9 ms·

The article mentions that Atlantic Station sits on a large parking deck, but doesn't explore how its 7,200 parking spaces can make an otherwise small outdoor ma

by ynniv 13y ago

The article mentions that Atlantic Station sits on a large parking deck, but doesn't explore how its 7,200 parking spaces can make an otherwise small outdoor mall very busy at popular times. Cars remove you from your immediate surroundings, but they also enable you to temporarily be part of a community physically distant from where you live. The answer to why Atlantans drive so much is not that they are lazy, but that they have somewhere else to be. You can lament that walking is good exercise, or you can appreciate the ability to raise a family in a house with a backyard while having a reasonable commute to a Fortune 500 company's world headquarters, a startup community, or a global research university. Walking everywhere is nice as long as you know exactly where you want to live, you don't care about space, and can afford high rent.

bcoates 13y ago
The article wasn't complaining about density but about structure; a fences-and-backyards suburb arranged on a grid or some other well-connected layout is much more walkable than the same density suburb where all traffic must pass through a distant trunk to a major street. This makes it possible to actually connect useful mass transit to the suburb, which as the article explained, people will use if it's there.
- ynniv 13y ago
  That's the catchy title, but the article is really about density and transportation by car. There's a nice diagram describing how living in the suburbs reduces the number of places in walking distance, but in that diagram the house isn't even on a cul-de-sac. The thesis is actually that cul-de-sacs increase driving distance, because the places where they are used tend not to have any walkable destinations. This makes it possible to actually connect useful mass transit to the suburb, which as the article explained, people will use if it's there. The article says that people in midtown take MARTA to the grocery store... I can confidently tell you that this is incorrect at best. People in midtown drive their car to Whole Foods on the way back from their 15 minute reverse commute to work in another part of town. They will later walk to a local restaurant, bar, the park, or a local grocery or retail store, but it is rare that they will use MARTA except to get to the airport.
  - wwweston 13y ago
    >The thesis is actually that cul-de-sacs increase driving distance, because the places where they are used tend not to have any walkable destinations. The correlation seems credible, but not the causitive. That is, you probably could build developments where cul-de-sacs are common for streets and where mixed use properties are connected by walking paths.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      Which sounds like a pretty nice environment, really!
  - smileysteve 13y ago
    In Midtown, I walk to Publix (I don't Marta to the grocery and avoid it at after the 7pm switch. The most likely people to use Marta for groceries are the poor (and assumably carless) particularly from the South of the city (West End). And, I feel like my Publix is the only one located on the line. I'd add that I ride Marta to get to Lenox, Buckhead, and Braves/Falcons games most often. Friends that live near stations and ride Marta also ride to GT.
- officemonkey 13y ago
  Chicago nails this. The grid road network throughout the entire city means there is regular N-S and E-W bus service every half mile or so. And there are business districts in pretty much every neighborhood. This happens is areas of low housing density (single-family homes in Jefferson Park) and high density (high-rises in Lincoln Park.)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Andersonville in Chicago is wonderful. https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Andersonville,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.982527,-87.671714&spn=0.010799,0.016115&sll=41.117935,-77.604698&sspn=5.569061,8.250732&oq=andersonville,+chi&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.984239,-87.672938&panoid=pMUxjoe48b58ZvYBsOHi3A&cbp=12,308.71,,0,-3.48 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Andersonville,+Chicago,+IL&hl... That's just blocks away from this: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Andersonville,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.98401,-87.66886&spn=0.010798,0.016115&sll=41.117935,-77.604698&sspn=5.569061,8.250732&oq=andersonville,+chi&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.984852,-87.669043&panoid=iPHWsEEZSDSewNjcq0vi0A&cbp=12,210.08,,0,2.76 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Andersonville,+Chicago,+IL&hl...
    - officemonkey 13y ago
      I'm not far away in Uptown where the "walkability" index is 97. The point is these shots are not atypical, it's like this throughout Chicago. Even the "not so good areas" have the same fundamental layout.
