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I've lived in a number of cities across three continents and I tend to think that the idea of a "car-free" city is a quintessentially North American overreactio

I've lived in a number of cities across three continents and I tend to think that the idea of a "car-free" city is a quintessentially North American overreaction to a quintessentially North American problem. Like yes Wired we know that the suburb and the American commute have some serious downsides and the US leaned way too much into this model during a period of high population growth. However it's not like other approaches to urban planning have no downsides. I personally like the Asian model of high density and mixed use zoning but here are some realities that come with it: noise, more pollution, more construction, less space, commercial usage pushing up land values etc. There is no one size fits all so I tend to think most US cities would benefit from just dialing back the size of some of the suburban wastelands out there, keeping density low to medium and re-zoning to allow certain less intrusive types of businesses. One compact urban core, a low to medium density mixed use ring and a suburban fringe perhaps. Yes people are still going to need to cars in this city but a lot of commutes, shopping trips etc. are likely to get shorter. For somewhere like San Francisco there's probably a great argument for the type of development you see in Taipei or Tokyo where you lean heavily into commuter rail and the train stations become big multi-use complexes and the center(s) of your city. But this is a huge reorganization of people's lives and existing property development that there's going to be a lot of pushback against and it's not all going to be nimbyism.

CharlieDigital 3y ago
> But this is a huge reorganization of people's lives and existing property development that there's going to be a lot of pushback against and it's not all going to be nimbyism If anything, I feel like Taiwan's model should prove that you can do it anywhere precisely because it was already so dense and built up on top of being in an area with very high seismic activity. It's not like they could find a lot of room to build massive stations on the surface. You barely notice the underground MRT stations at all aside from stair arches that pop out of the ground[0]. If they can make it work in a city as dense and populated as Taipei, it feels like it ought to be possible anywhere. And on the contrary, being close to an MRT line tends to drive up the price of housing in the area given it seems a strong selling point for the folks that live and work in the city. I think the real root cause is that US society is not egalitarian enough to make this work. [0] Examples: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JS8WEKhKmiVMGWCF6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/JS8WEKhKmiVMGWCF6, https://maps.app.goo.gl/mXFjKiAQ8Vf47SAG8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/mXFjKiAQ8Vf47SAG8
- safety1st 3y ago
  I can't speak to the history of Taipei specifically, I did visit for a month (loved it) and I currently live in the center of a different Asian megalopolis. I can say a lot of these places became what they are by bulldozing a lot of medium-density shophouses and destroying a lot of local businesses and tightly knit communities that most people including myself would consider really charming places to live. They replaced them with places where far fewer people can afford a space large enough to raise kids comfortably and where everyone around you is a stranger. Now I enjoy the big dense city lifestyle, I like the awesome public transit, I like the massive selection of businesses and services and basically everything, but it's not for everyone and I couldn't see myself raising a family in the middle of it, which eventually if you want your country's population to not collapse, you need people to do somewhere. I think also considering some of the massive redevelopments that have happened in Asia over the years, you would see massive pushback in the US from essentially an individual rights point of view if you were to try to do that.
  - CharlieDigital 3y ago
    It feels like it needs to have the right mix of transit to make it work. Wife and I both agreed that we preferred Kaohsiung to Taipei if we were to live in Taiwan. With the HSR, it would be about the equivalent of my commute from Princeton to NYC.
- bmicraft 3y ago
  But that's precisely the problem, isn't it? It doesn't pay to build a subway when you don't have enough density. Most other forms of transit also get stuck in traffic.
maxsilver 3y ago
It's tricky too, because a lot of "low density suburban wastelands" was already significantly phased out over a decade ago, in a lot of the US anyway. People hear "suburbs" and imagine a single-family home on 1 to 2+ acre lots -- something that looks like this -> https://st2.depositphotos.com/1658611/5485/i/950/depositphotos_54852017-stock-photo-large-suburban-house.jpg https://st2.depositphotos.com/1658611/5485/i/950/depositphot... . And while that definitely still happens, it's really limited to the exurbs in the US these days, it's not representative of newer suburbs anymore. The primary style of suburban development built since say 2010 in the US, has really been more like 5 single-family homes on 1 acre, or 10 townhouses on 1 acre, or equivalent. Something that looks like this -> https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/modern-suburbs-17207940.jpg https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/modern-suburbs-17207940.jpg or this -> https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/02152023_3-townhomes-kevin_165753.jpg?d=2040x1323 https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/0... -- which is anywhere from 5x to 20x higher density per acre.
- eropple 3y ago
  This is true, but that model of suburban development still tends to push necessities out of walking or even biking distance. I visited my folks in the Des Moines suburbs while they were out there and it was an hour's walk to almost anything bigger than a corner store. Of which I found, I think, one that was closer than that.
  - safety1st 3y ago
    If we go by your parent's photos, my main beef with these neighborhoods is there's no commercial development. There should be (light) commercial development. I am a big fan of the Asian shophouse. You can open a restaurant or a convenience store or a small clinic or whatever class of local service business isn't going to be too disruptive on the bottom floor of your residential property. You need to own and operate it, it can't be someone from outside the community. People eat, shop and live together and spend more locally. Small businesses get easier to create. Everyone has neighbors again. People walk two blocks down instead of driving 30 minutes to Walmart. Yes I'm stacking multiple social agendas here. You probably do have to go towards medium density for this to be viable but maybe if you don't you still end up with people taking a lot of 10 minute car rides instead of 30-40 minute ones and then it's still a win in my book.
jimbokun 3y ago
> quintessentially North American overreaction to a quintessentially North American problem. The article is mostly about London.

