4 ms·

I can't help but think that many of our economic, social, and environmental issues stem from a culture of cars. Cars push out urban sprawl weakening economies o

I can't help but think that many of our economic, social, and environmental issues stem from a culture of cars. Cars push out urban sprawl weakening economies of scale, cars take up a massive amount of expensive real-estate (roads and parking), cars produce a tremendous amount of pollution in addition the environmental impacts of the previous two points. At least in the US, I do not see a path forwards tho. The houses have been built and the people live where they live.

0_____0 5y ago
It took decades of intentional development to go from a United States where every big city had a streetcar system and basically nobody had a car, to the suburban hellscapes that exist throughout the country today. It will take decades more to fix.
chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
The path forward is zoning changes. Make it legal to build small apartments in a neighborhood, make it legal to run a corner shop, etc. We can build walkable environments in suburban hellscapes if we tweak the laws.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  I like this framing of the zoning issue much more than “build build build on every scrap of land you can get your hands on”. Ownership of land is really important for ensuring everyone in America is literally bought into the American Dream. Until you’re ready to buy a house, I feel no compunction forcing you into high-density housing in the meantime (paired with greatly increasing low-income mortgage assistance).
  - 0_____0 5y ago
    Where I live, lots of people own a unit in a multi-family house as either a condo or a co-op. Coming from California, I thought of housing as always being a SFH on .25ac or something like that, but for what you get in terms of quality of life, I would be very happy to own a co-op in a triple-decker in my neighborhood.
    - decafninja 5y ago
      I live in a midrise condo in the suburbs of NYC. One thing I've noticed is that similar condos in the area have not risen in price significantly (if at all) whereas SFHs have. Is this because of the pandemic that the demand of dense multi-family housing has stagnated while isolated SFHs have risen? The thought has crossed my mind the past two years where I've encountered more rude, aggressive, and hostile fellow residents in my building. Our building staff members have commented the same. Pleas from building management to mask up or avoid riding the elevator with other households go unheeded. Likewise pleas to not smoke in outdoor, but common areas (lounges, rooftops, etc.) go unheeded, and now add marijuana smell as a bonus. It's gotten to the point my wife and I specifically want to move to a SFH so that we don't have to deal with such people.
      - 0_____0 5y ago
        On the housing density spectrum there's a lot of room between 'unit in midrise condo' and SFH. I really like where I live. Boston metro, 6-unit building where I know almost all the tenants. Most of the rest of my neighborhood is 2 or 3 unit multifamily, and it really is a very pleasant density.
  - davidw 5y ago
    You can own a home without owning the land. It's pretty common in denser parts of the world. I recall a wealthy family in Padova, Italy where I lived that had a flat on the 3rd floor of some building right in the historic downtown. It was both large and very nice.
    - TylerE 5y ago
      I guess it comes down to definitions. To me a home would mean no shared walls/floors/ceilings with other tenants.
      - davidw 5y ago
