6 ms·

Potentially controversial take -- we've been making, and continue to make, decisions that in aggregate prioritize private car ownership as the default transport

Potentially controversial take -- we've been making, and continue to make, decisions that in aggregate prioritize private car ownership as the default transportation mode, and this has resulted in limiting our freedom of movement, and will continue to limit it. I have a car, and I enjoy a good road trip. I think cars are fantastic for inter-city transportation, especially with a family. But objectively, I have less practical freedom of movement today when I live in the suburbs than when I was younger and lived in NYC. Having a car is not optional for my current situation -- I cannot run any errands without a car, and can get to very few places of interest without one, and it is outright dangerous to be on foot in many parts. If my car is unavailable to me for whatever reason, I'm very inhibited in my movements. When I lived in the city, by contrast, I had a many options for errands and fun within a 15 minute walk, and most of the rest of city available to me via bus or subway. As cars become increasingly complex - especially as they start to become "connected" -- being car-dependent means our freedom of movement becomes even more vulnerable. My general feeling with this story on kill switches is skepticism that it's a good idea, but I feel that if people are really concerned about freedom of movement, they need to be thinking more broadly about how we've made it so difficult for a person to freely move around with just their own two feet.

cbeach 3y ago
[flagged]
- Clamchop 3y ago
  Not sure where to start with this but the giant leap to dystopian hellscape from the premise of density and transit, of all things, is amusing.
- maxglute 3y ago
  >There will be no carrots. Only sticks. 15 minute city lifestyle IS the carrot. When the zone is nice and convenient, one rarely cares about the sticks. Commerce reorients with land use patterns. Shops do magically relocate towards density. That's the default development pattern pre-car in human history. Pivotting back to less car-centric, walkable mix use doesn't mean no cars but less cars and different (smaller) cars in exchange for transit/pedestrian priority.
  - cbeach 3y ago
    > When the zone is nice and convenient, one rarely cares about the sticks. Trade my fundamental freedoms for the "convenience" of using services within my 15 minute zone, rather than the services I prefer to use, which may be outside the zone? Or will all services be forced to be equally mediocre, so people have no desire to seek services outside their zone?
    - maxglute 3y ago
      IMO fundmental freedom is being able to walk (for free) to get your daily essentials met, instead of requiring transportation that eats up 15% of household income. Nevermind people who can't afford car upkeep. Personal vehicles are more of a cowboy/frontier privilege, which is still important, but doesn't mean settlements/cities need to adapt to car usage patterns to the detriment of pedestrian patterns. Transit linking multiple zones together enables shopping around for quality services. Car owners can still drive. Again this isn't about eliminating cars, but reducing reliance on them, especially for every day living. Yes it can be about settling for whatever is in your default zone, which frequently is enough on the convenience : cost ratio if there's enough density to attract commerce at scale. 15 minute development patterns does not prevent car ownership. Car centric development in NA have inhibitted walkability, while also getting indirectly subsidized by non car owners.
    - ProfessorLayton 3y ago
      Funny you mention fundamental freedoms, when suburbia as we know it today is the consequence of severe government restrictions on everything from lot size and building height to parking.
- klabb3 3y ago
  This reads like a picture painted by an American mindset (apologies if I’m misclassifying). There’s nothing wrong with that – I’m not convinced that it would actually work there (I lived in CA for many years). However, and this is crucial, there are already 15-minute cities. They’ve been around for many hundreds of years, before the US was even founded as a state. They are alive and well, and they come with some compromises that many Americans don’t like, and that’s ok. But they do not rely on surveillance at all (unless you count dense neighborhoods as privacy-invasive in and of itself). It’s also not an ideology, it’s just how cities were constructed before cars.
  - cbeach 3y ago
    “How cities were constructed before cars” From what I understand about city life in the 19th century, I don’t think we should see that as any kind of target state. Cars enable people to visit the countryside and the coast (not just the tiny fraction served by unreliable, expensive and limited public transport service) Some rural areas would be completely disconnected without car ownership. The kind of metropolitan utopianism behind “15 minute cities” paints a picture of a country where everyone and everything outside densely populated urban zones is irrelevant. It’s a gloomy and drab picture, rather like the oppressive and uniform concrete society envisioned by the Soviet Empire.
    - klabb3 3y ago
      > Cars enable people to visit the countryside and the coast No question that cars is an absolute necessity in rural areas, or at the very least a liberator for a decent life. Not to mention transportation of goods through trucks. While I have seen a few city folks who are kind of oblivious around that reality, the vast majority of people, myself included, are talking about how to make an already urban life better for day-to-day life. In those cases both USSR and China just happen to share similar traits to the rest of the world, and are by no means representative. Cities in Europe, south east Asia, Japan etc are not modeled after communism – an ideology that came after most cities were already built. The best path has been by countries who have recognized the importance of road transit in rural areas and for transportation while building ample and effective public transit for popular routes both within and between cities. It’s not a visionary idea - it already exists in most of the developed world.

