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People are happier in a walkable neighborhood: the US community that banned cars
- JSavageOne 3y agoI'm a huge fan of walkable cities (generally the norm outside the U.S) but the article doesn't actually any good pictures of the neighborhood, and the few pictures look terrible.
- WillPostForFood 3y agoAlso the data in the article that supports the headline that "People are happier" is a quote from the developer.
- anonyfox 3y agofrom a european perspective: thats so blatantly obvious, I am kinda baffled that this is even news :-( isn't the "third place" concept not widely known/accepted? (1st place: work, 2nd place: home, 3rd place: communal spaces) The availability/quality of these 3rd places _directly_ correlates with QoL/happiness of people. I would get severe depression when I only swap between home/work/car, thats not a life, thats surviving, in isolation.
- HPsquared 3y agoI think a lot of people in the US see the communal spaces as a lost cause.
- bombcar 3y agoI think a lot of people in the US refuse to see as "communal spaces" what lots of other people in the US use as their communal spaces.
- acabal 3y agoI think most people in the suburban US have no idea what a public, car-free, communal space where people can casually gather without buying something even is. At this point, entire generations have grown up in unwalkable suburban life, using cars as the only mode of getting from point A to point B from the day they were born, with a strip mall as the only place to go - and even then only if you have to run an errand or get the occasional meal out. Having been been isolated from a real third space like public plazas since probably the 60s or 70s, it's no surprise that today's suburban generation views them with suspicion, confusion, and disdain. They like their strip malls just fine thank you very much, and anyway, how would they park their car?
- PopAlongKid 3y ago> most people in the suburban US have no idea what a public, car-free, communal space where people can casually gather without buying something even is. They all know what a park/playground is
- acabal 3y agoPlaygrounds require you to have children with you - for example I don't think it would be socially acceptable for a group of unaccompanied adults to show up to a playground and sip some beers while they chat amongst themselves, like you might do in a public plaza in Europe. Municipal parks, like the kind you can find in Savannah GA, are nice third spaces. But I think there are very few such parks in suburban America that are not also mostly playgrounds. I would not count nature reserves as real third spaces.
- mcpackieh 3y agoMost parks with playgrounds in America are, by area, 90% park and 10% playground. Or something roughly like that; the playgrounds are designated areas tucked away into some corner of the parks. Except you're probably not allowed to drink beer there anyway, because a law against drinking in the park provides a convenient excuse to keep the park clear of homeless so everybody else can enjoy it.
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- oldpersonintx 3y ago? we have public open spaces as large as some EU nations feel free to tally up parkland in North America by acreage vs the EU...
- mcpackieh 3y agoI think he means communal spaces in densely populated urban areas, not national parks and forests that are remote enough to keep most of the antisocial scum away. Take for instance, Pioneer Square in Seattle. If you look at the structure of the parks, buildings, sidewalks and streets it should be very nice. Lots of nice trees, wide sidewalks and it's pretty flat and easy to walk around. But in reality it's filled with awful people which ruins it.
- panzagl 3y agoMostly because we can't drink there.
- et-al 3y agoThat's because they don't turn a profit, or enough of it to justify the rent. American third spaces used to be bowling alleys, community centers, and Elks / Masonic Lodges. There's a shift away from those and now our third spaces are gyms, McDonald's, and malls. Wherever old people congregate is a de facto third space. https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-mcdonalds-old-people-police-20140115-story.html https://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-mcdonalds-old-p... https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/mall-stars/406192/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/mall-st...
- xyzelement 3y agoWhat does this mean? I recently moved from NYC to a near-suburb. My town has parks, a library, a band-shell, a town pool, a few synagogues and churches, etc. Unlike NYC living, I actually know the people I run into in these places. This seems pretty typical for small towns - what are Americans missing out on in terms of communal spaces, in your opinion?
- throwawa14223 3y ago3rd places have been politically co-oped. The best we can do is defund them.
- wing-_-nuts 3y agoNot coopted, privatized. There are surprisingly few places one can go in the US without the expectation of spending money
- huytersd 3y agoThat’s not what the GP is talking about. It’s some right wing talking point about how libraries have books about minorities.
- throwawa14223 3y agoIn my area it is usually the right being disruptive but it isn't wholly unique to the right.
- throwawa14223 3y agoPeople have a strong preference for privatized spaces because truly public spaces are unfit for purpose. A coffee shop has a right to kick out protesters that a town square is lacking, as one of many examples. People value that lack of disruption in a very noticeable way.
- standardUser 3y agoIn most of the world, most of the time, people peacefully coexist in public places with little or no disruption. If a person insists on zero disruption, they likely will avoid shared spaces all together, since even shared private spaces can't provide protection from all disruption all of the time.
- pyuser583 3y agoYep. California Courts ruled there is a right to defecate on the street in public. Why deal with that when coffee costs $5?
- juliend2 3y agoThanks for mentionning it. I just found this interesting wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place This is not common concept to me neither.
