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This is my first introduction to The War on Cars, but I am such a big fan of this anti car movement. Strong towns was my introduction to the movement but my vie

This is my first introduction to The War on Cars, but I am such a big fan of this anti car movement. Strong towns was my introduction to the movement but my views were solidified through several city planning youtube channels (city beautiful, not just bikes). Before buying into this and related movements I relocated to a rural town where the vast majority of our taxes go to roads. Plowing, maintaining, building, it's all roads around here. Most of our town is convinced that our taxes are so high because of inept government or corruption but when you look at the city budget it's painfully clear that roads are just really expensive when everyone lives on 2 acres, every road is wide enough for 2 heavy duty dually trucks towing boats and potholes are unacceptable. Not to mention that when roads are high quality and wide, people drive fast. The odds of my kids getting smashed by a speeding truck are way higher than I'd like them to be. We've got to stop with the whole "everyone gets a quarter acre and a truck" mentality. I live out in the middle of nowhere and everyday construction begins on a new home, filling in every gap of what used to be farmland. All of us are 15 minutes away from the nearest anything. To be fair though, I'm sure they're all moving out here for the same reasons I did. Housing near work or transit is so scarce and expensive that it just doesn't make any sense. We're spending the same as we would in the city center on a house, but we're getting a mansion out in the country instead of a shack in the city.

