5 ms·

I'm not sure this applies here. Urbanism seems to be taking strong root in the popular imagination today, especially among young people, who are increasingly sa

I'm not sure this applies here. Urbanism seems to be taking strong root in the popular imagination today, especially among young people, who are increasingly saying "screw cars, give us trains and buses and bikes and let us walk around town." And in this matter, the "old fuddy-duddies" are the ones who want to keep the new, aberrant patterns of development and transportation that became dominant during their lives, possibly arguing to hot-swap the ICEs with EVs while keeping all the new highways and sprawling developments, and young people want to revert to the patterns of development from over a century ago with car-free infrastructure.

rayiner 4y ago
> And in this matter, the "old fuddy-duddies" are the ones who want to keep the new, aberrant patterns of development and transportation that became dominant during their lives Even in 1960 80% of households had a car: https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-transport-challenges/household-vehicles-united-states https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-trans.... Even in 1925 it was over half. There isn't a generation in American history where most people lived in a city and took public transit. In the 1920s and 1930s when that was common for people living in cities, half the country lived in rural places.
- hannasanarion 4y ago
  You say this as if the only places that can be walkable are metropolitan downtowns. Small towns and villages used to be pleasant and walkable too. Many had single-line streetcars. There has never been a time in US history where the majority of people living in rural counties were farmers. The USDA estimates that the population of rural counties who actually work in agriculture peaked at around 40% in 1950, it's now more like 14%. Most people in rural areas live in towns, and they shouldn't be forced to own cars either.
  - b3morales 4y ago
    I always liked the idea of - live in a town - keep car in a garage in the town - retrieve car only when you need to go somewhere outside the town
    - rayiner 4y ago
      This is totally impractical at scale. In most small towns, you need to go outside town routinely, and possibly daily. Even if you live and work in town, your kid may go to a high school or your spouse may work one town over. And once everyone is already paying for a car, it doesn't make much sense to ask them to also pay extra taxes for public transport within town.
      - rainsford 4y ago
        Cars cost money to drive, so there is value in not making every trip a car trip even if you needed to buy a car anyways. And that's ignoring the costs of building your town exclusively around car travel. Even in places where you regularly need to use a car, there is value in balancing things so you don't have to use a car every single time you leave your house.
        rayiner 4y ago
        And public transit also costs money to operate and ride. The point is that your proposal doubles up on capital costs.
        rainsford 4y ago
        I don't think there is any free lunch here. The more trips that are made by car, and the longer those trips are, the more the community also needs to invest in capital costs like road and parking infrastructure (which also comes with a non-trivial opportunity cost in downtown areas). And the more you drive the sooner you'll have to replace your car, incurring more frequent capital costs. Of course alternatives aren't free either and sometimes they may not be worth it. But I disagree with the idea that it obviously doesn't make economic sense to invest in any alternatives once you've purchased a car.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    This is pretty ignorant about what "towns" in rural America are like. My wife went to high school in a "city" in Iowa that's big enough to be classified as an "urban area" by the census bureau. The town is still tiny and walkable, but having a car is essential because you can't feasibly organize your life around staying in town. My wife didn't live on any of the surrounding farms, but her best friend did, so without a car she couldn't visit her friend. Half the kids at her high school were from the neighboring town (neither town was big enough to have a high school for themselves), so without cars those kids couldn't visit each other. And kids in the other town couldn't visit the Pizza Ranch or the movie theater, which were in my wife's town. There was no mall or major retailer in town, so on the weekends the kids would cajole some adult or older teenager into driving them to Sioux Falls South Dakota, which is about an hour away. That is also where the nearest Costco is. Back before cars, people in those rural towns were cut off from modern amenities. They made their clothes at home, didn't buy mass market consumer products, etc. Most of them don't want to go back to living like that. And in reality, it wasn't practical to organize life around the town alone even back then. Before cars--even in 1920 more than half of American households had a car--they rode horses to access stores and amenities in neighboring towns.
  - kipchak 4y ago
    I don't quite follow, is everyone who is rural but not a farmer live in a town?
iforgotpassword 4y ago
Aren't you rather confirming that Adams quote? Young people want change, old people want to keep it the way it's always been (in their lifetime).
drstewart 4y ago
>Urbanism seems to be taking strong root in the popular imagination today, especially among young people, That's #2 >And in this matter, the "old fuddy-duddies" are the ones who want to keep the new, aberrant patterns of development and transportation that became dominant during their lives, That's #3