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- lm28469 3y ago[flagged]
- avgcorrection 3y ago> Or you know, we had different lives and it made us have different opinions. They said “from a European perspective”. A Minnesotan would probably get upset if a Floridian said that living in a humid, tropical climate was the American experience (directly or indirectly).
- lm28469 3y ago> They said “from a European perspective”. And so what ? As if being born and raised in Paris would be the same as bumfuck nowhere Poland The EU is nowhere close to homogenous, there are more differences between Spain and Slovakia than between any two US state
- avgcorrection 3y agoExactly.
- JWLong 3y agoOkay. Here is similar propaganda from an American source https://youtu.be/tI3kkk2JdoI?si=HP0eaph7OnWPPFXB https://youtu.be/tI3kkk2JdoI?si=HP0eaph7OnWPPFXB
- pjc50 3y agoClassic internet-culture comment, telling someone their own lived experience is propaganda.
- throwbadubadu 3y agoThing is there are enough people who lived at several places and have real experiences and funded opinions.. some say there exist even people who do this kind of objective studies, etc. Crazy world! No need to stick and believe in bubbles, it seems.
- Kalium 3y agoThe issue with third spaces in the US is making and keeping them fit for purpose. When they tend to be commercialized, squatted on, or otherwise put to exclusive use they are often no longer useful third spaces. What we tend to have is third spaces that are policed in some manner. Often by commerce, as that does a pretty good job of keeping away those considered undesirable without literally calling police. Some call this privatization, which is accurate but overlooks that the money-based gating of access is a key feature.
- oceanplexian 3y agoI live in an admittedly more rural part of the USA but one of the things I love doing is hopping in my Jeep and going out into the many thousands of miles of off-road wilderness to camp, go shooting, or go for a hike, where more often than not I never have to interact with another human being. My "quality of life" is 1000% better than if I required a crowded train to take me to an urban "communal space" in order to enjoy nature.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoMove to Ottawa Canada to get the best of both works. Gatineau Park, which contains hundreds of kilometers of wilderness trails is 3 miles from the Parliament buildings in downtown Ottawa, population 1 million. You'll meet people at the trail head but it's easy to hike 20 km without seeing another. https://www.google.com/search?q=gatineau+park&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=gatineau+park&tbm=isch
- giraffe_lady 3y agoIf you work a "normal" job eg one that requires proximity to people this is basically a role play lifestyle. Subsidized by the cheap gas and roads that make personal vehicle use affordable. We'd all love to cut out to nature at will, and we should build infrastructure that does allow us all to.
- conjecTech 3y agoThat is not the alternative being discussed here. 80% of the US population is urban. We could not undo that without a huge degradation is quality of life. Cities are incredible engines for wealth creation. The alternative more or less imposed by law is suburbs that don't have access to communal space or nature.
- xyzelement 3y ago// The alternative more or less imposed by law What do you mean imposed by law?
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- 98codes 3y agoThis isn't news, it's a press release, complete with CEO glamour shot.
- epistasis 3y agoAgreed that it's a press release, but as somebody who desperately wants this, I'm very glad to see it.
- sershe 3y agoHow does the concept of the 3rd place combine with walkability? I actually am not a particular fan of most 3rd places, but ok, I used to love to pop out to play soccer outside of my flat, or walk to a local bar for board games, but on the other hand there was no escape if I wanted to open a window in summer and a loud soccer game was going on, or if there was a late night party at the bar. These days, I like climbing so (in urban context) I drive to the gym, and I drive to a library (or take an uber/sometimes bus to a bar) if I want to play boardgames. I still have the 3rd places, but I don't have to live next to them.
- jononomo 3y agoThis is why I prefer the East Coast of the US to the West Coast -- many cities on the East Coast matured before the dominance of the automobile, which makes them slightly more walkable. The West Coast is just car culture down to it's bones. Even on the East Coast, however, people will drive 50 MPH down tree-lined residential streets, such as the one I currently live on in Lancaster, PA, and there are plenty of people here who drive massive pickup trucks that never seem to be picking up anything.
- slothtrop 3y agoIt's ironic to me because it flies in the face of their politics.
- cafard 3y agoWhose politics, or which politics? According to Wikipedia, Trump took 57% of the vote in Lancaster County in 2020.
- plandis 3y agoJust because the west coast is more liberal doesn’t mean they can easily undo hundreds of years of existing infrastructure.
- slothtrop 3y agoAll they need is zoning reform and the market will do the rest.
- didgeoridoo 3y agoAt 170M development cost for 1,000 residents, a break-even point of $170k per resident seems quite high for Phoenix. This unfortunately looks like a luxury product. Hopefully future costs come way down as they figure out the formula and can make this accessible to more people, as it’s definitely a much more human-scale, healthy, and pleasant way to live.
- bombcar 3y agoIt's basically an apartment complex, smack-dab in the middle of the city. They just don't have parking (and I am suspicious that this will eventually cause an issue, but we'll see).
- jononomo 3y agoYeah, living without a car is definitely a luxury lifestyle. It's funny how the tables have turned and a relying on a car is now a sign of poverty.
