4 ms·

I think we can safely say that the suburban experiment (and the car-dependent experiment) have failed completely. I was recently in Taipei. I stayed in New Tai

I think we can safely say that the suburban experiment (and the car-dependent experiment) have failed completely. I was recently in Taipei. I stayed in New Taipei City, which is not the center of town. And yet, within a 10 minute walk there was (1) a very large, beautiful park (2) all the shops, food, barbers, medical clinics, etc you could ever need (3) a metro station. From that station I could get to most anywhere in Taipei & New Taipei, a metro area of 7 million, in under an hour. I could ride it 3 stops and board a high speed train 200 miles away, fully the other end of the country, in less than 90 minutes. In the month I was there, we probably rode transit 150 times, and only one train was ever late. By 4 minutes. What we've done in America is a complete disaster. Instead of being able to simply walk out your front door and get groceries, walk your kid to school, walk to the doctor, walk to the restaurant, we have to get in a car and drive FOR LONGER than the walk!

capitalsigma 4y ago
I mean, the NY transit system will take you pretty much anywhere in an area with a population of 8M. For scale, note that New York State alone is about 4x larger than Taiwan. I agree that having walkable cities is a good thing but it's not like all of the US is one giant suburb, and it's not like the US has anywhere near the density that would be required to justify "high speed rail across the whole country, just an hour away"
- danny_codes 4y ago
  The US is plenty dense for hsr. The population is highly concentrated on a few regions. For example, a single trunk line from Vancouver/Seattle/Portland/SF/LA/SD would cover, what, 40 million people? A similar trunk from Boston through to Florida would cover another 100 million. These are absolute no-brainers. Obviously people going from Boston to Miami may still choose to fly, but all the destinations point to point between will be much faster by rail. The best time to start doing this was 50 years ago, but now is also a good time.
wizofaus 4y ago
Having basic services within a 10-15 minute walk is one thing (and in general shouldn't be hard to achieve with sensible zoning etc.) but it's the trips many of us regularly to get to work, to visit friends/family or access larger shopping centres etc. where there's little choice but to drive that concern me. That people will put up with being stuck in barely-moving peak hour traffic often for hours each day to make such trips really speaks to the poor quality of the alternative options, but seems to me an inevitable consequence of our collective decisions about where to live or work that are based on unrealistic assumptions about the practicalities of always being able to get where you need by car, and that governments will continue to massively prioritise infrastructure projects to support it.
tw98521358 4y ago
The reason the suburban experience is still happening is because the urban government are failed/failing. Inability to manage homeless, drugs, gangs and education force families out of cities and into terrible commutes
- danny_codes 4y ago
  Seems the causation is reversed. Take Section 9 housing. Originally, it was setup for everyone to live in, with the idea that tenants would have the skill to maintain their housing,and local governments would provide funding. However, what happened is that suburbs got built and setup rules so only whites could get loans & move there. The feds dramatically subsidized building these suburbs (billions in roads, sewage, etc), so the buying cost for houses in suburbia was massively low relative to true cost. So the whites moved to the suburbs on the basis of good personal economics (via gov subsidy and cheap credit) and good marketing (suburb developers sold the dream). The suburbs thus became politically powerful (white & somewhat wealthy now, bc of subsidized housing). Suburbs didn't want (and still don't) want to pay for city expenses, but since suburbs are generally part of the same municipality, they could use their political power to cripple inner city services. Which they did. Then the urbanites (mostly not white, bc suburbs where racially zoned) gradually became destitute as businesses couldn't survive without adequate services. And with destitution we see the rise of homelessness, drugs, etc that you rightfully point out. Seems like it's high time to recognize the calamitous mistake and fix it
  - tw98521358 4y ago
    How do you fix it without harming yourself. It’s a prisoners dilemma every person is optimizing for themselves and the individual maximum is burbs. Collective maximum is urban but I see no way to get there in a democratic society. Right now the burbs are able to zone out or otherwise not have to deal with homeless, poverty, subsidized households, and lock in local tax revenue to high earners. As such burbs are the only good individual choice
    - danny_codes 4y ago

capitalsigma 4y ago

I mean, the NY transit system will take you pretty much anywhere in an area with a population of 8M. For scale, note that New York State alone is about 4x larger than Taiwan. I agree that having walkable cities is a good thing but it's not like all of the US is one giant suburb, and it's not like the US has anywhere near the density that would be required to justify "high speed rail across the whole country, just an hour away"

danny_codes 4y ago
The US is plenty dense for hsr. The population is highly concentrated on a few regions. For example, a single trunk line from Vancouver/Seattle/Portland/SF/LA/SD would cover, what, 40 million people? A similar trunk from Boston through to Florida would cover another 100 million. These are absolute no-brainers. Obviously people going from Boston to Miami may still choose to fly, but all the destinations point to point between will be much faster by rail. The best time to start doing this was 50 years ago, but now is also a good time.

wizofaus 4y ago

Having basic services within a 10-15 minute walk is one thing (and in general shouldn't be hard to achieve with sensible zoning etc.) but it's the trips many of us regularly to get to work, to visit friends/family or access larger shopping centres etc. where there's little choice but to drive that concern me. That people will put up with being stuck in barely-moving peak hour traffic often for hours each day to make such trips really speaks to the poor quality of the alternative options, but seems to me an inevitable consequence of our collective decisions about where to live or work that are based on unrealistic assumptions about the practicalities of always being able to get where you need by car, and that governments will continue to massively prioritise infrastructure projects to support it.

tw98521358 4y ago

The reason the suburban experience is still happening is because the urban government are failed/failing. Inability to manage homeless, drugs, gangs and education force families out of cities and into terrible commutes

danny_codes 4y ago
Seems the causation is reversed. Take Section 9 housing. Originally, it was setup for everyone to live in, with the idea that tenants would have the skill to maintain their housing,and local governments would provide funding. However, what happened is that suburbs got built and setup rules so only whites could get loans & move there. The feds dramatically subsidized building these suburbs (billions in roads, sewage, etc), so the buying cost for houses in suburbia was massively low relative to true cost. So the whites moved to the suburbs on the basis of good personal economics (via gov subsidy and cheap credit) and good marketing (suburb developers sold the dream). The suburbs thus became politically powerful (white & somewhat wealthy now, bc of subsidized housing). Suburbs didn't want (and still don't) want to pay for city expenses, but since suburbs are generally part of the same municipality, they could use their political power to cripple inner city services. Which they did. Then the urbanites (mostly not white, bc suburbs where racially zoned) gradually became destitute as businesses couldn't survive without adequate services. And with destitution we see the rise of homelessness, drugs, etc that you rightfully point out. Seems like it's high time to recognize the calamitous mistake and fix it
- tw98521358 4y ago
  How do you fix it without harming yourself. It’s a prisoners dilemma every person is optimizing for themselves and the individual maximum is burbs. Collective maximum is urban but I see no way to get there in a democratic society. Right now the burbs are able to zone out or otherwise not have to deal with homeless, poverty, subsidized households, and lock in local tax revenue to high earners. As such burbs are the only good individual choice
  - danny_codes 4y ago