seer 5y ago
I think the message of channels like “not just bikes” is that even if 2 acres and a truck for everybody was economical, its actually not desirable long term. Its just _so nice_ to live in a place with no traffic jams and your kids (and you too) are not just casualties waiting to happen.
ethagknight 5y ago
Aren’t you doing exactly what everyone else wants to do? Mansion in the Sticks for me, but City Shacks for thee? Everyone is making these same decisions up and down the society economic status lines and across the US. One thing major cities could do to stave off cheap, cookie cutter expansionism is to buy up large swaths of land for city or state parks, and also cultivate those parks for high quality outdoor recreation. Such a policy would increase land price pressure (what local developer can outbid the government at scale??), particularly focusing on interstate corridors, which were built for… interstate commerce… but gets used for 40 acres and a mule commutes. The city comes away with a large land investment that it can prune as needed, or keep as a preserve as desired and directed by the govt/people. Ok, so where does an already struggling community come up with $100mm to buy 200,000 acres of land surrounding the community? Land Conservancies are tax shelters where basically rich people or businesses commit their real estate assets to the government, or invest money in the conservancy to go buy up land. The land is conserved according to the conservancy’s covenant. Hold your nose, but its the fastest way to raise $100mm to tighten up development patterns. Check out Wolf River Conservancy for a fledgling example. https://wolfriver.org/land-trust https://wolfriver.org/land-trust
- dpark 5y ago
  > One thing major cities could do to stave off cheap, cookie cutter expansionism is to buy up large swaths of land for city or state parks, and also cultivate those parks for high quality outdoor recreation. Such a policy would increase land price pressure I think you underestimate the scale of what you're proposing. You mention 200,000 acres. To buy up enough land to curb suburban development, you'd be looking at buying all the land in at least a 15 mile radius, probably much more (people "happily" commute 15+ miles into every major city), so well north of 700,000 acres. Your 100MM suggestion seems laughable, at $500/acre. Maybe you can get land for that price in the middle of nowhere, but certainly not on livable land within 15 miles of a major city. A quick search indicates farmland costs north of $3000/acre across the US. Maintaining the land would now be a major expense on the city. It would be a political nightmare (yeah, we could fund basic infrastructure, or we could bankrupt ourselves trying to buy every livable plot within an hour's driving distance). And of course then there's the problem that people would be unwilling to sell and eminent domain attempts would likely fail in court. > 40 acres and a mule commutes I have no idea what you mean by this but I would suggest you not. 40 acres and a mule has a very specific context and it's not suburban spawl. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule
  - TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
    > Your 100MM suggestion seems laughable, at $500/acre. Shhhhh.... We're fudging numbers to raise capital to monopolize land around an urban center. You just don't get it.
    - karmakurtisaani 5y ago
      Just my opinion, but I really hate any message created from the template "Shhhh... I'm making a snarky remark against the guy you replied, not contributing to the discussion constructively." Do better next time.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
Fnoord 5y ago
In rural areas, cars make sense, because public transport is (usually) abysmal: bad connections, not often, don't go on saturdays/sundays, lots of walking, have to take various different connections, or have to phone them up to come (great way to get rid of customers even when they state they need it every workday). A bike is useful, but has its limits. Yes, you can clothe yourself, but doing groceries or going out and about with the family to a remote location (say 50+ km away) is a no-go. In a city, bikes are useful because everything is compact and therefore relatively easy to reach. If more people go by bike, the traffic must adapt to bicycle popularity (as happened in Berlin, as is default in The Netherlands). Public transport is also good because its popular and various options for various ranges (tram, metro, train, ferry, etc). If both of these are good, the need for cars is less there, and public parking spaces are usually sparse in big cities, therefore expensive (also the required security costs money). One thing car/bike have which public transport don't is that you are in a relatively private space instead of sharing the commons. In COVID-19 pandemic that's a plus, if you like being social to strangers (I don't, I'm a private person, but I don't condone such behaviour). It doesn't have to be completely anti or completely pro car. Just like with FOSS and veganism and what not, there are shades of gray, people.
- syedkarim 5y ago
  >> In rural areas, cars make sense, because public transport is (usually) abysmal. Where in rural America is public transportation not abysmal? I don’t believe there is anywhere in rural America where a personal vehicle can be completely replaced by public transportation.
  - autokad 5y ago
    you have to put the disclaimer "usually" because people will downvote you for being "too certain". There is also the haters who are like "I know a friend who lives in a rural town that has great public transport so you are wrong on everything!"
paulcole 5y ago
If you’re anti-car you also need to be pro-city-shack for yourself. I’m 40 and have lived in the US my entire life. I grew up in a very rural area, went to college in a small town, and now live in a tiny urban apartment. I have been anti-car my whole life and have never learned to drive. Makes me laugh to see anyone in the suburbs say, “Boy I wish I didn’t have to drive everywhere.” You don’t have to drive everywhere! I’m living proof of that. You just have to make different choices and prioritize not-driving over having a McMansion. Yes, it’s inconvenient at times but that’s the trade off. The gulf between what people say they value and what their actions say they value is monumental.
- foxyv 5y ago
  > If you’re anti-car you also need to be pro-city-shack for yourself. Not necessarily. If you don't want your nice rural area to be turned into McMansions centrally located on a Wal-Mart, it's important to support stronger cities and towns. I don't think any farmers want to deal with $500,000 4000+ sq. ft. single family homes constantly trying to shut them down because the farm they moved next to smells and sounds like a farm.
- whakim 5y ago
  > If you’re anti-car you also need to be pro-city-shack for yourself. Many people would like to live in a city but can't afford it because even a multi-bedroom "shack" is incredibly expensive. You're basically suggesting that those folks need to suffer in order to validate their (totally legitimate) desire for better transit and more affordable housing?
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    The comparison is to a "rural half-acre". If you can afford a half-acre of land in a rural area but not a "shack" in the city, that implies a lot more about the continued under-valuation of "rural" land than costs of urban living. (Which the Georgists were arguing about more than a century ago.)
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
readthenotes1 5y ago
The reason for shotgun houses in New Orleans is that the French property tax was created in the age of reason: The primary cost of the property to the govt was linear road length (later sewer, water, electrical, gas, postal, etc.) so that's how they were taxed (yes, there are other reasons for the architecture, but taxes drives a lot) Some study that came out a few years ago showed that cities lose money on the richer properties but recoup it in the denser, poorer areas. Not very reasonable.
- cafard 5y ago
  Taxing on street frontage occupied goes back quite a long time in France, I believe.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
I mean. I find your points interesting and I don't like ad hominem... but you start with "I relocated into rural town". It's hard to follow the rest. It may be a pain point for me; my in-laws are constantly complaining about how "These used to be fields around here, now it's all houses". THEY (my in-laws) all live in houses. How are these other houses different than your house? Whenever I ask that question, I get blank stares, as if I'm failing to understand their obvious point and complaint, which I guess I am. It's kind of like being stuck in traffic and non-sarcastically, angrily wondering "Where are all these people going to on a Saturday Morning (or whatever)??!?" -- umm, probably similar reasons and places that we are :-) --- As a more meaningful discussion though, it's interesting that I see modern living ideas go in both directions: - We should all live in high density, efficient, foot-friendly urban areas - We should all create our own farms and lead self-sustaining off-grid lives
- ericmay 5y ago
  The sweet spot is in the middle. Small/medium sized towns and cities 50,000 people or less probably. Walkable and bike-able, train services, and then the surrounding area contains small farms and other recreation areas (parks, hiking trails, etc.) and all of this is accessible by car, bus, or bike. Basically European towns and small cities. Higher density is fine but high density like Hong Kong or Mumbai is an anti-pattern just as suburbs are.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    Hmm, I don't think that's the middle though: Proponents of self-sustainment as the way forward advocate off-grid lifestyle that provides energy and large amount of food/materials internally / within family or homestead. A house and a plot of land, and some fruit/veggies/animals, with solar or geothermal, etc. In my mind then, a 5,000 people town is as much on the other side of the spectrum from that, as a 5,000,000 people town. In fact, in North America, small and medium towns in my experience (Minnesota, Manitoba, Ontario) are quaint and lovely, but worst possible compromise - no self-sustaining benefits of independent homestead, but with limited to no public transit, no high density dwelling, spread out infrastructure. You cannot live without a car in a small north american town - modern or old. They are beautiful lovely historic worst parts of sub-urban without the urban/core. [edit/disclosure: In fact, I live in one now (moved there for love:) and it is fascinating how much we get none of the benefits of either farm or downtown living. City Council repeatedly rejects calls for public transit, on probably awful unspoken grounds of not wanting "undesirable elements". We do have a cute main street and the 5% of population who lives on or around it can probably walk there. Literally the rest of 95% of population MUST own several cars to live. I'm always amused when healthy 25 year old SF-downtown dwellers promote bikes as solution to everything - that's just not going to be relevant to the aging population of Canadian or USA snowbelt sub-urbia:]
treis 5y ago
>the vast majority of our taxes go to roads. I guarantee you this is not true. At least it's not true if you look at the totality of property taxes. If your city spends all of its money on roads it's because it's left things like police, fire, schools, and so on to county level government.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
Yeah it's really hard to take you seriously when you criticize people for doing exactly what you did. Just because you did it earlier doesnt mean you are morally superior in any way.
- lupire 5y ago
  Once I lived in the city, it was too big and noisy So I moved to the country, to stop and smell the rosies All my city friends joined me, and put up nice new housies Now it's too big and noisy, think I'll move to the country https://www.google.com/search?q=fred+small+too+many+people+lyrics https://www.google.com/search?q=fred+small+too+many+people+l...
- ngngngng 5y ago
  I didn't mean to come across like that. I was intending to criticize the system that put us all in this position where this was the obvious choice. Strong towns focuses heavily on the cost aspect of rural and suburban building with all the amenities of a city. I would prefer if we all had the option to move out to the boonies without it being the obvious choice because A) we stop running these towns as ponzi schemes, subsidizing current COL on supposed future growth and B) we built ample high density housing in city centers and near transit hubs so that housing in convenient areas wasn't a Veblen good.
mdoms 5y ago
So you get the 2 acre plot 15 minutes from town, but no one else should?

