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> Who cares? If Americans want room to drive and get places and park then let them. It’s terrible for the environment and leads to soulless shitty suburbs rath
by voisin 4y ago
> Who cares? If Americans want room to drive and get places and park then let them.
It’s terrible for the environment and leads to soulless shitty suburbs rather than vibrant, dense neighbourhoods.
- donatj 4y agoHow is having some open space worse for the environment than being tightly packed? That seems baseless
- ripley12 4y agoScenario 1: lots of land dedicated to car storage, people are spread out, commutes are longer and must be done by car Scenario 2: less land dedicated to parking, people live closer together, commutes are shorter and can more often be done by bike/transit/walking It's pretty clear which of those is better for the environment.
- ipaddr 4y agoWhich one is better for your environment? Pollution filled cities or open country air?
- kasey_junk 4y agoParking lots vs tightly packed is a false dichotomy. You could use the parking lot space for parks for instance.
- virgildotcodes 4y agoIf you concentrate all the people into a small area you use less energy for transportation and you use less land overall, it's a lot more efficient.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y agoDense urban life is far more environmentally friendly and efficient in terms of consumption than suburban life.
- LooseMarmoset 4y agoI call shenanigans. Take a look at any dense urban environment: * Concrete and asphalt EVERYWHERE. Ask yourself about the carbon cost of all that concrete - which, in the northeast, requires constant repair. * Street lighting - I mean, you can see dense, urban areas from freaking space - think about all the energy that takes. Is that environmentally friendly and efficient? * Heat islands - Dense, urban areas concentrate so much heat they literally change local weather. * I've got an entire ecosystem of nature right in my back yard. Trees, wildflowers, grass, an array of wildlife, even a small garden growing local food (that the deer and groundhogs are determined to eat). What do dense, urban environments have? A practical monoculture of pigeons and rats?
- xracy 4y agoYou are more disruptive to that environment in your back yard than you would be if you moved to a city. That's exactly the problem. Any asphalt and concrete you add is sustaining 1 person. Any asphalt and concrete in an urban place is sustaining 1000s of people. You burn more fossil fuels in the winter to stay warm. You burn more fossil fuels to provide 1 source of light that only you use. The multiplier you're missing is the number of people we service with the things we're doing in an urban environment.
- throw0101c 4y ago> How is having some open space worse for the environment than being tightly packed? All that open space means things are farther apart and you have to expend more energy to get from Point A to Point B. Less density means more joules per capita for transportation: * https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environmental-footprint-of-transportation/urban-density-energy-consumption/ https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environment... Does it take more energy to drive 5 minutes to the store to pick up some milk and eggs, or to walk (or cycle) 5 minutes to the store? * https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/1/26/14388942/building-energy-use-density https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/1/26/14388942/bu...
- xracy 4y agoI live in a 1600 sqft house on a 5600 sqft lot. If everyone in the US lived in that area, we would take up ~51,423,324 acres (assuming population of 400 million). (~2.7% of the Continental US) If instead, every person took up 800 sqft in an apartment building, and assuming absolutely no vertical building, we would take up ~1/7th of that space (7,346,189 acres, 0.38% of the Continental US). That would free up ~44 Million acres of open space. Every level up you build, you get to increase the amount of open space by A further 6/7ths of the previous value. Now, Admittedly, this is back-of-the-envelope math that doesn't work for all scenarios (farms and whatnot are a separate thing). But pretending that suburbanism is better for "open space" is a load of BS. Urbanism provides more open space.
- ipaddr 4y agoWhat's wrong with using 2.7% for housing? That seems low compared to many countries. Isn't that the American dream?
- cycomanic 4y agoAs the article established you then need to take up a similar amount of space for parking, then add the roads so suddenly you're at 10%. I thought you want open spaces?
- ipaddr 4y agoI want less density which makes neighbourhoods have more open spaces. Stacking everyone together in a small postal stamp area creates more overall land that may be open but it creates less open areas where people live.
- goosedragons 4y agoI dunno about you but I'd rather have one or two parks in an area than a sea of parking lots.
- 4y ago
- DangitBobby 4y agoI like my suburb :)
- jen20 4y agoI'd be a lot more amenable to suburbs if they weren't used to try to enforce puritanical ideals - it's usually impossible to walk to a bar from one (much less to a choice of bars). Some people fix that problem by driving drunk (the stats aren't pretty), but I fix it by living somewhere where there are bars within walking distance, and will not countenance the idea of living in a suburb even if it would cost me 3x less for the same space.
- lotsoweiners 4y agoI live in about the most suburban area imaginable and I could walk to 3 bars in under a mile and probably 3 more in 1 1/2.
- jen20 4y agoWhere is this - sounds perhaps ok!
- LooseMarmoset 4y agoThe words "vibrant, dense neighborhoods" might mean "high crime, low privacy, and high noise" to people who prefer living elsewhere. Lots of people write glowingly about the "gritty, vibrant" streets of 1970s New York City too. Places like that helped spur the move to the suburbs - ask yourself why.
- noelherrick 4y agoPretty sure that was just racism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#United_States