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There is nothing new under the sun. Today we have "Things people blame on cars". I've read many Americans that argue that cars are somehow destructive to commu
by turing_complete 4y ago
There is nothing new under the sun. Today we have "Things people blame on cars".
I've read many Americans that argue that cars are somehow destructive to community live. Here in Europe, people in rural areas or small towns are entirely dependend on cars, even more, they love their cars (and rightfully so). Yet, they have healthy communities, live in large houses. Nature is near, history at hand (look, you have a nice, old forest, a lake, and a medieval castle over there!), and the air is clean. On the other hand, in large cities, you might not need a car most of the time and many people don't have one. Still, this does not create vibrant communities where people just spontaneously interact with each other. You just have more things to choose from on Uber eats.
I still like large cities for the sheer amount of interesting people you meet; but the ideal is a small, car-heavy community in the vicinity of a large metropolis. Note: Those communities grew organically, they have a long history, and you can feel it. This makes them different from the two prominent technocratic urban planning fantasies: McMansion suburbs as well as the new car-free "communities".
- bertil 4y agoCars kill someone every three seconds.
- ejb999 4y ago>>Cars kill someone every three seconds. Do you have evidence to back that up? That would imply 10.5 million people are killed by cars each year - I don't buy that. 31557600 seconds in a year, divided by 3 = 10,519,200
- martyvis 4y agoOne every 25 seconds here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
- simongr3dal 4y agobertil seems to be off by an order of magnitude. WHO claims 1.3 million people die from car related injuries every year, 1 person every 25 seconds. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffi...
- sundarurfriend 4y agoOh, I thought they were talking about the fossil fuel (which is still the majority) and the effects of it.
- bertil 4y agoYeah, sorry. My calculator is not good with numbers.
- orwin 4y agoI lived in rural towns most of my life, never owned a car. I wasn't the only one, and i still have friends there whose most used transportation system is bike (either that or tractor). Also buses are great there if you can organize yourself.
- tralarpa 4y ago> Here in Europe, people in rural areas or small towns are entirely dependend on cars My grand-parents lived in a small town (<10k) and never had a car. Walked, bicycled (X) or took the bus, train, or tram. Then, in the 1960s, cars became more popular, shops moved to the city limits to save rent (supermarkets), bus lines closed. The tram was discontinued because it was a "mode of transport of the past". Result: everybody became "entirely dependend on cars". (X) That was in a very hilly town, with simple bikes without gears.
- crooked-v 4y ago> cars are somehow destructive to community live Cars by themselves? No. Car-centric design? Yes. The most obvious place to see this in the US is suburbs designed entirely around cars, where there's often literally nothing but cul-de-sacs and single-family homes for miles and miles and it's nigh-impossible to do anything out of the house without a car.
- _carbyau_ 4y agoExcept, I live in an apartment with my 4 year old. I can take him to the park 10 minutes walk away. But it would be a whole lot easier if he could simply go into the back yard.
- crooked-v 4y agoYou can have backyards without living somewhere car-centric. Plenty of people used to, in fact, until cities went all in on banning or de facto banning new construction of townhouses and duplexes/triplexes as a way to drive out the poor and/or minorities.