4 ms·

They have a good YouTube channel but you’d have to watch a bit to get an idea. Basically they’re advocating for building towns and cities that aren’t car-centri

They have a good YouTube channel but you’d have to watch a bit to get an idea. Basically they’re advocating for building towns and cities that aren’t car-centric. Talking about overhauling planning standards to stop single-dwelling only suburbs that are only accessible by car, proper transit planning, not just enlarging freeways and then finding induced demand makes them even slower over time, etc.

forum_ghost 4y ago
- wolverine876 4y ago
  > why do they want this particular lifestyle to be forced on everyone? I don't know of any sign that anything is being forced. If you aren't convinced by it, don't vote for it.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  By "this particular lifestyle" he largely means not designing residential streets like highways where thousands are killed and the response is simply "Oh well, accidents happen"
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - forum_ghost 4y ago
    More people are killed in dense cities.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Not sure how this relates at all to the context. The author of Strong Towns is against engineering design which enables drivers to drive faster at the cost of everyone else's safety. By making roads wider, clearing trees from the edges, rounding out turns, etc, it naturally pushes drivers to drive faster regardless of what the listed speed limit is. So while speeding drivers and drink drivers are at fault, the engineers who designed a world where they can go as fast as possible are at an even greater fault. Placing highway style roads in residential areas is killing people.
    - Hamuko 4y ago
      In total or per capita? Do you have links to the data?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- zejn 4y ago
  > why do they want this particular lifestyle to be forced on everyone? You mean why is everyone forced to drive a car to a nearest shop or bakery? I am perplexed too. As an European, I find it insane there is an organisation (HOA & zoning) that puts all sorts of limits up and prevents shops being put up in your suburban neighborhoods.
  - forum_ghost 4y ago
    You can walk too. 15 min walk or 1 minute drive. Nobody is forced to do anything, and for the longest time I’ve lived in suburbia without a car. who drives for groceries? it’s a waste of time. I get everything delivered. But, as a European, are you not surprised your government also imposes all sorts of regulations on your European housing? Just like the elected municipal government imposing zoning…in every European city too? You made it sound like anyone can just do whatever in Europe. Except cookies and GDPR, and all sorts of other regulations from shoes to how bad circulation in your house must be to compensate for your silly energy politics. Not everywhere has an HOA. The reason for uniform standard is so that I don’t setup a crackden next to your house and devalue your largest asset by half a million dollars. Pretty sure 10 annual European salaries is just pocket change to you and is of no consequence.
    - zejn 4y ago
      Yeah, almost anyone can do anything where I live. People set up car repair shops, computer repair services and whatever else you can think of in their garages, because you know what - doing stuff in your garage actually lowers the bar to start a business. And thru streets limited to 30kph are actually a very nice route for cycling. And you know what? There's really no price difference between a house next to bakery, house next to a car repair shop or a house next to just other houses.
      - forum_ghost 4y ago
        You just live in a mixed use zone and think the entire world is like that. What’s next, I can build an iron smelting plant in my European shoebox of a house too?
- goodpoint 4y ago
  > why do they want this particular lifestyle to be forced on everyone? That's what car culture does.
- enragedcacti 4y ago
  Austin is the 11th largest city in the US by population, of course it doesn't fit a model of over-expansion. In what world is that representative of the type of city or town that Strong Towns is talking about? You should engage with the arguments they are actually making e.g. Lafayette, Louisiana: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason... TL;DR > The median household income in Lafayette is $41,000. With the wealth that has been created by all this infrastructure investment, a median family living in the median house would need to have their city taxes go from $1,500 per year to $9,200 per year. To just take care of what they now have, one out of every five dollars this family makes would need to go to fixing roads, ditches and pipes. That will never happen.
  - forum_ghost 4y ago
    Austin has 3x higher prop tax rates than Lafayette. El Paso 4x higher. If only talk about their cherry-picked examples, so bankrupt cities go bankrupt? News at 11. Austin is a good counter example. It’s large and spread out, not much density. It’s just got 3-4x higher property taxes and highly productive economically.
    - enragedcacti 4y ago
      > It’s just got 3-4x higher property taxes and highly productive economically My point is that Austin is cherry-picked. If we need a huge city with a dense urban center, high property taxes, and high economic productivity to prove low density suburban development is viable then maybe we still have a problem. If we broke out Austin into smaller sections we would likely find large portions of the city would be completely unable to sustain themselves. Just because the urban portion can out-fund the problem (for now?) doesn't mean there isn't a fundamental issue. For every Austin there are dozens of Lafayettes. I can think of a dozen towns near me that have similar size, density, and tax bases and who are almost certainly running a budget that doesn't account for long term liabilities (which is how publicly traded companies in America are mandated to do their accounting, for example). You can look at their case studies[1] for different types of developments and you can look at municipal budgets and see that it doesn't line up, we just haven't been around long enough to see what happens when the party stops. [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2011/6/14/the-growth-ponzi-scheme-part-2.html https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2011/6/14/the-growth-pon...
gumby 4y ago
> They have a good YouTube channel but you’d have to watch a bit to get an idea. Or you could just click on the blog header and read its “about” statement, which would only take a couple of minutes.

