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Access to friends is probably the biggest reason I prefer dense urban environments. There’s something magical about being able to step out your door and be with

Access to friends is probably the biggest reason I prefer dense urban environments. There’s something magical about being able to step out your door and be within a 10-20 minute walk of close friends or family. It invites casual get togethers like Saturday afternoon coffee or an after work drink. Living an hour or two apart kills these opportunities. I recall walking through Vienna one weeknight evening and being amazed how the Austrians would be gathered around tables just enjoying a drink and conversation. These in-person casual interactions are what life is made of. America’s car centric zoning policy and outright bans of denser types of housing makes this lifestyle all but impossible.

mikrotikker 4y ago
I'd far rather go for a long drive in a comfortable car with scenic views than go to a bar. My closest (in both meanings of the word) friend is three hours away through a scenic mountain pass and when we go there its for an entire weekend. This gives time to help with things like building a shed or swapping an engine in a car.
- throwaway22032 4y ago
  Heh. I live in a city and more and more I feel this. The whole idea behind urbanism seems to be - give up the outdoors, give up hobbies that require tools and space. Go to the bar. Or a "makerspace" where you can have controlled use of someone else's tools. Rent this, rent that, take an uber here and there. It's just so commercialised.
  - tormeh 4y ago
    I get it, to a certain extent. But it’s not quite that simple. Many rural hobbies have pretty intense initial capital outlays, while urban ones tend to have higher running costs. Making tools that end up basically unused in suburban sheds is a big industry.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    Why not both? Except in the city, you can meet your friend and go together in the outdoors instead of 3 hour solo commute time, where there's no real interaction with them.
    - cpursley 4y ago
      The great irony, with well designed dense cities, there’s actually more nature available to go explore. And closer.
  - pantalaimon 4y ago
    I don’t see how having to buy all the tools yourself is any less commercial. In a hackspace you often get to access tools that you wouldn’t want to afford yourself.
    - throwaway22032 4y ago
      With restricted access, at controlled hours, in a shared space subject to the whims of others. You're renting them. There are very few tools I can think of at least woodworking wise that I wouldn't "want" to afford myself. Particularly in the context that an urban home costs hundreds of thousands more than a suburban or rural one. Metalworking or something like that, maybe, I wouldn't know.
      - yunwal 4y ago
        Maybe it’s just me but I quite like the community that’s built up around most makerspaces. People helping each other out, giving classes, showing off their projects. Seems absolutely worth the occasional misplaced tool.
      - abrugsch 4y ago
        So I'll caveat this with "every makerspace is different" so it's definitely a YMMV situation, however hackspaces or makerspaces that have properly gone all in on the "movement" are typically not-for-profit organizations. (not all of them by any means, hence the caveat) but in my experience (as a UK'er with a typical UK family home) very few people can afford the dedicated space even a modest wood workshop requires. Most (average sized) homes here barely have garages, let alone a shed bigger than 6'x 4'. the best I can hope for in those situations is a small collection of hand tools and a rickety folding workbench. In contrast to that I have a local makerspace that has more facilities than I could ever afford to own, along with actual space to DO the work on projects I want to do with <GASP!> actual solid workbenches and fixed tools like pillar drills (press), table saw/router, band saws. and that's just on the wood side. They also have a CNC router, metal and wood lathes, welding kit/space, [FRICKEN] laser cutter, 3D printers, electronics workbench with a 'scope more expensive than my car. A whole host of things I would never be able to afford either the cost or space to host. And they have a phase of membership which permits 247 access (not extra cost, just a bit of familiarity) which by design also means it's a social space, so bringing back to the context of the OP, has meant good friendships are formed as new skills are acquired/shared. Yes it's a monthly cost, but even if I added up the total cost since I've been a member, it doesn't add up to how much even one of the major tools would set me back. Even taking all that into account, it's given me an opportunity to learn things I would never have considered doing on my own. I joined for the 3D printing and stayed for the laser cutting, CNC milling, PCB designing/surface mount soldering, microcontroller learning, welding and friendships.
  - btgeekboy 4y ago