- didgeoridoo 3y agoThere may be a cultural component. A few very poor 1st-generation immigrant Dominican and Cambodian communities near me are actually super walkable (e.g. grocery store and schools within 10-15 min walk). Same with the much richer historic downtown. It seems that the white and 2nd+ generation Hispanic upwardly-mobile middle classes actually have the most car-bound lifestyle around here. Maybe being able to afford an isolated yet stroad-surrounded single-family home is kind of a trap in the long run.
- mym1990 3y agoWith a McKinsey and startup background I would almost guarantee he is not shooting for the more affordable end of the stick.
- digdugdirk 3y agoNot particularly. Large apartment buildings would be ~1/4 that cost, and this consists of much more infrastructure that would need to be built. Seems like a reasonable cost for something that would have much better opportunities for extra value generation (shops, activities, etc) for the development itself.
- bfeynman 3y agotruly dystopian to live in a VC backed neighborhood where you don't own anything... Maybe if you were recent graduate for a few years. The whole idea of not needing a car is also not even that exciting. You don't exist in a vacuum in your tiny neighborhood in a larger city, you still probably need to get to work, US does not build good enough public transportation especially in these less dense cities. If you want to get out anywhere else in city or leave you'd probably want or need a car. Most people who live in NYC live close to people and surprise also do not need cars.
- Swenrekcah 3y agoThe idea of a 'car-free lifestyle' is not about never needing a car. It is about not going absolutely everywhere in a car. It's more a freedom from a car-dependance, than it is about being rid of a car altogether (although many do that).
- dingnuts 3y agoIt seriously depends on who you talk to. Places like r/fuckcars do not give the same impression as your comment. On that topic, I immediately discard the opinion of anyone who uses the word "stroad"
- Swenrekcah 3y agoI don't know r/fuckcars but I can imagine the tiny fraction of people who frequent there don't like cars. And the tiny fraction of a fraction of those that post and comment there dislike cars even more. I don't think that view should become the basis for anyone's understanding of people's general view. It is sort of like browsing r/qanon and thinking that's conservatism. > On that topic, I immediately discard the opinion of anyone who uses the word "stroad" That's not a great way to approach conversation.
- Mawr 3y agoIsn't a "stroad" just a name for a street designed like a road? Is it inherently a negative word or does it just seem that way due to the anti-car context in which it typically appears?
- nologic01 3y ago> car-free neighborhood built from scratch I am not sure the "building from scratch" approach can really move the needle in terms of livable and sustainable urban environments. Like, how many centuries before natural replacement rates would achieve a transition? The key challenge much of the world is facing (certainly the most polluting part of the world) is to rehabilitate the vast numbers of existing housing stock, and reinvent better uses of the existing urban layouts as people are stuck with them. An exception where such green-field ideas could have impact would be in the context of developing world urbanization (i.e., how not to do the same mistakes others did) but there other considerations (cost) enter the discussion.
- crabmusket 3y agoI'm reading Jane Jacobs right now- she's excellent broadly, but one specific thing she argues for that I found really surprising is a diversity in the age of buildings. It's one way to make possible the diversity of uses and financial needs that are an aspect of vibrant neighbourhoods. In her analysis, older buildings tend to have paid off their capital costs.
- bombcar 3y agoThis is across-the-board important - because you can rarely "build new" what poorer people need. For example, nobody can "build used cars" - you need a vibrant car market that has used cars available at price points that others can afford. Same thing applies to houses; you can't "build cheap housing" directly - you build new housing and the older housing decreases in price. Which is why I have no problem with a brand new apartment building being built and having a luxury bent, even though it might be built on top of a walmart or something; the people living there free up space elsewhere.
- xnx 3y agoSeconding this. Affordable housing mandates are counterproductive. Let developers put property to "the highest and best use". Those who are rich/gullible enough to buy new "luxury" units will benefit by getting the luxury properties from 20 years ago.
- asdajksah2123 3y agoThe car free idea is great, but this looks like it's inevitably gonna turn into a dystopian nightmare since it's actually cut off from the rest of the city. The great thing about good cities is that they make it easy to meet people, but they're also decently large so there are enough sub communities that you aren't forced to conform entirely because you might otherwise get kicked out of the only community available to you. This is a village problem (although villages being far less dense make it easier to hide the non conformist stuff you might be up to). This development combines the worst of both worlds. It's too small and cut off from the rest of Phoenix to give residents access to a large set of sub communities, and it's too dense to keep your stuff to yourself.
- NeoTar 3y agoHopefully developments like this will encourage the provision of good public transport. Ideally they would be built around transport hubs. A lot of the outer London suburbs originated as basically railways stops in fields, where the suburb grew around the station.
- nightski 3y agoPublic transport is so inconvenient, even in the best cities. Your life revolves around transportation schedules. We walk several miles in our neighborhood every day. Yet we love the freedom a car gives us.
