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It’s pretty easy to understand when you realize Americans don’t like eachother. If we liked living together we wouldn’t be so car centric, it’s not like the ca

It’s pretty easy to understand when you realize Americans don’t like eachother. If we liked living together we wouldn’t be so car centric, it’s not like the cars built the cities for us. And we keep getting worse. Small towns I drive through now are full of angry people who seem to want to be left alone. It’s incredibly sad. We are a selfish and community-less people that enjoy the frontier and adventure more than quaint small towns where people have to get along. There are advantages but in the long run I hate it. And yes I’ve lived everywhere in America. The few that like the more euro model have to pay a 10x premium to live in SF or NYC.

pakitan 5y ago
> It’s pretty easy to understand when you realize Americans don’t like eachother. As a general rule, people don't like each other. In places where people live close to one another it's not because they like it but out of some kind of combination between inertia and necessity.
- tsunamifury 5y ago
  When I go to France or England or India (city centers and countryside) people may not Love each-other but they seem to generally be ok with being together and cooperating a bit more. In America it’s a whole new level. Except for a few idyllic small towns and suburbs that are actually economically and racially exclusionary that seem to have a faux-community.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    I think the point is that for a series of reasons, during the 20th century the US built a lot of infrastructure that allows a lot (not all!) people to get further away from each other than is typical in Europe (probably elsewhere too, but I have no experience other than the US & Europe). Neighbors on a street in London don't love but do tolerate each other, and deal with the implications of close proximity and shared responsibilites moderately well. In the US it's much easier to move somewhere and get a parcel of land that makes you feel like a sovereign property owner. Your neighbors are not as adjacent, and may even be ignorable. Obviously this doesn't cover the millions of Americans who live in relatively dense (generally older) cities, but it does impact the millions who live in suburban, ex-urban and rural parts of the country.
    - tsunamifury 5y ago
      I agree. If we liked each-other a bit more tho that force wouldn’t be there. I’ll quote the American classic “elbow room” as soft proof. https://youtu.be/aHVx4nqgMPQ https://youtu.be/aHVx4nqgMPQ
      - snakeboy 5y ago
        Wow, I had never seen that before. What a bizarre video with a forced tie-in of the whole manifest destiny idea with lunar missions (1976). It seems to completely ignore the reality of communities and society (and history, for that matter) for an unquestioning expansion of our domain, all wrapped up in this patronizing metaphor about needing "elbow room".
        tsunamifury 5y ago
        Yes. It is our narrative. This is one of the most honest videos I’ve ever found of our true views on life in America vs the ivory tower discussions that constantly blame GM and Robert Moses for destroying their “communities”
        PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        If that is "The American Narrative" how did Chicago or New York City ever happen? How is it that a majority of Americans live in metropolitan areas rather than further out where they can more "elbow room" ? The European conquest of north America and subsequent repopulation with immigrants (alongside a vastly diminished indigenous population) created an ethos and an opportunity for people who wanted to live away from everybody else to do so ... by pretending that the continent had been empty, and because of the need for natural resources, this was relatively easy to do. But alongside that process, Americans were building some of the largest cities in the world, developing and improving "urban technologies", and generally pushing the boundaries of what cities could be (a role now largely taken over by SE Asia). Any explanation for the structure, placement, demographics and dynamics of American society that focuses on single reason for things (whether it is "elbow room", "Robert Moses" or "racism") is going to be wrong about most things.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Those quaint European neighborhoods, towns and villages are all also racially and culturally homogenous. And where that is changing, there is animosity and discord.
    - d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
      I can understand why you're being downvoted but I think you have a point. Someone who drinks beer and listens to country music is not going to be doing neighborhhod dinners with orthodox jews. We can claim to be all multicultural and all accepting but we always seek out like minded people. Culturally homogeneous communities let people put their guard down and give people common ground to connect on. You could argue that we want to create a new type of homogeneous culture--one where nobody eats pork, nobody wears MAGA hats, people keep their religious beliefs to themselves, etc. but that's still a homogeneous culture.
    - tsunamifury 5y ago
      I agree even if people are downvoting you.
jen20 5y ago
The north east (unsurprisingly) has many nice small towns, with moderately OK rail connections to big cities, and decent communities. Northern NJ (for example) is full of them. They’re obviously less common as you go west.
Kavelach 5y ago
I don't think that is true. If you look at how larger residential areas looked in the States historically, you'll these placese were very livable, since there weee no cars. The main issue in the US is that at some point the jobs of city and regional planners were hijacked by car industry lobbyists. The current state of affairs is what followed.
- tsunamifury 5y ago
  Far before cars, people left those cities for more space and fewer neighbors. It’s the foundation of our narrative.