  - dankoss 13y ago
    Hmm, my experience has been that most places in Chicago are far quicker to drive than take public transit. And since many jobs have moved out of the city center to places like Naperville and Schaumburg, it is very difficult to find public transit options for a commute or reverse commute unless you happen to live within walking distance of Metra. If you can live and work entirely in the city limits, public transit might work.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jowiar 13y ago
> can afford high rent. In other words, demand for walkable housing / mixed-use development is high. Supply is low. And we should build more.
rayiner 13y ago
I like Atlanta. I lived there for 7-8 years. People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster. It's a place where you can live in the city proper right next to retail and still have to trek across a giant parking lot in order to go to the store. The giant parking lots everywhere in the city utterly destroy the street life. As the article notes, Atlantic Station is actually much better in that regard. Because the parking lot is underground, you can actually walk around window shopping and pretend it's not there. The article absolutely hits the nail on the head with the point about parking lots. When my wife and I go to Philadelphia, we'll walk several miles from the federal plaza to U Penn campus, window shopping, having lunch, etc. When we go to the mall in Newark, DE, we'll drive from the Costco to the Panera because we literally can't figure out how to cross the road on foot. The cities built in the 1960's need to be razed and redeveloped with Westchester, NY as a model. There's nothing wrong with having suburbs where you can have a back yard, etc, but structure those suburbs like small towns with retail of their own and rail service into the core city. Actually let people live right next to the rail and retail, instead of surrounding it all with enormous, pedestrian unfriendly parking lots.
- ynniv 13y ago
  People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster. In my view it's more complicated than that. Actually let people live right next to the rail and retail, instead of surrounding it all with enormous, pedestrian unfriendly parking lots. Yup, that's what people are trying to do[1]. It's unpopular with commercial developers, so local government has to convince them to accept higher costs without causing a lawsuit or driving them away entirely[2]. [1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Beltline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Beltline] [2 http://atlanta.curbed.com/archives/2013/09/04/at-glenwood-score-one-for-developments-opposition.php http://atlanta.curbed.com/archives/2013/09/04/at-glenwood-sc...]
- mrcactu5 13y ago
  I like Atlanta. I lived there for 7-8 years. People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster. San Juan Puerto Rico -- it is the same. I live 8 miles from my job, 15 minutes by car, 1.5 hours by bus due to poor public transportation. Biking would be faster than cars which get stuck in sever traffic and that buses which don't run very often. https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+Carolina,+Carolina,+Puerto+Rico&daddr=Parada+18,+Calle+Roberto+H+Todd,+San+Juan,+Puerto+Rico&hl=en&sll=18.434562,-66.030757&sspn=0.093966,0.157928&geocode=FZQMGQEdaAsR_CkjRxHZjmYDjDF2G0f7JN7vQQ%3BFXKCGQEdiMUP_CnDA6IaNG8DjDFGRXRNfiZ2DA&oq=Parada+18&doflg=ptm&mra=luc&t=m&z=13 https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+C... It is not possible to commute by bicycle since it is illegal to bike along the expressway - the only way to get between Carolina (where I live) and Isla Verde (the next town over). It has its origins in the 1950's when the expressway was brand new and led to job creation. Nobody dreamed bicycles could be taken seriously as a means to get to work. I once biked it... about 10 miles in about a 1 hour. https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+Carolina,+Carolina,+Puerto+Rico&daddr=18.3956408,-66.0510712+to:18.4036969,-66.052002+to:18.4206138,-66.056564+to:18.443984,-66.0655356+to:18.448237,-66.071145+to:Parada+18,+Calle+Roberto+H+Todd,+San+Juan,+Puerto+Rico&hl=en&ll=18.431736,-66.028175&spn=0.093967,0.157928&sll=18.444683,-66.056414&sspn=0.04698,0.078964&geocode=FZQMGQEdaAsR_CkjRxHZjmYDjDF2G0f7JN7vQQ%3BFfixGAEdASQQ_ClLdiE9fmgDjDG2DhjwDk1LDg%3BFXDRGAEdXiAQ_Cl5kl30g2gDjDFdKC1pRMFnWw%3BFYUTGQEdjA4Q_CmrbLmWomgDjDFAl52SQbMhTQ%3BFdBuGQEdgesP_ClDumZES28DjDHP0ofAkK_GEg%3BFW1_GQEdl9UP_ClF49j0NW8DjDGHVHSBRtZ_qQ%3BFXKCGQEdiMUP_CnDA6IaNG8DjDFGRXRNfiZ2DA&doflg=ptm&mra=dvme&mrsp=5&sz=14&via=1,2,3,4,5&t=m&z=13 https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+C...
Jakob 13y ago