seer 5y ago

I think the message of channels like “not just bikes” is that even if 2 acres and a truck for everybody was economical, its actually not desirable long term. Its just _so nice_ to live in a place with no traffic jams and your kids (and you too) are not just casualties waiting to happen.

ethagknight 5y ago

Aren’t you doing exactly what everyone else wants to do? Mansion in the Sticks for me, but City Shacks for thee? Everyone is making these same decisions up and down the society economic status lines and across the US. One thing major cities could do to stave off cheap, cookie cutter expansionism is to buy up large swaths of land for city or state parks, and also cultivate those parks for high quality outdoor recreation. Such a policy would increase land price pressure (what local developer can outbid the government at scale??), particularly focusing on interstate corridors, which were built for… interstate commerce… but gets used for 40 acres and a mule commutes. The city comes away with a large land investment that it can prune as needed, or keep as a preserve as desired and directed by the govt/people. Ok, so where does an already struggling community come up with $100mm to buy 200,000 acres of land surrounding the community? Land Conservancies are tax shelters where basically rich people or businesses commit their real estate assets to the government, or invest money in the conservancy to go buy up land. The land is conserved according to the conservancy’s covenant. Hold your nose, but its the fastest way to raise $100mm to tighten up development patterns. Check out Wolf River Conservancy for a fledgling example. https://wolfriver.org/land-trust https://wolfriver.org/land-trust

