5 ms·

The whole strong cities movement, which has many laudable goals, I think fails in the same way that many public health initiatives do. The proponents always ass

The whole strong cities movement, which has many laudable goals, I think fails in the same way that many public health initiatives do. The proponents always assume they know more than everyone else, and therefore are better than everyone else. Strong town supporters just have this smugness that they are right and everyone else is wrong, and its a big turn off from the movement. The problem is they don't have to convince me, they have to convince the 57% of Americans (from the title), many of whom are not in the online echo chamber about strong towns, It's not that strong towns is wrong, its that their approach is "your whole life is wrong and you're just too stupid to know it", when it should be "we should develop better places for all of us to live". Note that this is more a problem with internet commentators vs the actual source material. It's obviously (to me at least) right. But on the other hand, I'm Canadian, I grew up in a car-dependent suburb. I lived downtown in my city in a walkable neighbourhood, and now I live in the car-dependent suburbs again with my family. I've been to Europe too, the walkable neighbourhoods there are great! But I also like my suburban house. Changing hearts and minds on this will take more than smugness though.

baggy_trough 3y ago
> we should develop better places for all of us to live That still sounds like an assumption that "all" of us will prefer strong towns, which is doubtful. How about: "We should develop some new types of places to live for those who would prefer this new type of place"
deleted 3y ago
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afavour 3y ago
> its that their approach is "your whole life is wrong and you're just too stupid to know it" I'm not sure what you've been reading but I can't say I've ever seen that approach. However, I do agree that the wrong tack is often taken. It's usually "environmental concerns mean we're all going to have to live in dense cities whether we like it or not", which is hardly an appealing take (irrespective of how true or false it is!). Personally I love living in the city with my family. I bike the kids to school in the morning, the city has more museums than I can count, we have a giant park nearby with a zoo, a half dozen playgrounds... it's great. But you're right that you rarely see this kind of appeal actually made.
digging 3y ago
> "your whole life is wrong and you're just too stupid to know it" I generally hear the more convincing "we've been lied to our entire lives and you have been forbidden from experiencing other ways that you could be living, some of which you may prefer."

baggy_trough 3y ago

> we should develop better places for all of us to live That still sounds like an assumption that "all" of us will prefer strong towns, which is doubtful. How about: "We should develop some new types of places to live for those who would prefer this new type of place"

deleted 3y ago

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afavour 3y ago

> its that their approach is "your whole life is wrong and you're just too stupid to know it" I'm not sure what you've been reading but I can't say I've ever seen that approach. However, I do agree that the wrong tack is often taken. It's usually "environmental concerns mean we're all going to have to live in dense cities whether we like it or not", which is hardly an appealing take (irrespective of how true or false it is!). Personally I love living in the city with my family. I bike the kids to school in the morning, the city has more museums than I can count, we have a giant park nearby with a zoo, a half dozen playgrounds... it's great. But you're right that you rarely see this kind of appeal actually made.

digging 3y ago

> "your whole life is wrong and you're just too stupid to know it" I generally hear the more convincing "we've been lied to our entire lives and you have been forbidden from experiencing other ways that you could be living, some of which you may prefer."