”Atlanta, like all cities, used to be walkable and people actually lived IN the city instead of commuting 50 miles every day.“ This article highlights the parts of the city which are 100% dedicated to parking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6883589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6883589 tl;dr: Cars take up too much space, inflating a city artificially.
- ynniv 13y ago
  (Originally https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=lNCOH0M1fh7uhr9viMZvek https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=lNCOH0M1fh7uhr9viMZvek) Yes, there are a lot of parking lots in Atlanta. As I commented on the original submission, they aren't there because of the market for parking, but because it's an easy use for commercially zoned land while you wait for someone to build a highrise on it. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3514352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3514352)
  - Jakob 13y ago
    Meta: I was sure, it was on HN before, yet I didn’t find it anymore and submitting it created a new entry even though the URL is the same. Your first link gives me ”Unknown or expired link.“, in the second I can travel up to the original submission. Strange, anyone knows why that is happening?
    - VintageCool 13y ago
      This came up in a discussion last week -- it got garbage collected.
enoch_r 13y ago
> Walking everywhere is nice as long as you know exactly where you want to live, you don't care about space, and can afford high rent. Taking this piece by piece: > can afford high rent From the article: "The average working adult in Atlanta’s suburbs now drives 44 miles a day." The IRS estimates that the average automobile cost about 55 cents per mile. At Atlantian levels of driving, that's almost $700 a month. That's a huge amount of rent money--but I think driving expenses are spread out, less visible, and less predictable, which leads people to underestimate them. > you don't care about space Yeah, this is a tougher one, although you can get a surprising amount of space in walkable and transit-able areas--for example, neighborhoods in Portland manage to combine great walkability with quite a bit of space and single-family homes. (It's worth mentioning that these residential streets are laid out in a grid pattern without many cul de sacs.) But yeah, commuting does allow us to live where land is cheap, so if you really need a lot of private space, you might need to live further out. > you know exactly where you want to live Well, it depends, doesn't it--the denser your area, the more options you'll have within walking distance. I very much doubt that I have more options within a 15-minute drive of my Orange County apartment than I would within a 15-minute drive in a typical urban center. On the other hand, without a car, my options in Orange County are extremely limited. A city like Boston, where other modes of transport preceded and then occasionally took precedence over the car, has great amenities (including Fortune 500 companies, startup communities, and global research universities). You just don't need to drive to them. Lastly, the article isn't about "walking everywhere." It's about being able to walk to a grocery store safely and conveniently. It's perfectly possible to walk to the corner store every few days, but hop in the car when you need to travel longer distances.
- chc 13y ago
  > The IRS estimates that the average automobile cost about 55 cents per mile. At Atlantian levels of driving, that's almost $700 a month. That doesn't really reflect my experience unless we're talking about really inefficient vehicles. I drive 45 miles a day. It costs me about $140 a month in gas.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    Do you think it is reasonable to ignore the other costs involved with owning a vehicle? I figure gas is ~1/3 or less of my overall costs (and I've had good luck with maintenance on an older car that I don't carry collision insurance on)
Pxtl 13y ago
Somehow cities all over the world manage to offer that kind of facility without oceans of parking lots. Parking takes up space, which pushes things further apart, which makes it impossibly to serve with transit, which demands cars, which requires more parking. Skip the parking and build up and you find that you can have a nice back yard and a bus-stop at the end of the street that will take you to a subway or train-line that will take you to work. There is nothing magical about big, vertical cities that demands they be horribly expensive. They're expensive because they're rare. They're rare because of city planners who don't push back on developers that want to build sprawl.
coldtea 13y ago
>The article mentions that Atlantic Station sits on a large parking deck, but doesn't explore how its 7,200 parking spaces can make an otherwise small outdoor mall very busy at popular times. Cars remove you from your immediate surroundings, but they also enable you to temporarily be part of a community physically distant from where you live. Going into a mall hardly qualifies as "being part of a community".

