk to get groceries. Some do big weekend shopping trips now and then to bigger stores, but that isn't the norm.
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Presumably, this is in an area where you have a big population without cars. In the US, these are few and far between. And Aldi/Lidl are going to optimize for their costs, which means not paying rent in a downtown if they have the option to build on cheaper land 5 minutes away from downtown. Which makes no difference to them, because 99% of their customers have a car.
        laurencerowe 5y ago
        In most of the cities I've lived in Europe supermarkets are usually outside of downtown (though there may be a few there) but still in walkable residential neighbourhoods. You don't want to have to go all the way downtown to buy food. It's pretty similar to the way medium sized Safeways are spread throughout San Francisco, except the rent isn't $3000/month for a 1 bed and the soap and shampoo doesn't have to be kept locked away.
  - kerbs 5y ago
    In my very anecdotal observation – these small downtown areas don't rely on retail as much as food and entertainment. It's where the best restaurants, brewpubs, and general hangouts are. If there is retail, it's _highly_ differentiated from Big Box.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Yes, but that is why there are so few places like that in the US. Not many people can afford to constantly eat out and consume entertainment at a sufficient frequency to keep those businesses going. And that was at the labor prices before the pandemic.
      - sanderjd 5y ago
        Not many relative or absolute? I think it is a fairly small percentage of people and also a very large number of people who can (and desire to) live this lifestyle.
- opportune 5y ago
  It is common in Europe for small towns and villages to be quite walkable, have a large relative percentage multi-family housing, and have a decent train or bus connection to a regional hub. Of course, they have the advantage of being around longer than the automobile has existed. The problem in the US is mostly cultural. Most rural/semi-rural/exurban people think nothing of an hour driving each way. So why would they want what they perceive as a tiny lot, with more expensive housing where they can hear their neighbors when they can get a huge lot and drive a little more? The non-cultural part of the problem is that the drive-everywhere paradigm is so heavily invested that even in a small walking-oriented European -style village, everyone would need to own a car anyway. If you built a train to a regional hub it wouldn’t solve the problem of the regional hub itself having terrible public transit. Plus, it’s a lot easier to build a road than a train politically.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    It's cultural but also institutional. Governments think nothing of blowing tens of millions of dollars on highway construction and do not typically think about or care to invest in alternatives. Beyond a certain point (which was a long time ago) we're just building roads and highways to create artificial growth. It blows my mind how people don't realize the cultural piece either. They travel, "omg it's so walkable here! this is awesome! wow that cafe is so cute. Of course i buy bread from the local shop." then come back and it's like their experiences were completely wiped clean from their memory: "wait what do you mean not drive a car a quarter mile down the road to sit in the Zaxby's line?".
    - treis 5y ago
      Because cafes and bread from bakeries are (relative) luxuries. Even if it's just $1 more a coffee/loaf that adds up to significant money over a year. That's the thing that I think people miss. Scale makes things cheaper and to have scale at retail you need to pull customers from a large area. You could do the same in a dense area but then you run into housing cost/size problems. I don't see how you get the typical 4/3 suburban house and a low cost of living without driving.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Afaict, the primary driver of non-walkable suburbs is neighborhood layout, which is driven by maximizing house:land ratio. I live in a suburban master planned development now that oriented itself around the residential-commercial interface. Having previously lived in an urban core, it's not too much of a downgrade. Sure, you inevitably trade local for chain (boo!), because that's who the anchor tenants originally were. But over the decades the smaller spaces have filled out with organic stuff.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    Yeah this is the kind of layout I prefer.
