5 ms·

I can't stand usa can only achieve the effortless luxury of walkability in the vacation communities for its doctors and lawyers, but cannot make its own city ce

• residentraspber 2y ago
  It's seemingly not going to get any better soon, either. A new candidate for mayor of Boston has 3 main policy agendas [1]: Housing affordability, public school quality, and removing bike lanes. Despite being farther from Cambridge (a different city than Boston, so they have a different mayor), I prioritize biking to places there to meet friends or go out to dinner. It is just a much more pleasant experience than nearly anywhere in Boston proper. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/us/boston-mayor-josh-kraft-michelle-wu.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/us/boston-mayor-josh-kraf...
  • fnimick 2y ago
    It's been very funny hearing neighbors talk about how the literal billionaire is somehow just a common Boston man and Michelle Wu is an "elitist carpetbagger". How are all these billionaires being seen as relatable and meanwhile middle class academics and scientists are all the elites?
    • dml2135 2y ago
      People eat up propaganda, that's how.
    • ta8645 2y ago
      This should be expected blowback. The billionaires are taking advantage of a large group of people who feel alienated. All the billionaires have to do is not call them racist, transphobic, nazis, and they'll get their votes. Regardless of misaligned economic interests. Whatever you think about all those issues, and how stupid you think the hoi polloi are, there has been a massive strategic miscalculation about which issues to focus on, and how to address them over the last number of years.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • warkdarrior 2y ago
      Billionaires have PR people and whole social networks to polish their image. Most academics and scientists do not.
  • insane_dreamer 2y ago
    I would have thought a mayor prioritizing affordable housing would also prioritize _more_ bike lanes, not fewer. That's odd.
    • brailsafe 2y ago
      Pretty standard actually. Affordable housing rarely has a definition or measurable success criteria, but if something gets built it isn't going to be built where their constituents or they themselves live. Similar to how superficially progressive people are all for drug liberalization or a less heavy-handed approach to crime, as long as it has zero impact on their lives. These same people are ostensibly liberal, "we're all for people riding bikes, or getting a stupid little condo, whatever you kids like to do for fun" they say, but in practice will do anything in their power to prevent any impediment to their car commute, even if their fear is at-best specious. Same thing in Toronto. In Vancouver Canada we're a fair bit better about the bike lane thing, though it's still fragile, but in the affordable housing issue they actually just subsidized the huge home owners that already owned land, so a majority of new units that have come on the market are in their basements or backyard and can't be owned, furthering a class divide. They marginally upzoned, but now a duplex or small townhouse is over a million at the low end. There isn't an incentive to make housing less expensive except the vague sense that the municipal/regional economy will eventually collapse on someone else's watch.
    • mieses 2y ago
      No, there should be fewer "bike lanes" in the US. Bike lanes are silly unless they are separate "roads" as in the Netherlands. There is absolutely zero chance of this happening in the US. Just stop with the pretense and stop giving cyclists a false sense of security. I rode a bike all over Los Angeles as a teen before the bike lane fantasies took hold. That takes a different set of survival skills and attitude than the suicidal bike lane followers of today. What we do now is just killing cyclists.
      • insane_dreamer 2y ago
        Bike lanes work quite well in the city I live in. Make cycling -- which I do regularly -- much safer than without.
• darth_avocado 2y ago
  I also can’t stand that when they do achieve walkability, it’s often soulless concrete covered dystopia. No trees. No art. No vibrant spaces for the public to enjoy. Just ways to herd people into stores. What happened to having a more welcoming public space?
  • fnimick 2y ago
    It isn't profitable.
    • Chris2048 2y ago
      Except for all the places that do that, become desirable and hence profitable. I assume the real reason relates to "abuse of the commons" and the American problem of "why we can't have nice things" outside of "gated" communities.
    • llamaimperative 2y ago
      Walkable traditional neighborhoods are reliably the most expensive real estate in the country. The real reasons are 1) architects more interested in getting applause from architects for cutting-edge design instead of utilizing tried-and-true principles for humane spaces, and 2) these things are planned, designed, and built by people who will never live or work in them. Architects design for coffee table books and developers+planners design for spreadsheets.
    • darth_avocado 2y ago
      Yet all of Europe has walkable neighborhoods with restaurants and cafes that have outdoor seating, surrounded by trees, lighting and other surroundings that please the eyes. And the same people who eat there, also shop in the other shops around there. It is profitable.