4 ms·
> I do wonder how this works for families? If you have a nice 4 bed family home in a Dutch city, how do you drive your kids to school, or to a holiday destinati
by em500 5y ago
> I do wonder how this works for families? If you have a nice 4 bed family home in a Dutch city, how do you drive your kids to school, or to a holiday destination, etc? Is it anything like here in the UK where cities are increasingly inhospitable for working class people trying to raise families and only really work for students or those who are single and wealthy so can therefore afford a flat close enough to their office that they can bike?
I live in Amsterdam, as a carless family in a reasonably affluent neighbourhood (not in the city centre). I'd guesstimate that 1/3 to 1/2 of the families in our child's classmates don't own a car. AFAICT every neighbourhood has a few primary schools within walking or cycling distance. (I can reach 3 within 15min walking or 5min cycling.) Anecdotally, it seems roughly 10-20% of the kids are bought by private car (more when the weather is bad). I think for most of those, the parents head straight to work afterwards. Starting age 10 or so, pretty much all kids walk or cycle themselves (between 5 and 10 most of them do so under adult supervision). For holiday destinations reachable by car we rent one, maybe once or twice a year.
> On another note I also used shop in my city centre regularly, but in the last 5 or so years I've started ordering most things from Amazon instead, not because I want to, but because it takes about an hour to get into the city now that they've removed several roads in favour of mostly unused bike and bus lanes. Plus, parking is increasingly hard and costs several pounds an hour these days. Sure, I could catch a bus, but that only really works if you're not buying much. I can't exactly carry a new desk or dinning room chair on a bus. I wonder if this is the reason that city centres seem to be increasingly filled with restaurants and lack shops other than a few convince stores? If I lived in a city I'm not even sure how I would do my weekly family shop without access to a car. Again, I guess I would need to order it online? Are these things not problems in Dutch cities?
We do groceries in person every day or every other day, often on our way to/from school. I can reach 3 supermarkets within 5 minutes cycling. For larger furniture, home delivery is usually more convenient, though occasionally I'd take the street parked shared cars (which are around €30 for 3 hours).