    That's kinda why I like living in the suburbs now. My commute into the city is ~30 by transit. But I have a garage to tinker in (recently added a 3d printer to the workbench), and I store my car there for driving beyond the reach of the transit system. Though I will admit, I do miss being able to walk downstairs to one of many bars, have a few drinks, maybe end up at the local greasy spoon, and walk home. Can't have it all, I suppose.
  - herbst 4y ago
    I live far remotely in a big house and can confirm. Things that came naturally to me: - Way more time in and with nature - New hobbies, lot of space to try things - Plenty of tools. My 'Makerspace' is what takes up most of my house at this point
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    I grew up in the boonies. I didn't care for the outdoors, and in exchange I had no access to computer groups, accelerated learning opportunities, and other nerdy things that I did want. In fact, I would wager a guess that different people like and prioritize different things. Making cities better and healthier and happier will not prevent you from living in the boonies and enjoying ATVs and hunting and nature walks.
- Symbiote 4y ago
  There's plenty of opportunity to live towards the edge of a city (or even in the city) and drive out to the mountains at the weekend. I like hiking, so I often choose to take a train out (sometimes followed by a bus), since then I'm not restricted to walking a circular route. I can also be utterly exhausted (far too tired to drive) on the way home. However, there are a lot more options when driving.
hackernewds 4y ago
> outright bans of denser types of housing makes this lifestyle all but impossible. I'm confused by this take. Most American urban cities are unnecessarily dense - Manhattan, SF, Chicago all squeezed into high rises 1000 occupant buildings.
- oriolid 4y ago
  We must have seen different versions of New York. The one I remember had a few high rises at Manhattan, a lot of lower buildings at the central areas and suburbs of individual houses that extended tens of kilometers to every direction. The difference to for example Hong Kong is huge.
  - dev_daftly 4y ago
    The densest cities in the world have no high-rises.
    - BenFranklin100 4y ago
      Paris is approximately 3X denser than Boston and far more livable.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
sneak 4y ago
[flagged]
- bspammer 4y ago
  I find it hard to believe that there’s some agenda against friends out there. What I find much easier to believe is the auto industry lobbying against public transport and for urban sprawl.
  - btgeekboy 4y ago
    Agree; I'd actually theorize that the parent's comment has cause and effect backwards - when church is something you're compelled to attend, you overcome the heavy lift of having to load the family up into the car, drive, find somewhere to park, and attend services. And once you're there, conveniently, you're surrounded by people with at least one thing in common.
    - watwut 4y ago
      It heavily depends on church. The ones on more radical side really try to isolate you from the outside as much as possible. Not all of them tho.
  - npteljes 4y ago
    >I find it hard to believe that there’s some agenda against friends out there Freedom of assembly / association is not something that's neutral, politically. In certain regimes, it has been explicitly banned to gather in groups. It others, it has been recognized as an essential human right, and law has been made to recognize this. So if you take this into account, there could very well be an agenda. But I don't think so either - I think isolation is just a byproduct currently. But I also think that it's a still a useful one - isolated people are easier to control, and unhappiness drives business.
pmontra 4y ago
My own data point: When I was little all my friends were in a radius of 10 minutes walking time. When I grew up but I was still living with my parents that expanded to about one hour walking or public transport, or bicycle, or car for the very few friends I had outside my city. That didn't change when I moved to my own place. Most of my friends were between 40 and 60 minutes away. The closest ones, within 5 minutes, were new friends I met in places further away. I live outside a city now and my friends are between 40 to 80 minutes away, by car. The number of people I meet is about the same, some are new friends some are old ones.
- LeanderK 4y ago
  I consider everything longer than 15 minutes a lot. 80 minutes away by car is enormous, that's 160 minutes to your friend and back, even 40 minutes is a lot. It just kills spontaneity and increases work. I don't want travel for 40 minutes after an exhausting day, I want to meet a friend in a 5 to 10 minutes time, 20 max, and complain about how stupid my day was while enjoying the last rays of sunshine (at least in the summer...). In 40 minutes I could have already met a friend after 10 minutes and talked 30 minutes and start to head home again!
spaceman_2020 4y ago