CharlieDigital 3y ago

> But this is a huge reorganization of people's lives and existing property development that there's going to be a lot of pushback against and it's not all going to be nimbyism If anything, I feel like Taiwan's model should prove that you can do it anywhere precisely because it was already so dense and built up on top of being in an area with very high seismic activity. It's not like they could find a lot of room to build massive stations on the surface. You barely notice the underground MRT stations at all aside from stair arches that pop out of the ground[0]. If they can make it work in a city as dense and populated as Taipei, it feels like it ought to be possible anywhere. And on the contrary, being close to an MRT line tends to drive up the price of housing in the area given it seems a strong selling point for the folks that live and work in the city. I think the real root cause is that US society is not egalitarian enough to make this work. [0] Examples: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JS8WEKhKmiVMGWCF6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/JS8WEKhKmiVMGWCF6, https://maps.app.goo.gl/mXFjKiAQ8Vf47SAG8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/mXFjKiAQ8Vf47SAG8

safety1st 3y ago
I can't speak to the history of Taipei specifically, I did visit for a month (loved it) and I currently live in the center of a different Asian megalopolis. I can say a lot of these places became what they are by bulldozing a lot of medium-density shophouses and destroying a lot of local businesses and tightly knit communities that most people including myself would consider really charming places to live. They replaced them with places where far fewer people can afford a space large enough to raise kids comfortably and where everyone around you is a stranger. Now I enjoy the big dense city lifestyle, I like the awesome public transit, I like the massive selection of businesses and services and basically everything, but it's not for everyone and I couldn't see myself raising a family in the middle of it, which eventually if you want your country's population to not collapse, you need people to do somewhere. I think also considering some of the massive redevelopments that have happened in Asia over the years, you would see massive pushback in the US from essentially an individual rights point of view if you were to try to do that.
- CharlieDigital 3y ago
  It feels like it needs to have the right mix of transit to make it work. Wife and I both agreed that we preferred Kaohsiung to Taipei if we were to live in Taiwan. With the HSR, it would be about the equivalent of my commute from Princeton to NYC.
bmicraft 3y ago
But that's precisely the problem, isn't it? It doesn't pay to build a subway when you don't have enough density. Most other forms of transit also get stuck in traffic.

maxsilver 3y ago

It's tricky too, because a lot of "low density suburban wastelands" was already significantly phased out over a decade ago, in a lot of the US anyway. People hear "suburbs" and imagine a single-family home on 1 to 2+ acre lots -- something that looks like this -> https://st2.depositphotos.com/1658611/5485/i/950/depositphotos_54852017-stock-photo-large-suburban-house.jpg https://st2.depositphotos.com/1658611/5485/i/950/depositphot... . And while that definitely still happens, it's really limited to the exurbs in the US these days, it's not representative of newer suburbs anymore. The primary style of suburban development built since say 2010 in the US, has really been more like 5 single-family homes on 1 acre, or 10 townhouses on 1 acre, or equivalent. Something that looks like this -> https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/modern-suburbs-17207940.jpg https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/modern-suburbs-17207940.jpg or this -> https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/02152023_3-townhomes-kevin_165753.jpg?d=2040x1323 https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/0... -- which is anywhere from 5x to 20x higher density per acre.

eropple 3y ago
This is true, but that model of suburban development still tends to push necessities out of walking or even biking distance. I visited my folks in the Des Moines suburbs while they were out there and it was an hour's walk to almost anything bigger than a corner store. Of which I found, I think, one that was closer than that.
- safety1st 3y ago
  If we go by your parent's photos, my main beef with these neighborhoods is there's no commercial development. There should be (light) commercial development. I am a big fan of the Asian shophouse. You can open a restaurant or a convenience store or a small clinic or whatever class of local service business isn't going to be too disruptive on the bottom floor of your residential property. You need to own and operate it, it can't be someone from outside the community. People eat, shop and live together and spend more locally. Small businesses get easier to create. Everyone has neighbors again. People walk two blocks down instead of driving 30 minutes to Walmart. Yes I'm stacking multiple social agendas here. You probably do have to go towards medium density for this to be viable but maybe if you don't you still end up with people taking a lot of 10 minute car rides instead of 30-40 minute ones and then it's still a win in my book.

jimbokun 3y ago

> quintessentially North American overreaction to a quintessentially North American problem. The article is mostly about London.