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> People can rant and rail about America's car-centric culture, or they could just accept that the culture is what it is and work to mitigate the negative aspec
by itishappy 1y ago
> People can rant and rail about America's car-centric culture, or they could just accept that the culture is what it is and work to mitigate the negative aspects of it.
Honest question: What's the difference? Mitigating the negative aspects involves making others aware of the negative aspects, but many people see that as ranting and railing. What does a productive conversation look like?
- kortilla 1y agoYou’re assuming all of the negative aspects require giving up cars to solve
- itishappy 1y agoI don't think we need to give up cars entirely, but I also don't think we'll be able to address the negative aspects without some amount of change. An example: I live roughly 200m from the Costco in the center of town, but there's a major 4 lane road between us. Walking would be so convenient, but it's so much safer to drive. A footbridge would address this without impacting drivers. I have no intentions of giving up my car, but this particular activity would be so much nicer without it!
- xanderstrike 1y agoThe simple geometry problem of how much space cars take up is arguably the worst now (given tailpipe emissions are on their way out), and there is no solution to that outside of fewer and much smaller cars.
- jimbob45 1y agoPeople acknowledge that America is bigger than their country with challenging geographical features. They also stop comparing their best country (UK) with America’s worst state or, even worse, the entire US landmass.
- nlarew 1y agoTotal strawman argument. The size of the country has almost no bearing on the way we develop our towns and cities, subsidize car production, assume/require car ownership in public policy, etc. It's also quite the stretch to claim the UK as the best country in the EU and even more to claim that it doesn't also have a car culture. And it's not just "America's worst state", the vast majority of US town and cities are car dependent.
- pinkmuffinere 1y agoYour criticisms are absolutely right. I upvoted you, but just fyi I think your response may come off as too blunt/rude, and get “downvotes”. It doesn’t really matter here, but maybe helpful to know in general, if you didn’t already.
- nlarew 1y agoFair enough! You're right it's a bit blunt. I didn't take very much time to edit it. Hopefully folks are able to look past any gruffness and find the substance in it.
- ryandrake 1y agoAny time someone uses the excuse that “the size of the USA” prevents this or that, then ask why New Jersey can’t do this or that. Some states are the same size and density of the average European country.
- tmnvdb 1y agoIt's obviously nonsense. Nobody is walking from Paris to Berlin. But you can walk in Paris and Berlin.
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y agoWell, Werner Herzog, possibly.