At least in my country, no one calls ahead before dropping by to meet you in smaller cities. They just show up and hang out. In the big cities, of course, everyone plans ahead. Which is great for productivity but pretty awful for socializing. Urban culture revolves around productivity, while in smaller towns here, everyone seems happy being non-productive if it means keeping their social life.
- balfirevic 4y ago
  > At least in my country, no one calls ahead before dropping by to meet you in smaller cities. They just show up and hang out. I consider myself pretty sociable, but holly shit that sounds like a nightmare.
  - dinkleberg 4y ago
    This is how things were for the majority of the human timeline. Before mobile phones, people would stop by others homes and just knock and see if they were around.
    - balfirevic 4y ago
      I understand there wasn't much choice before any kind of phones, but I remember my parents using fixed phone line just fine to arrange visits with friends.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - 4gotunameagain 4y ago
    You can always say "I'm busy", and then people go to the next neighbour they like. It's not that bad. Definitely not a system that produces introverted city coders though
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    There are (unmentioned) norms here specific to your friend group. If your friends always come hang on Thursday night, that is about when they will show next week. They probably aren't going to pop by at 6am on Tuesday.
MrOwnPut 4y ago
Or just live in a small town where all of your friends and needs are 5 minutes away. I see no point to overpopulated cities with remote work so prevalent nowadays. Cars aren't the problem, overpopulated cities are. I can walk my town end to end in 15 minutes, there's a coop, grocery store, hospital, entertainment, etc. You can drive to another town if you want, or drive and park anywhere without paying, or walk, or bike. This is common for most small towns that I know of.
- packetlost 4y ago
  I fail to see how overpopulation is the problem when cities like Tokyo exist.
  - MrOwnPut 4y ago
    I fail to see how cars are the problem since cities like Tokyo function with similar road layouts and hardly any pedestrian-only roads. (Source: I'm temporarily living in Tokyo right now) Tokyo is extremely overcrowded, but its services and zoning are somewhat able to handle it, if you're okay with living in a 100sqm box and being squeezed into the train like a sardine and shove through the sidewalks / crossings during rush hour. There's a reason why the Japanese government is always trying to incentivize people to move out to it's rural areas. That being said, American cities cannot even handle a fraction of those population levels. It's not the cars that are the problem, it's the mismanagement of public resources and city planning that leads to lack of GOOD public transportation and zoning. So until those US city leaders can figure out their shit, I'd suggest living in a small town, it has the wishlist everyone is always wanting here. Walkable end-to-end, bikeable, co-ops, fresh air, etc. Luckily we already did the hard work to connect these towns together and we have a LOT of land.
  - tropicalbeach 4y ago
    Have you actually been to Tokyo? It's insanely crowded everywhere. Just walking across intersections and navigating train stations is insane. Hotels are the size of your closet and apartments are the size of your closet. Japan has one of the higher depression rates. If anything this proves high density cities are unhealthy.
dev_daftly 4y ago
It has nothing to do with "car centric" zoning or bans on density. It's poor zoning policies that split sections by use case. Walk through a more "residential" are in Vienna and there are still commercial/restaurants throughout the neighborhood. Do the same in Chicago and besides a few strips of the neighborhood you won't find anything besides residential. The problem is zoning in American cities tend to be more segmented into different sections by use case which creates a different atmosphere.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Well it’s not “nothing to do with” cars or density. The only reason American cities attempted (really, converted) into Euclidean zoning is because cars made it seem easy enough to transit zone to zone to live your daily life. Walking 8 miles to the grocery store is clearly untenable, so never would’ve happened without widespread cars.
  - dev_daftly 4y ago
    But the issue also exists in dense areas of Chicago where things aren't far, they are just laid out in a way that doesn't really allow for the same environment as traditional European cities
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      This type of zoning (Euclidian; zoned by purpose) was very new and only tested in SCOTUS in 1926, suspiciously 18 years after the Model T was introduced. I don’t know if the US pioneered it but it doesn’t seem to have taken hold in Europe til recently too. I’d suspect very old (pre-car) and historically-preserved parts of Chicago, like Boston, DC, and New York, have a much less Euclidian setup.

