4 ms·

Car-centric living is absolutely not quality-of-life focused...

by routerl 4y ago

ethbr0 4y ago
Depends where you live. That's a broad assertion to cover a wildly divergent spectrum of community types.
- CountSessine 4y ago
  Community types enforced by rigid laws outlawing market alternatives. If your “quality of life” is so compelling, why do you need to outlaw everything else, comrade? “Tear down this wall, Mr Gorbachev”
  - lupire 4y ago
    Your last 1.5 sentences discredit your first two paragraphs.
    - CountSessine 4y ago
      Nonsense. Your city council is the People’s Central Planning Committee that runs the construction economy in your city. They decide what is produced and they decide who does it. Construction in your city is a planned economy - every bit as much as the Soviet Union or pre-Deng China. And like every planned economy, it sucks and fails in just about every way.
- noahtallen 4y ago
  It’s an easy assertion to make because even car transit itself is better in places that aren’t car centric. (Because fewer people are on the roads, and roads are much safer.) https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Population density in the Netherlands is 414.33 people per square kilometer. Population density in the US is 34.05 people per square kilometer. Granted, a huge amount of the US should probably be discounted for a more realistic comparison (e.g. unlivable regions, BLM / park / national forest, and massive amount of farmland), which would bump the number up. But we're still probably going to need some adjustments going from a country you can drive across in about 4 hours, to one where it would take 40+ hours.
ghaff 4y ago
Are you suggesting that a pleasant rural/exurban environment, perhaps within a reasonable driving distance of an urban downtown is not quality of life focused? It may not be your preference but it is for many people. Others even like suburbs though that's mostly not my thing.
- gernb 4y ago
  That's fine if people want to live in the suburbs but... They need to start paying the full amount of what it costs to maintain those suburbs. As it is, the dense urban downtown is subsidizing all of it. That's not fair. https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI
  - ghaff 4y ago
    It's by no means a straightforward question. It's not like a city exists in some impermeable bubble from the surrounding area. A great deal is shipped into a city through the suburbs and other surrounding area. Many workers commute in from suburbs which are often cheaper than the city even though they may have better school systems (even though the per student costs are often lower). Food comes in from generally more rural areas. Cities and especially their denser and more walkable areas are dependent on the surrounding area in many ways. More dependent than the suburbs are on the city except perhaps for employment. There's a reasonable argument to be made that while San Francisco was the original primary catalyst for development in the Bay Area, Silicon Valley (which is effectively suburban sprawl) would be just fine without the city at all. The same would have been true of the Boston area to a large degree especially 20 years or so ago, except perhaps for the universities.
    - gernb 4y ago
      It makes sense the downtown is where people in the suburbs go to work and that therefore downtown appears to be making more. But that's still ignoring the fact that there's a cost to maintain every road, water pipe, sewer, sidewalk, etc. Those suburbs still cost way more than downtown and the suburbs are not paying enough to maintain their costs. Cities are going bankrupt. If you want to consider the entire thing one unit (suburbs + downtown = unit), you still have to figure out how to pay for all the services. The more spread out everything is the more those services cost. So it still comes down to the same thing. If you want, blame it on the government zoning downtown for no residents and only zoning for single family housing and therefore leading to the only affordable thing being the suburbs. But, to maintain those suburbs they're going to have to raise taxes 4x to 8x on everyone in that unit.
fulafel 4y ago
Also not sustainable.

Car-centric living is absolutely not quality-of-life focused...

ethbr0 4y ago

Depends where you live. That's a broad assertion to cover a wildly divergent spectrum of community types.

CountSessine 4y ago
Community types enforced by rigid laws outlawing market alternatives. If your “quality of life” is so compelling, why do you need to outlaw everything else, comrade? “Tear down this wall, Mr Gorbachev”
- lupire 4y ago
  Your last 1.5 sentences discredit your first two paragraphs.
  - CountSessine 4y ago
    Nonsense. Your city council is the People’s Central Planning Committee that runs the construction economy in your city. They decide what is produced and they decide who does it. Construction in your city is a planned economy - every bit as much as the Soviet Union or pre-Deng China. And like every planned economy, it sucks and fails in just about every way.
noahtallen 4y ago
It’s an easy assertion to make because even car transit itself is better in places that aren’t car centric. (Because fewer people are on the roads, and roads are much safer.) https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Population density in the Netherlands is 414.33 people per square kilometer. Population density in the US is 34.05 people per square kilometer. Granted, a huge amount of the US should probably be discounted for a more realistic comparison (e.g. unlivable regions, BLM / park / national forest, and massive amount of farmland), which would bump the number up. But we're still probably going to need some adjustments going from a country you can drive across in about 4 hours, to one where it would take 40+ hours.

ghaff 4y ago

Are you suggesting that a pleasant rural/exurban environment, perhaps within a reasonable driving distance of an urban downtown is not quality of life focused? It may not be your preference but it is for many people. Others even like suburbs though that's mostly not my thing.

gernb 4y ago
That's fine if people want to live in the suburbs but... They need to start paying the full amount of what it costs to maintain those suburbs. As it is, the dense urban downtown is subsidizing all of it. That's not fair. https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI
- ghaff 4y ago
  It's by no means a straightforward question. It's not like a city exists in some impermeable bubble from the surrounding area. A great deal is shipped into a city through the suburbs and other surrounding area. Many workers commute in from suburbs which are often cheaper than the city even though they may have better school systems (even though the per student costs are often lower). Food comes in from generally more rural areas. Cities and especially their denser and more walkable areas are dependent on the surrounding area in many ways. More dependent than the suburbs are on the city except perhaps for employment. There's a reasonable argument to be made that while San Francisco was the original primary catalyst for development in the Bay Area, Silicon Valley (which is effectively suburban sprawl) would be just fine without the city at all. The same would have been true of the Boston area to a large degree especially 20 years or so ago, except perhaps for the universities.
  - gernb 4y ago
    It makes sense the downtown is where people in the suburbs go to work and that therefore downtown appears to be making more. But that's still ignoring the fact that there's a cost to maintain every road, water pipe, sewer, sidewalk, etc. Those suburbs still cost way more than downtown and the suburbs are not paying enough to maintain their costs. Cities are going bankrupt. If you want to consider the entire thing one unit (suburbs + downtown = unit), you still have to figure out how to pay for all the services. The more spread out everything is the more those services cost. So it still comes down to the same thing. If you want, blame it on the government zoning downtown for no residents and only zoning for single family housing and therefore leading to the only affordable thing being the suburbs. But, to maintain those suburbs they're going to have to raise taxes 4x to 8x on everyone in that unit.

fulafel 4y ago

Also not sustainable.