- ZekeSulastin 3y agoThat’s why you ideally have a city with a good public transportation schedule - it’s not like having a car makes your transit planning immune to external factors anyways.
- hef19898 3y agoBecause looking for a parking place is so much better... There are places where a car is nice, or even necessary (sports requiring large equipment for example, trips with the family), and then there is over using cars and building cities that require cars even if it can be done differently.
- Racing0461 3y agoCuldesac seems like just an apartment complex. Of course i'm happy too being able to walk from my bedroom to the kitchen instead of taking the car. What happens when someone needs to go get groceries at a walmart? Or go to a la fitness? (i'm using brand names on purpose instead of grocery or gym since a "local bodega" that could be able to fit in the complex would unlikely have what i need). Merely having a checkbox saying that thing exists within the 15 min radius isn't enough. tbh i just don't see high quality of life coupled with car-free happening in the USA due to how big it is.
- bombcar 3y agoHigh QoL car-free or car-reduced is perfectly possible in the USA, but it usually involves living in a more semi-rural area (a small town of 8-15k) - because by definition those are small enough to walk across.
- Racing0461 3y agoYeah its possible but you'll have to give up freedom. We already have "15 min cities", it's called a military base. Everything is supplied to you but you don't really have any choice. I wouldn't call those places walkable. 15 mins is 1.5 mile radius.
- runnr_az 3y agoWorth noting - we just survived the hottest summer on record in PHX. Even by our standards, insanely brutal. No fun waiting for the bus in 115
- convolvatron 3y agoI live off a street that put up barriers during covid to radically slow down car traffic, and its stayed that way. People still can get cars in and out to park, and delivery vans, contractors and trash pickup all still work fine. But no one uses that street as a throughway because it just takes too long. Because that street is filled with people jogging, taking sunset walks, and children playing. People sitting on chairs in the shade talking. We're supposed to reject this because we need to support the freedom for people to barrel down residential roads.
- plandis 3y agoThis seems like you reduced traffic from your own street for your own benefit which presumably comes at the cost of some other street with more traffic which will not benefit people that live there.
- convolvatron 3y agowell, sure, nearby there are roads where people drive 45 and they're really difficult to cross. they were already there.
- plandis 3y ago> well, sure, nearby there are roads where people drive 45 and they're really difficult to cross. they were already there. That begs the question of why people were driving down the residential road if there was a faster more efficient road available? In my personal experience this has happened in my neighborhood. For context there are two main roads get congested at rush hour so drivers take residential roads. Some of the residential roads had speed bumps/the zigzagging blocks to slow traffic added during Covid. This caused drivers to divert more traffic to the residential roads where there are no road impediments. Getting road impediments on residential roads requires money or political clout to get the city to do it so it’s only on the roads with really nice homes around me that have them in place.
- hprotagonist 3y agothis is hardly the first. i know of a cohousing nonprofit that did this in central MA in 2007: big parking lot down at the end of the drive, then it’s about 35 houses with footpaths and green space and common areas and whatnot all built together; motor vehicles are not permitted. it’s a nice place! the biggest thing i notice is that there are a few packs of kids running around all the time, and nobody has to worry about anyone getting hit by a car.
- lasermike026 3y agoI agree 1000%. The sooner we ditch cars the better. We can do it. Most Americans don't want to do but they don't know what is good for them.
- dark-star 3y agoI wonder what you are supposed to do when you have bigger errands to run. Buying groceries for a family for whole week, get new furniture, going on vacation trip, etc. I mean, yeah, it's great that you have everything necessary within walking distance, but sometimes you simply need to make larger trips... I feel like there should be some kind of middle-ground...
- ZekeSulastin 3y agoPart of the implication is that your habits would change with different transportation - for example a fairly common response about groceries is buying them in smaller quantities every few days at the (likely smaller and/or more specialized) grocer convenient to your home or transit stop; renting a truck or cargo van to self move furniture as needed if you can’t get it professionally moved (which probably isn’t a bad idea even if you do primarily use a car!); renting a car for a road trip or being able to use transit to get there instead; that kind of thing.
- dark-star 3y agoThe issue is that habits only change so much, because people are reluctant to give up all of the convenience of personal transportation just for the sake of "going car-free". For example, not havig a car is fine until your place of work is 10km out and using public transportation takes 1h whereas driving by car takes 10 minutes. Taking a bike or e-bike works, of course, unless it's raining or snowing or stormy, in which case you really want a fully enclosed (and heated) ride. I'm sure you can find some "but in that case just do X" for all those cases, but the point still stands that all these issues only exist because you ditched the car, even if it's just a small electric one. Designing a city/suburb/community that outright bans cars (by not providing any parking spaces) only works for a very small minority of the population
- mym1990 3y agoThis seems plausible to me, but the principle holds here that correlation is not causation. "People are happier and healthier, and even wealthier when they’re living in a walkable neighborhood." From my experience(so sample size 1), walkable neighborhoods in the US are usually not the affordable ones. Banning cars seems like a bad design...just design cities where cars are de-incentivized(small lanes, less parking, high fees, special permits, whatever) and provide some infrastructure for those that really need them.