        A home is where you live. If you stop to think about it, it's a very US sort of bias to define a 'home' as the single family detached house, whereas other things like apartments are not considered a 'home'. Not picking on you; people do this all the time. You even see it in the press, where they'll talk about some kind of development that includes both single family homes as well as apartment units (which sounds kind of cold and unappealing).
  - zip1234 5y ago
    Zoning means someone that owns a property cannot do with it as they see fit. How does allowing individual people to make their own decisions about their land have anything to do with forcing people into high density?
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      Zoning is good. It came about because industrialists were building factories next to people's houses and they were dying of pollutant inhalation. You need rules for what kind of buildings can go together, but the historic mistake (intentional or not) was to zone retail away from housing and force everybody to drive to get to anything that isn't a single family home.
      - davidw 5y ago
        I don't want to live in 'libertopia', where there are no rules at all, but zoning always had a component of keeping 'those people' away from 'nice neighborhoods'. In the city I live in, right now there's a group fighting to keep duplexes out of their wealthy neighborhood. That has nothing to do with legitimate concerns about truly noxious smells or noises. And, ironically, the whole town grew up around a smelly, noisy, river clogging mill.
      - zip1234 5y ago
        > You need rules for what kind of buildings can go together, but the historic mistake (intentional or not) was to zone retail away from housing and force everybody to drive to get to anything that isn't a single family home. Yes, sure--I was referring mainly to American single use zoning, which is terrible. There are certainly approaches that have way less in terms of downsides, such as the Japanese style zoning.
- test6554 5y ago
  NIMBY. Asking people if they want the poor in their wealthy neighborhood and school district is like asking if they want a nuclear power plant in their neighborhood.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    >"Asking people if they want the poor in their wealthy neighborhood" I'm generally anti-NIMBY but this kind of sentiment is a dramatic oversimplification. I really don't think we should immediately frame this as a rich people are afraid of poor people problem. For one thing, it doesn't explain why NIMBYism is also present in poor and working class neighborhoods.
Hokusai 5y ago
It would be fixed because the car industry does not have anymore power to stop the improvements. Now, it's tech companies the ones that have the money to create a bad for humans landscape. Will the USA repeat the same mistake and let them create an unfit for society digital neighborhood, or has it learned that to take corporation interests above everything else create inefficient societies?
dijonman2 5y ago
There isn’t a single appropriate viewpoint, I think cars are amazing and I will never be giving mine up. I support those who want to trade theirs in, but don’t force that on me.
- kar5pt 5y ago
  You think that because you live in a society that's been designed around cars. if that wasn't the case, you wouldn't need your car so much.
  - dijonman2 5y ago
    I’ve lived in major cities and went over a decade without a car. I won’t be going back.
- zip1234 5y ago
  Cars are highly subsidized right now. I think it would be good for everyone, car lovers included, if all the externalities would be priced into car ownership. Noise, pollution, space taken up, and road damage should be priced into use of cars. Cars may be private property but they use ridiculous amounts of public space. Everyone can keep their car if they want, but the cost of car ownership should reflect the externalities. This could be done through tolls, annual registration fees based on noise, emissions, and usage or similar measures.