  - Kavelach 5y ago
    Are you sure this is what really happened? The US built cities like any other country on this planet, but the influx of immigrants and people's pursuit of wealth pushed them to settle new lands and establish new population centres. What's more, until not so long ago, US cities looked differently. Then a lot of what was already built got destroyed to build motorways and huge parking lots. If you look at aerial photos of US cities from around '30s[0], you will see much denser, more walkable cities. Then take a look at what General Motors proposed with its Futurama at the World's Fair; it is the essence of what cities in the US are currently, albeit cranked up to 11. Some of Europe's cities took the road that GM pushed, and one very prominent example has been Amsterdam[1], which is currently known as one of the least car-oriented cities in the world. The changes have been reverted in the EU, but not in the US, and that is the current state of affairs. On the last note: US historically has been a place, when local communities had to be strong, strictly because of its roots in colonizing the continent. Without local communities that then shaped into larger organizations, the history would be very different, and States would be under Britain's rule for much longer, maybe even to this day. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/bkkfww/1930_aerial_photo_of_boston_showing_path_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/bkkfww/1930_aerial_... [1] https://inkspire.org/post/amsterdam-was-a-car-loving-city-in-the-1970s-what-changed/ https://inkspire.org/post/amsterdam-was-a-car-loving-city-in...
    - 5y ago
ben-schaaf 5y ago
> If we liked living together we wouldn’t be so car centric It's entirely the other way around, car centric planning results in less community. It's much easier to be angry at the other 2t metal boxes than at your fellow human being. American cities used to be just like European cities: designed for walking, mixed use developments, small shops, public transportation everywhere. It's only after the delusion of the car being the future was popularized - in large part due to very successful advertising by the automotive industry - that policy was written to heavily subsidise car-centric development to the point of making everything else illegal. There's even real, convicted conspiracies of the automotive industry purposefully buying public transportation just to kill it.
- tsunamifury 5y ago
  You know I used to believe that for many years and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is just a “bike-city” circle jerk scapegoating Robert Moses in order to ignore our deeper problem: Americans don’t like each-other. We would have built better cities if we wanted carless communities. But we didn’t and still don’t. We want this. This is what we like. We are a sick people. And it isn’t Robert Moses and GMs fault, they are a product of us. We weren’t brainwashed we weren’t forced into this. There is no cabal that made it this way. We choose it. The sooner we accept that the sooner we can evaluate real options for change.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    This just historically inaccurate. Older US cities have many of the same characteristics as cities in other parts of the world. Those characteristics can vary, from small single-family homes tightly packed into a walkable neighborhood to large scale apartment dwelling with city squares and boulevards nearby. Americans used to build cities this way. Whether it was Moses or the emergence of a general dislike of each other, or a multitude of other possible reasons, we generally no longer do. Moreover, many of those older city neighborhoods are considered extremely desirable to live in, even today, so much so that they have become very exclusive areas available only to those with plenty of income or wealth. That doesn't imply that most Americans would necessarily make that choice even if they could, but the continued elevation of housing costs in the best of these "old world" neighborhoods suggests to me that your thesis is at best incomplete and at worst just incorrect.
cscurmudgeon 5y ago
Is there a shred of data to support Americans hate each other more than other countries? I will even take a buzzfeed poll slapped together in a minute.
- tsunamifury 5y ago
  Your handle.
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    Good try. I am not American. I am an Indian citizen who loves the opportunities available in the US than in India. One of those opportunities was a good PhD education that taught me how to spot bullshit. So to confirm what is happening here for a neutral observer, are just cooking up things when you say Americans hate each other more. I would say Europeans hate each other more. They had two world wars centered around Europe in the last century and way too many real secession movements: Brexit, Catalonia etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_movements_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_move...
treis 5y ago
>Small towns I drive through now are full of angry people who seem to want to be left alone. It’s incredibly sad. I would love to know how you determined that.
- tsunamifury 5y ago
  I do a lot of road-trips through rural Oregon, California and sometimes Texas. I get middle fingers, angry truck drivers actively trying to run me off the road. Someone even hit me once, for no reason. I get threatened semi often in towns where I look like I don’t belong, but trust me they do it to each-other too. Rural life has always been hard and rough but it’s sad. Their towns are dying and they look, act and feel miserable to each-other.
chucksmash 5y ago
> It’s pretty easy to understand when you realize Americans don’t like eachother. The way American communities were laid out by previous generations was not caused by the recent political strife. I'd say it has much more to do with available modes of transit when the place was settled than it does any national characteristic of incivility.