- bombcar 3y agoWealthier people are happier, build thing that can only be used by wealthy people - voila! A happiness machine! Public transit takes decades to take hold - because you have to build the lines and then wait for the density to increase around them. If you try to go the other way, the people have to use cars first and then the car is perpetual. But if you are willing to work those decades, you can finally get something pretty impressive - the San Diego Trolley runs 7.5 min separation on its main line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BDMmgpvIDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BDMmgpvIDk
- mym1990 3y agoPublic transit in the US takes decades because it already starts at a disadvantage vs European/Asian countries due to public perception. It takes decades because the procurement process is mired in red tape. "The best time to start something was yesterday, the 2nd best time is today" can be applied here. If something taking a long time is a deterrent, it will never get done(or take 20 years to get it done).
- alistairSH 3y agoThe average cost of car ownership is somewhere around $10k/year (from AAA). That buys a lot of extra stuff in a higher COL area (but no, it's won't close the entire gap between a rural town and SV or NYC). In addition to cutting car ownerships costs borne by residents, there are savings at the community level. Less road maintenance, less real estate used for parking (and put to better economic use), etc. Very few people want to literally ban cars at neighbrhood/town scale. Most just want them de-emphasized, with certain roads closed/redeveloped for foot/bike/transit.
- xnx 3y agoIronically, self-driving cars are probably the most realistic route to walkable neighborhoods. Self-driving cars are much better road citizens (obeying traffic laws and driving courteously) and don't require any of the parking that human-driving cars do. If the self-driving cars become widespread for human transportation and deliveries, we will be shocked at the amount of free space have that can be put to better use.
- latortuga 3y agoQuestionable take. The best road "citizens" are trams, trains, and subways. They all obey traffic laws and are reliable. Self-driving cars don't exist in any meaningful way. The most realistic route to walkable neighborhoods is good public transit, bike infrastructure, and repealing of restrictive zoning. Walkable neighborhoods already exists all over Europe and work today unlike the pipe dream of self-driving cars.
- xnx 3y agoThere are definitely situations where legacy public transit makes sense, but at up to $1 billion/mile for urban railway that doesn't seem a practical future for the US. I'd love to snap my fingers and make more cities in the US to be like Amsterdam, but there are hundreds of historical, political, and climactic reasons why that is not a feasible path for US cities at this point. The consistent and deliberately boring progress of Waymo has me very optimistic that there is a better way. For tech crowds, the best analogy I have is the switch from dedicated copper to packet-switched networks. We're on the verge of unleashing dramatically more efficient utilization of existing pipes (road infrastructure).
- Racing0461 3y agoWhy is point to point travel blahphemy to urbanists?
- ben_w 3y ago> Self-driving cars don't exist in any meaningful way Agreed, but I wouldn't call them a "pipe dream" — Musk's timelines may all be pipe dreams, but the tech exists (and isn't just from Tesla) and can be used where legislation allows. On the scale of changing urban infrastructure, even if these take another decade, I'd expect them to be widely available faster than new train and subway lines. Bike infrastructure should be an easy win, if only it wasn't for the political aspect that makes many see cyclists as "other". I'd be inclined to vote for people who promise more of it.
- slily 3y agoLiving in New York City, the most walkable city in the US I believe, was the unhappiest I've been in my life, and I know plenty of others who feel the same way. So, there's that.
- mym1990 3y agoI think the fact that it is NYC might have a more outsized effect than it being walkable. Tokyo felt like a very walkable city, whilst still being so densely populated...in conjunction with its amazing public transport it was a wonderful experience.
- slily 3y agoOf course, I prefer walkable environments as well in the right conditions, but the headline implies that they are strictly superior, which isn't true when your society is low-trust and anti-social, and most walkable US city neighborhoods, or at least the ones that are affordable to people who are not very well off, are that. Today I live in a suburban area, and the calm and safety more than make up for the low walkability.
- mym1990 3y agoAbsolutely. Anecdote but yesterday I was at a light on an off-ramp from a highway and a guy got out of the car next to me, and my first reaction was that he might have malicious intent(turned out he was just checking the front of his car because he may have hit something). That was definitely a low-trust moment! Walking around NYC is similar, I am trying to make sure not to get pickpocketed or worse.
- brk 3y agoIn a weird way I've never considered NYC to rank highly on the "walkable" scale. There are too many other people out walking, and too many cross streets where you are constantly waiting to cross. IMO, "walkable city" means not just that you can technically walk to a large number of places, but that you can do so relatively unimpeded.
- robertlagrant 3y ago> his enthusiasm for car-free living was born, he said, from living and traveling in countries such as Hungary, Japan and South Africa I don't know about Hungary or Japan, but South Africa has extremely high car usage. Unless he lived in a very expensive area where you can also work (e.g. Melrose Arch or Parkhurst).