  - jen20 5y ago
    This honestly doesn’t sound too bad compared to the soul-crushing suburbs by me. But, the problem I usually find with all suburbs is that you have to get in a car to get to even one bar (let alone having a choice). Is that the case there too?
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  > There's no reason (besides inertia) And the fact that re-building cities is really expensive and hard and we're (somewhat) stuck with what we have.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    That's inertia.
- dionidium 5y ago
  My wife and I currently live in Providence, RI (by way of NYC). We highly value walkability, but feel like we've aged out of tolerating some other big-city "annoyances." When Americans think of "suburbs" they think of culs-de-sac and arterials, but it doesn't have to be that way. New England is dotted with "small towns" that are basically just suburbs of Providence and/or Boston that are laid out on a grid -- with a main street, walkable amenities, and access to commuter rail. In St. Louis, where I'm from, there are half-a-dozen inner ring suburbs that meet this description (minus the commuter rail), so I assume it's the same in most cities. There's a kind of exurban suburb that was built in the 1990s that has an outsized influence on our conception of suburban living. But there are lots of older "suburbs" that are actually quite pleasant.
  - brewdad 5y ago
    I'm willing to bet most, if not all, of those wonderful suburbs were built before WW2 and really before the car itself. Aside from a literal handful of experiments, we haven't built places like that in a long time here in the US.
    - jjav 5y ago
      My current neighborhood (in greater silicon valley area) was built in 1997-98 and I can walk to pretty much anything I need. That seems mostly the norm in my experience. These HN threads always talk about suburbs where you need to drive 10 minutes on a highway to get to the nearest store but to be honest I don't know where those are, I don't think I've seen areas like that.
  - mcv 5y ago
    Even arterials and cul-de-sacs can be great if you build them that way. Many Dutch post-war neighbourhoods are built around arterials and cul-de-sacs, but they all have sidewalks, independent bicycle paths, and each neighbourhood gets a shopping center and 3 primary schools (protestant, catholic and public, because that's how that works here) within walking distance. These neighbourhoods are denser than American suburbs of course; houses come in rows, and you get a front and back yard, but not an entire plot of land around your home. But that also means plenty of kids to play with. In the street, because often cars are required to drive at walking pace and playing kids have right of way. I grew up in a street like that. I hated it, and preferred a real city, but it's pretty comfortable living.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  They aren’t all really that expensive, near Seattle consider Aberdeen or similar small old mill towns that have reasonable small urban areas next to housing. Farther away, Walla Walla or even Spokane. But the areas are economically depressed, the schools aren’t very good, they are unlikely to become WFH tech centers.
throwaway6734 5y ago
If you're willing to get a bike, it can greatly increase your range while allowing for more space. I'm in Baltimore now in a sfh and still within riding distance of everything in the city
lucasverra 5y ago
Paris is the Walkability by definition city. 20-min ride on a regular bike, and you've crossed half of it. Lots to dislike, but I love Paris human side ^^
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- brnt 5y ago
  Thats Paris centre however, where about 600k quite rich people live. Ile-de-Paris is a bit larger, and is where most of us reside. We're happy if the RER is only 20m away from our house and work.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Ile de France is bigger than LA, it's not small.
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
NYC is probably the most walkable city on the planet and yet it still takes about an hour with all stops, waiting, and delays to from north of central park to the financial district. I went there to get a lot of the experience of what daily life would be like and I seriously don't get it. Paying a car loan and always having a reliable means of transportation beats having ridiculous delays or a train not even showing up so now you gotta hightail it two blocks over to the next station otherwise it's gonna be another 15 minute wait.