pakitan 5y ago

> It’s pretty easy to understand when you realize Americans don’t like eachother. As a general rule, people don't like each other. In places where people live close to one another it's not because they like it but out of some kind of combination between inertia and necessity.

tsunamifury 5y ago
When I go to France or England or India (city centers and countryside) people may not Love each-other but they seem to generally be ok with being together and cooperating a bit more. In America it’s a whole new level. Except for a few idyllic small towns and suburbs that are actually economically and racially exclusionary that seem to have a faux-community.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  I think the point is that for a series of reasons, during the 20th century the US built a lot of infrastructure that allows a lot (not all!) people to get further away from each other than is typical in Europe (probably elsewhere too, but I have no experience other than the US & Europe). Neighbors on a street in London don't love but do tolerate each other, and deal with the implications of close proximity and shared responsibilites moderately well. In the US it's much easier to move somewhere and get a parcel of land that makes you feel like a sovereign property owner. Your neighbors are not as adjacent, and may even be ignorable. Obviously this doesn't cover the millions of Americans who live in relatively dense (generally older) cities, but it does impact the millions who live in suburban, ex-urban and rural parts of the country.
  - tsunamifury 5y ago
    I agree. If we liked each-other a bit more tho that force wouldn’t be there. I’ll quote the American classic “elbow room” as soft proof. https://youtu.be/aHVx4nqgMPQ https://youtu.be/aHVx4nqgMPQ
    - snakeboy 5y ago
      Wow, I had never seen that before. What a bizarre video with a forced tie-in of the whole manifest destiny idea with lunar missions (1976). It seems to completely ignore the reality of communities and society (and history, for that matter) for an unquestioning expansion of our domain, all wrapped up in this patronizing metaphor about needing "elbow room".
      - tsunamifury 5y ago
        Yes. It is our narrative. This is one of the most honest videos I’ve ever found of our true views on life in America vs the ivory tower discussions that constantly blame GM and Robert Moses for destroying their “communities”
        PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        If that is "The American Narrative" how did Chicago or New York City ever happen? How is it that a majority of Americans live in metropolitan areas rather than further out where they can more "elbow room" ? The European conquest of north America and subsequent repopulation with immigrants (alongside a vastly diminished indigenous population) created an ethos and an opportunity for people who wanted to live away from everybody else to do so ... by pretending that the continent had been empty, and because of the need for natural resources, this was relatively easy to do. But alongside that process, Americans were building some of the largest cities in the world, developing and improving "urban technologies", and generally pushing the boundaries of what cities could be (a role now largely taken over by SE Asia). Any explanation for the structure, placement, demographics and dynamics of American society that focuses on single reason for things (whether it is "elbow room", "Robert Moses" or "racism") is going to be wrong about most things.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Those quaint European neighborhoods, towns and villages are all also racially and culturally homogenous. And where that is changing, there is animosity and discord.
  - d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
    I can understand why you're being downvoted but I think you have a point. Someone who drinks beer and listens to country music is not going to be doing neighborhhod dinners with orthodox jews. We can claim to be all multicultural and all accepting but we always seek out like minded people. Culturally homogeneous communities let people put their guard down and give people common ground to connect on. You could argue that we want to create a new type of homogeneous culture--one where nobody eats pork, nobody wears MAGA hats, people keep their religious beliefs to themselves, etc. but that's still a homogeneous culture.
  - tsunamifury 5y ago
    I agree even if people are downvoting you.

jen20 5y ago

The north east (unsurprisingly) has many nice small towns, with moderately OK rail connections to big cities, and decent communities. Northern NJ (for example) is full of them. They’re obviously less common as you go west.