mikrotikker 4y ago

I'd far rather go for a long drive in a comfortable car with scenic views than go to a bar. My closest (in both meanings of the word) friend is three hours away through a scenic mountain pass and when we go there its for an entire weekend. This gives time to help with things like building a shed or swapping an engine in a car.

throwaway22032 4y ago
Heh. I live in a city and more and more I feel this. The whole idea behind urbanism seems to be - give up the outdoors, give up hobbies that require tools and space. Go to the bar. Or a "makerspace" where you can have controlled use of someone else's tools. Rent this, rent that, take an uber here and there. It's just so commercialised.
- tormeh 4y ago
  I get it, to a certain extent. But it’s not quite that simple. Many rural hobbies have pretty intense initial capital outlays, while urban ones tend to have higher running costs. Making tools that end up basically unused in suburban sheds is a big industry.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  Why not both? Except in the city, you can meet your friend and go together in the outdoors instead of 3 hour solo commute time, where there's no real interaction with them.
  - cpursley 4y ago
    The great irony, with well designed dense cities, there’s actually more nature available to go explore. And closer.
- pantalaimon 4y ago
  I don’t see how having to buy all the tools yourself is any less commercial. In a hackspace you often get to access tools that you wouldn’t want to afford yourself.
  - throwaway22032 4y ago
    With restricted access, at controlled hours, in a shared space subject to the whims of others. You're renting them. There are very few tools I can think of at least woodworking wise that I wouldn't "want" to afford myself. Particularly in the context that an urban home costs hundreds of thousands more than a suburban or rural one. Metalworking or something like that, maybe, I wouldn't know.
    - yunwal 4y ago
      Maybe it’s just me but I quite like the community that’s built up around most makerspaces. People helping each other out, giving classes, showing off their projects. Seems absolutely worth the occasional misplaced tool.
    - abrugsch 4y ago
      So I'll caveat this with "every makerspace is different" so it's definitely a YMMV situation, however hackspaces or makerspaces that have properly gone all in on the "movement" are typically not-for-profit organizations. (not all of them by any means, hence the caveat) but in my experience (as a UK'er with a typical UK family home) very few people can afford the dedicated space even a modest wood workshop requires. Most (average sized) homes here barely have garages, let alone a shed bigger than 6'x 4'. the best I can hope for in those situations is a small collection of hand tools and a rickety folding workbench. In contrast to that I have a local makerspace that has more facilities than I could ever afford to own, along with actual space to DO the work on projects I want to do with <GASP!> actual solid workbenches and fixed tools like pillar drills (press), table saw/router, band saws. and that's just on the wood side. They also have a CNC router, metal and wood lathes, welding kit/space, [FRICKEN] laser cutter, 3D printers, electronics workbench with a 'scope more expensive than my car. A whole host of things I would never be able to afford either the cost or space to host. And they have a phase of membership which permits 247 access (not extra cost, just a bit of familiarity) which by design also means it's a social space, so bringing back to the context of the OP, has meant good friendships are formed as new skills are acquired/shared. Yes it's a monthly cost, but even if I added up the total cost since I've been a member, it doesn't add up to how much even one of the major tools would set me back. Even taking all that into account, it's given me an opportunity to learn things I would never have considered doing on my own. I joined for the 3D printing and stayed for the laser cutting, CNC milling, PCB designing/surface mount soldering, microcontroller learning, welding and friendships.
- btgeekboy 4y ago
  That's kinda why I like living in the suburbs now. My commute into the city is ~30 by transit. But I have a garage to tinker in (recently added a 3d printer to the workbench), and I store my car there for driving beyond the reach of the transit system. Though I will admit, I do miss being able to walk downstairs to one of many bars, have a few drinks, maybe end up at the local greasy spoon, and walk home. Can't have it all, I suppose.
- herbst 4y ago
  I live far remotely in a big house and can confirm. Things that came naturally to me: - Way more time in and with nature - New hobbies, lot of space to try things - Plenty of tools. My 'Makerspace' is what takes up most of my house at this point
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  I grew up in the boonies. I didn't care for the outdoors, and in exchange I had no access to computer groups, accelerated learning opportunities, and other nerdy things that I did want. In fact, I would wager a guess that different people like and prioritize different things. Making cities better and healthier and happier will not prevent you from living in the boonies and enjoying ATVs and hunting and nature walks.
Symbiote 4y ago
There's plenty of opportunity to live towards the edge of a city (or even in the city) and drive out to the mountains at the weekend. I like hiking, so I often choose to take a train out (sometimes followed by a bus), since then I'm not restricted to walking a circular route. I can also be utterly exhausted (far too tired to drive) on the way home. However, there are a lot more options when driving.