rayiner 4y ago

> And in this matter, the "old fuddy-duddies" are the ones who want to keep the new, aberrant patterns of development and transportation that became dominant during their lives Even in 1960 80% of households had a car: https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-transport-challenges/household-vehicles-united-states https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-trans.... Even in 1925 it was over half. There isn't a generation in American history where most people lived in a city and took public transit. In the 1920s and 1930s when that was common for people living in cities, half the country lived in rural places.

hannasanarion 4y ago
You say this as if the only places that can be walkable are metropolitan downtowns. Small towns and villages used to be pleasant and walkable too. Many had single-line streetcars. There has never been a time in US history where the majority of people living in rural counties were farmers. The USDA estimates that the population of rural counties who actually work in agriculture peaked at around 40% in 1950, it's now more like 14%. Most people in rural areas live in towns, and they shouldn't be forced to own cars either.
- b3morales 4y ago
  I always liked the idea of - live in a town - keep car in a garage in the town - retrieve car only when you need to go somewhere outside the town
  - rayiner 4y ago
    This is totally impractical at scale. In most small towns, you need to go outside town routinely, and possibly daily. Even if you live and work in town, your kid may go to a high school or your spouse may work one town over. And once everyone is already paying for a car, it doesn't make much sense to ask them to also pay extra taxes for public transport within town.
    - rainsford 4y ago
      Cars cost money to drive, so there is value in not making every trip a car trip even if you needed to buy a car anyways. And that's ignoring the costs of building your town exclusively around car travel. Even in places where you regularly need to use a car, there is value in balancing things so you don't have to use a car every single time you leave your house.
      - rayiner 4y ago
        And public transit also costs money to operate and ride. The point is that your proposal doubles up on capital costs.
        rainsford 4y ago
        I don't think there is any free lunch here. The more trips that are made by car, and the longer those trips are, the more the community also needs to invest in capital costs like road and parking infrastructure (which also comes with a non-trivial opportunity cost in downtown areas). And the more you drive the sooner you'll have to replace your car, incurring more frequent capital costs. Of course alternatives aren't free either and sometimes they may not be worth it. But I disagree with the idea that it obviously doesn't make economic sense to invest in any alternatives once you've purchased a car.
- rayiner 4y ago
  This is pretty ignorant about what "towns" in rural America are like. My wife went to high school in a "city" in Iowa that's big enough to be classified as an "urban area" by the census bureau. The town is still tiny and walkable, but having a car is essential because you can't feasibly organize your life around staying in town. My wife didn't live on any of the surrounding farms, but her best friend did, so without a car she couldn't visit her friend. Half the kids at her high school were from the neighboring town (neither town was big enough to have a high school for themselves), so without cars those kids couldn't visit each other. And kids in the other town couldn't visit the Pizza Ranch or the movie theater, which were in my wife's town. There was no mall or major retailer in town, so on the weekends the kids would cajole some adult or older teenager into driving them to Sioux Falls South Dakota, which is about an hour away. That is also where the nearest Costco is. Back before cars, people in those rural towns were cut off from modern amenities. They made their clothes at home, didn't buy mass market consumer products, etc. Most of them don't want to go back to living like that. And in reality, it wasn't practical to organize life around the town alone even back then. Before cars--even in 1920 more than half of American households had a car--they rode horses to access stores and amenities in neighboring towns.
- kipchak 4y ago
  I don't quite follow, is everyone who is rural but not a farmer live in a town?

iforgotpassword 4y ago

Aren't you rather confirming that Adams quote? Young people want change, old people want to keep it the way it's always been (in their lifetime).

drstewart 4y ago

>Urbanism seems to be taking strong root in the popular imagination today, especially among young people, That's #2 >And in this matter, the "old fuddy-duddies" are the ones who want to keep the new, aberrant patterns of development and transportation that became dominant during their lives, That's #3