by ynniv 13y ago

bcoates 13y ago

The article wasn't complaining about density but about structure; a fences-and-backyards suburb arranged on a grid or some other well-connected layout is much more walkable than the same density suburb where all traffic must pass through a distant trunk to a major street. This makes it possible to actually connect useful mass transit to the suburb, which as the article explained, people will use if it's there.

ynniv 13y ago
That's the catchy title, but the article is really about density and transportation by car. There's a nice diagram describing how living in the suburbs reduces the number of places in walking distance, but in that diagram the house isn't even on a cul-de-sac. The thesis is actually that cul-de-sacs increase driving distance, because the places where they are used tend not to have any walkable destinations. This makes it possible to actually connect useful mass transit to the suburb, which as the article explained, people will use if it's there. The article says that people in midtown take MARTA to the grocery store... I can confidently tell you that this is incorrect at best. People in midtown drive their car to Whole Foods on the way back from their 15 minute reverse commute to work in another part of town. They will later walk to a local restaurant, bar, the park, or a local grocery or retail store, but it is rare that they will use MARTA except to get to the airport.
- wwweston 13y ago
  >The thesis is actually that cul-de-sacs increase driving distance, because the places where they are used tend not to have any walkable destinations. The correlation seems credible, but not the causitive. That is, you probably could build developments where cul-de-sacs are common for streets and where mixed use properties are connected by walking paths.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    Which sounds like a pretty nice environment, really!
- smileysteve 13y ago
  In Midtown, I walk to Publix (I don't Marta to the grocery and avoid it at after the 7pm switch. The most likely people to use Marta for groceries are the poor (and assumably carless) particularly from the South of the city (West End). And, I feel like my Publix is the only one located on the line. I'd add that I ride Marta to get to Lenox, Buckhead, and Braves/Falcons games most often. Friends that live near stations and ride Marta also ride to GT.
officemonkey 13y ago
Chicago nails this. The grid road network throughout the entire city means there is regular N-S and E-W bus service every half mile or so. And there are business districts in pretty much every neighborhood. This happens is areas of low housing density (single-family homes in Jefferson Park) and high density (high-rises in Lincoln Park.)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 13y ago
  Andersonville in Chicago is wonderful. https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Andersonville,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.982527,-87.671714&spn=0.010799,0.016115&sll=41.117935,-77.604698&sspn=5.569061,8.250732&oq=andersonville,+chi&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.984239,-87.672938&panoid=pMUxjoe48b58ZvYBsOHi3A&cbp=12,308.71,,0,-3.48 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Andersonville,+Chicago,+IL&hl... That's just blocks away from this: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Andersonville,+Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.98401,-87.66886&spn=0.010798,0.016115&sll=41.117935,-77.604698&sspn=5.569061,8.250732&oq=andersonville,+chi&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.984852,-87.669043&panoid=iPHWsEEZSDSewNjcq0vi0A&cbp=12,210.08,,0,2.76 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Andersonville,+Chicago,+IL&hl...
  - officemonkey 13y ago
    I'm not far away in Uptown where the "walkability" index is 97. The point is these shots are not atypical, it's like this throughout Chicago. Even the "not so good areas" have the same fundamental layout.
- dankoss 13y ago
  Hmm, my experience has been that most places in Chicago are far quicker to drive than take public transit. And since many jobs have moved out of the city center to places like Naperville and Schaumburg, it is very difficult to find public transit options for a commute or reverse commute unless you happen to live within walking distance of Metra. If you can live and work entirely in the city limits, public transit might work.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jowiar 13y ago

> can afford high rent. In other words, demand for walkable housing / mixed-use development is high. Supply is low. And we should build more.