dpark 5y ago
> One thing major cities could do to stave off cheap, cookie cutter expansionism is to buy up large swaths of land for city or state parks, and also cultivate those parks for high quality outdoor recreation. Such a policy would increase land price pressure I think you underestimate the scale of what you're proposing. You mention 200,000 acres. To buy up enough land to curb suburban development, you'd be looking at buying all the land in at least a 15 mile radius, probably much more (people "happily" commute 15+ miles into every major city), so well north of 700,000 acres. Your 100MM suggestion seems laughable, at $500/acre. Maybe you can get land for that price in the middle of nowhere, but certainly not on livable land within 15 miles of a major city. A quick search indicates farmland costs north of $3000/acre across the US. Maintaining the land would now be a major expense on the city. It would be a political nightmare (yeah, we could fund basic infrastructure, or we could bankrupt ourselves trying to buy every livable plot within an hour's driving distance). And of course then there's the problem that people would be unwilling to sell and eminent domain attempts would likely fail in court. > 40 acres and a mule commutes I have no idea what you mean by this but I would suggest you not. 40 acres and a mule has a very specific context and it's not suburban spawl. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  > Your 100MM suggestion seems laughable, at $500/acre. Shhhhh.... We're fudging numbers to raise capital to monopolize land around an urban center. You just don't get it.
  - karmakurtisaani 5y ago
    Just my opinion, but I really hate any message created from the template "Shhhh... I'm making a snarky remark against the guy you replied, not contributing to the discussion constructively." Do better next time.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

Fnoord 5y ago

In rural areas, cars make sense, because public transport is (usually) abysmal: bad connections, not often, don't go on saturdays/sundays, lots of walking, have to take various different connections, or have to phone them up to come (great way to get rid of customers even when they state they need it every workday). A bike is useful, but has its limits. Yes, you can clothe yourself, but doing groceries or going out and about with the family to a remote location (say 50+ km away) is a no-go. In a city, bikes are useful because everything is compact and therefore relatively easy to reach. If more people go by bike, the traffic must adapt to bicycle popularity (as happened in Berlin, as is default in The Netherlands). Public transport is also good because its popular and various options for various ranges (tram, metro, train, ferry, etc). If both of these are good, the need for cars is less there, and public parking spaces are usually sparse in big cities, therefore expensive (also the required security costs money). One thing car/bike have which public transport don't is that you are in a relatively private space instead of sharing the commons. In COVID-19 pandemic that's a plus, if you like being social to strangers (I don't, I'm a private person, but I don't condone such behaviour). It doesn't have to be completely anti or completely pro car. Just like with FOSS and veganism and what not, there are shades of gray, people.

syedkarim 5y ago
>> In rural areas, cars make sense, because public transport is (usually) abysmal. Where in rural America is public transportation not abysmal? I don’t believe there is anywhere in rural America where a personal vehicle can be completely replaced by public transportation.
- autokad 5y ago
  you have to put the disclaimer "usually" because people will downvote you for being "too certain". There is also the haters who are like "I know a friend who lives in a rural town that has great public transport so you are wrong on everything!"

paulcole 5y ago

If you’re anti-car you also need to be pro-city-shack for yourself. I’m 40 and have lived in the US my entire life. I grew up in a very rural area, went to college in a small town, and now live in a tiny urban apartment. I have been anti-car my whole life and have never learned to drive. Makes me laugh to see anyone in the suburbs say, “Boy I wish I didn’t have to drive everywhere.” You don’t have to drive everywhere! I’m living proof of that. You just have to make different choices and prioritize not-driving over having a McMansion. Yes, it’s inconvenient at times but that’s the trade off. The gulf between what people say they value and what their actions say they value is monumental.

foxyv 5y ago
> If you’re anti-car you also need to be pro-city-shack for yourself. Not necessarily. If you don't want your nice rural area to be turned into McMansions centrally located on a Wal-Mart, it's important to support stronger cities and towns. I don't think any farmers want to deal with $500,000 4000+ sq. ft. single family homes constantly trying to shut them down because the farm they moved next to smells and sounds like a farm.
whakim 5y ago
> If you’re anti-car you also need to be pro-city-shack for yourself. Many people would like to live in a city but can't afford it because even a multi-bedroom "shack" is incredibly expensive. You're basically suggesting that those folks need to suffer in order to validate their (totally legitimate) desire for better transit and more affordable housing?
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  The comparison is to a "rural half-acre". If you can afford a half-acre of land in a rural area but not a "shack" in the city, that implies a lot more about the continued under-valuation of "rural" land than costs of urban living. (Which the Georgists were arguing about more than a century ago.)
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago

readthenotes1 5y ago

The reason for shotgun houses in New Orleans is that the French property tax was created in the age of reason: The primary cost of the property to the govt was linear road length (later sewer, water, electrical, gas, postal, etc.) so that's how they were taxed (yes, there are other reasons for the architecture, but taxes drives a lot) Some study that came out a few years ago showed that cities lose money on the richer properties but recoup it in the denser, poorer areas. Not very reasonable.