0_____0 5y ago

It took decades of intentional development to go from a United States where every big city had a streetcar system and basically nobody had a car, to the suburban hellscapes that exist throughout the country today. It will take decades more to fix.

chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago

The path forward is zoning changes. Make it legal to build small apartments in a neighborhood, make it legal to run a corner shop, etc. We can build walkable environments in suburban hellscapes if we tweak the laws.

jimbob45 5y ago
I like this framing of the zoning issue much more than “build build build on every scrap of land you can get your hands on”. Ownership of land is really important for ensuring everyone in America is literally bought into the American Dream. Until you’re ready to buy a house, I feel no compunction forcing you into high-density housing in the meantime (paired with greatly increasing low-income mortgage assistance).
- 0_____0 5y ago
  Where I live, lots of people own a unit in a multi-family house as either a condo or a co-op. Coming from California, I thought of housing as always being a SFH on .25ac or something like that, but for what you get in terms of quality of life, I would be very happy to own a co-op in a triple-decker in my neighborhood.
  - decafninja 5y ago
    I live in a midrise condo in the suburbs of NYC. One thing I've noticed is that similar condos in the area have not risen in price significantly (if at all) whereas SFHs have. Is this because of the pandemic that the demand of dense multi-family housing has stagnated while isolated SFHs have risen? The thought has crossed my mind the past two years where I've encountered more rude, aggressive, and hostile fellow residents in my building. Our building staff members have commented the same. Pleas from building management to mask up or avoid riding the elevator with other households go unheeded. Likewise pleas to not smoke in outdoor, but common areas (lounges, rooftops, etc.) go unheeded, and now add marijuana smell as a bonus. It's gotten to the point my wife and I specifically want to move to a SFH so that we don't have to deal with such people.
    - 0_____0 5y ago
      On the housing density spectrum there's a lot of room between 'unit in midrise condo' and SFH. I really like where I live. Boston metro, 6-unit building where I know almost all the tenants. Most of the rest of my neighborhood is 2 or 3 unit multifamily, and it really is a very pleasant density.
- davidw 5y ago
  You can own a home without owning the land. It's pretty common in denser parts of the world. I recall a wealthy family in Padova, Italy where I lived that had a flat on the 3rd floor of some building right in the historic downtown. It was both large and very nice.
  - TylerE 5y ago
    I guess it comes down to definitions. To me a home would mean no shared walls/floors/ceilings with other tenants.
    - davidw 5y ago
      A home is where you live. If you stop to think about it, it's a very US sort of bias to define a 'home' as the single family detached house, whereas other things like apartments are not considered a 'home'. Not picking on you; people do this all the time. You even see it in the press, where they'll talk about some kind of development that includes both single family homes as well as apartment units (which sounds kind of cold and unappealing).
- zip1234 5y ago
  Zoning means someone that owns a property cannot do with it as they see fit. How does allowing individual people to make their own decisions about their land have anything to do with forcing people into high density?
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    Zoning is good. It came about because industrialists were building factories next to people's houses and they were dying of pollutant inhalation. You need rules for what kind of buildings can go together, but the historic mistake (intentional or not) was to zone retail away from housing and force everybody to drive to get to anything that isn't a single family home.
    - davidw 5y ago
      I don't want to live in 'libertopia', where there are no rules at all, but zoning always had a component of keeping 'those people' away from 'nice neighborhoods'. In the city I live in, right now there's a group fighting to keep duplexes out of their wealthy neighborhood. That has nothing to do with legitimate concerns about truly noxious smells or noises. And, ironically, the whole town grew up around a smelly, noisy, river clogging mill.
    - zip1234 5y ago
      > You need rules for what kind of buildings can go together, but the historic mistake (intentional or not) was to zone retail away from housing and force everybody to drive to get to anything that isn't a single family home. Yes, sure--I was referring mainly to American single use zoning, which is terrible. There are certainly approaches that have way less in terms of downsides, such as the Japanese style zoning.
test6554 5y ago
NIMBY. Asking people if they want the poor in their wealthy neighborhood and school district is like asking if they want a nuclear power plant in their neighborhood.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  >"Asking people if they want the poor in their wealthy neighborhood" I'm generally anti-NIMBY but this kind of sentiment is a dramatic oversimplification. I really don't think we should immediately frame this as a rich people are afraid of poor people problem. For one thing, it doesn't explain why NIMBYism is also present in poor and working class neighborhoods.

Hokusai 5y ago

It would be fixed because the car industry does not have anymore power to stop the improvements. Now, it's tech companies the ones that have the money to create a bad for humans landscape. Will the USA repeat the same mistake and let them create an unfit for society digital neighborhood, or has it learned that to take corporation interests above everything else create inefficient societies?

dijonman2 5y ago

There isn’t a single appropriate viewpoint, I think cars are amazing and I will never be giving mine up. I support those who want to trade theirs in, but don’t force that on me.

kar5pt 5y ago
You think that because you live in a society that's been designed around cars. if that wasn't the case, you wouldn't need your car so much.
- dijonman2 5y ago
  I’ve lived in major cities and went over a decade without a car. I won’t be going back.
zip1234 5y ago
Cars are highly subsidized right now. I think it would be good for everyone, car lovers included, if all the externalities would be priced into car ownership. Noise, pollution, space taken up, and road damage should be priced into use of cars. Cars may be private property but they use ridiculous amounts of public space. Everyone can keep their car if they want, but the cost of car ownership should reflect the externalities. This could be done through tolls, annual registration fees based on noise, emissions, and usage or similar measures.