hackernewds 4y ago

> outright bans of denser types of housing makes this lifestyle all but impossible. I'm confused by this take. Most American urban cities are unnecessarily dense - Manhattan, SF, Chicago all squeezed into high rises 1000 occupant buildings.

oriolid 4y ago
We must have seen different versions of New York. The one I remember had a few high rises at Manhattan, a lot of lower buildings at the central areas and suburbs of individual houses that extended tens of kilometers to every direction. The difference to for example Hong Kong is huge.
- dev_daftly 4y ago
  The densest cities in the world have no high-rises.
  - BenFranklin100 4y ago
    Paris is approximately 3X denser than Boston and far more livable.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

sneak 4y ago

[flagged]

bspammer 4y ago
I find it hard to believe that there’s some agenda against friends out there. What I find much easier to believe is the auto industry lobbying against public transport and for urban sprawl.
- btgeekboy 4y ago
  Agree; I'd actually theorize that the parent's comment has cause and effect backwards - when church is something you're compelled to attend, you overcome the heavy lift of having to load the family up into the car, drive, find somewhere to park, and attend services. And once you're there, conveniently, you're surrounded by people with at least one thing in common.
  - watwut 4y ago
    It heavily depends on church. The ones on more radical side really try to isolate you from the outside as much as possible. Not all of them tho.
- npteljes 4y ago
  >I find it hard to believe that there’s some agenda against friends out there Freedom of assembly / association is not something that's neutral, politically. In certain regimes, it has been explicitly banned to gather in groups. It others, it has been recognized as an essential human right, and law has been made to recognize this. So if you take this into account, there could very well be an agenda. But I don't think so either - I think isolation is just a byproduct currently. But I also think that it's a still a useful one - isolated people are easier to control, and unhappiness drives business.

pmontra 4y ago

My own data point: When I was little all my friends were in a radius of 10 minutes walking time. When I grew up but I was still living with my parents that expanded to about one hour walking or public transport, or bicycle, or car for the very few friends I had outside my city. That didn't change when I moved to my own place. Most of my friends were between 40 and 60 minutes away. The closest ones, within 5 minutes, were new friends I met in places further away. I live outside a city now and my friends are between 40 to 80 minutes away, by car. The number of people I meet is about the same, some are new friends some are old ones.

LeanderK 4y ago
I consider everything longer than 15 minutes a lot. 80 minutes away by car is enormous, that's 160 minutes to your friend and back, even 40 minutes is a lot. It just kills spontaneity and increases work. I don't want travel for 40 minutes after an exhausting day, I want to meet a friend in a 5 to 10 minutes time, 20 max, and complain about how stupid my day was while enjoying the last rays of sunshine (at least in the summer...). In 40 minutes I could have already met a friend after 10 minutes and talked 30 minutes and start to head home again!

spaceman_2020 4y ago

At least in my country, no one calls ahead before dropping by to meet you in smaller cities. They just show up and hang out. In the big cities, of course, everyone plans ahead. Which is great for productivity but pretty awful for socializing. Urban culture revolves around productivity, while in smaller towns here, everyone seems happy being non-productive if it means keeping their social life.