cafard 5y ago
Taxing on street frontage occupied goes back quite a long time in France, I believe.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

I mean. I find your points interesting and I don't like ad hominem... but you start with "I relocated into rural town". It's hard to follow the rest. It may be a pain point for me; my in-laws are constantly complaining about how "These used to be fields around here, now it's all houses". THEY (my in-laws) all live in houses. How are these other houses different than your house? Whenever I ask that question, I get blank stares, as if I'm failing to understand their obvious point and complaint, which I guess I am. It's kind of like being stuck in traffic and non-sarcastically, angrily wondering "Where are all these people going to on a Saturday Morning (or whatever)??!?" -- umm, probably similar reasons and places that we are :-) --- As a more meaningful discussion though, it's interesting that I see modern living ideas go in both directions: - We should all live in high density, efficient, foot-friendly urban areas - We should all create our own farms and lead self-sustaining off-grid lives

ericmay 5y ago
The sweet spot is in the middle. Small/medium sized towns and cities 50,000 people or less probably. Walkable and bike-able, train services, and then the surrounding area contains small farms and other recreation areas (parks, hiking trails, etc.) and all of this is accessible by car, bus, or bike. Basically European towns and small cities. Higher density is fine but high density like Hong Kong or Mumbai is an anti-pattern just as suburbs are.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  Hmm, I don't think that's the middle though: Proponents of self-sustainment as the way forward advocate off-grid lifestyle that provides energy and large amount of food/materials internally / within family or homestead. A house and a plot of land, and some fruit/veggies/animals, with solar or geothermal, etc. In my mind then, a 5,000 people town is as much on the other side of the spectrum from that, as a 5,000,000 people town. In fact, in North America, small and medium towns in my experience (Minnesota, Manitoba, Ontario) are quaint and lovely, but worst possible compromise - no self-sustaining benefits of independent homestead, but with limited to no public transit, no high density dwelling, spread out infrastructure. You cannot live without a car in a small north american town - modern or old. They are beautiful lovely historic worst parts of sub-urban without the urban/core. [edit/disclosure: In fact, I live in one now (moved there for love:) and it is fascinating how much we get none of the benefits of either farm or downtown living. City Council repeatedly rejects calls for public transit, on probably awful unspoken grounds of not wanting "undesirable elements". We do have a cute main street and the 5% of population who lives on or around it can probably walk there. Literally the rest of 95% of population MUST own several cars to live. I'm always amused when healthy 25 year old SF-downtown dwellers promote bikes as solution to everything - that's just not going to be relevant to the aging population of Canadian or USA snowbelt sub-urbia:]

treis 5y ago

>the vast majority of our taxes go to roads. I guarantee you this is not true. At least it's not true if you look at the totality of property taxes. If your city spends all of its money on roads it's because it's left things like police, fire, schools, and so on to county level government.

AlwaysRock 5y ago

Yeah it's really hard to take you seriously when you criticize people for doing exactly what you did. Just because you did it earlier doesnt mean you are morally superior in any way.

lupire 5y ago
Once I lived in the city, it was too big and noisy So I moved to the country, to stop and smell the rosies All my city friends joined me, and put up nice new housies Now it's too big and noisy, think I'll move to the country https://www.google.com/search?q=fred+small+too+many+people+lyrics https://www.google.com/search?q=fred+small+too+many+people+l...
ngngngng 5y ago
I didn't mean to come across like that. I was intending to criticize the system that put us all in this position where this was the obvious choice. Strong towns focuses heavily on the cost aspect of rural and suburban building with all the amenities of a city. I would prefer if we all had the option to move out to the boonies without it being the obvious choice because A) we stop running these towns as ponzi schemes, subsidizing current COL on supposed future growth and B) we built ample high density housing in city centers and near transit hubs so that housing in convenient areas wasn't a Veblen good.

mdoms 5y ago

So you get the 2 acre plot 15 minutes from town, but no one else should?