cbeach 3y ago

[flagged]

Clamchop 3y ago
Not sure where to start with this but the giant leap to dystopian hellscape from the premise of density and transit, of all things, is amusing.
maxglute 3y ago
>There will be no carrots. Only sticks. 15 minute city lifestyle IS the carrot. When the zone is nice and convenient, one rarely cares about the sticks. Commerce reorients with land use patterns. Shops do magically relocate towards density. That's the default development pattern pre-car in human history. Pivotting back to less car-centric, walkable mix use doesn't mean no cars but less cars and different (smaller) cars in exchange for transit/pedestrian priority.
- cbeach 3y ago
  > When the zone is nice and convenient, one rarely cares about the sticks. Trade my fundamental freedoms for the "convenience" of using services within my 15 minute zone, rather than the services I prefer to use, which may be outside the zone? Or will all services be forced to be equally mediocre, so people have no desire to seek services outside their zone?
  - maxglute 3y ago
    IMO fundmental freedom is being able to walk (for free) to get your daily essentials met, instead of requiring transportation that eats up 15% of household income. Nevermind people who can't afford car upkeep. Personal vehicles are more of a cowboy/frontier privilege, which is still important, but doesn't mean settlements/cities need to adapt to car usage patterns to the detriment of pedestrian patterns. Transit linking multiple zones together enables shopping around for quality services. Car owners can still drive. Again this isn't about eliminating cars, but reducing reliance on them, especially for every day living. Yes it can be about settling for whatever is in your default zone, which frequently is enough on the convenience : cost ratio if there's enough density to attract commerce at scale. 15 minute development patterns does not prevent car ownership. Car centric development in NA have inhibitted walkability, while also getting indirectly subsidized by non car owners.
  - ProfessorLayton 3y ago
    Funny you mention fundamental freedoms, when suburbia as we know it today is the consequence of severe government restrictions on everything from lot size and building height to parking.
klabb3 3y ago
This reads like a picture painted by an American mindset (apologies if I’m misclassifying). There’s nothing wrong with that – I’m not convinced that it would actually work there (I lived in CA for many years). However, and this is crucial, there are already 15-minute cities. They’ve been around for many hundreds of years, before the US was even founded as a state. They are alive and well, and they come with some compromises that many Americans don’t like, and that’s ok. But they do not rely on surveillance at all (unless you count dense neighborhoods as privacy-invasive in and of itself). It’s also not an ideology, it’s just how cities were constructed before cars.
- cbeach 3y ago
  “How cities were constructed before cars” From what I understand about city life in the 19th century, I don’t think we should see that as any kind of target state. Cars enable people to visit the countryside and the coast (not just the tiny fraction served by unreliable, expensive and limited public transport service) Some rural areas would be completely disconnected without car ownership. The kind of metropolitan utopianism behind “15 minute cities” paints a picture of a country where everyone and everything outside densely populated urban zones is irrelevant. It’s a gloomy and drab picture, rather like the oppressive and uniform concrete society envisioned by the Soviet Empire.
  - klabb3 3y ago
    > Cars enable people to visit the countryside and the coast No question that cars is an absolute necessity in rural areas, or at the very least a liberator for a decent life. Not to mention transportation of goods through trucks. While I have seen a few city folks who are kind of oblivious around that reality, the vast majority of people, myself included, are talking about how to make an already urban life better for day-to-day life. In those cases both USSR and China just happen to share similar traits to the rest of the world, and are by no means representative. Cities in Europe, south east Asia, Japan etc are not modeled after communism – an ideology that came after most cities were already built. The best path has been by countries who have recognized the importance of road transit in rural areas and for transportation while building ample and effective public transit for popular routes both within and between cities. It’s not a visionary idea - it already exists in most of the developed world.