sanderjd 5y ago

There's no reason (besides inertia) that we can't have both. This is how thriving smaller downtowns are, single family homes within walking distance to amenities. It's just that all those areas get really expensive because there are so few of them. But there don't have to be so few places like that.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
How do those smaller downtowns thrive? The few I know usually have rich populations that do not mind spending more than what Costco/Target/Walmart/big grocery stores sell at. All it takes is the big box stores to setup camp 10 minutes outside of town and almost everyone with a car will opt to save money and shop there.
- sanderjd 5y ago
  Yes, it requires a population that appreciates the local amenities to the point of paying more for them. Lots of these people exist, even if they aren't the majority of people. It's just that right now they are concentrated in the dense part of cities. But many of them would love to live in a bigger house if they could still walk to amenities, and would still be willing to pay more for the privilege.
- novok 5y ago
  You put in stores that sell things that the big boxes wont sell. Such as specialized restaurants, vacuum repair shops and so on. You can also put smaller versions of 'big boxes' or other chains in these downtowns, such as chipolte, walgreens, trader joes, "city" target, etc. Downtowns can also have rather large things like movie theaters themselves.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Most consumer vacuum cleaners aren't really repairable any more. They're used for a few years until one of the plastic parts breaks, then discarded and replaced. Even if parts are available the repair service labor is too expensive.
    - greedo 5y ago
      As usual, it depends. As more people buy upscale gear (Miele or Oreck come to mind), they last much longer and are designed with servicing in mind. And the local vacuum shop services almost every vacuum around. Most vacuums are easy to fix assuming the motor isn't shot. It's replacing a frayed power cord, or a belt/beater. It's kind of similar to how good shoes can be resoled.
      - perl4ever 5y ago
        I had an Oreck years ago, I thought it was a good brand, it looked solid, ads made a big deal of it being lightweight and used by hotels...but it didn't suck. And I thought that's just the way things are. But I got a Hoover upright, which was much cheaper, looks cheaper, like a toy, mostly garish purple plastic, and is also much heavier. But it sucks up an order of magnitude more dirt. It's bagless, which some people don't like, but it makes it very visible how much crud it's removing and allows it to be dumped after every use. So I feel like the Oreck was perhaps a swindle, having the looks and characteristics that older people associate with appliances from long ago, except the actual performance. And I'm glad I didn't spend a lot on a Dyson just to get a vacuum with no bag. I've never gone there, but I think there's a storefront near me that says they repair vacuum cleaners. Don't recall what kind.
        greedo 5y ago
        My Oreck worked great for 18 years, but it did have flaws. I disliked the bags (difficult to change), but it ran like a champ with a lot of abuse. My Miele isn't as light, but does a far better job (and is HEPA compliant). Hopefully it lasts as long as my Oreck.
- socialdemocrat 5y ago
  In Europe many smaller stores are competitive by aiming for high turnaround. The cut down on the selection to the things that get sold fast. German Lidl and Aldi are based on these principles and known to have very low prices. In fact I think they outcompeted wall-mart when it tried to setup shop in Germany. I remember quite good prices in the Netherlands as well which is quite densely populated and where people shop in downtown stores rather than out of town big box stores. The exception would be things like hardware and furniture.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Lidl and Aldi are also doing very well in the US, and putting pressure on big grocery stores. But these are still too big to be downtown stores, and the merchandise is usually sold in quantities that make sense for a car. They very well might work in a downtown, but I have yet to see it in the US.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      > They very well might work in a downtown, but I have yet to see it in the US. But you see it in Europe. I walk to lidl and buy my groceries, basically every person I know walk to get groceries. Some do big weekend shopping trips now and then to bigger stores, but that isn't the norm.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Presumably, this is in an area where you have a big population without cars. In the US, these are few and far between. And Aldi/Lidl are going to optimize for their costs, which means not paying rent in a downtown if they have the option to build on cheaper land 5 minutes away from downtown. Which makes no difference to them, because 99% of their customers have a car.
        laurencerowe 5y ago
        In most of the cities I've lived in Europe supermarkets are usually outside of downtown (though there may be a few there) but still in walkable residential neighbourhoods. You don't want to have to go all the way downtown to buy food. It's pretty similar to the way medium sized Safeways are spread throughout San Francisco, except the rent isn't $3000/month for a 1 bed and the soap and shampoo doesn't have to be kept locked away.
- kerbs 5y ago
  In my very anecdotal observation – these small downtown areas don't rely on retail as much as food and entertainment. It's where the best restaurants, brewpubs, and general hangouts are. If there is retail, it's _highly_ differentiated from Big Box.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Yes, but that is why there are so few places like that in the US. Not many people can afford to constantly eat out and consume entertainment at a sufficient frequency to keep those businesses going. And that was at the labor prices before the pandemic.
    - sanderjd 5y ago
      Not many relative or absolute? I think it is a fairly small percentage of people and also a very large number of people who can (and desire to) live this lifestyle.
opportune 5y ago