- nostrebored 3y agoI lived without a car in the Western Cape for years. I had a shopping center, day care, and office all within ten minutes of where I stayed. Yes it was expensive, but car free living is going to be expensive until cities actually prioritize it. We've already funded car infrastructure for so long, and urban cores directly subsidize the rest of the area, even in areas where the urban core is poor. It's not absurd to expect a redistribution of funding.
- robertlagrant 3y agoWell, the Western Cape you can do it at a stretch, if you get lifts or don't have friends who live far. Same as Durban; if you live close to everything then it can work, but it's rare. As regards funding: the Gautrain cost a fortune for the number of people it serves! Funding would help, as it would help anything, but I don't know if it's the base problem.
- pjc50 3y agoSouth Africa has fairly low car ownership: https://mg.co.za/motoring/2023-01-31-are-the-days-of-car-ownership-numbered/ https://mg.co.za/motoring/2023-01-31-are-the-days-of-car-own... 12 million cars for 60 million people, about 1/5. By comparison, the US has nine cars for every ten people. I suspect there are a lot of South Africans who are too poor to own a car.
- robertlagrant 3y agoSure; he could've got round in a taxi (as in a small white bus, rather than a private taxi), which a lot of people do, but I wouldn't say that's where car-free living would be fallen in love with. It can be pretty dangerous as they drive on the pavements (or just the side of the road) a lot.
- newsclues 3y agoI don’t drive but I don’t want to live in a city that just bans cars. I want to live in a city built that people choose not to drive because the other options are better, faster and more convenient. Walkable cities need to outcompete the status quo!
- pchristensen 3y agoThis isn't about a city banning cars - it's about a 16 acre development that without garages or street parking. So it's right up your alley - an effort to allow building more types of development to out compete the status quo.
- Gigachad 3y agoI'd happily live in a car free area. Safer, less pollution, easier mobility, quieter, more public space.
- nonameiguess 3y agoI really don't see how this is necessary. I'm in what I would consider a walkable neighborhood right now. In fact, I walk all the time. The biggest reason I still have a car, that I almost never use, is going to medical appointments. Nothing can ever make that walkable when they're 20 miles away and I have to get there during business hours. Before working from home, it was needing to drive to the office, which you can do away with by having metroplex-wide public transit that spans an entire city and its major suburbs. There isn't shit you can do at the neighborhood level. Getting rid of cars is not necessary. New York City is probably the most walkable city in the United States and it's full of cars. But the sidewalks are enormous, consistently open, construction projects are required to provide routes for pedestrians. I grew up in a place in Southern California that was pretty walkable, but most of Southern California is definitely not. The biggest difference wasn't whether or not cars existed. Aside from the sidewalks, it's more that you need to limit the number of arterial roads, their size, and the blocks a vehicle can expect to traverse before hitting a stop. Aside from everything being so far away, the biggest factors preventing people from just going for leisurely strolls without a specific destination is the danger posed by roads that take a long time to get across and cars doing highway speeds on those roads. It worked out where I grew up, even though it was a suburb, because the roads were small, we weren't near any highways, plus I lived on an actual cul de sac, but the end of the road only blocked cars from going further, not pedestrians.
- ipython 3y agoI was curious to see what this looks like, so I clicked the link. All of the pictures in the article totally tell me a different story: it looks like a generic concrete wasteland. The hero picture has an ugly chain link fence and what looks like a parking lot in the foreground. The picture of the interior of the model apartment is nothing more than an arty shot of a door (?) I'll be honest, it looks like a post-apocalyptic brutalist concrete jungle to me. I wanted to like it, but there's no way I would live in this place.
- undersuit 3y agoI think you just don't want to live in Phoenix, Arizona. This area looks lovely compared to the stroads and shopping malls.
- TrueGeek 3y agoBut this is the stroad from Culdesac to the nearest grocery store. Or am I missing something? https://www.google.com/maps/@33.414666,-111.9021188,3a,75y,78.72h,86.13t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sefo9yGdoKKqNrDMvKyGwJg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3Defo9yGdoKKqNrDMvKyGwJg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D182.831%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@33.414666,-111.9021188,3a,75y,7...
- undersuit 3y agoIf you insist on leaving the area that has be set aside for you to enter into the car dominated city I guess. This is the closest grocery store though, inside the neighborhood: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MW4Aj44NVUiBFpEW7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/MW4Aj44NVUiBFpEW7
- TrueGeek 3y agoOh, nice! I missed that.
- ProcNetDev 3y agoThe framing of this story is so weird (and I think meant to trigger conspiracy nuts.) The story of culdesac is about parking not about banning mobility! Parking is insanely expensive to build. The only way the city would let them not build parking was for residents to agree to not own cars. (I think this is a clear 14th amendment violation but thats just me.) Read Henry Garbar's new book for the full story on parking: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/09/1174962751/paved-paradise-examines-how-parking-has-changed-the-american-landscape https://www.npr.org/2023/05/09/1174962751/paved-paradise-exa...