forum_ghost 4y ago

wolverine876 4y ago
> why do they want this particular lifestyle to be forced on everyone? I don't know of any sign that anything is being forced. If you aren't convinced by it, don't vote for it.
Gigachad 4y ago
By "this particular lifestyle" he largely means not designing residential streets like highways where thousands are killed and the response is simply "Oh well, accidents happen"
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- forum_ghost 4y ago
  More people are killed in dense cities.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Not sure how this relates at all to the context. The author of Strong Towns is against engineering design which enables drivers to drive faster at the cost of everyone else's safety. By making roads wider, clearing trees from the edges, rounding out turns, etc, it naturally pushes drivers to drive faster regardless of what the listed speed limit is. So while speeding drivers and drink drivers are at fault, the engineers who designed a world where they can go as fast as possible are at an even greater fault. Placing highway style roads in residential areas is killing people.
  - Hamuko 4y ago
    In total or per capita? Do you have links to the data?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
zejn 4y ago
> why do they want this particular lifestyle to be forced on everyone? You mean why is everyone forced to drive a car to a nearest shop or bakery? I am perplexed too. As an European, I find it insane there is an organisation (HOA & zoning) that puts all sorts of limits up and prevents shops being put up in your suburban neighborhoods.
- forum_ghost 4y ago
  You can walk too. 15 min walk or 1 minute drive. Nobody is forced to do anything, and for the longest time I’ve lived in suburbia without a car. who drives for groceries? it’s a waste of time. I get everything delivered. But, as a European, are you not surprised your government also imposes all sorts of regulations on your European housing? Just like the elected municipal government imposing zoning…in every European city too? You made it sound like anyone can just do whatever in Europe. Except cookies and GDPR, and all sorts of other regulations from shoes to how bad circulation in your house must be to compensate for your silly energy politics. Not everywhere has an HOA. The reason for uniform standard is so that I don’t setup a crackden next to your house and devalue your largest asset by half a million dollars. Pretty sure 10 annual European salaries is just pocket change to you and is of no consequence.
  - zejn 4y ago
    Yeah, almost anyone can do anything where I live. People set up car repair shops, computer repair services and whatever else you can think of in their garages, because you know what - doing stuff in your garage actually lowers the bar to start a business. And thru streets limited to 30kph are actually a very nice route for cycling. And you know what? There's really no price difference between a house next to bakery, house next to a car repair shop or a house next to just other houses.
    - forum_ghost 4y ago
      You just live in a mixed use zone and think the entire world is like that. What’s next, I can build an iron smelting plant in my European shoebox of a house too?
goodpoint 4y ago
> why do they want this particular lifestyle to be forced on everyone? That's what car culture does.
enragedcacti 4y ago
Austin is the 11th largest city in the US by population, of course it doesn't fit a model of over-expansion. In what world is that representative of the type of city or town that Strong Towns is talking about? You should engage with the arguments they are actually making e.g. Lafayette, Louisiana: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason... TL;DR > The median household income in Lafayette is $41,000. With the wealth that has been created by all this infrastructure investment, a median family living in the median house would need to have their city taxes go from $1,500 per year to $9,200 per year. To just take care of what they now have, one out of every five dollars this family makes would need to go to fixing roads, ditches and pipes. That will never happen.
- forum_ghost 4y ago
  Austin has 3x higher prop tax rates than Lafayette. El Paso 4x higher. If only talk about their cherry-picked examples, so bankrupt cities go bankrupt? News at 11. Austin is a good counter example. It’s large and spread out, not much density. It’s just got 3-4x higher property taxes and highly productive economically.
  - enragedcacti 4y ago
    > It’s just got 3-4x higher property taxes and highly productive economically My point is that Austin is cherry-picked. If we need a huge city with a dense urban center, high property taxes, and high economic productivity to prove low density suburban development is viable then maybe we still have a problem. If we broke out Austin into smaller sections we would likely find large portions of the city would be completely unable to sustain themselves. Just because the urban portion can out-fund the problem (for now?) doesn't mean there isn't a fundamental issue. For every Austin there are dozens of Lafayettes. I can think of a dozen towns near me that have similar size, density, and tax bases and who are almost certainly running a budget that doesn't account for long term liabilities (which is how publicly traded companies in America are mandated to do their accounting, for example). You can look at their case studies[1] for different types of developments and you can look at municipal budgets and see that it doesn't line up, we just haven't been around long enough to see what happens when the party stops. [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2011/6/14/the-growth-ponzi-scheme-part-2.html https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2011/6/14/the-growth-pon...

gumby 4y ago

> They have a good YouTube channel but you’d have to watch a bit to get an idea. Or you could just click on the blog header and read its “about” statement, which would only take a couple of minutes.