It is common in Europe for small towns and villages to be quite walkable, have a large relative percentage multi-family housing, and have a decent train or bus connection to a regional hub. Of course, they have the advantage of being around longer than the automobile has existed. The problem in the US is mostly cultural. Most rural/semi-rural/exurban people think nothing of an hour driving each way. So why would they want what they perceive as a tiny lot, with more expensive housing where they can hear their neighbors when they can get a huge lot and drive a little more? The non-cultural part of the problem is that the drive-everywhere paradigm is so heavily invested that even in a small walking-oriented European -style village, everyone would need to own a car anyway. If you built a train to a regional hub it wouldn’t solve the problem of the regional hub itself having terrible public transit. Plus, it’s a lot easier to build a road than a train politically.
- ericmay 5y ago
  It's cultural but also institutional. Governments think nothing of blowing tens of millions of dollars on highway construction and do not typically think about or care to invest in alternatives. Beyond a certain point (which was a long time ago) we're just building roads and highways to create artificial growth. It blows my mind how people don't realize the cultural piece either. They travel, "omg it's so walkable here! this is awesome! wow that cafe is so cute. Of course i buy bread from the local shop." then come back and it's like their experiences were completely wiped clean from their memory: "wait what do you mean not drive a car a quarter mile down the road to sit in the Zaxby's line?".
  - treis 5y ago
    Because cafes and bread from bakeries are (relative) luxuries. Even if it's just $1 more a coffee/loaf that adds up to significant money over a year. That's the thing that I think people miss. Scale makes things cheaper and to have scale at retail you need to pull customers from a large area. You could do the same in a dense area but then you run into housing cost/size problems. I don't see how you get the typical 4/3 suburban house and a low cost of living without driving.
ethbr0 5y ago
Afaict, the primary driver of non-walkable suburbs is neighborhood layout, which is driven by maximizing house:land ratio. I live in a suburban master planned development now that oriented itself around the residential-commercial interface. Having previously lived in an urban core, it's not too much of a downgrade. Sure, you inevitably trade local for chain (boo!), because that's who the anchor tenants originally were. But over the decades the smaller spaces have filled out with organic stuff.
- sanderjd 5y ago
  Yeah this is the kind of layout I prefer.
- jen20 5y ago
  This honestly doesn’t sound too bad compared to the soul-crushing suburbs by me. But, the problem I usually find with all suburbs is that you have to get in a car to get to even one bar (let alone having a choice). Is that the case there too?
vineyardmike 5y ago
> There's no reason (besides inertia) And the fact that re-building cities is really expensive and hard and we're (somewhat) stuck with what we have.
- sanderjd 5y ago
  That's inertia.
dionidium 5y ago
My wife and I currently live in Providence, RI (by way of NYC). We highly value walkability, but feel like we've aged out of tolerating some other big-city "annoyances." When Americans think of "suburbs" they think of culs-de-sac and arterials, but it doesn't have to be that way. New England is dotted with "small towns" that are basically just suburbs of Providence and/or Boston that are laid out on a grid -- with a main street, walkable amenities, and access to commuter rail. In St. Louis, where I'm from, there are half-a-dozen inner ring suburbs that meet this description (minus the commuter rail), so I assume it's the same in most cities. There's a kind of exurban suburb that was built in the 1990s that has an outsized influence on our conception of suburban living. But there are lots of older "suburbs" that are actually quite pleasant.
- brewdad 5y ago
  I'm willing to bet most, if not all, of those wonderful suburbs were built before WW2 and really before the car itself. Aside from a literal handful of experiments, we haven't built places like that in a long time here in the US.
  - jjav 5y ago
    My current neighborhood (in greater silicon valley area) was built in 1997-98 and I can walk to pretty much anything I need. That seems mostly the norm in my experience. These HN threads always talk about suburbs where you need to drive 10 minutes on a highway to get to the nearest store but to be honest I don't know where those are, I don't think I've seen areas like that.
- mcv 5y ago
  Even arterials and cul-de-sacs can be great if you build them that way. Many Dutch post-war neighbourhoods are built around arterials and cul-de-sacs, but they all have sidewalks, independent bicycle paths, and each neighbourhood gets a shopping center and 3 primary schools (protestant, catholic and public, because that's how that works here) within walking distance. These neighbourhoods are denser than American suburbs of course; houses come in rows, and you get a front and back yard, but not an entire plot of land around your home. But that also means plenty of kids to play with. In the street, because often cars are required to drive at walking pace and playing kids have right of way. I grew up in a street like that. I hated it, and preferred a real city, but it's pretty comfortable living.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
They aren’t all really that expensive, near Seattle consider Aberdeen or similar small old mill towns that have reasonable small urban areas next to housing. Farther away, Walla Walla or even Spokane. But the areas are economically depressed, the schools aren’t very good, they are unlikely to become WFH tech centers.

throwaway6734 5y ago

If you're willing to get a bike, it can greatly increase your range while allowing for more space. I'm in Baltimore now in a sfh and still within riding distance of everything in the city

lucasverra 5y ago

Paris is the Walkability by definition city. 20-min ride on a regular bike, and you've crossed half of it. Lots to dislike, but I love Paris human side ^^

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
brnt 5y ago
Thats Paris centre however, where about 600k quite rich people live. Ile-de-Paris is a bit larger, and is where most of us reside. We're happy if the RER is only 20m away from our house and work.
- oblio 5y ago
  Ile de France is bigger than LA, it's not small.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

NYC is probably the most walkable city on the planet and yet it still takes about an hour with all stops, waiting, and delays to from north of central park to the financial district. I went there to get a lot of the experience of what daily life would be like and I seriously don't get it. Paying a car loan and always having a reliable means of transportation beats having ridiculous delays or a train not even showing up so now you gotta hightail it two blocks over to the next station otherwise it's gonna be another 15 minute wait.