rayiner 13y ago

I like Atlanta. I lived there for 7-8 years. People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster. It's a place where you can live in the city proper right next to retail and still have to trek across a giant parking lot in order to go to the store. The giant parking lots everywhere in the city utterly destroy the street life. As the article notes, Atlantic Station is actually much better in that regard. Because the parking lot is underground, you can actually walk around window shopping and pretend it's not there. The article absolutely hits the nail on the head with the point about parking lots. When my wife and I go to Philadelphia, we'll walk several miles from the federal plaza to U Penn campus, window shopping, having lunch, etc. When we go to the mall in Newark, DE, we'll drive from the Costco to the Panera because we literally can't figure out how to cross the road on foot. The cities built in the 1960's need to be razed and redeveloped with Westchester, NY as a model. There's nothing wrong with having suburbs where you can have a back yard, etc, but structure those suburbs like small towns with retail of their own and rail service into the core city. Actually let people live right next to the rail and retail, instead of surrounding it all with enormous, pedestrian unfriendly parking lots.

ynniv 13y ago
People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster. In my view it's more complicated than that. Actually let people live right next to the rail and retail, instead of surrounding it all with enormous, pedestrian unfriendly parking lots. Yup, that's what people are trying to do[1]. It's unpopular with commercial developers, so local government has to convince them to accept higher costs without causing a lawsuit or driving them away entirely[2]. [1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Beltline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Beltline] [2 http://atlanta.curbed.com/archives/2013/09/04/at-glenwood-score-one-for-developments-opposition.php http://atlanta.curbed.com/archives/2013/09/04/at-glenwood-sc...]
mrcactu5 13y ago
I like Atlanta. I lived there for 7-8 years. People in Atlanta drive because the urban planning is a disaster. San Juan Puerto Rico -- it is the same. I live 8 miles from my job, 15 minutes by car, 1.5 hours by bus due to poor public transportation. Biking would be faster than cars which get stuck in sever traffic and that buses which don't run very often. https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+Carolina,+Carolina,+Puerto+Rico&daddr=Parada+18,+Calle+Roberto+H+Todd,+San+Juan,+Puerto+Rico&hl=en&sll=18.434562,-66.030757&sspn=0.093966,0.157928&geocode=FZQMGQEdaAsR_CkjRxHZjmYDjDF2G0f7JN7vQQ%3BFXKCGQEdiMUP_CnDA6IaNG8DjDFGRXRNfiZ2DA&oq=Parada+18&doflg=ptm&mra=luc&t=m&z=13 https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+C... It is not possible to commute by bicycle since it is illegal to bike along the expressway - the only way to get between Carolina (where I live) and Isla Verde (the next town over). It has its origins in the 1950's when the expressway was brand new and led to job creation. Nobody dreamed bicycles could be taken seriously as a means to get to work. I once biked it... about 10 miles in about a 1 hour. https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+Carolina,+Carolina,+Puerto+Rico&daddr=18.3956408,-66.0510712+to:18.4036969,-66.052002+to:18.4206138,-66.056564+to:18.443984,-66.0655356+to:18.448237,-66.071145+to:Parada+18,+Calle+Roberto+H+Todd,+San+Juan,+Puerto+Rico&hl=en&ll=18.431736,-66.028175&spn=0.093967,0.157928&sll=18.444683,-66.056414&sspn=0.04698,0.078964&geocode=FZQMGQEdaAsR_CkjRxHZjmYDjDF2G0f7JN7vQQ%3BFfixGAEdASQQ_ClLdiE9fmgDjDG2DhjwDk1LDg%3BFXDRGAEdXiAQ_Cl5kl30g2gDjDFdKC1pRMFnWw%3BFYUTGQEdjA4Q_CmrbLmWomgDjDFAl52SQbMhTQ%3BFdBuGQEdgesP_ClDumZES28DjDHP0ofAkK_GEg%3BFW1_GQEdl9UP_ClF49j0NW8DjDGHVHSBRtZ_qQ%3BFXKCGQEdiMUP_CnDA6IaNG8DjDFGRXRNfiZ2DA&doflg=ptm&mra=dvme&mrsp=5&sz=14&via=1,2,3,4,5&t=m&z=13 https://www.google.com/maps?saddr=Quintas+de+Country+Club,+C...