Kavelach 5y ago

I don't think that is true. If you look at how larger residential areas looked in the States historically, you'll these placese were very livable, since there weee no cars. The main issue in the US is that at some point the jobs of city and regional planners were hijacked by car industry lobbyists. The current state of affairs is what followed.

tsunamifury 5y ago
Far before cars, people left those cities for more space and fewer neighbors. It’s the foundation of our narrative.
- Kavelach 5y ago
  Are you sure this is what really happened? The US built cities like any other country on this planet, but the influx of immigrants and people's pursuit of wealth pushed them to settle new lands and establish new population centres. What's more, until not so long ago, US cities looked differently. Then a lot of what was already built got destroyed to build motorways and huge parking lots. If you look at aerial photos of US cities from around '30s[0], you will see much denser, more walkable cities. Then take a look at what General Motors proposed with its Futurama at the World's Fair; it is the essence of what cities in the US are currently, albeit cranked up to 11. Some of Europe's cities took the road that GM pushed, and one very prominent example has been Amsterdam[1], which is currently known as one of the least car-oriented cities in the world. The changes have been reverted in the EU, but not in the US, and that is the current state of affairs. On the last note: US historically has been a place, when local communities had to be strong, strictly because of its roots in colonizing the continent. Without local communities that then shaped into larger organizations, the history would be very different, and States would be under Britain's rule for much longer, maybe even to this day. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/bkkfww/1930_aerial_photo_of_boston_showing_path_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/bkkfww/1930_aerial_... [1] https://inkspire.org/post/amsterdam-was-a-car-loving-city-in-the-1970s-what-changed/ https://inkspire.org/post/amsterdam-was-a-car-loving-city-in...
  - 5y ago

ben-schaaf 5y ago

> If we liked living together we wouldn’t be so car centric It's entirely the other way around, car centric planning results in less community. It's much easier to be angry at the other 2t metal boxes than at your fellow human being. American cities used to be just like European cities: designed for walking, mixed use developments, small shops, public transportation everywhere. It's only after the delusion of the car being the future was popularized - in large part due to very successful advertising by the automotive industry - that policy was written to heavily subsidise car-centric development to the point of making everything else illegal. There's even real, convicted conspiracies of the automotive industry purposefully buying public transportation just to kill it.

tsunamifury 5y ago
You know I used to believe that for many years and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is just a “bike-city” circle jerk scapegoating Robert Moses in order to ignore our deeper problem: Americans don’t like each-other. We would have built better cities if we wanted carless communities. But we didn’t and still don’t. We want this. This is what we like. We are a sick people. And it isn’t Robert Moses and GMs fault, they are a product of us. We weren’t brainwashed we weren’t forced into this. There is no cabal that made it this way. We choose it. The sooner we accept that the sooner we can evaluate real options for change.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  This just historically inaccurate. Older US cities have many of the same characteristics as cities in other parts of the world. Those characteristics can vary, from small single-family homes tightly packed into a walkable neighborhood to large scale apartment dwelling with city squares and boulevards nearby. Americans used to build cities this way. Whether it was Moses or the emergence of a general dislike of each other, or a multitude of other possible reasons, we generally no longer do. Moreover, many of those older city neighborhoods are considered extremely desirable to live in, even today, so much so that they have become very exclusive areas available only to those with plenty of income or wealth. That doesn't imply that most Americans would necessarily make that choice even if they could, but the continued elevation of housing costs in the best of these "old world" neighborhoods suggests to me that your thesis is at best incomplete and at worst just incorrect.

cscurmudgeon 5y ago

Is there a shred of data to support Americans hate each other more than other countries? I will even take a buzzfeed poll slapped together in a minute.

tsunamifury 5y ago
Your handle.
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  Good try. I am not American. I am an Indian citizen who loves the opportunities available in the US than in India. One of those opportunities was a good PhD education that taught me how to spot bullshit. So to confirm what is happening here for a neutral observer, are just cooking up things when you say Americans hate each other more. I would say Europeans hate each other more. They had two world wars centered around Europe in the last century and way too many real secession movements: Brexit, Catalonia etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_movements_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_move...

treis 5y ago

>Small towns I drive through now are full of angry people who seem to want to be left alone. It’s incredibly sad. I would love to know how you determined that.

tsunamifury 5y ago
I do a lot of road-trips through rural Oregon, California and sometimes Texas. I get middle fingers, angry truck drivers actively trying to run me off the road. Someone even hit me once, for no reason. I get threatened semi often in towns where I look like I don’t belong, but trust me they do it to each-other too. Rural life has always been hard and rough but it’s sad. Their towns are dying and they look, act and feel miserable to each-other.

chucksmash 5y ago

> It’s pretty easy to understand when you realize Americans don’t like eachother. The way American communities were laid out by previous generations was not caused by the recent political strife. I'd say it has much more to do with available modes of transit when the place was settled than it does any national characteristic of incivility.