- GenerocUsername 3y agoWouldn't this self select people who are willing to ditch vehicles. Shocking that folks selectively willing to live in an area with specific rules are happier living in the area with specific rules they self selected into. I am all for people being allowed to self select into communities that fit their lifestyles.
- ProcNetDev 3y agoThey ditched personal vehicles. Not owning a car is different than not having mobility. They aren't hermits.
- pjc50 3y agoWell, yes. It's a sort of inhabitable theme park. “It’s positively European, somewhere between Mykonos and Ibiza,”, per article - it does indeed look like all those holiday photos of Mykonos or Corfu. To be clear: this is a compliment. I think it's good that people are allowed to have a variety of living environments and try things every now and again.
- CogitoCogito 3y ago> I think this is a clear 14th amendment violation but thats just me. Care to expand a little? What exactly is a clear violation?
- ProcNetDev 3y ago
- Eumenes 3y agoKeep an eye on Culdesac's career page - I expect positions to be posted in the near future with terms such as: spark, data warehouse, redshift, AI/ML, etc. This experiment will come with mass data mining and analysis to "better serve" its residents. HARD PASS on living in tech corporate controlled "neighborhoods".
- numbers_guy 3y agoCulture and attitude are a billion times more important than city planning when it comes to happy communities. Anyone who has traveled can tell you this. According to all these stupid blog articles from Americans, I have lived in 7 different heavens, but the reality I experienced was markedly different. Just because people live densely packed together does not mean that they will decide to strike up a conversation and get to know each other. It does not mean that there will be five people lending a hand when you need help. Quite the opposite. Americans take for granted their culture, which in these aspects is better than what you will find in many European cities. Actually thinking about it, packing people densely together might even foster a culture that is more insular, cold and hostile than what the typical American is accustomed to.
- purpleblue 3y agoI spent a month in downtown major city this summer and I loved it. I could walk to work, walk my kids to summer camp, we all took the subway and walked sometimes back home. They loved it, and I loved it, despite being on a crowded subway or street car. Just the sheer human interaction and people watching made it so much more enjoyable than spending our time in a car isolated from the rest of the world. Yes, I wasn't accustomed to the noise and the ambulance and police sirens, but overall it was amazing and will try to do it next summer as well.
- iteria 3y agoI was car-less until I was 27. I lived in cities with crappy public transit and great. I even lived in France for a summer. I continue to say that I like towns that are "bikable". I hated being in the heat, the rain, and the snow without a car. It's infinitely more comfortable, but I don't want to _forced_ to drive everywhere. I honestly hated the kind of mixed use that true urban mandates. I like where I live now. A proper town that got eaten by a major city so it's a "suburb". Because it was always meant to be a functional stand alone city, it has everything you'd need within a reasonable walk or bike. You can bike the whole town. I can walk to 3 grocery stores and the basics, but there's a proper (in my opinion) segregation of concerns. I think the town could use a basic bus system for the kids in town and then it would be perfect, but NIMBYs alas. I'd honestly prefer something like this. Which i guess when why I live in a small town. I really prefer driving everywhere. I like space, but I don't like the idea that lacking a car means you starve to death.
- platz 3y agoHow do Emergency Services operate in such a city? How do you make it to the hospital if you can't ride a bike in your current condition?
- angio 3y agoRoads still exists, but they're only used in emergencies or by people with special permits (e.g. disabled). Walkable communities are more dense and with less traffic, so emergency vehicles can reach destination faster in most cases.
- angarg12 3y agoI'm from a Spanish city that for the last few years has invested heavily in infrastructure. One of the most controversial decisions was to pedestrianize big chunks of the old town. Despite concerns about traffic, I have yet to meet a single person who doesn't love the idea. What used to be mazes of roads and cars are now public spaces, filled with parks, art installations or events. People can walk or cycle safely, and bars and cafes have large terraces for people to sit. More cities should give this a try.
- irrational 3y agoAre the people that live in walkable neighborhoods wealthier than the average US citizen? Maybe it’s not the neighborhood but the freedom from financial stress.
- droidist2 3y agoYes, but a huge reason for that is that they're so rare that there are way more people that want to live there than the supply, so they fetch a premium.
- justaman 3y agoYeah, they are called small towns. I've lived in two small towns in the last decade. One had about 5,000 people; a grocery stores, bars, churches, post office, and a small movie theater all within a mile end-to-end. The other, an even smaller town of ~800 had a dollar store(not a real grocery store), old downtown with various small businesses and a vibrant community. All within about a half a mile end-to-end. Small towns have much less wealth than metropolitan areas.
- cbeach 3y agoI wish all anti-motorist activists could go live in this utopian city and be happy, as opposed to lobbying for measures that make my family life more difficult. * My parents live 50 miles away, impossible to reach to on public transport with kids and related paraphernalia * My young kids are in different school/childcare settings requiring us to drive * We do regular large supermarket/DIY shops that cannot be taken on public transport * We explore different rural and coastal areas with our kids that aren't practically reachable by public transport. In the UK, anti-motorist lobbyists have been successful in pushing for punitive measures (e.g. roadblocks AKA "LTN", road narrowing, modal filters, road closures, mass-surveillance-based road charging AKA "ULEZ", absurd blanket 20mph speed limits on inappropriate roads) and we need to push back. Reject propaganda pushed by The Guardian and similar metro-leftie publications. It's deeply unrepresentative and manipulative.