balfirevic 4y ago
> At least in my country, no one calls ahead before dropping by to meet you in smaller cities. They just show up and hang out. I consider myself pretty sociable, but holly shit that sounds like a nightmare.
- dinkleberg 4y ago
  This is how things were for the majority of the human timeline. Before mobile phones, people would stop by others homes and just knock and see if they were around.
  - balfirevic 4y ago
    I understand there wasn't much choice before any kind of phones, but I remember my parents using fixed phone line just fine to arrange visits with friends.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- 4gotunameagain 4y ago
  You can always say "I'm busy", and then people go to the next neighbour they like. It's not that bad. Definitely not a system that produces introverted city coders though
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  There are (unmentioned) norms here specific to your friend group. If your friends always come hang on Thursday night, that is about when they will show next week. They probably aren't going to pop by at 6am on Tuesday.

MrOwnPut 4y ago

Or just live in a small town where all of your friends and needs are 5 minutes away. I see no point to overpopulated cities with remote work so prevalent nowadays. Cars aren't the problem, overpopulated cities are. I can walk my town end to end in 15 minutes, there's a coop, grocery store, hospital, entertainment, etc. You can drive to another town if you want, or drive and park anywhere without paying, or walk, or bike. This is common for most small towns that I know of.

packetlost 4y ago
I fail to see how overpopulation is the problem when cities like Tokyo exist.
- MrOwnPut 4y ago
  I fail to see how cars are the problem since cities like Tokyo function with similar road layouts and hardly any pedestrian-only roads. (Source: I'm temporarily living in Tokyo right now) Tokyo is extremely overcrowded, but its services and zoning are somewhat able to handle it, if you're okay with living in a 100sqm box and being squeezed into the train like a sardine and shove through the sidewalks / crossings during rush hour. There's a reason why the Japanese government is always trying to incentivize people to move out to it's rural areas. That being said, American cities cannot even handle a fraction of those population levels. It's not the cars that are the problem, it's the mismanagement of public resources and city planning that leads to lack of GOOD public transportation and zoning. So until those US city leaders can figure out their shit, I'd suggest living in a small town, it has the wishlist everyone is always wanting here. Walkable end-to-end, bikeable, co-ops, fresh air, etc. Luckily we already did the hard work to connect these towns together and we have a LOT of land.
- tropicalbeach 4y ago
  Have you actually been to Tokyo? It's insanely crowded everywhere. Just walking across intersections and navigating train stations is insane. Hotels are the size of your closet and apartments are the size of your closet. Japan has one of the higher depression rates. If anything this proves high density cities are unhealthy.

dev_daftly 4y ago

It has nothing to do with "car centric" zoning or bans on density. It's poor zoning policies that split sections by use case. Walk through a more "residential" are in Vienna and there are still commercial/restaurants throughout the neighborhood. Do the same in Chicago and besides a few strips of the neighborhood you won't find anything besides residential. The problem is zoning in American cities tend to be more segmented into different sections by use case which creates a different atmosphere.

ethanbond 4y ago
Well it’s not “nothing to do with” cars or density. The only reason American cities attempted (really, converted) into Euclidean zoning is because cars made it seem easy enough to transit zone to zone to live your daily life. Walking 8 miles to the grocery store is clearly untenable, so never would’ve happened without widespread cars.
- dev_daftly 4y ago
  But the issue also exists in dense areas of Chicago where things aren't far, they are just laid out in a way that doesn't really allow for the same environment as traditional European cities
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    This type of zoning (Euclidian; zoned by purpose) was very new and only tested in SCOTUS in 1926, suspiciously 18 years after the Model T was introduced. I don’t know if the US pioneered it but it doesn’t seem to have taken hold in Europe til recently too. I’d suspect very old (pre-car) and historically-preserved parts of Chicago, like Boston, DC, and New York, have a much less Euclidian setup.