Jakob 13y ago

”Atlanta, like all cities, used to be walkable and people actually lived IN the city instead of commuting 50 miles every day.“ This article highlights the parts of the city which are 100% dedicated to parking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6883589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6883589 tl;dr: Cars take up too much space, inflating a city artificially.

ynniv 13y ago
(Originally https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=lNCOH0M1fh7uhr9viMZvek https://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=lNCOH0M1fh7uhr9viMZvek) Yes, there are a lot of parking lots in Atlanta. As I commented on the original submission, they aren't there because of the market for parking, but because it's an easy use for commercially zoned land while you wait for someone to build a highrise on it. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3514352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3514352)
- Jakob 13y ago
  Meta: I was sure, it was on HN before, yet I didn’t find it anymore and submitting it created a new entry even though the URL is the same. Your first link gives me ”Unknown or expired link.“, in the second I can travel up to the original submission. Strange, anyone knows why that is happening?
  - VintageCool 13y ago
    This came up in a discussion last week -- it got garbage collected.

enoch_r 13y ago

> Walking everywhere is nice as long as you know exactly where you want to live, you don't care about space, and can afford high rent. Taking this piece by piece: > can afford high rent From the article: "The average working adult in Atlanta’s suburbs now drives 44 miles a day." The IRS estimates that the average automobile cost about 55 cents per mile. At Atlantian levels of driving, that's almost $700 a month. That's a huge amount of rent money--but I think driving expenses are spread out, less visible, and less predictable, which leads people to underestimate them. > you don't care about space Yeah, this is a tougher one, although you can get a surprising amount of space in walkable and transit-able areas--for example, neighborhoods in Portland manage to combine great walkability with quite a bit of space and single-family homes. (It's worth mentioning that these residential streets are laid out in a grid pattern without many cul de sacs.) But yeah, commuting does allow us to live where land is cheap, so if you really need a lot of private space, you might need to live further out. > you know exactly where you want to live Well, it depends, doesn't it--the denser your area, the more options you'll have within walking distance. I very much doubt that I have more options within a 15-minute drive of my Orange County apartment than I would within a 15-minute drive in a typical urban center. On the other hand, without a car, my options in Orange County are extremely limited. A city like Boston, where other modes of transport preceded and then occasionally took precedence over the car, has great amenities (including Fortune 500 companies, startup communities, and global research universities). You just don't need to drive to them. Lastly, the article isn't about "walking everywhere." It's about being able to walk to a grocery store safely and conveniently. It's perfectly possible to walk to the corner store every few days, but hop in the car when you need to travel longer distances.

chc 13y ago
> The IRS estimates that the average automobile cost about 55 cents per mile. At Atlantian levels of driving, that's almost $700 a month. That doesn't really reflect my experience unless we're talking about really inefficient vehicles. I drive 45 miles a day. It costs me about $140 a month in gas.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Do you think it is reasonable to ignore the other costs involved with owning a vehicle? I figure gas is ~1/3 or less of my overall costs (and I've had good luck with maintenance on an older car that I don't carry collision insurance on)

Pxtl 13y ago

Somehow cities all over the world manage to offer that kind of facility without oceans of parking lots. Parking takes up space, which pushes things further apart, which makes it impossibly to serve with transit, which demands cars, which requires more parking. Skip the parking and build up and you find that you can have a nice back yard and a bus-stop at the end of the street that will take you to a subway or train-line that will take you to work. There is nothing magical about big, vertical cities that demands they be horribly expensive. They're expensive because they're rare. They're rare because of city planners who don't push back on developers that want to build sprawl.

coldtea 13y ago

>The article mentions that Atlantic Station sits on a large parking deck, but doesn't explore how its 7,200 parking spaces can make an otherwise small outdoor mall very busy at popular times. Cars remove you from your immediate surroundings, but they also enable you to temporarily be part of a community physically distant from where you live. Going into a mall hardly qualifies as "being part of a community".