- ThinkBeat 3y agoThis seems extremely premature. According to the article so far 36 people live there. out of the expected 1.000 people who will reside there when the development is finished in 2025 I think you should wait till everyone has moved in, and then give it a year or two, and then write an article about how people are much happier there. I have confidence that results probably would not change that much since the development is custom built and hyped as a car-free place to live. It will attract people who are looking for that and you would think they would be happy. However, you cannot use this as an argument that people in general would be happier with such changes, since you start out with a highly biased sample. I have nothing against walkable neighborhoods. It is nice Personally, I have zero desire to live Phoenix Arizona without a car. I have lived there, and it gets insanely hot during the summer. (a side note: Arizona already has major trouble getting enough water for everyone who lives there already. I dont think expanding the population is sustainable idea)
- pchristensen 3y agoThe population of Arizona is expanding one way or another. But you can see houses with lawns less than a mile from Culdesac, so development like this would bring the per capita water usage down.
- ThinkBeat 3y agoThe expansion has to stop and people need to be encouraged to live somewhere more sustainable both as far as water and energy are concerned. The amount of electricity people need to run AC is enormous. Which might at times be a matter of life or death. When I was there I believe a law was passed that it was illegal to shut off electricity if the temperature was above a certain threshold since some people were not able to handle the heat.
- eppsilon 3y agoHeating cold areas takes a lot of power too, and often it can't be made "green" as easily as electric AC. Also, AZ and most of the mountain west use the vast majority of their water for agriculture that would not be financially sustainable without water made artificially cheap by government subsidies in the form of overbuilt dams/reservoirs. (AZ infamously gave a sweetheart water deal to a company that grew alfalfa exported to Saudi Arabia.)
- AmpsterMan 3y agoAs we discuss this topic, can we keep a few things in mind? Density does not mean Manhattan levels of density. Manhattan has 28,000/km^2, Atlanta has 3,500/km^2. That's an order of magnitude difference. I mean this with all of the respect I can muster. If your first thought is "I prefer to live in a rural space where my nearest neighbor is half a kilometer away" Congratulations. You live in a RURAL place, this does not apply to you. In fact, you should be cheering for denser living spaces. It is not the five-over-ones that are taking over the precious rural landscapes, but the endless sea of concrete and asphalt that is suburban living. To non-North Americans. The standard U.S. and Canada experience of "living" in a city, is you live in a quarter acre of land in a winding suburb where it's at least half a kilometer to get out of your neighborhood onto the local collector. It's going to take you at least another half kilometer to make it to the arterial that takes you to the giant box store that has a bunch of stuff you need. It is impossible for a plurality of people in North America to get the basic necessities without a car, let alone any other niceties.
- _chu1 3y agoWalkable cities and public transportation based cities sound good but require you to trust the others on those streets and vehicles and you usually can't at all if a city is super bad and the city itself has no intentions of fixing this. This is the perspective of an Alabamian who was blown away when an Australian I knew could just walk to a store to get stuff.
- amitkgupta84 3y agoI'm not sure how this article would be any different if Culdesac had written their own "journalistic" article about itself and paid The Guardian to publish it.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y agoPhoenix? out of places, Phoenix? Walkable in 110 degrees? As I remember Phoenix, you could drive 10 miles and not meet a single walker on the street.
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- nunez 3y agoThe mission is cool, and I definitely agree with the assertion in the title. We lived in the suburbs of Houston for two years, and it was terrible. Nothing was walkable. The community had a walking path around a drainage reservoir, but walking to a business? lol, I hope you have two hours to spare. Roads were HUGE and empty but had low speed limits, so most folks sped and drove dangerously. By dangerously, I mean "driving 20+ above limit with one hand on the 12 and scrolling TikTok on the other". Nothing but chain restaurants for miles, with some exceptions here and there. Basically zero sense of community unless you had kids or went to church. Meetup events? social sports leagues? Events around town? lol. We moved into Houston proper this year and it's been unbelievably refreshing. I'm typing this from a bar that's five mins away walking distance. I can run and ride my bike to places that are interesting. Shit, I can run and ride my bike without worrying about a distracted driver mowing me over. There's stuff to do here. There are events for everybody. It's great. I do take issue with one statement: > “We look back nostalgically at college, because it’s the only time most people have lived in a walkable neighborhood." Come on, dudes. The reason why people opine for their college years is because they were younger, didn't have to work, didn't have families and could spend most of their time having fun.
- cbeach 3y agoSeems to be plenty of support for this kind of technocratic authoritarianism on Hacker News, based on the comment voting. Is there an alternative venue similar to HN where people who value freedom and individual liberty can discuss topics like this without getting demoted and silenced?