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> What percentage of the US lives in these urban, super dense areas where this is even possible? > 1-2%? >100M people live in the top 10 metropolitan areas in

> What percentage of the US lives in these urban, super dense areas where this is even possible? > 1-2%? >100M people live in the top 10 metropolitan areas in the US (all over 4M people) [1]. Rural people in the US vastly overestimate their own importance. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/183600/population-of-metropolitan-areas-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183600/population-of-met... > Also, weather. Most of the US does not have mild weather like California and has to contend with conditions that make bicycle travel a “fair weather”, novelty activity. You have sen the videos of people in Finnland commuting by bike in winter? Living in a nordic country I can tell you it is easily possible to bike all year round even here.

bequanna 4y ago
Metro area != urban Good luck without a car in pretty much any suburb. Your time has to be worth nothing to make biking or public transit work for your needs. You essentially need to be in a hyper dense, urban area to live without a car. Most Americans have no interest in living like that. > You have sen the videos of people in Finnland commuting by bike in winter? Living in a nordic country I can tell you it is easily possible to bike all year round even here. And I live in MN where biking in the snow would be possible (and fun!), but again, only as a novelty. The percentage of people who would be willing to commute in the manner this is so low you could round it to 0.
- addicted 4y ago
  Most Americans “prefer” that because it’s all they’ve seen. In reality, most Americans prefer European cities over anything they have themselves. Which is a huge reason why they spend tons of money to live in little hotel rooms in the middle of well run European cities. Also, countries like Switzerland, Netherlands, etc have suburbs and excellent mass transit connecting those suburbs. Sure, mass transit isn’t possible in American style suburbs because American style suburbs have literally been designed around cars.

bequanna 4y ago

Metro area != urban Good luck without a car in pretty much any suburb. Your time has to be worth nothing to make biking or public transit work for your needs. You essentially need to be in a hyper dense, urban area to live without a car. Most Americans have no interest in living like that. > You have sen the videos of people in Finnland commuting by bike in winter? Living in a nordic country I can tell you it is easily possible to bike all year round even here. And I live in MN where biking in the snow would be possible (and fun!), but again, only as a novelty. The percentage of people who would be willing to commute in the manner this is so low you could round it to 0.

addicted 4y ago
Most Americans “prefer” that because it’s all they’ve seen. In reality, most Americans prefer European cities over anything they have themselves. Which is a huge reason why they spend tons of money to live in little hotel rooms in the middle of well run European cities. Also, countries like Switzerland, Netherlands, etc have suburbs and excellent mass transit connecting those suburbs. Sure, mass transit isn’t possible in American style suburbs because American style suburbs have literally been designed around cars.