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This article's final point should probably be on top: "Many people take this idea as a condemnation of cycling or exercise. It isn’t. Cycling is my favourite ex

This article's final point should probably be on top: "Many people take this idea as a condemnation of cycling or exercise. It isn’t. Cycling is my favourite exercise. It is a condemnation of how much fossil fuel is used in agriculture." People travel smaller distances in neighborhoods and cities designed around walking, biking, and mass transit (in the US, mostly pre-WWII neighborhoods) than in places designed around cars, because roads and parking lots require huge amounts of land, and high-speed automobile travel also enables people to live on larger plots of land. Don't let this kind of reasoning dissuade you from living in, and supporting the construction of, walkable neighborhoods.

bdamm 12y ago
The reasoning isn't dissuading me, it's the cost of living in urban cores (for property) while facing a high probability of my wife or child getting raped or mugged that does. That, combined with tax incentives for owning property, means I have finally given up my walkable neighborhoods and have embraced the carbon powered lifestyle. A few years ago I'd be the last person who would say that, I protested against highway expansion and pushed for bicycle infrastructure. Now I've given it all up, have moved out into the weeds, and pay the carbon lords prodigious amounts of cash. If you want walkable, you have to give up nearly everything else and you better love spending all your time in that walkable little neighborhood. I couldn't do it, there's nowhere in a dirty city I want to be badly enough to give up everything else for.
- mkohlmyr 12y ago
  I had an immediate reaction in the back of my mind to the words 'high probability' and was halfway ready to formulate a comment questioning it when I promptly remembered having someone try to mug me on two separate occasions growing up.. The things one can forget..
- TillE 12y ago
  It sounds like your only conception of what a walkable city could possibly be is New York City circa the 1980s. Even New York isn't like that anymore, and various European cities offer a wide range of examples too.
- scottkduncan 12y ago
  Keep in mind that fatal car accidents still far outweigh homicides and that sexual assault - whether you are in suburbs or the cities - are far more likely to be perpetrated by acquaintances than strangers lurking in alleys.
  - bdamm 12y ago
    Fair enough. The point I was really going for was that affordable housing in high-density cores typically mean that you're in a "gentrifying" if not outright hostile neighborhood. When I had a child I quickly decided I wanted to let him play outside - and I can't teach a toddler the difference between a junkie and a postman.
- smileysteve 12y ago
  > a high probability of my wife or child getting raped or mugged that does I believe you mean 'higher' as in it's still a pretty low actual probability. Though, this is often a mis-perception from a more effective* media and more informed public versus a more classic spoken word of current events in smaller cities. *a media based on fear mongering to encourage ratings and viewership. Then there's the article last week that 40% of women don't fee
- smileysteve 12y ago
  > a high probability of my wife or child getting raped or mugged that does I believe you mean 'higher' as in it's still a pretty low actual probability. Though, this is often a mis-perception from a more effective* media and more informed public versus a more classic spoken word of current events in smaller cities. *a media based on fear mongering to encourage ratings and viewership. Then there's the article last week that 40% of U.S. women don't feel safe walking their neighborhood streets at night.
- akgerber 12y ago
  Sounds like your problem isn't with walkable neighborhoods either, more the last 60 years or so of urban policy. America has barely built any walkable neighborhoods since WWII, and in the post-WWII era we left most of the existing ones to rot. Now that such neighborhoods are desirable again, the ones that have survived as pleasant neighborhoods, especially in cities with strong economies, have become hideously expensive. (A lot are still pretty affordable in the Midwest.) Your individual life choices are reasonable, but they're not an indictment of walkable neighborhoods in general so much as the last 60 years of American urban policy. Of course, suburbs have a broad spectrum, from pre-WWII railroad suburbs where downtown-bound commuters ride transit and kids walk to school, to the Sun Belt's utterly unwalkable sprawling hellscapes. The Milwaukee suburb I grew up in looks an awful lot like expensive central Portland neighborhoods, except it's a lot cheaper and transit is less well-used because downtown Milwaukee isn't doing all that well.

bdamm 12y ago

The reasoning isn't dissuading me, it's the cost of living in urban cores (for property) while facing a high probability of my wife or child getting raped or mugged that does. That, combined with tax incentives for owning property, means I have finally given up my walkable neighborhoods and have embraced the carbon powered lifestyle. A few years ago I'd be the last person who would say that, I protested against highway expansion and pushed for bicycle infrastructure. Now I've given it all up, have moved out into the weeds, and pay the carbon lords prodigious amounts of cash. If you want walkable, you have to give up nearly everything else and you better love spending all your time in that walkable little neighborhood. I couldn't do it, there's nowhere in a dirty city I want to be badly enough to give up everything else for.

mkohlmyr 12y ago
I had an immediate reaction in the back of my mind to the words 'high probability' and was halfway ready to formulate a comment questioning it when I promptly remembered having someone try to mug me on two separate occasions growing up.. The things one can forget..
TillE 12y ago
It sounds like your only conception of what a walkable city could possibly be is New York City circa the 1980s. Even New York isn't like that anymore, and various European cities offer a wide range of examples too.
scottkduncan 12y ago
Keep in mind that fatal car accidents still far outweigh homicides and that sexual assault - whether you are in suburbs or the cities - are far more likely to be perpetrated by acquaintances than strangers lurking in alleys.
- bdamm 12y ago
  Fair enough. The point I was really going for was that affordable housing in high-density cores typically mean that you're in a "gentrifying" if not outright hostile neighborhood. When I had a child I quickly decided I wanted to let him play outside - and I can't teach a toddler the difference between a junkie and a postman.
smileysteve 12y ago
> a high probability of my wife or child getting raped or mugged that does I believe you mean 'higher' as in it's still a pretty low actual probability. Though, this is often a mis-perception from a more effective* media and more informed public versus a more classic spoken word of current events in smaller cities. *a media based on fear mongering to encourage ratings and viewership. Then there's the article last week that 40% of women don't fee
smileysteve 12y ago
> a high probability of my wife or child getting raped or mugged that does I believe you mean 'higher' as in it's still a pretty low actual probability. Though, this is often a mis-perception from a more effective* media and more informed public versus a more classic spoken word of current events in smaller cities. *a media based on fear mongering to encourage ratings and viewership. Then there's the article last week that 40% of U.S. women don't feel safe walking their neighborhood streets at night.
akgerber 12y ago
Sounds like your problem isn't with walkable neighborhoods either, more the last 60 years or so of urban policy. America has barely built any walkable neighborhoods since WWII, and in the post-WWII era we left most of the existing ones to rot. Now that such neighborhoods are desirable again, the ones that have survived as pleasant neighborhoods, especially in cities with strong economies, have become hideously expensive. (A lot are still pretty affordable in the Midwest.) Your individual life choices are reasonable, but they're not an indictment of walkable neighborhoods in general so much as the last 60 years of American urban policy. Of course, suburbs have a broad spectrum, from pre-WWII railroad suburbs where downtown-bound commuters ride transit and kids walk to school, to the Sun Belt's utterly unwalkable sprawling hellscapes. The Milwaukee suburb I grew up in looks an awful lot like expensive central Portland neighborhoods, except it's a lot cheaper and transit is less well-used because downtown Milwaukee isn't doing all that well.